GREYFRIARS' CHURCHYARD.
I like best to think that in this churchyard, on a rainy Sunday, Scott met a charming girl, fell in love with her, took her home under his umbrella, and, did not marry her—his own romance!
Because no king shall ever wear the crown again, nor wave the scepter, nor wield the sword of state, the Regalia, housed in the Crown Room, and guarded from commoner and king by massive iron grating, is more interesting than any other appanage of royalty in the world. The crown which was worn by Bruce, and which sat rather uneasily on the very unsteady head of Charles II at what time he was crowned at Scone and was scolded, is of pure gold and much bejeweled. The scepter, made in Paris for James V, carries a beryl, come from Egypt three thousand years ago, or, from a Druid priest in the mist of time. The sword was a gift from Pope Julius to James IV; in those days the Scottish sovereign was surely the "Most Catholic Majesty."
England has no ancient regalia; hers were thrown into the melting pot by Cromwell. The Protector—and Destructor—would fain have grasped these "Honours," but they were spirited away, and later concealed in the castle. Here they remained a hundred and ten years, sealed in a great oak chest. The rumour increased that they had gone to England. And finally Sir Walter Scott secured an order from George IV to open the chest (Feb. 4, 1818).
It was a tremendous moment to Scott. Could he restore the Honours as well as the country? There they lay, crown of The Bruce, scepter of James V, sword of Pope and King. The castle guns thundered—how Mons Meg must have regretted her lost voice!
And still we can hear the voice of Scott, when a commissioner playfully lifted the crown as if to place it on the head of a young lady near—"No, by God, no!" Never again shall this crown rest on any head. That is assured in a codicil to the Act of Union. And—it may be that other crowns shall in like manner gain a significance when they no longer rest on uneasy heads.
The view from the King's bastion is royal. Where is there its superior? And only its rival from Calton Hill, from Arthur's Seat. The Gardens lie below, the New Town spreads out, the city runs down to Leith, the Firth shines and carries on its bosom the Inchkeith and the May; the hills of Fife rampart the North; the Highlands with Ben Lomond for sentinel form the purple West; and south are the Braid hills and the heathery Pentlands—the guide has pointed through a gap in the castle wall to the hills and to the cottage at Swanston.
"City of mists and rain and blown gray spaces,
Dashed with the wild wet colour and gleam of tears,
Dreaming in Holyrood halls of the passionate faces
Lifted to one Queen's face that has conquered the years.
Are not the halls of thy memory haunted places?
Cometh there not as a moon (where blood-rust sears
Floors a-flutter of old with silks and laces)
Gilding a ghostly Queen thro' the mist of tears?
"Proudly here, with a loftier pinnacled splendour
Throned in his northern Athens, what spells remain
Still on the marble lips of the Wizard, and render
Silent the gazer on glory without a stain!
Here and here, do we whisper with hearts more tender,
Tusitala wandered thro' mist and rain;
Rainbow-eyes and frail and gallant and slender,
Dreaming of pirate isles in a jeweled main.
"Up the Canongate climbeth, cleft a-sunder
Raggedly here, with a glimpse of the distant sea,
Flashed through a crumbling alley, a glimpse of wonder,
Nay, for the City is throned in Eternity!
Hark! from the soaring castle a cannon's thunder
Closeth an hour for the world and an æon for me,
Gazing at last from the martial heights whereunder
Deathless memories roll to an ageless sea."
High Street
If the Baedeker with a cautious reservation, declares Princes Street "Perhaps" the handsomest in Europe, there is no reservation in the guide-book report of Taylor, the "Water Poet," who wrote of the High Street in the early Sixteen Hundreds, "the fairest and goodliest streete that ever my eyes beheld." Surely it was then the most impressive street in the world. Who can escape a sharp impression to-day? It was then the most curious street in the world, and it has lost none of its power to evoke wonder.