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LET us now turn for a
moment to survey the two principal cities of this historic
Northland, Edinburgh—or Edinboro', as the Scots call it--overlooking
the Forth from an elevation of several hundred feet, the most
picturesque city in Europe, and Glasgow, the city of the Clyde, the
great metropolis of manufacture and commerce, the one commanding the
eastern, and the other the western, waters. These two great cities,
some forty miles apart, may be called the eyes of Scotland—organs of
vision and high intelligence through which she gives expression to
the thought of her people and holds daily communication with all the
world.
Glasgow, the grand
commercial emporium, far surpasses the sister-city in wealth and
trade, and also in population, which now reaches about half a
million, while Edinburgh has less than a quarter of a million. But
for what is lacking in wealth and power Edinburgh is fully
compensated in splendor of situation, in glorious memories of the
past, and in the magnificence of her educational and religious
institutions. Glasgow, the queenly city of the Clyde, with her
ocean-steamers, her iron-clad ships of war, her vast cotton-mills,
her merchant-princes and her colossal fortunes, that has in recent
times grown to be one of the chief builders of the British navy, is
not, indeed, without historic associations linking her to the
memorable past. Tracing her foundations back into the sixth
century—even earlier than those of Edinburgh—she bore her full share
in all the terrific conflicts that wrought out the deliverance of
Scotland. She can to-day point with just pride not only to her marts
of trade and the palatial residences of her citizens, but to her
ancient and magnificent cathedral, that survived the disasters of
centuries—perhaps the most perfect entire specimen of Gothic
architecture now in the realm. She can point, also, with equal
satisfaction to her churches, ancient and modern, to her educational
and benevolent institutions and to her great university, rivaling in
learning and number of students the more famous city of the Forth.
Edinburgh—or Edwin's
Burg, so called from the Saxon king of England who laid its
foundations in the seventh century—now covers those parallel ridges
and the deep valleys between which extend east and west along the
Firth of Forth about a mile's distance from the water. The old city
was built on the middle and highest of the ridges. The ground
gradually rises toward the west until it culminates in the great
massive rock on which the castle stands, commanding the whole city
and its environs. Along the summit of the ridge for about a mile,
from Holyrood Palace at the east up to Castle Rock, forming, as it
were, the backbone of the town, was thickly built the old Canongate,
or high street, lined with the residences of nobility and gentry. On
this street stood the famous cathedral of St. Giles, the Tron
church, John Knox's house, and other notable edifices. Here dwelt
the lordly Stuart kings in the palace of Holyrood. Here the young
and beautiful queen of Scots held her court until she wantonly threw
away her crown. Here the first General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland met, in 1560, in the little Magdalen chapel, deep down in
the ravine to the north of the street. It was a sort of Thermopylae
where this band of heroes pledged themselves to maintain against all
the world of papal power the divine rights of Presbytery. Here, on
the hill, in old St. Giles church, John Knox--a man whom his enemies
hated while living, and of whom they said when dead, "Here lies one
who never feared the face of man"—poured forth his fiery eloquence.
Here are the spots where Rizzio fell, where the ill-fated Darnley
was blown up, where the daring Montrose was dragged to execution,
frowning defiance on his foes, and not far off is the place where
the great regent Murray was assassinated. And here stood the
scaffold on which the noble Morton, and the still nobler statesman
the marquis of Argyle, were beheaded.
Edinburgh is full of
such memorials. The past confronts us at every step. The castle
looks down upon us out of history. To the poet, the historian and
the artist almost every foot of Scotland is classic ground. The
traveler is scarcely ever out of sight of places of historic
interest or scenes of surpassing beauty--battlefields like
Bannockburn, Falkirk, Bothwell Bridge and Culloden, that once shook
under the fierce onset of opposing hosts; venerable abbeys like
Melrose, Dryburgh and Dunfermline, fast crumbling to decay; castles
once impregnable, like those of Stirling, Berwick, Roslin, Dumbarton
and Loch Levin; mountain-peaks and highland lakes: Ben Lomond, Ben
Lide and Ben Nevis rising in solitary grandeur to the clouds, Loch
Katrine, Loch Lomond and Loch Ness with banks of sylvan beauty
mirrored in their crystal depths,--all new-daguerrotyped for the
world and made immortal for ever by the pen of the great enchanter
Walter Scott, in this respect the Scot of all the Scots.
