volition let in upon it the stir and noise of the world and life. Why, therefore, should we complain, or why lament the inevitable loss or change that time brings with it to all that breathe? Beneath the shadow of the tree we can yet repose, and tranquillize our spirit by its rustle, or by the "green light" unchequered by one stirring leaf. From sunrise to sunset, we can lie below the old mossy tower, till the darkness that shuts out the day, hides not the visions that glide round the ruined battlements. Cheerful as in a city can we traverse the houseless moor; and although not a ship be on the sea, we can set sail on the wings of imagination, and when wearied, sink down on savage or serene isle, and let drop our anchor below the moon and stars.

And 'tis well we are so spiritual; for the senses are of no use here, and we must draw for amusement on our internal sources. A day-like night we have often seen about midsummer, serenest of all among the Hebrides; but a night-like day, such as this, ne'er before fell on us, and we might as well be in the Heart o' MidLothian. 'Tis a dungeon, and a dark one-and we know not for what crime we have been condemned to solitary confinement. Were it mere mist we should not mind; but the gloom is palpable—and makes resistance to the hand. We did not think clouds capable of such condensation—the blackness may be felt like velvet on a hearse. Would that something would rustle-but noall is breathlessly still, and not a wind dares whistle. If there be any thing visible or audible hereabout, then are we stone-blind and stone-deaf. We have a vision !

VOL. II.

K

See! a great City in a mist! All is not shroudedat intervals something huge is beheld in the sky-what we know not, tower, temple, spire, dome, or a pile of nameless structures-one after the other fading away, or sinking and settling down into the gloom that grows deeper and deeper like a night. The stream of life seems almost hushed in the blind blank-yet you hear ever and anon, now here, now there, the slow sound of feet moving to their own dull echoes, and lo! the Sun "Looks through the horizontal misty air, Shorn of his beams,"

like some great ghost. Ay, he looks! does he not? straight on your face, as if you two were the only beings there and were held looking at each other in some strange communion. Surely you must sometimes have felt that emotion, when the Luminary seemed no longer luminous, but a dull-red brazen orb, sick unto the death -obscure the Shedder of Light and the Giver of Life lifeless!

The Sea has sent a tide-borne wind to the City, and you almost start in wonder to behold all the heavens clear of clouds, (how beautiful was the clearing!) and bending in a mighty blue bow, that brightly overarches all the brightened habitations of men! The spires shoot up into the sky-the domes tranquilly rest there-all the roofs glitter as with diamonds, all the white walls are lustrous, save where, here and there, some loftier range of buildings hangs its steadfast shadow o'er square or street, magnifying the city, by means of separate multitudes of structures, each town-like in itself, and

the whole gathered together by the outward eye, and the inward imagination, worthy indeed of the name of Metropolis.

Let us sit down on this bench below the shadow of the Parthenon. The air is now so rarefied, that you can see not indistinctly the figure of a man on Arthur's Seat. The Calton, though a city hill-is as green as the Carter towering over the Border-forest. Not many years ago, no stone edifice was on his unviolated verdure-he was a true rural Mount, where the lassies bleached their claes, in a pure atmosphere, aloof from the city smoke almost as the sides and summit of Arthur's Seat. Flocks of sheep might have grazed here, had there been enclosures, and many milch cows. But in their absence a pastoral character was given to the Hill by its green silence, here and there broken by the songs and laughter of those linen-bleaching lassies, and by the arm-inarm strolling of lovers in the morning light or the evening shade. Here married people use to walk with their children, thinking and feeling themselves to be in the country; and here elderly gentlemen, like ourselves, with gold-headed canes, or simple crutches, mused and meditated on the ongoings of the noisy lower world. Such a Hill, so close to a great City, yet undisturbed by it, and embued at all times with a feeling of sweeter peace, because of the immediate neighbourhood of the din and stir of which its green recess high up in the blue air never partook, seems now, in the mingled dream of imagination and memory, to have been a super-urban Paradise! But a city cannot, ought not to be, con

trolled in its growth; the natural beauty of this hill has had its day; now it is broken all round with wide walks, along which you might drive chariots a-breast; broad flights of stone-stairs lead up along the once elastic brae-turf; and its bosom is laden with towers and temples, monuments and mausoleums. Along one side, where hanging gardens might have been, magnificent as those of the old Babylon, stretches the macadamized Royal Road to London, flanked by one receptacle for the quiet dead, and by another for the unquiet living— a churchyard and a prison dying away in a bridewell. But, making amends for such hideous deformities, with front nobly looking to the cliffs, over a dell of dwellings seen dimly through the smoke-mist, stands, sacred to the Muses, an Edifice that might have pleased the eye of Pericles! Alas, immediately below, one that would have turned the brain of Palladio! Modern Athens indeed! Few are the Grecians among thy architects; those who are not Goths are Picts-and the King himself of the Painted People designed Nelson's Monu

ment.

But who can be querulous on such a day? Weigh all its defects, designed and undesigned, and is not Edinburgh yet a noble city? Arthur's Seat! how like a lion! The magnificent range of Salisbury Crags, on which a battery might be built to blow the whole inhabitation to atoms! Our friend here, the Calton, with his mural crown! Our Castle on his Cliff! Gloriously hung round with national histories along all his battlements! Do they not embosom him in a style of gran

deur worthy, if such it be, of a "City of Palaces?" Call all things by their right names, in heaven and on earth. Palaces they are not-nor are they built of marble; but they are stately houses, framed of stone from Craig-Leith quarry, almost as pale as the Parian; and when the sun looks fitfully through the storm, or as now, serenely through the calm, richer than Parian in the tempestuous or the peaceful light. Never beheld we the city wearing such a majestic metropolitan aspect.

"Ay, proudly fling thy white arms to the sea,

Queen of the unconquer'd North!"

How near the Frith!

Gloriously does it supply the want of a river. It is a river, though seeming, and sweeping into, the sea; but a river that man may never bridge; and though still now as the sky, we wish you saw it in its magnificent madness, when brought on the roarings of the stormful tide

"Breaks the long wave that at the Pole began."

Coast-cities alone are Queens. All inland are but Tributaries. Earth's empiry belongs to the Power that sees its shadow in the sea. Two separate Cities, not twins-but one of ancient and one of modern birthhow harmoniously in spite of form and features characteristically different, do they coalesce into one Capital ! This miracle, methinks, is wrought by the Spirit of Nature on the World of Art. Her great features subdue almost into similarity a Whole constructed of such various elements, for it is all felt to be kindred with those guardian cliffs. Those eternal heights hold the