rthily
commemorated by Scott:--

"Such dusky grandeur clothes the height,
Where the huge castle holds its state,
And all the steeps slope down,
Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,
Piled deep and massy, close and high,
Mine own romantic town!"

Edinburgh has had an effect on the literary history of the world for the
last fifty years, that cannot be forgotten by any one approaching her.
The air seemed to be full of spirits of those who, no longer living,
have woven a part of the thread of our existence. I do not know that the
shortness of human life ever so oppressed me as it did on coming near to
the city.

At the station house the cars stopped amid a crowd of people, who had
assembled to meet us. The lord provost met us at the door of the car,
and presented us to the magistracy of the city, and the committees of
the Edinburgh antislavery societies. The drab dresses and pure white
bonnets of many Friends were conspicuous among the dense moving crowd,
as white doves seen against a dark cloud. Mr. S. and myself, and our
future hostess, Mrs. Wigham, entered the carriage with the lord provost,
and away we drove, the crowd following with their shouts and cheers. I
was inexpressibly touched and affected by this. While we were passing
the monument of Scott, I felt an oppressive melancholy. What a moment
life seems in the presence of the noble dead! What a momentary thing is
art, in all its beauty! Where are all those great souls that have
created such an atmosphere of light about Edinburgh? and how little a
space was given them to live and to enjoy!

We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the university, to
Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through many of the principal streets,
amid shouts, and smiles, and greetings. Some boys amused me very much by
their pertinacious attempts to keep up with the carriage.

"Heck," says one of them, "that's _her_; see the _courls_."

The various engravers, who have amused themselves by diversifying my
face for the public, having all, with great unanimity, agreed in giving
prominence to this point, I suppose the urchins thought they were on
safe ground there. I certainly think I answered one good purpose that
day, and that is, of giving the much oppressed and calumniated class,
called boys, an opportunity to develop all the noise that was in them--a
thing for which I think they must bless me in their remembrances.

At last the carriage drove into a deep gravel