EDINBURGH—A SCOTCH BREAKFAST—THE CASTLE—PALACE OF HOLYROOD—
QUEEN MARY—RIZZIO—CHARLES THE TENTH.
It is an old place, Edinboro’. The old town and the new are separated by
a broad and deep ravine, planted with trees and shrubbery; and across
this, on a level with the streets on either side, stretches a bridge of
a most giddy height, without which all communication would apparently be
cut off. “Auld Reekie” itself looks built on the back-bone of a ridgy
crag, and towers along on the opposite side of the ravine, running up
its twelve-story houses to the sky in an ascending curve, till it
terminates in the frowning and battlemented castle, whose base is
literally on a mountain top in the midst of the city. At the foot of
this ridge, in the lap of the valley, lies Holyrood-house; and between
this and the castle runs a single street, part of which is the old
Canongate. Princes street, the Broadway of the new town, is built along
the opposite edge of the ravine facing the long, many-windowed walls of
the Canongate, and from every part of Edinboro’ these singular features
are conspicuously visible. A more striking contrast than exists between
these two parts of the same city could hardly be imagined. On one side a
succession of splendid squares, elegant granite houses, broad and
well-paved streets, columns, statues, and clean sidewalks, thinly
promenaded and by the well-dressed exclusively—a kind of wholly grand
and half deserted city, which has been built too ambitiously for its
population—and on the other, an antique wilderness of streets and
“wynds,” so narrow and lofty as to shut out much of the light of heaven;
a thronging, busy, and particularly dirty population, sidewalks almost
impassable from children and other respected nuisances; and altogether,
between the irregular and massive architecture, and the unintelligible
jargon agonizing the air about you, a most outlandish and strange city.
Paris is not more unlike Constantinople than one side of Edinboro’ is
unlike the other. Nature has probably placed “a great gulf” between
them.
We toiled up the castle to see the sunset. Oh, but it was beautiful! I
have no idea of describing it; but Edinboro’, to me, will be a picture
seen through an atmosphere of powdered gold, mellow as an eve on the
Campagna. We looked down on the surging sea of architecture below us,
and whether it was the wavy cloudiness of a myriad of reeking chimneys,
or whether it was a fancy Glenlivet-born in my eye, the city seemed to
me like a troop of war-horses, rearing into the air with their gallant
riders. The singular boldness of the hills on which it is built, and of
the crags and mountains which look down upon it, and the impressive
_lift_ of its towering architecture into the sky, gave it altogether a
look of pride and war-likeness that answers peculiarly well to the
chivalric history of Scotland. And so much for the first look at “Auld
Reekie.”
My friend had determined to have what he called a “flare-up” of a Scotch
breakfast, and we were set down, the morning after our arrival, at nine,
to cold grouse, salmon, cold beef, marmalade, jellies, honey, five kinds
of bread, oatmeal cakes, coffee, tea, and toast; and I am by no means
sure that that is all. It is a fine country in which one gets so much by
the simple order of “breakfast at nine.”
We parted after having achieved it, my companion going before me to
Dumbartonshire; and, with a “wee callant” for a guide, I took my way to
Holyrood.
At the very foot of Edinboro’ stands this most interesting of royal
palaces—a fine old pile, though at the first view rather disappointing.
It might have been in the sky, which was dun and cold, or it might have
been in the melancholy story most prominent in its history, but it
oppressed me with its gloom. A rosy cicerone in petticoats stepped out
from the porter’s lodge, and rather brightened my mood with her smile
and courtesy, and I followed on to the chapel royal, built, Heaven knows
when, but in a beautiful state of gothic ruin. The girl went on with her
knitting and her well-drilled recitation of the sights upon which those
old fretted and stone traceries had let in the light; and I walked about
feeding my eyes upon its hoar and touching beauty, listening little till
she came to the high altar, and in the same broad Scotch monotony, and
with her eyes still upon her work, hurried over something about Mary
Queen of Scots. She was married to Darnley on the spot where I stood!
The mechanical guide was accustomed evidently to an interruption here,
and stood still a minute or two to give my surprise the usual grace.
Poor, poor Mary! I had the common feeling, and made probably the same
ejaculation that thousands have made on the spot, that I had never
before realized the melancholy romance of her life half so nearly. It
had been the sadness of an hour before—a feeling laid aside with the
book that recorded it—now it was, as it were, a pity and a grief for
the living, and I felt struck with it as if it had happened yesterday.
If Rizzio’s harp had sounded from her chamber, it could not have seemed
more tangibly a scene of living story.
“And through this door they dragged the murdered favorite; and here
under this stone, he was buried!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Poor Rizzio!”
“I’m thinkin’ that’s a’, sir!”
It was a broad hint, but I took another turn down the nave of the old
ruin, and another look at the scene of the murder, and the grave of the
victim.
“And this door communicated with Mary’s apartments!”
“Yes—ye hae it a’ the noo!”