Transactions. 223 



the name of an architect. If there are any whose fame has not reacheil 

 Edinbnrgh, I ask their pardon. 



The gentleman to whom I would strongly recommend it to you to 

 apply for a design is Mr Smirke, E.A., London, an eminent painter well 

 known to every amateur of the fine arts, or to his son, the architect in 

 London, well known by his de.sign for Covent Garden Theatre, the front 

 of wliich is worthy to have stood in Athens. 



I presume the design for Burns' monument will be architectural, or 

 chiefly so ; whatever there may be of sculpture about it will, I should 

 imagine, consist only of alto or basso relievo. Now, the Messi-s Smii-ke 

 are, of all the artists I can think of, the most competent to give you ;i 

 chaste, chissic, and noble design, in whatever style the fund may permit 

 it to be executed. Sculpture, I believe, even in bas relief is very expen- 

 sive, and if the fund should not admit of a monument sufficiently large 

 to be a striking object, and of much ornament from the sculptor to be 

 superadded, then you must no doubt be contented to have the one with- 

 out the other, or with the less of it. As soon as you have ascertained 

 the total amount of the fund you should state it to Mr Smirke or the 

 artist to whom you apply. Give him a slight drawing to show the ele\^a- 

 tion and form of the ground where the monument i.s to be built, letting 

 him know the exact price of building per cubic foot in Dumfries with 

 the best freestone, and ivsk a design architectural anil a.s much ornamental 

 as he thinks it ought to be, and as the fund will admit of, beseeching him 

 to estimate it correctly, and not to let you begin what the fund will not 

 enable you to finish, an error into which we Edinburghers have fallen 

 most grievously, and more than once, as our unfinished University and 

 Nelson's Monument do testify. 



I had a conversation aoou after the lamented death of Burns with 

 Mr Smirke, R.A., upon the very subject of a monument to the poet. 

 Upon that occasion he expressed his highest admiration of his genius 

 and writings, said he would be happy to furnish a design, and I under- 

 stood him to say that profit would be the lei^st thing he should have in 

 view. And I remember well he expressed it to be his conviction that if 

 any respectable character on 'Change in Loudon would take charge of a 

 subscription paper for erecting a monument to Burns and set about it in 

 earnest, he would get many hundretl pounds in two or three days. 



What would you think of writing lo Sir James Shaw or any other 

 warm-hearted Scotsman on this subject who h:is influence among those 

 most liberal of all men, the London merchants ] 



If you write to Mr Smirke you are at liberty to communicate what 



I have said. 



G. Thomson. 



Mr Wilson added that he might mention a fact in connection 

 with Thomson which was not generally known. In a letter by Dr 

 Patrick Neill, Canonniills, to Mr Grierson of date 4th February, 



