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WORKS OF ART.
225

WORKS OF ART.

Whether Works of Art may, with Propriety, be combined with the Sublimity of Nature; and what would be the most appropriate Situation for the proposed Monument to the Memory of Sir Walter Scott, in Edinburgh? By Kata Phusin.

The question which has been brought before the readers of the Architectural Magazine by W. is one of peculiar and excessive interest; one in which no individual has any right to advance an opinion, properly so called, the mere result of his own private habits of feeling; but which should be subjected, as far as possible, to a fixed and undoubted criterion, deduced from demonstrable principles and indisputable laws. Therefore, as we have been referred to, we shall endeavour, in as short a space as possible, to bring to bear upon the question those principles whose truth is either distinctly demonstrable, or generally allowed.

The question resolves into two branches. First, whether works of art may with propriety, be combined with the sublimity of nature. This is a point which is discussable by every one. And, secondly, what will be the most appropriate locality for the monument to Scott at Edinburgh. And this we think may be assumed to be a question interesting to, and discussable by, one-third of the educated population of Great Britain: as that proportion is, in