till every atom of the air was reverberating with sound, every cliff and every building returning its echo, the ground reeling to the noise, the fleecy smoke hanging upon the cliffs like the clouds of heaven, or settling down till the Athens put on the appearance of a sea, in which the more elevated buildings and spires seemed islets, and the castle, with her glaring fires, and her astounding volleys, towered like an Etna, burning, blazing, and thundering across the deep. What with the closing of the natural clouds, and the spreading of the artificial ones, the darkness which even at noon-day had settled over the city was awfully sublime; even the mass of the castle, large and lofty though it be, was shrouded in the thick vapour of the sky and of itself, so that all which the eye could discern, was the flashes of artillery contending with the flickering of distant lightning, and all that the ear could hear was the mingled peal and jubilee, in the pauses of which the voice of the distant thunder was too feeble for being heard. The darkness borrowed additional sublimity, if indeed that was possible, from the pure and unclouded light of the sun, which a few straggling beams that occasionally stole their way as far as the slopes of Arthur Seat, told me was sleeping upon the plains of Lothian; and the din of the joy received all the accession of contrast from the stilly silence which reigned in the deserted halls and desolated villages of that busy and blooming land. Amid this darkness and din, the royal barge rowed softly towards the Scottish strand, and the sovereign of these realms was the first to set his foot upon Scottish ground, while the author of these pages occupied the very pinnacle of the Scottish palace. The magistrates of Leith, all tingling and but ill at their ease, stood shaking and speechless to receive him; but their blushes were a good deal spared by those grand monopolists of Caledonian loyalty, the lords president, justice clerk, baron register, and advocate, and that mighty master of the ceremonies, and that mightier memorialist, (who, it was hoped, would cut the thing into everlasting brass,) Sir Walter Scott. But though the monopolizing lords blushed not, they blanched a little, when they found the eyes of the king turning everywhere with the same beaming delight upon the people, whose appearance and whose conduct showed him that Scotland, if not the most polished, was by no means the least polished jewel of his crown; and the baronet, who haply was brought there, chiefly from the eclât which his literary renown would confer upon his less gifted but more official associates, found perchance that the glory of an author, however high in itself, and however rewarded, is but a tiny instrument of Royal joy.
The guardsmen, who very judiciously were chiefly either Scottish citizens or Scottish soldiers, succeeded, not in keeping order among their countrymen, but in preventing breaches of it among themselves; but the Craggan nan phidiach,—the Raven of the Rock of Glengarry, was of too bold spirit, and too bustling wing, to be so restrained. To prevent accidents, this mighty personage, who had stood up bonnetted, dirked, and pistolled, at the King’s coronation, to the utter dismay of the ladies of England, had been sent upon this occasion to keep watch and ward upon the state-coach; but when the coach had taken its place in the procession, the chieftain stepped a little way out of his, bustling through the crowd to give Mac Mhic Alistair Mhor’s welcome; and it was not till the Lion of England had knitted his brows and shaken his mane, that the Raven of the Rock flew back to her station.
Onward moved the procession, through avenues of people, and arches of triumph,—one of which latter spoke as much as ten volumes upon the learning of the Athens, and the ignorance of the mercatores of Leith: “O felicem diem!” said that side of the first triumphant arch which looked towards the Athens; “O happy day!” quoth the one which smiled upon the lack-Latin lieges of Leith.
