JOHN GRAHAM OF CLAVERHOUSE, VISCOUNT DUNDEE.
Another century, and James III is king. This least royal of the Stewarts, jealous of his more royal brother, locked the Duke of Albany in the castle, and felt secure. But the Duke had friends. A French clipper came into Leith. It brought wine to Albany, and the wine cask contained a rope. Inviting his guardians to sup with him, he plied them with heated wine, perhaps drugged wine, then, the dagger. Albany's servant insisted on going down the rope first. It was short, he fell the rest of the distance. Albany hurried back for the sheets from his bed, made his safe way down. He carried the servant man all the way to Leith—he had just "whingered" the guard—found the boat, and safety, and France.
Up the Rock, in Covenanting days, stole Claverhouse, the Bonnie Dundee, to a secret conference with the Duke of Gordon, hoping to win him away to Stewart loyalty and the North.
I cannot remember that any of Scott's characters went this way. He thought it "scant footing for a cat." But Stevenson knew the way. Perhaps not actually, but he sent more than one of his characters up or down the Rock—St. Ives with a rope that was long enough to reach.
Calton Hill
Perhaps the best view of Edinburgh—only perhaps, for each view differs, and you have not seen the whole city unless you have seen it from the various vantage points—is that from the Calton Hill. For a very good reason. The Hill itself is negligible enough, although it is impossible to understand Edinburgh, to understand Scotland, unless you have looked on the architectural remnants on this Hill, and considered them philosophically. But, as Stevenson said—"Of all places for a view, the Calton Hill is perhaps the best; since you can see the castle, which you lose from the castle, and Arthur's Seat, which you cannot see from Arthur's Seat." An excellent reason, which also places the castle and Arthur's Seat.
Calton Hill does not tower so high over the city as these other two points; one may still look up to Arthur's Seat, one may look across to the castle. Yet, the city lies near. Yet, the country rolls out to the Firth, and out to the Pentlands. Perhaps a gray-sea haze dulls the far edge of the far Kingdom of Fife. Perhaps a blue haze hangs over the Pentlands. Perhaps a smoke-cloud makes a nearer sky for the town itself, this Auld Reekie. Not only perhaps, but very probably. There are clear days in Edinburgh. They are to be treasured. There is no air more stimulating in all the world. October sometimes slips into the other months of the year, fills the air with wine, clears the air of filament. But, not often, not often for the tourist from beyond seas who makes Edinburgh in the summer. But still it is possible from Calton Hill to catch the farthest glory of the encircling hills, and the near glory of the ever glorious city.
The Hill itself is a place of monuments, and a very pretentious place. Also, very absurd. I suppose it is possible to be of two minds about the remnant of the Parthenon which stands so conspicuously on the highest plateau, a construction dating back to that royal time when George the Fourth came to this northern capital, and was—alas!—received as though he were Bonnie Prince Charlie himself; and was received—again alas!—by Sir Walter clad in a Campbell plaid, and as loyal to the Regent, the florid Florizel, as he had been to Prince Charles in the "Waverleys." Because of all these loyalties this never finished monument, with its twelve columns and architrave spread above, looks sufficiently pathetic, and sufficiently absurd. "A very suitable monument to certain national characteristics," said a later Scots writer, who perhaps never ceased being a Jacobite.
There are monuments; one to Dugald Stewart, and the visitor not philosophical is apt to ask, Who was Dugald Stewart? There is a memorial to Burns whose friend Willie that brewed a peck o' malt lies in the Old Calton burying ground near by. Hume lies there, too, and Dr. John Brown, and Stevenson's dead.