in the same spot more than thirty years afterwards, when driven from his throne. George IV. visited Holyrood in 1822, and Queen Victoria in 1842.

Such are a few of the regal events which mark this celebrated spot. As at present existing, Holyrood House forms a quadrangular building, with an open court in the centre. There is a quaintness in its exterior which connects it with the semi-classical semi-picturesque structures of France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its front is flanked with double castellated towers. The north-west corner is the oldest portion, for here are the veritable apartments occupied by the unfortunate Mary of Scotland. The other apartments are of varied architectural character, and of different ages. Upon entering within the quadrangle, the visitor soon finds that the art of establishing fees is as well known in Scotland as else where. There is one good lady to show the remains of the beautiful chapel; another to show Queen Mary's apartments; and another to show the modern stateapartments, as they are called. The magistrates of Edinburgh have endeavoured to make some arrangement with the Duke of Hamilton to limit this system of fee-exaction; but the result, as yet, does not seem to be very favourable; for the three sets of locks and keys, and the three expectant guides, are obvious enough.

angry, who was in the neighbouring picture-gallery, pondering in his mind why the kings of Scotland, who hung around him, "should be each and every one painted with a nose like the knocker of a door," came to the rescue, and had some difficulty in convincing the Londoner "that there are such things in the world as stains which ought to remain indelible, on account of the associations with which they are connected." Sir Thomas Dick Lauder is rather indignant at any incredulity in this matter. In his Account of the Queen's Visit to Scotland, in 1842,' he says: "Those who childishly doubt that the dark stains in the floor are the blood of the poor Italian, only show their ignorance of the fact, that whether blood be that of a murdered man or a slaughtered animal, it becomes quite impossible to eradicate its stain from a deal board if it has once been allowed to sink into it.”

The kings of Scotland with noses like knockers, alluded to by Chrystal Croftangry, consist of one hundred and six portraits of Scottish kings, hung on the walls of a picture-gallery 150 feet in length. They are worthless, both as works of art and as historical memorials: no one seems to know when they were painted, or by whom, or how long they have occupied their present position. The Young Pretender gave his grand balls in this gallery in 1745. In the present day it is used for the election of the representative peers of Scotland, and for the levees of the Lord High Commissioner sent by the Sovereign to the General Assembly. In other parts of the palace are apartments of a more modern date, inhabited by noblemen and families who have received permission to reside within the palace, as at Hampton Court. A few groups of family pictures, and state-beds, and reception-rooms, and so forth, are exhibited.

The ruins of Holyrood Chapel lie behind the palace, and form a prominent object as seen from Arthur's Seat or Salisbury Crag. After dilapidations of various kinds, the roof sank in 1768, and the whole has since been an utter ruin. Yet it is pleasant to be able to meet with such a remnant of antiquity in the immediate vicinity of a large city: it connects the twelfth century with the nineteenth, and reminds us how busily the interval has been filled up.

A feeling of gloom comes over one on visiting poor Queen Mary's apartments. The embroidered bed, the chairs, the little basket, the tapestry, the pictures, the various trinkets, deposited in the two or three rooms exhibited to visitors, all have a dusky half-decayed appearance. The colours are fading fast; and although care is taken to preserve the furniture from actual decay, the finger of Time seems to mock at the fringed and embroidered finery of the rooms. The little apartment where David Rizzio was murdered once formed part of Queen Mary's apartment; but after that dreadful event she had it separated and walled in. On the floor of this small room is a large discoloured spot, which every visitor for generations past has been told is the stain from the real blood of David Rizzio; and if you venture any doubt on the matter, the good lady who is its guardian protectress, becomes naturally shocked at your scepticism. In the introductory chapter to the second series of Chronicles of the Canongate,' Scott, in the person of Mr. Chrystal Croftangry, gives a ludicrous story, which bears the impress of having been founded on truth:-A cockney Londoner, agent for a house that dealt in a multiplicity of articles, including a superior patent kind of On entering this valley from Holyrood, the street is 'Scouring Drops' among the number, while rambling first called 'South Back of Canongate.' It is a poor through these rooms was told the usual tale about the sort of street, bounded on the south by tolerably open indelible stains on the floor from Rizzio's blood; where- ground, and having on the north a few wynds and closes upon he suddenly conceived the idea of trying the leading up to the Canongate. But when we advance virtue of his scouring-drops on the darkened floor. farther west, and enter the Cowgate, the characteristics Imagine the horror of the housekeeper! The practical of Old Edinburgh show themselves more distinctly. St. man of business plumped down on his knees, and began Mary's Wynd joins the High Street and the Canongate at to apply the elixir with a corner of his handkerchief; one end, and the Cowgate and the South Back of Canonthe good lady screamed for assistance; and Mr. Croft-gate at the other: along it was built the boundary wall of

The reader has now accompanied us through the great main artery of the Old Town, from the Castle in the west to Holyrood in the east. We will next take a ramble along the valley which bounds this central ridge on the south, and then glance at the South Town generally.

