Note 13 — ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA. (continued 2)

Lockhart also was in favour of a cairn: ‘As to monuments, if I could choose—passing Abbotsford—I should say, put a plain sitting statue of Sir W. S. on Princes Street, Edinburgh, at the south end of Castle Street, backed by the rock; and put a cairn on the Eildon Hill, that every lad might carry his stone to. As for temples and pillars, they have been vulgarised in Edinburgh. A friend said to me: ‘Good God, what a grand thing it will be to have Sir Walter put on a level with the late Lord Melville! Let us have another pillar at the west end of George Street, by all means.’ This man is a sensible one, and was dead serious. On a level with Lord Melville, whose name will appear only in the fag-end of a note to the future history of this country, and really will be kept in memory chiefly by the pillar! Dugald Stewart and Playfair, admirable dominies both, have their temples; so I fancy will now Sir John Leslie. The Calton Hill had better be left to the schoolmasters; in a hundred years they will have covered it; but, if they please, they may keep a place in the midst for Sir John Sinclair.’—Letter to Hon. Mrs Stewart Mackenzie.