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"The walls were entirely clothed with books; most of them folios and quartos; and all in that complete state of repair which at a glance reveals a tinge of bibliomania ; a"large proportion" bound in "blue morocco, all stamped with his device of the portcullis and its motto, clausus tutus ero, - being an anagram of his name in Latin." Every thing was excellently arranged for literary work, and kept in fine order. Even the silver furniture on the desk, was in such condition, " that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour before." In this snug retreat he wrote wonders of quantity and quality, received only a few friends, and was generally attended by his great dog Maida, or his venerable cat, "Hinse of Hinsfeldt."

At the east end of Princes Street, in what is, or was, the Crown Hotel, was the business place of Constable, who published many of Scott's works, and where is, or was, a little room in which the "Great Unknown" occasionally wrote. After the business failure (Jan. 17, 1826), when Scott had become, as he said, "The Too Well Known," he took lodgings at Mrs. Brown's, North St. David's Street, opposite the monument, and was there in May, June, and July of that year. At that place he heard of the death (May 15) of Lady Scott, at Abbotsford, respecting which he wrote most touchingly in his diary. During the winter and spring of 1826-7 he had six months of hard labor in Walker Street, a street situated in what then were the western outskirts of the New Town. Scott's last sojourn in Edinburgh was at Douglas's Hotel, St. Andrew's Square (near his monument). He arrived there exhausted, almost dying, from his tour in Italy and Germany, and left, on July 11, 1832, for Abbotsford, and the close of his long, eventful career.

The object in Edinburgh around which now chiefest gather associations with Sir Walter Scott is, however, that noble memorial cross, the architectural glory of the good town, by which it has so honored itself in honoring its greatest genius. Set in the very centre of the old and of the new of his storied native city, it is first, and continually, and last, before us in graceful majesty of form and of expressiveness.

Soon after the death of Sir Walter Scott, efforts to erect an appropriate memorial to him were begun. Much time was occupied in procuring funds and plans, and in deciding upon a site; consequently the corner-stone of this structure was not laid until "the fifteenth day of August, in the Year of Christ, 1840," as the words

of Lord Jeffrey, inscribed beneath it, record. At that date, continues the inscription, the corner stone was "Deposited in the Base of a Votive Building," covering a "Graven Plate,” that,

"never likely to see the light again,

Till all the surrounding structures are crumbled to dust
By the decay of time, or by human or elemental violence,
May then testify to a distant posterity that

His Countrymen began on that day

To raise an Effigy and Architectural Monument

TO THE MEMORY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
Whose admirable Writings were then allowed

To have given more delight and suggested better feeling
To a larger class of readers, in every rank of society,
Than those of any other Author,

With the exception of Shakspeare alone," etc.

On the 15th of August, 1846, the monument was publicly inaugurated. The entire cost of it has been over sixteen thousand pounds sterling. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., was perhaps the chief agent in procuring its erection. Subscriptions came from every class, and from many places, showing 100 from Her Majesty the Queen, and £3, 75. from "the poor people of the Cowgate." Out of fifty-four plans presented, that by John Mickle Kemp was adopted. Mr. Kemp was then a working mechanic, in humble condition, and unknown to the world. But he had genuine love for mediæval art, and had studied many examples of it. In about five days he drew the plan and design, that, with some modifications, are now realized. A curious story is told of his only interview with the great man to whose memory his chief, his almost only, creation is dedicated. He was, it is said, when a youthful apprentice, walking with a heavy basket of tools, during a hot day, from Peebles to Selkirk. A carriage, conveying an elderly and plain, yet benevolent-looking, gentleman was passing him in the same direction, when this gentleman, seeing him, offered him a seat with the coachman. Kemp mounted to the box and went to Selkirk, and thus took his first drive in a gentleman's carriage, and for the only time met the great genius with whose name and fame his own were to acquire an immortality.

The foundations of the monument rest upon solid rock fifty-two feet below the level of Princes Street; and its summit is two hundred feet six inches above that level. The entire superstructure is built of fine-grained, mediumly toned, brown sandstone, from Binney quarry, in the pointed style developed at Melrose Abbey.

It is also built in stories. The first consists of a noble groined vault, open on four sides and flanked by large, richly decorated, and pinnacled turrets. Beneath this arch is a statue nine feet high, cut from a single huge block of Carrara marble by John Steell, and representing Sir Walter Scott, seated on a rock, and wrapped in a shepherd's plaid, holding book and pen, and attended by "Maida" lying at his feet. The second story has also a groined vault, enclosed however, and forming a small but lofty room, lighted by a tall window, filled with brilliant, colored glass, in each of its four sides. That to the north bears the figure of St. Andrew; that opposite to it, St. Giles; that to the east the arms of Scotland, with their motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit;" and that to the west, the arms of Edinburgh, inscribed "Nisi Dominus frustra." In this room relics of the poet may be kept. Around the exterior of the second story, and of that above it, are galleries from which view can be had of the elaborate sculpture with which the monument is enriched, and, especially from the upper, of the city and its vicinity. Fifty-six niches are said to be provided for statues, about a dozen of which latter are in position. Among them are "Prince Charlie," "The Lady of the Lake,” “Dandie Dinmont," "Meg Merrilies," and "Dominie Sampson" (who is looking upon the railway beneath him, and evidently about to exclaim, — according to his custom, "pro-di-gi-ous!"). "Meg Dods" of "St. Ronan's," and "Mause Headrig" ("Old Mortality "), also appear. In the architectural sculpture are portraits of Scottish personages distinguished in literature or history. The material, it is gratifying to observe, retains, thus far, a smooth, hard surface (with slight exception), and indicates durability. Thus pre-eminent, in the very centre of his "own romantic town," enduring and majestic, stands this incomparable cross, a worthy shrine of the Wizard of the North, whose kind and chivalrous spirit seems enthroned within it, watching the places that knew him so well, and warming the hearts and cheering the memories of generations as they come after him.