across and over the Cowgate, from the Lawnmarket on the north to Bristow Street on the south, and named after the monarch who had recently visited Edinburgh. A new street, called Victoria Street, has been opened from the western side of George the Fourth Bridge, and carried in a curved line to the southern part of what used to constitute the West Bow; while the West Bow itself has been almost wholly pulled down. A new road, nearly in continuation of this Victoria Street, has been cut in the southern flank of the Castle Rock, to give an improved outlet to the west end of the town. Whether the usefulness of the change has been adequate to the expense, we cannot say; but the old picturesque scenes have suffered sadly. The West Bow was one of the most curious streets in Edinburgh : it commenced at the western end of the Lawnmarket, where it was called Bow Head, and extended, by a very steep and crooked course, down to the eastern end of the Grassmarket, where it was called Bow Foot. The houses were lofty, shaped in the most fantastical form, and some of them much ornamented in the front. Much of the ground near here at one time belonged to the Knights Templars; and the houses built on that ground were distinguished by small crosses planted on their fronts and gables. Many persons of note once lived in this West Bow; and as it formed the chief entry for wheel-carriages to the "High Town" before the building of the various bridges, its inhabitants witnessed many a splendid procession, and many an exciting scene. In later times it became almost exclusively inhabited by whitesmiths, coppersmiths, and pewterers, whose incessant tinkling' made it one of the noisiest parts of the town. But Knights Templars, residents of gentle blood, tinkers, crosses, processions, -all have left the spot: very few indeed of the old houses are now left.

the city in 1513. Here we come to lofty houses, once | ising this district. A street and bridge were thrown 'genteel,' but now occupied by poor families; while the wynds and closes become very numerous. There is an odd feature in the physiology of the Cowgate, the Canongate, St. Mary's Wynd, and Leith Wynd, for which we have met with no theory,-Irishmen perform the functions of Jews. The old clothes-dealers congregate in this spot; and most of them are Irishmen, as the names and the features sufficiently indicate. When we have come sufficiently westward in the Cowgate to reach Freemasons'-hall and Niddry-street, we see before us the lofty arches of the South Bridge, (which bridge connects the central ridge with the south ridge); and on passing under this bridge, and walking still farther west, we come to a second elevation,King George the Fourth Bridge,-built in a similar way and for a similar purpose. Passing under this again, we arrive at an irregular spot, where Cowgate, West Bow, Candlemaker Row, and Grassmarket, all meet. In the Horse Wynd, turning out of Cowgate, resided at one time the Earl of Galloway; and, in another house, Lord Kennet. Lord Brougham's father lived in a house in the Cowgate, just opposite Candlemaker Row; it was at that time a boarding-house, at which he first met the lady who afterwards became his wife, and the mother of the great orator and statesman. Lord Brougham was born in St. Andrew's-square, to which our rambles will conduct us by-and-by. Such are the great names connected with that 'Cowgate' which is now a poor and dirty street!-and it is connected with other great names in a way strange to modern taste. It was a custom in the last century for ladies of rank and station to join gentlemen in racketty tavern amuserments in Edinburgh. There were in the Cowgate and in the High Street certain Oyster-cellars, to which the titled and the wealthy went in their carriages, by appointment. They feasted on oysters and beer, in a 'laigh-shop,' or underground cellar, lighted only by tallow candles; and the zest of the thing consisted not only in a feast so conducted, but in unrestrained sallies of wit and conversation, such as would not have been sanctioned in the houses of the very same parties, or indeed anywhere else but in these cellars. It was a sort of pre-arranged abandonment of decorum for certain evenings ; but it evidently brought no disrepute with it. Towards the close of the century, the Duchess of Gordon and Lord Melville, happening to meet at Edinburgh, after an absence from it of many years, made up an oyster-cellar party by way of a frolic; and devoted one winter evening to an entertainment which had by that time become obsoThe convivialities of Edinburgh in the last century, as set forth by Robert Chambers in his Traditions,' are in some respects startling, and such as run sadly counter to the common English notion about sober Scotchmen.

6

When we arrive at the West Bow, at the western extremity of the Cowgate, there are before us many indications of recent change. About twenty years ago a very large sum of money was expended in modern

One of the spectacles of Edinburgh used to be the melancholy procession of culprits descending the West Bow from the Tolbooth, for execution in the Grassmarket. It partook of some of the features of the bygone cavalcades from Newgate to Tyburn. It wound down the narrow and crooked West Bow, where every window presented its group of eager spectators. When standing in the midst of the Grassmarket, we can hardly fail to think of the stirring 'Porteous' scenes. This area (an oblong square rather than a mere street) was for many years, or perhaps ages, a place of execution. "It was not ill-chosen for such a scene," says Scott, "being of considerable extent, and therefore fit to accommodate a great number of spectators, such as are usually assembled by this melancholy spectacle. On the other hand, few of the houses which surround it were, even in early times, inhabited by persons of fashion; so that those likely to be offended or overdeeply affected by such unpleasant exhibitions, were not in the way of having their quiet disturbed by them. The houses in the Grassmarket are, generally speaking, of a mean description: yet the place is not without some features of grandeur, being overhung by the

southern side of the huge Rock on which the Castle | lofty object as seen from the southern brow of the

stands, and by the moss-grown battlements and turreted walls of that ancient fortress."

