Chapter 1 - Page 2

airs, and erected classic temples on her
crags. In a word, and above all, she is a curiosity.
The Palace of Holyrood has been left aside in the growth
of Edinburgh, and stands grey and silent in a workman's
quarter and among breweries and gas works. It is a house
of many memories. Great people of yore, kings and
queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors, played their
stately farce for centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been
plotted, dancing has lasted deep into the night, - murder
has been done in its chambers. There Prince Charlie held
his phantom levees, and in a very gallant manner
represented a fallen dynasty for some hours. Now, all
these things of clay are mingled with the dust, the
king's crown itself is shown for sixpence to the vulgar;
but the stone palace has outlived these charges. For
fifty weeks together, it is no more than a show for
tourists and a museum of old furniture; but on the fifty-
first, behold the palace reawakened and mimicking its
past. The Lord Commissioner, a kind of stage sovereign,
sits among stage courtiers; a coach and six and
clattering escort come and go before the gate; at night,
the windows are lighted up, and its near neighbours, the
workmen, may dance in their own houses to the palace
music. And in this the palace is typical. There is a
spark among the embers; from time to time the old volcano
smokes. Edinburgh has but partly abdicated, and still
wears, in parody, her metropolitan trappings. Half a
capital and half a country town, the whole city leads a
double existence; it has long trances of the one and
flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles,
it is half alive and half a monumental marble. There are
armed men and cannon in the citadel overhead; you may see
the troops marshalled on the high parade; and at night
after the early winter even-fall, and in the morning
before the laggard winter dawn, the wind carries abroad
over Edinburgh the sound of drums and bugles. Grave
judges sit bewigged in what was once the scene of
imperial deliberations. Close by in the High Street
perhaps the trumpets may sound about the stroke of noon;
and you see a troop of citizens in tawdry masquerade;
tabard above, heather-mixture trowser below, and the men
themselves trudging in the mud among unsympathetic by-
standers. The grooms of a well-appointed circus tread
the streets with a better presence. And yet these are
the Heralds and Pursuivants of Scotland, who are about to
proclaim a new law of the United Kingdom before two-score
boys, and thieves, and hackney-coachmen. Meanwhile every
hour the bell of the University rings out over the hum of
the streets, and every hour a double tide of students,
coming and going, fills the deep