UISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORA TION. 115
ancient building had been preserved ; the heads, in basso relievo, which surmounted seven
of. the arches, have been referred, by eminent antiquaries, to the remote era of the lower
empire. Four of these were placed by Mr Walter Ross, in his tower at Deanhaugh,
and on its demolition in 1814, they were secured by Sir Walter Scott, along with a large
shallow stone basin, which served as the fountain from whence wine was distributed at the
Crosa on occasions of festivity. All of these objects are now among the antiquities at
Abbotsford.
The ancient pillar which surmounted the octagonal
building, has been described by Arnot,’ and most of his
mccessors, as a “column consisting of one stone upwards
of twenty feet high, spangled with thistles, and
adorned with a Corinthian capital.” It is still preserved
on the Drum estate, near Edinburgh, whither it was
removed by Lord Somerville in 1756, but it in no way
* corresponds with this description.’ It is an octagonal
gothic pillar, built of separate stones, held together by
iron clamps, with a remarkably beautiful gothic capital,
consisting of dragons. with their heads and tails intertwined,
and surmounted by a battlemented top, on
which the unicorn was formerly seated, holding an iron
cross.
From this ancient edifice, rogd proclamations, and
the more solemn denunciations of the law, were announced;
and here also the chief pageants were displayed
on occasions of public rejoicings. Before the art
of printing was invented, all Acts of Parliament and other
matters of public interest were published from it to the
people, and from thence also the mimic heralds of the
unseen world, cited the gallant James and the nation’s
chivalry to the domains of Pluto, immediately before the Battle of Flodden.
No incident in history appears to us more strongly to mark the perversion of taste, and
the total absence of the wholesome spirit of veneration, that prevailed during the eighteenth
century, than the demolition of this most interesting national monument. The love of
destructiveness could alone instigate the act, for its site was in the widest part of the High
Street, at a time when the Luckenbooths narrowed the upper part of that thoroughfare to
half its breadth, and immediately below it stood the guard-house, “ a long, low, ugly building,
which, to a fanciful imagination, might have suggested the idea of a long black snail
crawling up the middle of the High Street; and deforming its beautiful esplanade.”’ No
such haste, however, was shown in removing this unsightly building. Its deformity gave no
offence to civic taste, and it continued to encumber the street till near the close of the century.
Propositions have been. made at various times for the restoration of the City Cross.
\$
1 Arnot, p. 303. * Restored in front of St Giles’s Cathedral, 1869.
Heart of Mid-Lotbian, vol. i. p. 247.
VmNErrE-The c a p i d of the City Croua.
