It is thus apparent that there were scarcely any limits to his ideal of the Edinburgh of the future. The maintenance of his native city in unblemished honour and beauty was the source of many a fascinating dream, and took form at times in the union of such idealizations with his practical liberality. Hence the desertion of the Highlands for the city was no exchange of the poetry of life for mere prosaic realities. Edinburgh was rich in all the materials wherewith to fashion an ever-new romance: a thing of beauty to be preserved or to be made more beautiful. There the landscape gardener, the architect, and decorator, were all busily at work on his plans for renovating St. Bernard’s Well. The sculptor’s studio had to be visited to learn of the progress of the new statue. Then, too, official formalities and obstructions had at length yielded to his quiet persistency, and the plans were in progress for restorations, not only on the great hall of the Castle, but also on the Argyle Tower, and the venerable little oratory known as St. Margaret’s Chapel. With the latter object in view, more than one excursion had been made to Iona, where the little Norman structure styled the Chapel of St. Oran is affirmed to have been built by St. Margaret, the queen of Malcolm Canmore. Hence it was assumed to furnish the fittest model for a design to replace the somewhat commonplace modern restoration of the original doorway. A photograph of it was accordingly secured, and placed, for that purpose, in the architect’s hands. The Argyle Tower, of old the state prison, was to be freed from manifold incongruities of modern barbarism, as has since been done in the best taste. But William Nelson’s sympathies were not narrowed within the bounds of his native city, and a special occasion now invited his practical co-operation elsewhere. The approaching anniversary of the death of the good king Alexander III., last and best of Scotland’s Celtic kings, was to be signalized by the erection of a memorial cross to mark the scene of that fatal event of six centuries before, the fruits of which are bewailed in the fine old fragment of native elegy preserved for us in Wyntoun’s Chronicles, the earliest known lyric in the Scottish language. The old chronicler pictures the prosperity of the nation under the rule of him that led Scotland in love and loyalty; and then he says,-- “This failèd fra he died suddenly; This sang was made of him forthi: When Alexander our king was dead, That Scotland led in love and lea, Away wes söns of ale and bread, Of wine and wax, of gaming and glee; Our gold was changèd into lead. Christ, born into virginity, Succor Scotland and remede That stad is in perplexity.”