s it was a capital thatched with heather, and more than once, in
the evil days of English invasion, it has gone up in flame to heaven, a
beacon to ships at sea. It was the jousting-ground of jealous nobles,
not only on Greenside or by the King's Stables, where set tournaments
were fought to the sound of trumpets and under the authority of the
royal presence, but in every alley where there was room to cross swords,
and in the main street, where popular tumult under the Blue Blanket
alternated with the brawls of outlandish clansmen and retainers. Down in
the Palace John Knox reproved his queen in the accents of modern
democracy. In the town, in one of those little shops plastered like so
many swallows' nests among the buttresses of the old Cathedral, that
familiar autocrat, James VI., would gladly share a bottle of wine with
George Heriot the goldsmith. Up on the Pentland Hills, that so quietly
look down on the Castle with the city lying in waves around it, those
mad and dismal fanatics, the Sweet Singers, haggard from long exposure
on the moors, sat day and night with "tearful psalms" to see Edinburgh
consumed with fire from heaven, like another Sodom or Gomorrah. There,
in the Grassmarket, stiff-necked, covenanting heroes offered up the
often unnecessary, but not less honourable, sacrifice of their lives,
and bade eloquent farewell to sun, moon, and stars, and earthly
friendships, or died silent to the roll of drums. Down by yon outlet
rode Grahame of Claverhouse and his thirty dragoons, with the town
beating to arms behind their horses' tails--a sorry handful thus riding
for their lives, but with a man at the head who was to return in a
different temper, make a dash that staggered Scotland to the heart, and
die happily in the thick of fight. There Aikenhead was hanged for a
piece of boyish incredulity; there, a few years afterwards, David Hume
ruined Philosophy and Faith, an undisturbed and well-reputed citizen;
and thither, in yet a few years more, Burns came from the plough-tail,
as to an academy of gilt unbelief and artificial letters. There, when
the great exodus was made across the valley, and the new town began to
spread abroad its draughty parallelograms and rear its long frontage on
the opposing hill, there was such a flitting, such a change of domicile
and dweller, as was never excelled in the history of cities: the cobbler
succeeded the earl; the beggar ensconced himself by the judge's chimney;
what had been a