Virgin, either to crown her by His own hand, or to indicate His interest in the ceremony, whilst Mary is turned towards Christ in an attitude of tenderness and adoration. These are obvious requirements. The figures are so disposed in the examples you cited and illustrated, and it is true of all the examples I have studied on the Continent and in the cathedrals of England. At Melrose the figures are not in any way related to each other. They look straight forward, and, as I proved by the aid of a telescope before writing my description, no act of crowning is indicated. The male figure corresponds exactly with that on the seal of James IV. to which I referred, and the group does not differ from that shown in a MS. of the middle of the fifteenth century, which represents a king and queen and their court. I understand and appreciate the fact that you see no significance in the angels in the niches below the central group of the king and queen, and that it is of no importance to you that the figures which were ranged on either side were not those of saints and martyrs, but of Churchmen, evidently contemporaries of King James. As the statue of an archbishop graces the apex of the east gable of York Minster, there is nothing ridiculous, as you would wish to make it appear, in a king and queen occupying a similar place at Melrose. The circumstances and temper of the moment made it appear appropriate. There is no sarcasm in the concluding paragraph of my work, although you profess to be able to detect it. It was not unpleasant to me to find that the point made by the author of The Stones of Venice, from exactly similar exhibitions of vainglory, could be made from the stones of Scotland.
P. MACGREGOR CHALMERS."
