David and Abraham

This morning we ventured out once more into a bitterly cold Edinburgh for a walk around the Calton Hill area. The hill is well known for the monuments on its summit which led to Edinburgh becoming known as 'the Athens of the North'.

Before we reached the hill our walk took us through Old Calton Cemetery which is home to this impressive tomb of the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). Hume was a man who did not believe in the existence of God or an afterlife. This makes him rank very highly in my estimation, but to many 18th century minds led to suspicions that he had sold his soul to the devil. Fearing that his grave might be desecrated following his burial, his friends staged an eight-night vigil around the tomb with pistols and lanterns.

The statue beside the tomb is not Daniel Day-Lewis, but is in fact Abraham Lincoln :-) . It was erected in 1893 to commemorate Scottish-American soldiers killed in the American Civil War. It was the first statue of the president to be erected in Europe.