l8 37 38- ROOM IN RICHMOND COURT. 59 



a very palace. It is situate in that strange and not very 

 decent place of Edinburgh, Richmond Court ; but, as far 

 as I have yet seen, it is an excellent little corner, with the 

 best window in the court. I have a goodly sized furnished 

 room a perfect palace of a laboratory ; the window to be 

 sure does not command a very fine view, but lets in a great 

 stream of light, that valuable auxiliary to all sorts of 

 researches that don't ask the shelter of darkness. I have 

 five arm-chairs, with naming yellow covers ; walls adorned 

 with sewed samplers, portraits of Queen Mary and Richard 

 Cceur de Lion, and which is a great deal better, a beautiful, 

 unframed, fine engraving of one of Gerhard Douw's pic- 

 tures, not to mention an elegant looking-glass, wash-stand, 

 tumblers, glasses, &c. ; and a press, the key of which I am 

 promised, if I don't break the old lady's china. 



" What a delightful walk it is round Arthur Seat ! When 

 the evening is dull, I walk through the valley and the 

 Hunter's Bog; when any way clear, I journey round the 

 Radical Road, for the sake of the extraordinary view, 

 never two nights alike, and yet always so beautiful. I 

 wonder some of the painters don't build themselves a 

 painting-box, as the sportsmen do a shooting box, beside 

 the Cat-nick : the whole line of buildings, the alternation 

 of land and sea, are so fitted to show every charm which 

 varied atmospherical effects can produce on a scene. If I 

 had a son who showed any capacity for landscape painting, 

 I would stick him up, I think, on Salisbury Crags, and 

 disinherit him if he did not beat Turner. The scene is 

 altogether so wondrous, so changeful in all its bearings, and 

 so soothing to a mind busied with turning over a thousand 

 subtle subjects, that I shall never weary of it, and probably 

 as long as I go out to Richmond Court, I shall come home 

 that way. 



