"Many ladies," she said,
"especially such as had ever lost a child, had shed tears over it." It
was very pleasant to think of the sculptor bestowing the best of his
genius and art to re-create his tender child in stone, and to make the
representation as soft and sweet as the original; but the conclusion
of the story has something that jars with our awakened sensibilities.
A gentleman from London had seen the statue, and was so much delighted
with it that he bought it of the father-artist, after it had lain
above a quarter of a century in the church-porch. So this was not the
real, tender image that came out of the father's heart; he had sold
that truest one for a hundred guineas, and sculptured this mere copy
to replace it. The first figure was entirely naked in its earthly and
spiritual innocence. The copy, as I have said above, has a drapery
over the lower limbs. But, after all, if we come to the truth of the
matter, the sleeping baby may be as fitly reposited in the
drawing-room of a connoisseur as in a cold and dreary church-porch.
We went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without
altar-decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly
wooden pews. The woman led us to a pew cornering on one of the
side-aisles, and, telling us that it used to be Burns's family-pew,
showed us his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. It is so
situated, that a sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the
minister's eye; "for Robin was no great friends with the ministers,"
said she.
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