by some to refer to the legendary existence of
monsters in the days when Limburg was heathen. Some such idea seems also
not to have been remote from the fancy of the mediaeval sculptor who
adorned the brave Conrad's monument with such elaborately monstrous
figures: it was evidently no lack of skill and delicacy that dictated
such a choice of supporters, for the figure of the hero is lifelike,
dignified and faithful to the minute description of his features and
stature left us by his chronicler, while the beauty of the leaf-border
of the slab and of the capitals of the short pillars is such as to
excite the envy of our best modern carvers.

[Illustration: CONRAD'S MONUMENT, LIMBURG CATHEDRAL.]

LADY BLANCHE MURPHY.

EDINBURGH JOTTINGS.

Whenever Scott's landau went up the Canongate, his coachman knew without
special instructions that the pace must be a walk; and no funeral, says
Lockhart, ever moved more slowly, for wherever the great enthusiast
might turn his gaze there was recalled to his mind some tradition of
blood and mystery at which his eye would sparkle and his cheek glow. How
by the force of his genius he inoculated the world with his enthusiasm
about the semi-savage Scotia of the past is a well-known story:
thousands of tourists, more or less struck with the Scott madness,
yearly wander through the streets of old Edinburgh; and although within
the quarter of a century since Sir Walter's death many memorials of the
past have been swept away under the pressure of utility or necessity,
the Old Town still poses remarkably well, and, gathering her rags and
tatters about her, contrives to keep up a strikingly picturesque
appearance.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE AND ALLAN RAMSAY'S HOUSE.]

The Old Town of Edinburgh is built upon a wedge-shaped hill, the Castle
occupying the highest point, the head of the wedge, and the town
extending along the crest, which slopes gradually down toward the east,
to Holyrood Palace in the plain. Lawnmarket, High street and Canongate
now form one continuous street, which, running along the crest of the
hill, may be considered as the backbone of the town, with wynds and
closes radiating on each side like the spines of the vertebrae. The
closes are courts, culs-de-sac--the wynds, thoroughfares. These
streets--courts where, in the past, lived the nobility and gentry of
Edinburgh--are now, for the most part, given up to squalor and misery,
and look