EDINBURGH.
Leaving the pasture, we passed the Moorhouse farm, where Robert Pollok, author of “The Course of Time,” was born, in 1798, two years after the death of Robert Burns. We came by Linlithgow, the birthplace of Queen Mary. The majestic ruins of its once proud palace are still standing on a green hillside near the town, as if to impress the passer-by with the mutability of all human greatness and all human grandeur.
In one hour more we had reached the end of our journey. Edinburgh has two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, just half the number of Glasgow, and is a magnificent city. It is the pride of every Scotchman. It is called “The Classic City,” “The Bonnie City,” “The Capital City,” “The Monumental City,” and “The Athens of Britain.” I expected to hear it called “The Boston of Europe,” but the people did not seem to think of it. This was the birthplace of Sir Walter Scott, the novelist and poet; the home of Hume, the scholar and historian; of John Knox, the reformer, who never feared the face of man, nor doubted the Word of God; of Thomas Chalmers, the Astronomical preacher from whose pulpit the stars poured forth a flood of light and glory; and it was for a thousand years the home of the Scottish Kings and state officials. It is now the political home of Gladstone, who is perhaps the greatest living statesman, and the home of Drummond, author of “Natural law in the Spiritual World.”
The city is filled with many objects of peculiar interest, only a few of which I will mention. About a hundred years ago, though the people here speak of it as “recently,” the city was greatly enlarged, and I suppose the object of the enlargement was to make room for the monuments and statues. One sees a monument on almost every street-corner, and there is a perfect forest of statuary. These Scotch people are very fond of honoring great men. I am going to leave here to-morrow, for fear they put up a monument to me. They have not said anything about the monument yet, but I notice the police have been following me about for two or three days, as though they thought of something of that sort.
SCOTT’S MONUMENT.
On Princess street, in the prettiest and most romantic part of the city, stands a colossal monument to Sir Walter Scott which was fashioned by one of the world’s greatest artists, and which is said to be one of the most superb structures of the kind ever built. I am quite prepared to believe the statement. In this monument architectural grandeur and artistic beauty are blended in the sweetest and most perfect manner imaginable. Like a sunset at sea, it never becomes monotonous, but is always pleasing. A fit emblem this of Scott himself, in whom a strong character was so gracefully blended with smooth and polished manners. This monument may be painted, but it beggars description.
To me, however, the most interesting object in Edinburgh is the Castle, located just in the centre of the city. The Castle is built on a high rock whose base covers an area of eleven acres. This rock rises to a height of four hundred feet, its summit being accessible only in one place, the other portions of the rock being very precipitous, and, in some places, absolutely perpendicular. The top of the rock presents a level surface, has an area of five acres, and is surmounted by a massive stone wall built close around on the edge of the cliff. On this storm-beaten rock, and within these moss-covered walls, stands the historical Castle, built ten centuries ago. In appearance the Castle is “grand, gloomy, and peculiar.” In his charming poem, Marmion, Scott refers to it thus: