Little Wizard

TC TO GEORGE STRACHEY

Chelsea: 3 March, 1844.

Dear Little Wizard, — I have received two numbers of your ingenious periodical, the second of them this morning, and have to return you my thanks and congratulations. I find it a very handsome enterprise this of yours, and cannot but think you have a fair augury both of pleasure and profit from the same. It will be new satisfaction to my little Wizard of the North to burn off his fireworks in this literary form; may he prosper with them, our present little Wizard, as he used to do when they consisted of chemical gases and such like! We all know with what dexterity he used to go off, ever at the right moment, and with what brilliancy to blaze, in that latter department—astonishing the minds of beholders. The like good speed attend him here. Need I wish him better?

With many kind wishes to my little wizard friend, and his periodical literature, and other honest achievements and improvements,

I remain (in good hopes of him)

Most sincerely his,

T. CARLYLE.

Thomas Carlyle obviously thought well of George Strachey.  In a letter dated March 3^rd, 1844, Carlyle refers to him as the Little Wizard, placing him in a standing similar to Sir Walter Scott; the Wizard of the North. 

William Stukeley

Antiquarian William Stukeley, who died on March 3, 1765, receives a reference in editor Andrew Lang's introduction to Walter Scott's "The Antiquary".  Stukeley is most famous for his study of Stonehenge and Avebury.  Per Lang:

'In another point Monkbarns borrows from Gordon. Sandy has a plate (page 20) of "The Roman Sacellum of Mars Signifer, vulgarly called 'Arthur's Oon.' With regard to its shape, it is not unlike the famous Pantheon at Rome before the noble Portico was added to it by Marcus Agrippa." Gordon agrees with Stukeley in attributing Arthur's Oon to Agricola, and here Monkbarns and Lovel adopt almost his words. "Time has left Julius Agricola's very name on the place; . . . and if ever those initial letters J. A. M. P. M. P. T., mentioned by Sir Robert Sibbald, were engraven on a stone in this building, it may not be reckoned altogether absurd that they should bear this reading, JULIUS AGRICOLA MAGNUS PIETATIS MONUMENTUM POSUIT TEMPLUM; but this my reader may either accept or reject as he pleases. '

George Square Glasgow

George Square in Glasgow was named after King George III.  The square was planned by architects James and Robert Adam, beginning around 1780. 

Robert Adam was the son of Scotland's most famous architect, William Adam who designed Hopetown House and Duff House.  Of William's three architect sons (John, Robert and James), the latter two developed a style known as Adamesque.  Features of this style include Roman motifs, grotesque panels, and pilasters.  Robert Adam died on March 3, 1792.

George Square contains a statue of Sir Walter Scott, which was the first memorial dedicated to him.  Other famous Scott Memorial sites include Edinburgh, and the Literary Walk in New York's Central Park.  The column on which the statue sits was erected in 1837.  Scott shares the square with other notables such as James Watt, Robert Burns, Queen Victoria, Sir John Moore, William Gladstone and  Robert Peel.