152 AUDUBON 



Holyrood Palace. What a variety of causes has brought 

 king after king to that spot ; what horrors have been com- 

 mitted there ! The general structure is not of a defensive 

 nature ; it lies in a valley, and has simply its walls to guard 

 it. I was surprised that the narrow stairs which led to the 

 small chamber where the murder was committed, com- 

 municated at once with the open country, and I was also 

 astonished to see that the mirrors were positively much 

 superior to those of the present day in point of intrinsic 

 purity of reflection ; the plates cannot be less than three- 

 fourths of an inch in thickness. The furniture is all de- 

 caying fast, as well as the paintings which are set into the 

 walls. The great room for the King's audience contains a 

 throne by no means corresponding with the ideas de luxe 

 that I had formed. The room, however, being hung in 

 scarlet cloth, had a very warm effect, and I remember 

 it with pleasure. I also recall the view I then had from a 

 high hill, of the whole city of Edinburgh and the country 

 around the sea ; the more I look on Edinburgh the better 

 I like it. To-day, as I have said, I have been in my rooms 

 constantly, and after much writing received Dr. Knox and 

 a friend of his. The former pronounced my drawings the 

 finest of their kind in the world. No light praise this. 

 They promised to see that I was presented to the Wer- 

 nerian Society, and talked very scientifically, indeed quite 

 too much so for the poor man of the woods. They as- 

 sured me the ornithological work now about being pub- 

 lished by Messrs. " Selby, Jameson, and Sir Somebody^ 

 and Co.," was a " job book." It is both amusing and dis- 

 tressing to see how inimical to each other men of science 

 are ; and why are they so ? 



October 30. Mr. Neill took me to a Mr. Lizars,2in 

 St. James Square, the engraver for Mr. Selby, who came 



1 Sir William Jardine. 



2 W. H. Lizars, the engraver who made a few of the earliest plates of 

 the " Birds of America." 



