TRANSACTIONS. 223 
the name of an architect. If there are any whose fame has not reached 
Edinburgh, I ask their pardon. 
The gentleman to whom I would strongly recommend it to you to 
apply for a design is Mr Smirke, R.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 design for Covent Garden Theatre, the front 
of which 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 Messrs Smirke 
are, of all the artists I can think of, the most competent to give you a 
chaste, classic, 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 hima slight drawing to show the eleva- 
tion and form of the ground where the monument is to be built, letting 
him know the exact price of building per cubic foot in Dumfries with 
the best freestone, and ask a design architectural and as much ornamental 
as he thinks it ought to be, and asthe 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 EKdinburghers have fallen 
most grievously, and more than once, as our unfinished University and 
Nelson’s Monument do testify. 
1 had a conversation soon 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 least thing he should have in 
view. And [ remember well he expressed it to be his conviction that if 
any respectable character on ’Change in London would take charge of a 
subscription paper for erecting a monument to Burns and set about it in 
earnest, he would get many hundred pounds in two or three days. 
What would you think of writing to Sir James Shaw or any other 
warm-hearted Scotsman on this subject who has 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, Canonmills, to Mr Grierson of date 4th February, 
=e 