The Grassmarket is scarcely changed at all since Scott wrote his description of the execution of Porteous. The houses are mostly old, and present the same unequal, disarranged, medley-like appearance which marks most rows of old houses in Edinburgh. A curious illustration of its relative position with respect to the houses in the Old Town, is afforded by a story told of Sir David Baird, the distinguished General in our Indian armies :-A house used to stand on the Castle Hill, behind the north side of the Grassmarket, and inhabited by the Duke of Gordon. After changing hands several times, the house came into the possession of the Baird family, and Sir David was born within its walls. When the old General returned from the wars, in his later years, he asked permission to look over the house, which was then in other hands. On going into the garden, he found some frolicsome boys engaged in the very same sport which he had himself indulged in when a boy,-viz. throwing stones down the chimneys of the houses in the Grassmarket, which lay far beneath!

The Grassmarket may be considered as pretty nearly the western extremity of the valley which separates the Old Town from the South Town; which South Town occupies a wide area of ground, exhibiting many interesting combinations of the old and time-honoured with the new. South-westward of the Castle Hill, in the low ground beneath, is an area which is not yet fully laid out, but which will form a respectable district, bounded on the west by the Lothian Road. BeBeyond this Lothian Road is another district of a somewhat similar character, containing a sprinkling of fair-looking squares, crescents, and streets; and also containing the terminal stations of the Caledonian Railway and the Union Canal. But as nothing particular calls for our attention here, we will trace our steps eastward through the South Town towards Arthur's Seat.

Castle Hill. Even as seen from the Grassmarket, in
the South Valley (Cut, No. 6), it presents a noble and
towering elevation. It was planned by Inigo Jones,
and is regarded as the finest Elizabethan structure
by him. It is a quadrangular building, measuring
162 feet each way, and having an open court in the
centre. Round the north and east sides of this court
are covered arcades or ambulatories. On the second
story of the north side is an effigy of Heriot, placed in
a niche. The gateway is in the north front;
and over
it is a small projecting tower, with a dome, lantern,
and clock. The four corners of the building are occu-
pied by projecting towers or turrets. The general
elevation of the building is three stories in height; but
in some parts it is four. There are two hundred win-
dows, all of which are said, in accordance with a whim
of Heriot's, to be decorated differently. An elegantly.
fitted Chapel projects from the southern part of the
building; and the four sides of the quadrangle are
occupied by the various school-rooms, dormitories,
kitchens, and other apartments. Here are boarded,
fed, clothed, and educated, nearly two hundred boys,
out of estates left for that purpose by George Heriot.
Many a respectable and influential inhabitant of Edin-
burgh was, in early days, a 'Herioter,' and looks
back with affection to his old companions and his
school-boy associations. Round the wall of one of
the school-rooms may be seen a broad black board, on
which is chalked lines of music, adapted for the learn-
ing of singing in classes,-a significant indication of
the prevalence of musical study in schools in our day.
The hospital and its funds are managed by the Town
Council and city Ministers of Edinburgh, who have
recently established, out of the same funds, free-schools
for children of both sexes in various parts of the
city.

Nearly adjoining Heriot's Hospital, on the east side,
is the Greyfriars' Church. A monastery of Greyfriars,
used formerly to be situated in the Grassmarket; and
this church and its surrounding churchyard stand on
the site of the garden of that monastery. In this
churchyard lie the remains of many Scottish worthies,
including George Buchanan, Allan Ramsay, Principal
Robertson, Dr. Black, Dr. Blair, and Colin Maclaurin.
Near this are the Charity Workhouse, the Bedlam, and
one or two other public buildings. Northward
stretches the fine broad street of handsome shops,
known as George the Fourth Bridge; immediately
Wat-known
east of which are Brown Square and Argyle Square,
and at some distance to the south, George Square,-
those famous centres of fashion in the last century.
It is somewhat difficult, at the present day, to realize
the idea that these were the squares, the building of
which, by their splendid attractions, discomfited the
plans of the Town Council in respect to the formation
of the New Town.

Considerably southward of the Grassmarket stands the Merchant Maiden Hospital; near this is Watson's Hospital; and farther north is the celebrated Heriot's Hospital. All of these are benevolent educational institutions. Merchant Maiden Hospital was founded, in 1695, for the maintenance and education of the daughters of merchant burgesses of Edinburgh: one hundred girls are kept here till the age of seventeen, and receive rather a superior education. George Watson's Hospital is for the benefit of the children and grandchildren of decayed Edinburgh merchants: it accommodates about eighty boys. Heriot's Hospital was founded by the rich old Goldsmith, for the maintenance and education of poor and fatherless boys, or boys whose parents are in indigent circumstances, "freemen's sons of the town of Edinburgh." Merchant Maiden and George Watson's Hospitals are of no especial mark as buildings; but Heriot's Hospital is a fine structure. It is situated on one of the highest parts of the Southern Town, and is a conspicuous and

George Square was the locality of Scott's early days. In Hamilton's Entry-a small close turning out of Bristow Street, near the square—he went to school;