I 26 ? OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [PrinerSSma.
The tower, as originally designed, terminated in
an open lantern, but this fell during a tempest of
wind in January, 1818. In a letter to his friend,
Willie Laidlaw, Sir Walter Scott refers to the event
thus :-?I had more than an anxious thought
about you all during the gale of wind. The Gothic
pinnacles were blown from the top of Bishop
Sandford?s Episcopal chapel at the end of Princes
Street, and broke through the roof and flooring,
doing great damage. This was sticking the horns
of the mitre into the belly of the church. The
devil never so well deserved the title of Prince of
Power of the Air since he has blown down this
handsome church, and left the ugly mass of new
buildings standing on the North Bridge.?
The bishop referred to was the Rev. Daniel Sand-
? ford, father of the accomplished Greek scholar, Sir
Daniel Keyte Sandford, D.C.L., who was born at
Edinburgh in February, 1798, and received all the
rudiments of his education under the venerable
prelate, who died in 1830.
The interior of St. John?s Church is beautiful,
and presents an imposing appearance ; it contains
a very fine organ, and is adorned with richlycoloured
stained-glass windows. The great eastern
window, which is thirty feet in height, contains the
figures of the twelve apostles, by Eggington of
Birmingham, acquired in 1871. There is also
a magnificent reredos, designed by Peddie and
Kinnear.
In this church ministered for years the late Dean
Ramsay, the genial-hearted author of ? Reminiscences
of Scottish Life and Character.? A small
cemetery, with two rows of ornamented burial
vaults, adjoin the south side of this edifice, the
view of which is very striking from the West
Churchyard. In these vaults and the little
cemetery repose the remains of many persons
eminent for rank and talent. Among them are
the prince of Scottish portrait painters, Sir Henry
Raeburn, the Rev. Archibald Alison, the wellknown
essayist on ?? Taste,? Dr. Pultney Alison, his
eldest son, and brother of the historian, Sir Archibald.
The Doctor was professor successively of
the theory and practice of physic in the university,
author of several works of great authority in
medical science, and was one of the most philanthropic
men that ever adorned the medica! profession,
even in Edinburgh, where it has ever been
pre-eminently noble in all works of charity ; and he
was the able antagonist of Dr. Chalmers in advocating
the enforcement of a compulsory assessment
for the support of the poor in opposition to the
Doctor?s voluntary one.
There, too, lie James DonaldsoIi, founder of the
magnificent hospital which bears his name j the
Rev. Andrew Thomson, first minister of St. Geoge?s
Church in Charlotte Square, in his day one of the
most popular of the city clergy; Sir Williani
Hamilton, professor of moral philosophy in the
university, and a philosopher of more than
European name ; Catherine Sinclair, the novelist j
Macvey Napier, who succeeded Lord Jeffrey as
editor of the Zdiaburgh Rm2wY and, together
with James Browne, LL.D., conducted the seventh
edition of the ?? Encyclopaedia Britannica?; Sir
William Arbuthnot, who was Lord Provost in
1823; Mrs. Sligo of Inzievar, the sister of Sir
James Outram, ? the Bayard of India?; and many
more of note.
Nearly opposite is a meagre and somewhat
obstn,uztive edifice of triangular form, known as
the Sinclair Fountain, erected in 1859 at the
expense of Miss Catherine Sinclair, the novelist,
and daughter of the famous Sir John Sinclair of
Ulbster, a lady distinguished for her philanthropy,
and is one of the memorials?of her benefactions
to the city.
Among the many interesting features in Princes
Street are its monuments, and taken seriatim,
according to their dates, the first-and first also is
consequence and magnificence-is that of Sir Walter
Scott This edifice, the design for which, by G.
M. Kemp (who lost his life in the canal by
drowning ere its completion), was decided by the
committee on the 30th of April, 1840, bears a
general resemblance to the most splendid examples
of monumental crosses, though it far excels all its
predecessors in its beauty and vast proportions,
beirig 180 feet in height, and occupying a square
area of 55 feet at its base.
The foundation stone was laid in 1840, and in it
was deposited a plate, bearing the following
inscription by Lord Jeffrey, remarkable for its
tenor :-
?This Graven Plate, deposited in the baseof a votive
building on the fifteenth day of August, in the year of
Christ 1840, and mcr bRry io see tk I&& apin td2 aZ2 tlu
surrounding strucfwu have crumbZrd fo dwt the d.ay 01
time, w by human OY ekmmzal vibZence, may then testify to a
distant posterity that his countrymen began on that day to
raise an effigy and architectural mohnent, TO THE MEMORY
OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., whose admirable writings
were then allowed to have given more delight and suggested
better feeling to a larger class of readers in every rank of
society, than those of any other author, with the exception of
Shakespeare alone, and which were therefore thought likely
to be remembered long after this act of gratitude on the part
of the first generation of his admirers should be forgotten.
?? HE WAS BORN AT EDINBURGH, I5TH AUGUST, 1771,
AND DIED AT ABBOTSFORD, ZIST SEPTEMBER, 1832,?
Engravings have made us familiar with the
