people. The uniform propriety, and indeed amiable and exemplary modesty of their own character and deportment, in all the relations of private life, may well furnish them with yet better claims to the kindness of their fellow-citizens. te I SHOULD be very much at a loss, if I were obliged to say positively, either at what hour or from what point of view, the external appearance of this city is productive of the noblest effect. I walk round and round it, and survey it from east, west, north, and south, and every where it assumes some new and glorious aspect, which delights me so much at the moment, that I am inclined to think I have at last bit upon the true station from whence to survey its beauties. A few steps bring me to some new eminence, from which some yet wider and more diversified picture of its magnificence opens itself to my eyes, or perhaps to some winding ravine, the dark and precipitous sides of which, while they shut out much of this imposing expanse of magnitude, form a deep and concentrating frame-work, in whose centre some one isolated fragment assumes a character of sublimity, that seems almost to throw the wider field of variety and splendour into temporary shade. I have at last given up the attempt; and am contented to let my admiration be as impartial as the charm is universal. In every point of view, however, the main centre of attraction is the Castle of Edinburgh. From whatever side you approach the city-whether by water or by land-whether your foreground consist of height or of plain, of heath, of trees, or of the buildings of the city itself this gigantic rock lifts itself bigh above all that surrounds it, and breaks upon the sky with the same commanding blackness of mingled crags, cliffs, buttresses, and battlements. These, indeed, shift and vary their outlines at every step, but every where there is the same unmoved effect of general expression--the same lofty and imposing image, to which the eye turns with the same unquestioning worship. Whether you pass on the southern side, close under the bare and shattered blocks of granite, where the crumbling turrets on the summit seem as if they had shot out of the kindred rock in some fantastic freak of Nature-and where, amidst the overhanging mass of darkness, you vainly endeavour to descry the track by which Wallace scaled-or whether you look from the north, where the rugged cliffs find room for some scanty patches of moss and broom, to diversify their barren grey-and where the whole mass is softened into beauty by the wild green glen which intervenes between the spectator and its foundations-wherever you are placed, and however it is viewed, you feel at once that here is the eye of the landscape, and the essence of the grandeur. 1 Neither is it possible to say under what sky or atmosphere all this appears to the greatest advantage. The heavens may put on what aspect they choose, they never fail to adorn it. Changes that elsewhere deform the face of nature, and rob her of half her beauty, seem to pass over this majestic surface only to dress out its majesty in some new apparel of magnificence. If the air is cloudless and serene, what can be finer than the calin reposing dignity of those old towers-every delicate angle of the fissured rock, every loop-hole and every lineament seen clearly and distinctly in all their minuteness? or, if the mist be wreathed around the basis of the rock, and frowning fragments of the citadel emerge only here and there from out the racking clouds that envelope them, the mystery and the gloom only rivet the eye the faster, and half-baffled Imagination does more than the work of Sight. At times, the whole detail is lost to the eye--one murky tinge of impenetrable brown wraps rock and fortress from the root to the summit-all is lost but the outline; but the outline atones abundantly for all that is lost.-The cold glare of the sun, plunging slowly down into a melancholy west beyond them, makes all the broken labyrinth of towers, batteries, and house-tops paint their heavy breadth in ten-fold sable magnitude upon that lurid canvass.—At break of day, how beautiful is the freshness with which the venera ble pile appears to rouse itself from its sleep, and look up once more with a bright eye into the sharp and dewy air!-At the "grim and sultry hour" of noon, with what languid grandeur the broad flag seems to flap its long weight of folds above the glowing battlements! When the day-light goes down in purple glory, what lines of gold creep along the hoary brow of its antique strength! When the whole heaven is deluged, and the winds are roaring fiercely, and "snow and hail, and stormy vapour," are let loose to make war upon his front, with what an air of pride does the veteran citadel brave all their well-known wrath, "cased in the unfeeling armour of old time!" The capitol itself is but a pigmy to this giant. But here, as every-where, moonlight is the best. Wherever I spend the evening, I must always walk homewards by the long line of Prince's-Street; and along all that spacious line, the midnight shadows of the Castle-rock for ever spread themselves