University of Virginia Library

124. LETTER CXXIV.

It is an odd place, Edinboro'. The old town and
the new are separated by a broad and deep ravine,
planted with trees and shrubbery; and across this, on
a level with the streets on either side, stretches
bridge of a most giddy height, without which all communication
would apparently be cut off. “Auld
Reekie” itself looks built on the back-bone of a ridgy
crag, and towers along on the opposite side of the
ravine, running up its twelve-story houses to the sky
in an ascending curve, till it terminates in the frowning
and battlemented castle, whose base is literally on
a mountain top in the midst of the city. At the foot
of this ridge, in the lap of the valley, lies Holyroodhouse;
and between this and the castle runs a single
street, part of which is the old Canongate. Princes'
street, the Broadway of the new town, is built along
the opposite edge of the ravine facing the long, many-windowed
walls of the Canongate, and from every
part of Edinboro' these singular features are conspicuously
visible. A more striking contrast than exists
between these two parts of the same city could hardly
be imagined. On one side a succession of splendid
squares, elegant granite houses, broad and well-paved
streets, columns, statues, and clean sidewalks, thinly
promenaded and by the well-dressed exclusively — and
kind of wholly grand and half-deserted city, which has
been built too ambitiously for its population — and
on the other, an antique wilderness of streets and
“wynds,” so narrow and lofty as to shut out much of
the light of heaven: a thronging, busy, and particularly
dirty population, sidewalks almost impassible
from children and other respected nuisances; and
altogether, between the irregular and massive architecture,
and the unintelligible jargon agonizing the air
about you, a most outlandish and strange city. Paris
is not more unlike Constantinople than one side

Edinboro' is unlike the other. Nature has probably
placed “a great gulf” between them.

We toiled up the castle to see the sunset. Oh, but
it was beautiful! I have no idea of describing it; but
Edinboro', to me, will be a picture seen through an
atmosphere of powdered gold, mellow as an eve on the
campagna. We looked down on the surging sea of
architecture below us, and whether it was the wavy
cloudiness of a myriad of reeking chimneys, or
whether it was a fancy Glenlivet-born in my eye, the
city seemed to me like a troop of war-horses, rearing
into the air with their gallant riders. The singular
boldness of the hills on which it is built, and of the
crags and mountains which look down upon it, and the
impressive lift of its towering architecture into the sky,
gave it altogether a look of pride and warlikeness that
answers peculiarly to the chivalric history of Scotland.
And so much for the first look at “Auld
Reekie.”

My friend had determined to have what he called a
“flare-up” of a Scotch breakfast, and we were set
down the morning after our arrival, at nine, to cold
grouse, salmon, cold beef, marmalade, jellies, honey,
five kinds of bread, oatmeal cakes, coffee, tea, and
toast; and I am by no means sure that that is all. It is
a fine country in which one gets so much by the simple
order of “breakfast at nine.”

We parted after having achieved it, my companion
going before me to Dumbartonshire; and, with a
“wee callant” for a guide, I took my way to Holyrood.

At the very foot of Edinboro' stands this most interesting
of royal palaces — a fine old pile, though at the
first view rather disappointing. It might have been in
the sky, which was dun and cold, or it might have
been in the melancholy story most prominent in its
history, but it oppressed me with its gloom. A rosy
cicerone in petticoats stepped out from the porter's
lodge, and rather brightened my mood with her smile
and courtesy, and I followed on to the chapel royal,
built, Heaven knows when, but in a beautiful state of
gothic ruin. The girl went on with her knitting and
her well-drilled recitation of the sights upon which
those old fretted and stone traceries had let in the
light; and I walked about feeding my eyes upon its
hoar and touching beauty, listening little till she came
to the high altar, and in the same broad Scotch monotony,
and with her eyes still upon her work, hurried
over something about Mary Queen of Scots. She
was married to Darnley on the spot where I stood!
The mechanical guide was accustomed evidently to an
interruption here, and stood silent a minute or two to
give my surprise the usual grace. Poor, poor Mary!
I had the common feeling, and made probably the
same ejaculation that thousands have made on the
spot, that I had never before realized the melancholy
romance of her life half so nearly. It had been the
sadness of an hour before — a feeling laid aside with
the book that recorded it — now it was, as it were, a
pity and a grief for the living, and I felt struck with it
as if it had happened yesterday. If Rizzio's harp had
sounded from her chamber, it could not have seemed
more tangibly a scene of living story.

“And through this door they dragged the murdered
favorite; and here under this stone, he was buried!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Poor Rizzio!”

“I'm thinkin' that's a', sir!”

It was a broad hint, but I took another turn down
the nave of the old ruin, and another look at the scene
of the murder, and the grave of the victim.

“And this door communicated with Mary's apartments!”

“Yes — ye hae it a' the noo!”

I paid my shilling, and exit.

On inquiry for the private apartments, I was directed
to another Girzy, who took me up to a suite of rooms
appropriated to the use of the earl of Breadalbane, and
furnished very much like lodgings for a guinea a week
in London.

“And which was Queen Mary's chamber?”

“Ech! sir! It's t'ither side. I dinna show that.”

“And what am I brought here for?”

“Ye cam' yoursell!”

With this wholesome truth, I paid my shilling
again, and was handed over to another woman, who
took me into a large hall containing portraits of
Robert Bruce, Baliol, Macbeth, Queen Mary, and
some forty other men and women famous in Scotch
story; and nothing is clearer than that one patient
person sat to the painter for the whole. After
“doing” these, I was led with extreme deliberativeness
through a suite of unfurnished rooms, twelve, I think,
the only interest of which was their having been tenanted
of late by the royal exile of France. As if anybody
would give a shilling to see where Charles the
Tenth slept and breakfasted!

I thanked Heaven that I stumbled next upon the
right person, and was introduced into an ill-lighted
room, with one deep window looking upon the court,
and a fireplace like that of a country inn — the state
chamber of the unfortunate Mary. Here was a chair
she embroidered — there was a seat of tarnished velvet,
where she sat in state with Darnley — the very grate in
the chimney that she had sat before — the mirror in
which her fairest face had been imaged — the table at
which she had worked — the walls on which her eyes
had rested in her gay and her melancholy hours — all,
save the touch and mould of time, as she lived in it and
left it. It was a place for a thousand thoughts.

The woman led on. We entered another room —
her chamber. A small, low bed, with tattered hangings
of red and figured silk, tall, ill-shapen posts, and
altogether a paltry look, stood in a room of irregular
shape; and here, in all her peerless beauty, she had
slept. A small cabinet, a closet merely, opened on
the right, and in this she was supping with Rizzio,
when he was plucked from her and murdered. We
went back to the audience-chamber to see the stain of
his blood on the floor. She partitioned it off after his
death, not bearing to look upon it. Again — “poor
Mary!”

On the opposite side was a similar closet, which
served as her dressing-room, and the small mirror,
scarce larger than your hand, which she used at her
toilet. Oh for a magic wand, to wave back, upon
that senseless surface, the visions of beauty it has reflected!