ROSLYN CHAPEL. — LEGEND. 81 



properly executed, the notle founder is said to have caused barracks to be 

 erected for the use of the workmen, and to have allotted to each, according to 

 his abilities, a portion of land, with an annual salary of ten pounds in money, 

 and forty to the master mason. By these acts of liberality, the services of the 

 most skilful workmen were secured, and the building carried on under the best 

 auspices. Before its completion, however, the founder died, leaving his eldest 

 son to finish the pious undertaking — a task which he faithfully accomplished 

 about the close of the century. 



During the progress of the building, it is said, some doubts having arisen 

 in the master's mind as to the execution of certain parts of the design, he found 

 it necessary to proceed to Rome for advice. His apprentice, in the mean time, 

 who had been left in charge of the work, carried it on with so much success 

 as to overcome the very difficulties which had staggered his master ; and a fine 

 fluted column, richly ornamented with wreaths of flowers and foliage — all deli- 

 cately carved and in prominent relief — is still shown as the pillar on which 

 the genius of the apprentice was too fatally developed; for, on his return 

 from Rome, continues the legend, the jealousy of the architect was kindled 

 to such a degree at the sight of this masterpiece, that with a blow of his hammer 

 he slew the apprentice — but left the pillar as his monument. 



The " Apprentice's Pillar," thus described, is a specimen of singular inge- 

 nuity in the art of sculpture. On the base it has several dragons, in the 

 strongest, or first kind of basso relievo, as the fingers may be easily inserted 

 between their coils and the stone. These dragons are chained by the heads, 

 and intricately twisted into one another ; while four vrreaths of the most curious 

 sculpture of flower-work and fohage — each different from the other, and so 

 exquisitely fine as to resemble Brussels lace — wave round the column in a spiral 

 form from base to capital. The ornaments of the capital represent the story of 

 Abraham oflfering up Isaac ; a man blowing on a Highland bag-pipe ; and on the 

 architrave, joining it to the smaller one on the south wall, is the following 

 inscription, in Gothic characters : — Forte est vinum : fortior est rex : 



FORTIORES SUNT MULIERES : SUPER OMNIA VINCET VERITAS. 



At the front of the tliird and fourth pillars is the entrance to the family 

 vault of the St. Clairs, where ten barons of Roslyn now repose. " These 

 barons,"* says Mr. Hay, in his MS. in the Advocates' Library, " were all 

 buried in their armour without any coffin," — a practice still observed in some 

 parts of Germany. 



* For the legend connected witli one of these, the reader is referred to the popular account ; and for the 

 arcliitectural notice, to Mr. Britton's able work on the subject. — Architect. Antiq. of Great Britain, III. 49. 



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