When the procession had cleared the town of Leith, and was moving gracefully along that broad and beautiful walk, which still keeps Leith at a respectful and proper distance from the Athens, the first presentation upon Scottish ground was made to the King—and perhaps none more honourable in its spirit, or honest in its intention, was made to him during his whole sojourn. There was presented to George the Fourth, a Parliament-cake,—not such a cake as is gleaned from the fields of a country, or baked in the oven of a royal burgh, and thence sent to St. Stephen’s Chapel as a well-leavened waive-offering, (and from which, by the way, Scotland has got by way of eminence the name of the Land of Cakes,) but something more luscious and learned still,—a cake of sweet and spicy ginger-bread, stamped with all the letters of the alphabet, and by combination and consequence, with the whole learning and literature of the united kingdom. The presentation alluded to happened thus: Margaret Sibbald, an able-bodied matron of Fisher-Row, had been induced, through the compound stimulus of curiosity and loyalty, to leave her home all unbreakfasted, in order to take her place in the royal procession; Margaret had stored her ample leathern pouch with a penny-worth of Parliament-cake, in order to support nature through this praise-worthy work; but Margaret’s eyes had been so much feasted, that Margaret’s stomach was forgotten. Seeing that the King wore a hue which she did not consider as the hue of health, and judging that it might arise from depletion induced by his rocking upon the waters, she elbowed her way through horsemen, Highland-men, archer-men, and official men, up to the royal carriage, and drawing forth her only cake, held it up to his Majesty, expressing sorrow that his royal countenance was so pale, and assuring him that if she had had any thing better he would have got it. A forward strippling of the guards charged Margaret sword in hand, to which Margaret replied, “Ye wearifu’ thing o’ a labster! Ye hae nae mense, I hae dune mair for the King than you can either do or help to do; I hae born him sax bonnie seamen as ere hauled a rope, or handled a cutlass.” It was, however, no time for prolonged hostilities, and so Margaret was lost in the crowd, and the guardsman not noticed in the procession.
Many were the events of the march ere the King arrived at the end of Picardy-Place, to receive the silver keys of the Athens, and hear the silvery tones of her chief magistrate; I shall mention only one: The pawky provost of a burgh of the extreme north, determined to see the whole, and yet not pay his half-guinea for a seat in one of the booths, had scrambled to the top of a tree at Greenside-Place, where he hung rocking like a crow’s nest. As the King approached, the provost swung himself to one side, waving his bonnet, and screeching his huzza, in strains which would have scared all the owls in England; and when the mass and the movement of this loyalty were in full effect, they proved too mighty for the support, so that the pine and the provost fell prostrate before the King. Even this was not much heeded: the procession moved on, and the provost moved off.
At last the King came to the wicker-gate of the city, the keys were presented, the speech was spoken, and the crowd in a great measure melted away, by the majority hurrying away toward the Calton-Hill, whence they could command a view of the whole during almost a mile of its march. This desertion fell like cold water upon the official men, and even the King himself seemed disappointed.
But the gloom and the disappointment were of no long duration, for no sooner did he turn the corner into St. Andrew’s-street, than the mass of shouting and ecstatic people who hung upon the whole beetling side of the hill, and covered every part of the buildings, came upon him with a shock of joy and a touch of exultation, which made the cold state of the monarch give way to the warm feelings of the man. “My God! that is altogether overpowering!” said he, snatching off his hat and essaying to join in the cheer, but his voice faltered, and tears, which were not tears of sorrow, suffused his eyes, and watered his cheeks.
His reception when he landed had been confined, and the people were too near for giving vent to their feelings; and the delivering of the keys, though there was a crowd there because the King halted a little, was a piece of mummery, about which so reflective a people as the Scotch cared little; but when the King was discerned in Prince’s Street, when the living hill-side beheld his approach, and when the assembled nation reflected that their Monarch was coming in peace to visit them,—it was then that Scotland welcomed the King, with a welcome which none that saw or heard it is likely ever to forget. The first shout was astounding, and it rose and rung till it was answered by voices of joy over a wide circumference.
During all this time I had not seen the procession, but I heard of it from one who was close by the royal person all the time, and whose character for truth and feeling is recognised as well by the world of letters as by the world of men. I must confess that, choice and chosen as was my place, the occupation of it was a pretty severe trial on my patience; and when I first saw the yellow plumes of the Braidalbanes, and the tall and majestic form of their leader, issuing from behind the monument of David Hume, and heard the notes of their bagpipes pealing “the Campbells are coming,” I had almost wished myself a Highlander, and in the procession. The King soon arrived at the Palace, had a hurried interview with some of the officers of state, and then drove off for Dalkeith-House, there to pause and recover from the fatigue of the voyage, and the excitement of the procession.
THE ILLUMINATION, THE LEVEE AND COURT, AND THE LADIES.