forth, and wrap the ground on which I tread in their broad repose of blackness. It is not possible to imagine a nore majestic accompaniment for the deep pause of that hour. The uniform splendour of the habitations on the left opening every now and then broken glimpses up into the very heart of the modern city-the magnificent terrace itself, with its stable breadth of surface-the few dying lamps that here and there glimmer faintly---and no sound, but the heavy tread of some far-off watchman of the night---this alone might be enough, and it is more than almost any other city could afford. But turn to the right, and see what a glorious contrast is there. The eternal rock sleeping in the stillness of nature--its cliffs of granite---its tufts of verdure---all alike steeped in the same unvarying hue of mystery---its towers and pinnacles rising like a grove of quiet poplars on its crest---the whole as colourless as if the sun had never shone there, as silent as if no voice of man had ever disturbed the echoes of the solemn scene. Overhead, the sky is all one breathless canopy of lucid crystal blue---here and there a small bright star twinkling in the depth of æther---and full in the midst, the moon walking in her vestal glory, pursuing, as from the bosom of eternity, her calm and destined way---and pouring down the silver of her smiles upon all of lovely and sublime that nature and art could heap together, to do homage to her radiHow poor, how tame, how worthless, does the con ance. verse even of the best and wisest of men appear, when faintly and dimly remembered amidst the sober tranquillity of this heavenly hour! How deep the gulph that divides the tongue from the heart---the communication of companionship from the solitude of man! How soft, yet how awful, the beauty and the silence of the hour of spirits! I think it was one of the noblest conceptions that ever en tered into the breast of a poet, which made Goethe open his Faustus with a scene of moonlight. The restlessness of an intellect wearied with the vanity of knowledge, and tormented with the sleepless agonies of doubt---the sickness of a heart bruised and buffeted by all the demons of presumption---the wild and wandering throbs of a soul parched among plenty, by the blind cruelty of its own dead affections---these dark and depressing mysteries all maddening within the brain of the Hermit Student, might have suggested other accompaniments to one who had looked less deeply into the nature of man---who had felt less in his own person of that which he might have been ambitious to describe. But this great master of intellect was well aware to what thoughts, and what feelings, the perplexed and the bewildered are most anxious to return. He well knew where it is, that Nature has placed the best balm for the wounds of the spirit-by what indissoluble links she has twined her own eternal influences around the dry and chafed heart-stings that have most neglected her tenderness. It is thus, that his weary and melancholy sceptic speaks--his phial of poison is not yet mingled on his table--but the temper is already listening at his ear, that would not allow him to leave the world until he should have plunged yet deeper into his snares, and added sins against his neighbour, to sins against God, and against himself. I wish I could do justice to his words in a translation-or rather that I had Coleridge nearer me. Would thou wert gazing now thy last Upon my troubles, glorious Harvest Moon! O might I once again go forth, To see the gliding through thy fields of blue, O might I go, as when I nothing knew, * ** LETTER XXVIII. TO THE REV. DAVID WILLIAMS. I HAVE already told you, that the Bar is the great focus from which the rays of interest and animation are diffused throughout the whole mass of society, in this northern capital. Compared with it, there is no object or congregation of objects, which can be said to have any wide and commanding grasp of the general attention. The Church-the University-even my own celebrated Faculty, in this its great seat of empire-all are no better than the "minora sidera," among which the luminaries of forensic authority and forensic reputation shine forth conspicuous and superior. Into whatever company the stranger may enter, he is sure, ere he has been half an hour in the place, to meet with something to remind him of the predominance of this great jurisprudential aristocracy. The names of the eminent leaders of the profession, pass through the lips of the ladies and gentlemen of Edinburgh, as frequently and as reverently as those of the great debaters of the House of Commons do through those of the ladies and gentlemen of London. In the absence of any other great centres of attraction, to dispute their preeminence in the general eye, the principal barristers are able to sustain and fix upon themselves, from month to month, and year to year, in this large and splendid city, something not unlike the same intensity of attention and admiration, which their brethren of the south may be too proud to command over the public mind of York or Lancaster, for two Assize-weeks in the year. |