be cited, as having strutted their hour
upon the great stage of the High-street of
Dunedin, are realities in a double sense;
real in their own day, realised in ours in
the pages of history and romance. They are
all of the most various character; a
phantasmagoria of coronations, royal marriages, and
proclamations of victory, intermixed with a
rabble rout, following to the headsman's
block the ambitious nobles who had fallen
into disfavour, the old crones accused of
witchcraft, the saints and martyrs of the
Covenant, and all the chivalrous and
unfortunate heroes of the rebellions of '15 and '45.
And over and amid them all are Queen Mary
and her court, her lovers and her husbands,
all alike false, or mad, or silly, or simply
luckless and unfortunate. And whatever
may be said of the crimes or misfortunes
of the people in this crowded historical
gallery, let none say a word against Queen
Mary in Edinburgh. It is not irrelevant
to inquire, why so staunchly Protestant a
nation as the Scotch should look so
tenderly upon their Popish queen; and why
so godly a people should condone so readily,
even so affectionately, the errors of her life
and reign? The Stuarts were not a blessing
to their native land, but very much the
reverse. Time, however, has worked in
their behalf, and the lapse of ages, which
has weakened the remembrance of their
faults, has strengthened the remembrance
of their misfortunes, and almost displaced
blame by sympathy and pity.

          For Sorrow is a great and holy thing,
          We recognise its right, as king to king.

"Whatever the politician, the philosopher,
and the lover of liberty may say of
this unhappy family," says the editor of the
Jacobite Relics of Scotland, "no lover of
poetry and music can speak of them without
affectionate regret, and the respect which is
due to misfortune. Death from the daggers
of assassins; death upon the scaffold;
public shame and contumely; poverty,
misery, banishment—all these were the
appanage and inheritance of this illustrious
race; a race whom Fortune seemed to delight
in persecuting and humiliating, to whom
she gave amiability only to bring them into
sorrow, and make them acquainted with
false friends, unwise advisers, and treacherous
confidants; to whom she offered the
cup of prosperity only to infuse gall and
wormwood into it, or dash it untasted
from their lips; to whom she gave wealth
only to take it away; power, only to make
it a mockery and a disgrace; talents, only
to lead them astray from the right path;
and to whom even the gift of personal
beauty, as in the case of Mary Queen of
Scots, was but tke means and the
consummation of all other trial, calamity, and
shame."

On the right, as we descend towards
Holyrood, stand Parliament-square and
the former parliament house, now used as
the College of Justice, or Law Courts of
Scotland. The history of this edifice as a
parliament house closed at the Union; its
history as the centre of Scottish law and
equity will doubtless extend far into the
future. Let the lover of rare books and
manuscripts, if he have the time to spare,
turn into a portion of this building, the
Advocate's Library, the largest collection
of books in Scotland, which, like the
British Museum, enjoys the privilege of
receiving, and in .case of need of exacting,
a copy of every new book or pamphlet
published within the United Kingdom.
The library of the Writers to the Signet
close adjoining is not quite so extensive,
but is as well worth a visit.

St. Giles's Church—one of the few
architectural remnants of Roman Catholic
Scotland which has not been devastated
and overthrown by the rude hands of the
intolerant fanatics who hated the shrine
as much as they hated the faith—is an
interesting edifice, of which the origin is
lost in antiquity. It existed in the
fourteenth century, but how much earlier it is
difficult or impossible to ascertain. It was
once provided with thirty-six altars, and
maintained upwards of a hundred priests
and other officials. It is now divided into
four compartments, with separate entrances,
each serving as a parish church. Here
John Knox, whose house is still to be seen
a little lower down the street, was
accustomed to thunder against Queen Mary.
Prom this point to Holyrood there is
scarcely a house that has not some historical,
traditional, legendary, poetical, or social
interest attaching to it, as may be seen
in the Traditions of Edinburgh, collected
by Mr. Robert Chambers. But dirtier and
more squalid grows the street as we descend
into the Cowgate and the Canongate, more
multitudinous the children, more slouchy
and devil-may-care the men, more untidy
and reckless-looking the women; more
grimy the windows and passages, more
forlorn and petty the shops; facts which,
while we observe with regret, our friend
Scotus takes care to explain by the statement
that nine-tenths of the population
hereabouts are Irish of the lowest class,
both in means and morals, and a sore
trouble to the police and the magistracy.