There is no city which can be so "observed." I venture that when you have stood on Castle Hill—on the High Street with its narrow opening between the lands framing near and far pictures—on Calton Hill—when you have been able to "rest and be thankful" at Corstorphine Hill—when you have climbed the Salisbury crags—when you have mounted to Arthur's Seat and looked down as did King Arthur before there was an Edinburgh—you will believe that not any slightest corner but fills the eye and soul.
There is, of course, no single object in Edinburgh to compare with objects of traveler's interest farther south. The castle is not the Tower, Holyrood is a memory beside Windsor, St. Giles is no Canterbury, St. Mary's is not St. Paul's, the Royal Scottish art gallery is meager indeed, notwithstanding certain rare riches in comparison with the National. But still one may believe of any of these superior objects, as T. Sandys retorted to Shovel when they had played the game of matching the splendours of Thrums with those of London and Shovel had named Saint Paul's, and Tommy's list of native wonders was exhausted, but never Tommy—"it would like to be in Thrums!" All these lesser glories go to make up the singular glory which is Edinburgh.
Edinburgh Castle
The Castle
And there is the castle. Nowhere in all the world is castle more strategically set to guard the city and to guard the memories of the city and the beauty.
For the castle is Edinburgh. It stood there, stalwart in the plain, thousands and thousands of years ago, this castle hill which invited a castle as soon as man began to fortify himself. It has stood here a thousand years as the bulwark of man against man. Certain it will stand there a thousand years to come. And after—after man has destroyed and been destroyed, or when he determines that like night and the sea there shall be no more destruction. Castle Hill is immortal.
Always it has been the resort of kings and princes. First it was the keep of princesses, far back in Pictish days before Christian time, this "Castell of the Maydens." From 987 B. C. down to 1566, when Mary was lodged here for safe keeping in order that James might be born safe and royal, the castle has had royalties in its keeping. It has kept them rather badly in truth. While many kings have been born here, few kings have died in its security; almost all Scottish kings have died tragically, almost all Scottish kings have died young, and left their kingdom to some small prince whose regents held him in this castle for personal security, while they governed the realm, always to its disaster.
There is not one of the Stewart kings, one of the Jameses, from First to Sixth, who did not come into the heritage of the kingdom as a baby, a youth; even the Fourth, who rebelled against his father and won the kingdom—and wore a chain around his body secretly for penance. And these baby kings and stripling princes have been lodged in the castle for safe keeping, prologues to the swelling act of the imperial theme.