— 373 — 



Alas ! how many changes in the Edinburgh world 

 during these sixty-seven intervening years (1814-81) 

 and Scott's memory is still fragrant, nay, greener and 

 fresher each year ! In this iron age of utiliterianism, 

 laying aside the intellectual aspect of the question, how 

 much in hard cash have Scott's writings been worth 

 yearly to the land of his birth ? My obliging cicerone 

 called my attention to Muschat's cairn, near Holyrood y 

 as well as to the ruins of St. Anthony's chapel ; we 

 rambled on foot through the south-back of Cannongate 

 and Cowgate to Grass Market,passing through into Cow- 

 gate, what was once the abode of prelates and nobles, 

 now, of labourers and old furniture brokers ; close by, 

 had been enacted the Porteous mob tragedy ; John 

 Knox's old fashioned tenement and the neighboring 

 closes were not forgotten. The crush in Edinburgh was 

 such — not a bed to be had in the hotels — unless 

 bespoken weeks previous, that we came to the conclu- 

 sion to run down by train, some thirty-seven miles, and 

 rest under the shadow of Melrose Abbey, until the 

 Volunteers and the numberless strangers, attracted by 

 the review should have left. The little town of Melrose 



w'ont let me fill my glass with a good will." I rose to change 

 places with him accordingly, and he pointed out to me this 

 hand which, like the writing of Belshazzar's wall, disturbed 

 his hour of hilarity. " Since we sat down," he said, " I have 

 been watching it j it fascinates my eye ; it never stops : page 

 after page is finished and thrown on that heap of MS., and 

 still it goes on unwearied, and so it will be till candles are 

 brought in, and Grod knows how long after that. It is the 

 same every night — and I can'not stand a sight of it when I 

 am notat my books." — ''Some stupid, dogged engrossing clerk 

 probably," exclaimed myself, or some other giddy youth in 

 our society. "No, boys," said our host, " I well know what 

 hand it is " — " t'is Walter Scott's." This was the hand that, 

 in the evenings of three summer weeks, wrote the two last 

 volumes of Waverley. Would that all who that night watched 

 it, had profited by its example of diligence as William Men- 

 zies" ! (Lockhartfs Life of Sir Walter Scott, Vol. IV, pp. 

 28-9, American Edition.) 



