enriched with a variety of flowers and foliage, and overshadowed by a luxuriant growth of timber. The banks of this enchanting stream were the seat of the ancient pastoral. poesy of Scotland, and have been long dear to the Muses. Several noble seats and parks, and the increased number and bustle of people and carriages, announced the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, which the common people call Auld Reikie, reik meaning smoke.

I have seen a considerable number of cities, but have never yet seen one so peculiarly novel and romantic, and very few so grand and impressive, as Edinburgh. The morning after my arrival, I was conducted to the centre of the Earthen Mound, with my back towards the castle, where the contrast of the objects within my view excited at once my astonishment and admiration. On my right, upon an elevated ridge, stood the Old Town, with its lofty houses, in sombre and sullen majesty; on my left the New Town, resembling Bath in the gaiety and splendour of its buildings; below a vast valley, once the bed of a lake; before me the North Bridge, bestriding this valley, and resembling an aqueduct, behind which rise the craggy summits of the Calton Hills, and on the side of them stands the castellated form of the new bridewell. The imagination cannot form such an assemblage of sublime and extraordinary objects. Nature and art seem to have happily exerted their energies in

bringing within one view all the varieties of their powers. The frontispiece engraving to the present volume is from this point of view. The classical eye has discovered some resemblance between Edinburgh and Athens; the castle has been compared with the acropolis, Arthur's Seat with Mons Hymettus, and Leith and Leith-walk with the piræus. If the North Loch and Cowgate were filled with water, Edinburgh would in a considerable degree resemble Stockholm, which stands upon insulated ridges of rock. This romantic city is constantly presenting a new picture with the progress of the sun, and upon the change of the atmosphere and the season: the stupendous and magnificent rock and castle finely grouping with every surrounding object. The ancient history of Edinburgh is well known; and to enumerate the vicissitudes to which it has been exposed by the political and holy wars of the country is foreign to my purpose. I shall only attempt to delineate those particular objects which engage the attention of the traveller, in the order in which I saw them; in the course of which it was my good fortune to be attended by some of the most respectable and intelligent persons of that capital, whose politeness and information enabled me to examine such objects with advantages not enjoyed by every visitor.

The situation of Edinburgh must be extremely healthy; it is surrounded by hills on all sides, except to the northward,

where the ground gently slopes to the Frith of Forth. It is bounded on the east by the Calton Hills, Arthur's Seat, and Salisbury Crags; on the south by the long ridge of the Pentland Hills, and the hills of Braid; and on the west by the Costorphine Hill; all of them objects of great beauty or interest. So many lofty mountains, and the opening to the north, frequently subject the city to violent, and sometimes terrible, storms of wind, by which persons walking in the streets have been often thrown to the ground; the effect however, upon the whole, is beneficial to the city, as every narrow street and passage is well ventilated. The extent of Edinburgh, from east to west, is about two English miles, and from north to south about the same distance; and its circumference about eight miles.

The principal part of the Old Town is raised upon a hill, which gradually rises from east to west, where it terminates in a rocky precipice of 300 feet in height, upon the summit of which stands the castle, now rendered, by the improvements in modern warfare, fit only for a garrison, though once entitled to the character given of it by Burns, in his Address to Edinburgh:

THE OLD TOWN.

"The pond'rous wall and massy bar,
"Grim rising o'er the rugged rock,
"Have oft withstood assailing war,

"And oft repell'd th' invader's shock."

49

Along the summit of this rocky eminence extends a magnificent street, rather more than a mile long, commencing from the castle, and terminating at the palace of Holyroodhouse, called in different parts by the several names of Castle-hill, Lawn-market, High-street, and Canongate : other parts of the Old Town are built upon the ridges on either side of this hill, and on the southern hill is raised the new part of the Old Town, in which are several handsome streets, and a mixture of new and ancient houses; this part is connected with the other by a bridge of nineteen arches, only one of which appears, called the South Bridge, thrown over a valley, now formed into a long, dirty, and generally very crowded street, called the Cowgate, the view of which from the visible arch, on each side of South Bridgestreet, is equally unexpected and interesting. Towards the North Loch, the houses in the Old Town are of an amazing height, having, from their sloping situation, three or four more stories at the back than in the front.

H

CHAP. IV.

THE NEW TOWN-CLERICAL IMPUDENCE AND MEDICAL MODESTY

-BEAUTIFUL PROMENADE-STUPENDOUS EARTHEN MOUND HUMOUROUS OBSERVATIONS UPON THE WAITERS-SCOTTISH NAMES- -THE TWIN BROTHERS EDINBURGH IMPROVED IN CLEANLINESS A WHIMSICAL BUILDING-NAKED WAINSCOTSJOHN KNOX'S HOUSE-HOLY ROOD-HOUSE-ROYAL HEADSTHE STUARTS AND BOURBONS-INTERESTING PORTRAITS QUEEN MARY'S CHAMBER-ANCIENT UPHOLSTERY.

THE New Town, the great ornament of Edinburgh, is built of stone, upon an elevated plain on the north. The singular beauty of its situation is equalled only by the graceful arrangement of its streets, and the splendid assemblage of its buildings. Yet, compared with the bustle and population of the Old Town, there is a tranquillity in the streets, similar to that which is to be found in Berlin, and which gives it the appearance of being thinly inhabited, and an air altogether melancholy. George's-street is very fine: the people of Edinburgh think it injured by what is whimsically called the impudence of the clergy, in bringing the church of St. Andrew so forward, and the modesty of the physicians, in placing their hall so far back.

The east end of this street opens into St.-Andrew's-square,