FORRES PILLAR. 
'T'HIS majeftic column, on account of its fee *, is the mofl • 
, ^ the ancient obelifks now remaining in North -Britain. 
Conans the moil {lately monument of the Gothic kind to e een 
f r °* its magnitude, and the elaborate workman {hip wherewith it is covered ovr, 
, n an early age it may have been a work of national concern ; u 
? ^ it refers isas yet a matter covered by an impenetrable veil no authen- 
? tradition nor written record concerning it being extant. Several authors have 
S Profufe in their conjeftures concerning the tranfattions in memory of which 
. as been raifed ; a humbler tafk is at prefent propofed, that o 1 in V a 
r 1Inin g the fculptures on it that care will enable us to judge with more certainty 
^cerning the probability of what hiftorians have alledgedj and with that view 
leir teftim on i es fir all be afterwards produced. 
. The rude fibres of the plate, in Gordon's Itinerarium Septentnonale , are in 
? nera l widely 'different, and in many refpefts altogether foreign to the truth o 
°^ e on the column. 
A- diftinder reprefentation was attempted for Shaw's Hiftory of Moray , but there 
y 1 ® figures are for the moft part alfo faulty, and their form imitated in too feeble 
U P Ue rile a manner. 
4 more elaborate drawing from it was made at Mr. Pennant's intonce, and an 
giving f rom i t was publifhed in a fupplemental volume to his lour, l ? 
Equities and Scenery of the North of Scotland ■? but the figures are there laid 
^graving f rom i t was publifhed in a fupplemental volume to his Tour, 
Antiquities and Scenery of the North of Scotland but the figures are the: 
Ut 0ri too fmall a fcale to render them fufficiently exprefiive. 
af As that plate t , however, gives a general idea of the obelilk, it may ferve to 
in >n the connection of the feveral departments to be reprefented at laige, ■ 
u. the annexed fpecimen. Without quoting the brief fummary there narrate o 
r „ e tra nfa6lions to which the fculptures of this column may retci, ome a enera 
fhall now be offered, as an illuftration of the plate annexed. 
U 
* Twenty-five feet in height ; three and a half broad, or about four at the bale, 
t Antiquities and Scenery of Scotland, plate vL P- 54’ 
5 
fit. 
