  If Baltimore is the monumental city of the United States, Edinburgh may surely be called the monumental city of the United Kingdom. The majority of its public buildings, of freestone or granite, are noble structures standing on hills in the heart of the city, and for their situation alone would command admiration—the old Castle, Nelson monument, the city prison, the National Gallery, the Bank of Scotland, etc. No bank in the world occupies a more commandiug site than the one just named. Owing to the peculiar natural formation of the land upon which the city is built, an observer may stand in one spot in Edinburgh (say the Waverly Gardens) and see a greater number of splendid buildings at a glance than may be seen simultaneously from the level in any other city. Not among the largest by any means but among the most interesting must be reckoned the Burns monument, which occupies a high position near its still higher neighbor, the Nelson monument, on Calton Hill. The Burns monument was built in 1830 for the purpose of containing a marble statue of the poet by Flaxman. The building, of freestone, is a circular temple on a quadrangular basement surrounded by a peristyle of twelve Corinthian columns which support an entablature and cornice. Over this is a cupola, a restoration of the monument of Lysicrates at Athens. The whole is surmounted by a tripod supported by winged griffins. The extreme height of the structure is fifty feet, the twelve outside columns are fourteen feet high and the twelve inside columns are ten feet high. The latter Besides the statue of the poet, the monument holds a number of relics—letters written by or to Burns, the worm-eaten three legged stool upon which the poet sat in 1786 and ’87 while correcting the proofs of his poems, and other things of interest. One of the most interesting letters is that subjoined. As is well known, the poet spelled his name Burness (his family name) until the publication of his poems in 1786. The letter is thus addressed: To Mr. James Burness, My Dear Cousin: When you offered me money assistance, little did I think I should want it so soon. A rascal of a haberdasher to whom I owe a considerable bill, taking into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process against me and will infallibly put my emaciated body into jail. Will you be so good as to accommodate me, and that by return of post, with ten pounds. O, James, did you know the pride of my heart you would feel doubly for me. Alas, I am not used to beg. The worse of it is my health was coming about finely, you know, and my physician assures me that melancholy and low spirits are half my disease. Guess then my horrors since this business began. If I had it settled I would be, I think, quite well in a manner. O, do not disappoint me. Among other relics preserved in frames and hung on the walls is the printed newspaper report of Burns’s death. This occurred at Dumfries, July 21, 1796, and the report appeared in the London Herald of July 27—nearly one week after. The London Herald of that day was a very small sheet, about fifteen inches long and DEATH OF MR. ROBERT BURNS, On the twenty-first instant died at Dumfries, after a lingering illness, the celebrated Robert Burns. His poetical compositions, distinguished equally by the force of native humor, by the warmth and tenderness of passion, and by the glowing touches of a descriptive pencil, will remain a lasting monument of the vigor and versatility of a mind, guided only by the light of nature and the inspirations of genius. The public, to whose amusement he so largely contributed, will learn with regret that the last months of his short life were spent in sickness and indigence, and his widow and five infant children, and in the hourly expectation of a sixth, is now left without any resource but what she may hope from the regard due to the memory of her husband. Apropos to the subject come these remarks in the New York Sun: It is better to write a little book that is full of heart and brains than a big book that lacks both. Probably there is no writer but Robert Burns who has made such broad and enduring renown as his through a book as small as his. This thought arose while taking a glimpse of a new statue of the bard that is to be erected in a city out West. There is a statue of Burns in our Central Park; there is another up at Albany; there is at least one in Australia, and there are several statues of him in the British Isles. All that he wrote appears as a tiny volume in the latest edition of his works; much of it is in a dialect that is hard to be understood by English-speaking people, and he died in obscurity about one hundred years ago. Yet there are probably as many public statues of him in various parts of the globe as there are of Shakespeare, who wrote voluminously. Monuments, however, are not Edinburgh’s only attractions, but do not count on seeing the sights there on Sunday. The day is closely and strictly observed. |
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