88 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



tresses for anotlier occasion, we now introduce the reader at once to the heart of 

 Midlothian. How many thousands who never before, perhaps, gave Scotland 

 or its history a thought, now start at the association, and behold the city — 

 " its palaces and towers" — peopled with creations that bid them " welcome" 

 in the voice and garb of old acquaintances, whom the genius of Scott first 

 conjured up and introduced to universal favour. 



But as it is from the chronicler that we must here extract oui- chief materials 

 for the sketch of Edinburgh, we turn at once to that source, and taking 

 our station in the fortress of its ancient kings, select from the memorials of the 

 past such subjects, as, in the briefest space, may inspire the most interest or 

 novelty. In this view the Castle is fully entitled to precedence. 



Like many subjects which the acknowledged difficulty of the task has rendered 

 a theme for ambitious description, the Castle of Edinburgh has had many able 

 historians, and in almost every new visitor a new eulogist. But of what has been 

 so often and well described, an entire stranger can only form an imperfect notion. 

 To be admired as it ought, it must be seen — and once seen, the magnificent 

 panorama which opens from its ramparts, will remain impressed upon his memory 

 through life. The view from the north-east bastion, like that from the Calton- 

 hill, has been compared to the view from St. Elmo, on the Bay of Naples.* 



The prospect of Edinburgh, said Sir Walter Scott, commands in its general 

 outline a close-built high-piled city, stretching itself out beneath in a form 

 which, to a romantic imagination, may be supposed to represent that of a dragon 

 — now a noble arm of the sea, with its rocks, isles, distant shores, and boundary 

 of mountains ; and now a fair and fertile champaign country, varied with hill, dale, 

 and reck, and skirted by the picturesque ridge of the Pentland mountains. But 

 in illustration of " mine own romantic town," Dr. James Johnson has employed 

 a still more recent simile. " Edinburgh," says he, " resembles two aged parents, 

 surrounded by a fair and flourishing family of children and grandchildren, of 

 whom the Castle and High-street may represent the former — the new town 

 and southern district the latter. The ancient pair are eyeing, with something 

 like disdain, if not disgust, the finery, foolery, and fashions of their effeminate 



• Those who draw this comparison, are supposed to class the features of resemblance thus ; — the Castle- 

 hill with the heights of St. Elmo — the Estuary of the Forth with the Bay between Naples and Salerno — 

 North Berwick-law with the cone of Vesuvius — the rock of the Bass with the rock of Capri (Caprcae) — 

 Inchkcith with the islet of Nisita — Inchcomb with the Castle of Baiae — and the wooded shore of Posilippo 

 to that which stretches westward from Ncwhavcn — but here the resemblance fails: and admitting that the 

 one view is sufficiently like to remind us of the other, the spectator will readily observe, that the respective 

 features of resemblance are reversal, and that the objects to the right hand in the Scottish view, correspond 

 only with those on the left in the Neapolitan. 