The many local guides or guide-books will direct travellers, with more or less care, to the manifold objects of interest within or around Edinburgh. The number of its attractions and remarkables is too great to be even enumerated here, and to these authorities named explorers must be referred. Places or objects associated with Scott may, however, be, at least, mentioned here; and they

are many. If travellers make but one excursion in the environs of the town, it should be to Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat, already described, and again mentioned in the next chapter in the story Scott has associated with them. This excursion should also include the whole of the Queen's Drive, an excellent road, two or three miles long, encircling these heights, and commanding views of such unusual variety as to render it one of the most remarkable of all suburban drives.

At its entrance from the lower end of the Old Town is perhaps the widest-known structure in Scotland, the combined abbey and palace of Holyrood. Many persons who have not visited that country, know, indeed, its aspect, a quadrangle with a court-yard having three sides composed of high and rather modern buildings, and a fourth side formed by a lower screen, uniting two large, ancient, square towers, with pointed-roofed turrets at their angles. On the north side of the palace is the gray or blackened, decaying abbey. On the main floor of the northern side of the palace is the great gallery described in "Waverley," page 145. In the large square tower in front of the gallery are the well-known apartments once occupied by Mary, Queen of Scots, - an audience chamber, bedroom, dressing-room, and supper-room. -small, narrow, and rude - Rizzio was attacked. In these older portions of Holyrood we may imagine the scenes of "Marmion" (page 44), and of Roland Græme's interview with the Regent Murray, or other scenes of "The Abbot" (page 247).

66

In the last

From Holyrood, the Canongate-associated with sundry famous, if fabulous, "Chronicles "— leads to the recesses of the Old Town. Among these are many of the localities associated with Scott's chief story of Edinburgh, "The Heart of Mid-Lothian," that will be sketched in the next chapter. Among these recesses also, in 'Lady Stair's Close," is the original house of Lady Forester of "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror" (chapter xlix). In more open area is the princely Jacobean "Heriot's Hospital," nobly suggesting its founder, "Jingling Geordie," portrayed in The Fortunes of Nigel" (chapter xliii). At the Castle, that is monumental record of many stirring chapters of Scottish history, are, also, not a few associations with Sir Walter Scott.

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In the vicinity of Edinburgh many excursions may be made to portions of his Lands. Along the sea-coast may be visited North Berwick, the Bass Rock, and Tantallon (described in "Marmion,"

page 46), and Preston Pans ("Waverley," page 145). South-east is Crichton Castle ("Marmion," page 43); Carberry Hill (pages 249 and 258); and Dalkeith and Lasswade (chapter iv.), from which the way of travellers should be to Drummond's Hawthornden, and Roslin Glen and Castle and Chapel (page 17). Westward, seventeen miles, is Linlithgow with its palace, "excelling" all other Scottish "royal dwellings," a story of which is told in "Marmion." On the way thither may be seen Niddrie (page 253), where Queen Mary rested during the night after her escape from Loch-Leven Castle. Nearer town, and in this direction, are Ravelston and Craigcrook, interesting old mansions, mentioned on page 141, supposed prototypes of Tully-Veolan in "Waverley." Another original of the same residence, in this vicinity, is Traquair House, Peebles-shire, described in chapter xxxi. Routes for the tour southward from Edinburgh are mentioned at the close of the next chapter.

XXX.

"THE HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN."

Seventh Novel of the Series, written 1817-18; Published June, 1818;
Author's age, 47; Time of action, 1736-51.

A LTHOUGH many incidents of this eventful and pathetic story

are represented to have occurred in many widely scattered places, yet Edinburgh, as the title suggests, is the locality with which it is chiefly associated; indeed, it is peculiarly Scott's story of his "own romantic town." In order to visit the scene or the site of the earlier portion of its action, one should go to the upper part of the High Street. This, among the remarkable streets of Europe, is moderately wide, and marks the crest-line of the ridge on which stands the Old Town. It leads from the Canongate and a great deal of squalor, through general comfort, or even neatness and grim picturesqueness, to the Castle. Towards the latter, and on the south side of the street, is the church of St. Giles, originally cruciform, and a good example of early pointed, and now, although altered, an interesting building. It has a conspicuous tower (one

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