72 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith.
beneath it ? The Triumph of Bacchus,? beautifully
executed in white marble. Here, too, was the
door-lintel of Alexander Clark, referred to in our
account of Niddry?s Wynd. The entrance to the
house was latterly where Dean Terrace now begins,
at the north end of the old bridge, and from that
point up to the height now covered by Anne Street
the grounds were tastefully laid out The site
of Danube Street was the orchard; the gardens
and hot-houses were where St. Bemard?s Crescent
?Oliver Cromwell,? till November, I 788, when Mr,
Ross had it removed, and erected, with no smalL
difficulty, on the ground where Anne Street is now.
? The block,? says Wilson, ?? was about eight feet
high, intended apparently for the upper half of?
the figure.
?The workmen of the quarry had prepared it.
for the chisel of the statuary, by giving it with
the hammer the shape of a monstrous mummy-
And there stood the Protector, like a giant in his;
THE WATER OF LEITH VILLAGE.
now stands. On the lawn was the monument to
a favourite dog, now removed, but preserved elsewhere.
In the grounds was set up a curious stone,
described in Campbell?s ?Journey from Edinburgh?
as a huge freestone block, partly cut in the form
of a man.
It would seem that it had been ordered by
the magistrates of Edinburgh in 1659, to form a
colossal statue of Oliver Cromwell, to be erected
in the Parliament Close, but news came of the
Protector?s death just as it was landed at Leith, and
the pliant provost and bailies,, finding it wiser to
forget their intentions, erected soon after the present
statue of Charles 11. The rejected block
lay on the sands of Leith, under the cognomen of
shroud, frowning upon the city, until the death of
Mr. ROSS, when it was cast down, and lay neglected
for many years. About 1825 it was again
erected upon a pedestal, near the place where it
formerly stood; but it was again cast down, and
broken up for building purposes.?
Close by the site of the house No. 10 Anne
Street Mr. Ross built a square tower, about forty
feet high by twenty feet, in the shape of a Border
Peel which forthwith obtained the name or
?ROSS?S Folly.? Into the walls of this he built
all the curious old stones that he could collect.
Among them was a beautiful font from the Chapel
of St. Ninian, near the Calton, and the four heads
which adorned the cross of Edinburgh, and are
