Correspondence
I To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin, --A hundred years ago almost, a legacy was left to provide a suitable memorial to the Scottish national heroes, Wallace and Bruce. The testator, Captain Reid, suggested that colossal statues of these historic figures should be erected at the edge of the old Nor' Loclm. Since then the Nor' Loch has disappeared ; and the Cockburn Association, which considers that it holds a brief in all matters affecting the city's outer aspect, has issued a caveat against any further encroachment on the air space of Princes Street Gardens, which °cello- the place where the Nor' Loch once was. There is thus, to begin with, the favourite basis of controversy in Edinburgh --- the allocation of a site. Another diffieulty is a public opinion which has been created against the increase in the city's endowment of statues, or " effigies " as they are usually derisively described. This public antipathy to statues may be traced to an °biter dictum of Lord Rosebery's many years ago, when he suggested that he would like to see many of the existing statues some of gentlemen eminent in their day, but over- shadowed in recent times, and others commemorating Royal personages possessed with the spirits of the Gadarene swine and rushing down to the waters of the Firth of Forth. • A generation or two ago the civic authorities attached little
importance to some of the older buildings. which have dis- appeared in the course of improvement schemes ; but the pendulum has now swung round to the other extreme, and crumbling buildings which can scarcely sustain their own weight are jealously guarded. The problem arises as to what is to be done with some of these buildings. The Cockburn Association raises its hand when anything is proposed to be done that would alter or remove them.
In these Georgian times the citizens of Edinburgh are recovering a sense of the city being an actual ',him of Royal residence. From time to tune King Gtsirge and, Queen Mary have taken up residence in Holyrood, and Her Majesty has given personal attention to the overhauling of the furnishings
of the Scottish Palace. Intimat• that it is their Majesties' intention to take up residence again in Holyrood this summer is further proof of their desire to regard I folyrood as one of their ordinary houses. This attitude is bound to react on the status of the city itself ; and there is a feeling that. Edinburgh is likely to regain some of its character as a centre of art and letters, as it used to be in the past. In connexion with the social life of the city. the interesting suggestion was thrown out recently that some of the a fuient buildings in old Edinburgh, particularly Huntly Muse, for which no use has been found, might be made meeting-plifees for intellectual and
social coteries -that, in fact, there sl Id be a revival of the old supper clubs in a suitable environment. advocated many years ago by Lord Rosebery. It seems hardly likely, however, that any effort will succeed in reviving the vitality of the old'' Royal Mile." however alluring the prospect may be.
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