640 TONGE STREET AND DUNDAS STREET. 



Lord Melville ! ' 'Tis vain to name him wliom we mourn in vain !' 

 Almost the last time I saw him he was talking of you in the highest 

 terms of regard, and expressing great hopes of again seeing you at 

 Dunii-a this summer, where I proposed to attend you. ' Hei mihi ! 

 Quid hei mihi? Humana perpessi sumus!' His loss will be long 

 and severely felt here; and envy is already paying her cold tribute 

 of applause to the worth which it maligned while it walked upon 

 earth." 



Lord Melville was buried without pomp at Lasswade, near Edin- 

 burgh, in which parish Melville Castle is situated. 



Deriving from his parents a solid understanding and a sound con- 

 stitution, he, as we have seen, learned early, as is the custom of Scot- 

 land, to put them both to their proper use. Starting, as narrated, 

 with little other capital but these endowments and this training, he 

 laid the foundation of his house with wisdom, and the superstructure 

 upreared thereupon by him has accordingly endured. The title of 

 Lord Melville, of which he was the originator, has come down with 

 distinction to the present time; and his family, immediate and col- 

 lateral, continues to send forth from time to time men able and willing 

 to do good service, civil and military, to the commonwealth. A column 

 and a statue preserve the memory of the first Lord Melville in Edin- 

 burgh. The former, begun during his lifetime, stands in St. Andrew's 

 Square. Its proportions are those of the column of Trajan, in Rome ; 

 but instead of being covered with a spiral series of sculptures, like 

 Trajan's pillar, it is fluted. It cost ,£8,000. The height is 136 feet; 

 the figure at the top, added at a later period, is 14 feet: the altitude 

 of the whole is thus 15Q feet. 



His statue in white marble stands at the north end of the Great 

 Hall of the Parliament House in Edinburgh. It is by Chantry; 

 and Lord Cockburn's caustic remark is: "It is, perhaps, Chantiy's 

 worst. The column," he adds, " has received and deserves praise." 



It is a curious circumstance to take note of, that on the column in 

 St. Andrew's Square, to this day, there is no inscription. Pope's 

 couplet on the so-called Monument in London, everyone remembers : 



" Where London's column, pointing at the skies, 

 Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies." 



Some such biting satire as this, it is certain, would quickly have 

 shaped itself in men's mouths, had the exaggerated language appeared 

 on the Edinburgh pillar, which the worshippers of Melville would 



