Mount Auburn Cemetery

Edinburgh 28th Feby. 1845

Sir,

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your favour of the 14th Dec. last together with the lithographic outlines of the cemetery chapel windows, which were forwarded to me about the middle of last month. I feel highly gratified by the proof which your letter affords of the estimation in which my professional skill is held by you, and I have endeavoured to evince my sense of the value of your good opinion by the thought which I have bestowed on a series of designs which shall be shortly forwarded. Your lithographic outlines I have put in to the hands of Messrs Ballantine and Allan of this city who have been selected by the Royal Commission of the Fine Arts to furnish the painted glass for the principal portions of the New Houses of Parliament. These Gentlemen thus placed at the head of their profession, are intimate friends of mine and they are now engaged under my instructions in making the designs you require. I have requested them to forward you also an estimate of the cost of executing these designs in painted glass in the best manner, and I would strongly advise you to commit the matter intirely [sic] to them. Their work in brilliancy and harmony of colour equals the best specimens of the antique, and far excells them in symmetrical proportion, as well as in accurate drawing. No water coloured sketch can convey a correct idea of the effect of painted ^glass. Neither can

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P.S. I shall pay Messrs B & A: The Five pounds you were so good as remit for their trouble in preparing the sketch.

D.R.H.

to

Doctor Jacob Bigelow} ...M.D.} Boston}

Should you entrust the work to our care, we should guarantee that all the coloured glasses should be of the very finest quality, and that the workmanship should be equal to any other in Ancient or Modern Painted Glass. The pannels could be forwarded together with plans & written instructions, such as would enable any common Glazier to put them in -- Especial care would be taken that the Glass was packed in a way to warrant its safety -- Vessels leave Greenock every month for New York, the carriage would not form an important item and we could have the entire work finished within six or eight months from the time of its commencement.

Should you resolve upon employing us, it would ensure correctness if you would forward pasteboard or paper shapes, the exact daylight sizes of the various compartments. These templets or shapes must be numbered, and your lithograph drawings numbered to correspond -- The shapes of the long perpendicular compartments would only be required above the springs of the Arches with the exact length of the compartments below the springs of Arches marked --

We have only to add that Mr Hay has been consulted in the general arrangement and details of the designs, that he has expressed his unqualified approbation of both, and that should you honour us with an order to execute the work, our chief aim would be to render the Painted Glass Windows of your Chapel interesting and attractive -- We have the honour to be

Sir

Your obedient Servants

Ballantine & Allan

with foliage and grounds of positive colour as indicated in sketch.

This Window finished in this style would cost One Hundred and thirty Pounds Sterling.

If instead of the Twelve Apostles in the outer hemi-circled spaces, the design indicated in the spaces No 7 and 8 were adopted the expense would be reduced Fifteen Pounds sterling.

Aisle Windows

The Four Aisle Windows finished in a similar style to that indicated in sketch, but with the designs & figures diversified sufficiently would cost Twenty Pounds sterling each.

If the expense of these latter renders such elaborate treatment objectionable, they might be filled with some simpler design which could be rendered very effective at one half the price or about Ten Pounds sterling each.__

Ballantine & Allan

(copy)

Boston (America) June 14th 1845

Messrs Ballantine & Allan

Gentlemen

I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 21^st April with the accompanying designs for colored windows. With a few exceptions, hereafter to be stated, these designs are approved and much admired, and you are requested immediately to make for us the two large windows conformably to the paper shapes or patterns which are ^now forwarded by the Cambria steamer ^rolled up in a tin box, care of Harnden & Co, Liverpool, and will reach you soon in a few days after this letter.

Nave Window.

Please to notice that the cast iron window frames, which are now made, have undergone some slight alterations from the lithographic designs. The great circular central space in the Nave window has 12 hemicircles, or indentations instead of 8, and the small arches ^are higher & more acute & have also more hemicircles. All this appears in the paper daylight patterns, which you will follow exactly. ^The mullions are shorter now than in the lithograph plan. The Rose window is unaltered.

In the Nave window you will fill the large perpendicular lights and all the smaller

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