Public Monuments would seem to be the grand passion of the Edinburghers. The most conspicuous are those of Lord Nelson on Calton Hill (next to the Castle, if not before it, the most commanding location in the city) and of Walter Scott on Prince's-street, nearly opposite the Castle, across the glen, in full sight of all who arrive in Edinburgh by Railroad, as also from the Castle and its vicinity, as well as from the broad and thronged street beside which it is located. But there are Monuments also to Pitt, to Lord Melville, and some twenty or thirty other deceased notables. These are generally located in the higher squares or gardens which wisely occupy a large portion of the ground-plot of the new town. Public Hospitals and Infirmaries are also a prominent feature of the Scottish capital, there being several spacious and fine edifices devoted to the healing of the sick, most if not all of them founded and endowed by private munificence. There are several Bridges across the two principal and more on the secondary or cross valleys, ravines or gorges which may well attract attention. These Bridges are often several hundred feet long, and from thirty to eighty feet high, and you look down from their roadway upon the red-tiled roofs of large eight or nine-story houses beside and below them. Nearly or quite every house in Edinburgh is built of stone, which is rather abundant in Scotland, and often of a fair, free, easily worked quality. Many even of the larger houses, especially in the old town, are built of coarse, rough, undressed stone, often of round, irregular boulders, made to retain the places assigned them by dint of abundant and excellent mortar. In the better buildings, however, the stone is of a finer quality, and handsomely cut, though almost entirely of a brown or dark gray color. The winding drive to the summit of Calton Hill, looking down upon large, tall, castle-like houses of varied material and workmanship, with the prospect from the summit, are among the most impressive I have seen in Europe.
I was interested this afternoon in looking around from one to another of the edifices with which History or the pen of the Wizard of the North has rendered us all familiar—the Tolbooth, the Parliament House, the Castle, the house of John Knox, the principal Churches, &c., &c. I spent most time of all in the Palace of Holyrood, which, though unwisely located, never gorgeously furnished, and long since abandoned of Royalty to dilapidation and decay, still wears the stamp of majesty and will be regal even when crumbled into ruins. Its tapestries are faded and rotten; its paintings, never brilliant specimens of the art, have also felt the tooth of Time; its furniture, never sumptuous, would but poorly answer at this day the needs of an ordinary family; its ball-room is now a lumber-room; its royal beds excite premonitions of rheumatism: its boudoir says nought of Beauty but that it passeth away. Yet the carefully preserved ivory miniature of the hapless Queen of Scots is still radiant with that superlative loveliness which seems unearthly and prophetic of coming sorrows; and it were difficult to view without emotion the tapestry she worked, the furniture she brought over from France, some mementoes of her unwise marriage, the little room in which she sat at supper with Rizzio and three or four friends when the assassins rushed in through a secret door, stabbed her ill-starred favorite, and dragged him bleeding through her bed-room into an outer audience chamber, and there left him to die, his life-blood oozing out from fifty-six wounds. The partition still stands which the Queen caused to be erected to shut off the scene of this horrible tragedy from that larger portion of the reception-room which she was obliged still to occupy, therein to greet daily those whom public cares and duties constrained her to confer with and listen to, though Murder had stained ineffaceably the floor of that regal hall. Alas! unhappy Queen!—and yet not all unhappy. Other sovereigns have their little day of pomp and adulation, then shrivel to dust and are forgotten; but she still lives and reigns wherever Beauty finds admirers or Suffering commands sympathy. Other Queens innumerable have lived and died, and their scepters crumbled to dust even sooner than their clay; but Mary is still Queen of Scots, and so will remain forever.
XXXIX.
SCOTLAND.
The Clyde, Wednesday, July 30, 1851.
I am leaving Scotland without having seen half enough of it. My chief reasons are a determination to run over a good part of Ireland and an engagement to leave Europe in my favorite ship Baltic next week; but, besides these, this continual prevalence of fog, mist, cloud, drizzle and rain diminish my regret that I am unable to visit the Highlands. My friends who, having a day's start of me, went up the Forth from Edinburgh to Stirling, thence visiting Lochs Lomond and Katrine, thence proceeding by boat to Glasgow, were unable to see aught of the mountains but their bases, their heads being shrouded in vapor; and, being landed from a steamboat at the head of Lake navigation on Loch Lomond, found five miles of land-carriage between them and a comfortable shelter, and only vehicles enough to take the women and part of the men; the rest being obliged to make the distance on foot in a drenching rain, with night just at hand. Such adventures as this,—and they are common in this region,—console me for my disappointment in not having been able to see the Heather in its mountain home. The Gorse, the Broom, the Whins, not to speak of the Scottish Thistle, have been often visible by the roadside, and the prevalence of evergreens attests the influence of a colder clime than that of England; indeed, the backwardness of all the crops argues a difference of at least a fortnight in climate between Edinburgh and London. Wheat has hardly filled yet in the Scottish Lowlands; Oats are barely headed; and the Grass is little more than half cut and not half dried into Hay; on the contrary, it now looks as if it must winter on the ground or be taken in thoroughly water-soaked. Being so much later, the crops are far less blown down here than they are in England; but neither Grass nor Grain is generally heavy, while Potatoes and Turnips, though backward, looked remarkably vigorous and promising. Beautifully farmed is all this Lowland country, well fenced, clear of weeds, and evidently in the hands of intelligent, industrious, scientific cultivators. Wood is quite plentiful, Oak especially, though shade-trees are not so frequent in cultivated fields as in England; but rough, rocky, precipitous spots are quite common here, though in the Lowlands, and these are wisely devoted to growing timber. Belgium is more genial and more fertile, but I have rarely seen a tract of country better farmed than that stretching westward from Edinburgh to Glasgow (48 miles) and thence down the Clyde to Greenock, some 22 miles further. The farmers in our Mohawk Valley ought to pass through this gloomy, chilly, misty country, and be shamed into a better improvement of their rare but misused advantages.
Traveling is useful in that it gives us a more vivid idea of the immense amount of knowledge we yet lack. I supposed till to-day that, by virtue of a Scotch-Irish ancestry (in part) and a fair acquaintance with the works of Walter Scott, Burns, Hogg, &c., I knew the Lowland Scotch dialect pretty thoroughly; and yet a notice plainly posted up, "This Lot To Feu," completely bothered me. On inquiry, I learned that to feu a lot means to let or lease it for building purposes—in other words, to be built upon on a ground-rent. I suppose I learned this years ago, but had entirely forgotten it.