After all, it is in
and around Edinburgh that these precious and sacred memorabilia
cluster the thickest. Here it is that the history of a thousand
years has been fossilized without losing its living interest—written
on the very streets of a crowding population, graven as with an iron
pen on rocks and crags and castle-walls. In this respect there is no
city in Europe except Rome or Athens that can be compared with
Edinburgh. Edinburgh is to Scotland what Rome is to Italy, what
Athens was to Greece, what Jerusalem was to Palestine.
The splendid modern
city, with its magnificent Prince's street and its classical
monument to Walter Scott, is chiefly built on the northern ridge,
nearest the Forth, while the southern ridge is largely given up to
great manufacturing establishments. Along the bottom of the south
valley runs the old Cowgate street, once famous in history, now
crowded with the humble tenements of the poor. Through the
corresponding north ravine extend the great railways connecting the
city at the west end with Glasgow and at the east with London. These
deep valleys are now bridged over with solid masonry and crossed by
streets running north and south at the summit-level of the ridges,
some hanging high in air on stone arches, and the one nearest the
castle built on an artificial mound constructed for the purpose.
Edinburgh thus presents the unique spectacle not only of an old city
and a new looking each other in the face from opposite hills, but of
an upper and a lower city—one bright and beautiful on her airy
elevations, the other dark and damp in the gloom of her sunken
valleys.
Take now a picture of
the city as viewed from Calton Hill and drawn by the graphic pen of
a Scotsman, Alexander Smith:
"Straight before the
mound crosses the valley, leaving the white academy buildings;
beyond, the castle lifts from grassy slopes and billows of summer
foliage its weather-stained towers and fortifications, the Half-Moon
battery giving the folds of its standard to the wind. Living in
Edinburgh, there abides among all things a sense of its beauty.
Hill, crag, castle, rock, blue stretch of sea, the picturesque ridge
of the Old Town, the squares and terraces of the New,—these things,
seen once, are not to be forgotten. The quick life of to-day,
sounding around the relics of antiquity and overshadowed by the
august traditions of a kingdom, makes residence in Edinburgh more
impressive than residence in any other British city. What a poem is
that Prince's street! The puppets of the busy many-colored hour move
about on its pavements, while across the ravine Time has piled up
the Old Town, ridge on ridge, gray as a rocky coast washed and worn
by the foam of centuries, peaked and jagged by gable and roof,
windowed from basement to cope, the whole surmounted by St. Giles's
airy crown.
"The New is there
looking at the Old. Two periods are brought face to face, and are
yet separated by a thousand years. Wonderful on winter nights, when
the galley is filled with darkness and out of it rises against the
sombre blue and the frosty stars that mass and bulwark of gloom
pierced and quivering with innumerable lights. There is nothing in
Europe to match it. Could you but roll a river down the valley, it
would be sublime. That ridged and chimneyed bulk of blackness with
splendor bursting out at every pore is the wonderful Old Town, where
Scottish history mainly transacted itself, while, opposite, the
modern Prince's street is blazing throughout its length. During the
day the castle looks down upon the city as out of another world,
stern with all its peacefulness, its garniture of trees, its slopes
of grass. The rock is dingy enough in color, but after a shower its
lichens laugh out greenly in the returning sun while the rainbow is
brightening on the lowering cloud beyond. How deep the shadow which
the castle throws at noon over the gardens at its feet where the
children play! How grand where giant bulk and towery crown blacken
against the sunset!
"Fair, too, the New
Town, sloping to the sea. From George's street, which crowns the
ridge, the eye is led down sweeping streets of stately architecture
to villas and woods that fill the lower ground and fringe the shore;
to the bright azure belt of the Forth, with its smoking steamer or
its creeping sail; beyond, to the shores of Fife, soft, blue and
flecked with fleeting shadows in the keen, clear light of spring,
dark purple in the summer heat, tarnished gold in the autumn haze;
and farther away still, just distinguishable on the paler sky, the
crest of some distant peak, carrying the imagination into the
illimitable world. Residence in Edinburgh is an education in itself.
It is perennial, like a play of Shakespeare. Nothing can stale its
infinite variety. Its beauty refreshes one like being in love."
Such is the estimate
of one who had felt the poetic inspiration of this scene of varied
loveliness. It is a glowing picture, indeed, not unlike that drawn
by a greater master, the author of Marrnion and Waverley, whose
genius was nurtured amid its scenes, and who rejoiced to call Dun
Edin "mine own romantic town." Here Art and Nature conspire with all
the glorious history to give the world assurance of a finished city.
Not inappropriately may the lines of Tennyson be applied to this
romantic spot:
"The Past and Present
here unite
Beneath Time's rolling tide,
As footprints hidden by a brook
Are seen on either side." |
