The city, built on the picturesque heights surrounding the Castle Rock, embosomed among hills, and looking out on the sea, has a singular fascination for its citizens; and with William Nelson it was a passion, like that of the old Hebrew for Jerusalem, or the Athenian for the City of the Violet Crown. The Cockburn Association, which has already been referred to, takes its name from Lord Cockburn, the friend of Scott, of Brougham, and Jeffrey; the enthusiastic advocate of whatever tended to protect the historical remains and to preserve the beauty of their native city; and the mantle of the genial old judge seemed to have been bequeathed to William Nelson, with a double portion of his spirit. As an active member of the council of the association, his zeal in protesting against every piece of tasteless vandalism was unremitting. But his enthusiasm would not allow him to be content with mere wishes or denouncements. He had the means as well as the will, and when civic officials and Government functionaries dallied and disputed over needful reforms, he took them in hand himself, on a scale of liberality all the more admirable from the genuine modesty which repelled all public recognition. And yet evidence survives to show how far his aims exceeded even his own comprehensive liberality. With the fancy that begot for Edinburgh in the heyday of its literary glory the name of the Modern Athens, there grew up in the minds of a past generation the idea of rearing on the Calton Hill, as a modern Acropolis, a reproduction of the Parthenon, with, it is to be presumed, the sculptures of some Scottish Phidias as its final adornment. It was to constitute a sacred Pantheon, in special commemoration of those to whom the nation owed the welcome boon of an honourable peace after the protracted strife of the Napoleonic wars. In old school-boy days it had been a matter of liveliest interest to watch the process of construction that promised the accomplishment of this ambitious scheme. One after another, the lofty Doric columns rose to the number of twelve; and then the work stopped. The builders had neglected the wise maxim to sit down first and count the cost, whether they had sufficient means to finish it. The funds had given out at that early stage. The boys that had watched the first efforts of its builders grew gray with years; and the abortive Parthenon--a monument of ambitious folly--became familiar to the eyes of a new generation, till they ceased to realize its absurdity. There were indeed men of taste whom it continued to offend. David Roberts, himself a native of Edinburgh, and with the keen eye of an artist for architectural effect, was loath to abandon the dream of a new Parthenon. The late D. R. Hay, the ingenious author of “The Laws of Harmonious Colouring” and “The Natural Principles of the Harmony of Form,” united with James Ballantyne, the poet, and a little band of kindred spirits, in a vain effort to revive the scheme. But the later