THE Castle Hill,? says Dr. Chambers, ? is partly ?
an esplanade, serving as a parade ground for the
garrison, and partly a street, the upper portion of
that vertebral line which, under the names of Lawnbeen
characterised as ? hovels that are a disgrace
to Europe.?
In lists concerning the Castle of Edinburgh,
the first governor appears to have been Thomas de
Cancia in I 147 ; the first constable, David Kincaid
of Coates House, in 1542 ; and the first State prisoner
warded therein Thomas of. Colville in 12 10,
for conspiring against William the Lion.
We may fittingly take leave of the grand old
?( Archzologia Scotica,? which contains an ? Elegie
on the great and famous Blew Stone which lay on
the Castle Hill, and was interred there.? On this
relic, probably a boulder, a string of verses form ,
Castle in the fine lines of Burns?s ?Address to
Edinburgh ? :-
~ ? There, watching high the least alarms,
Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar;
Like some bold ver?ran, grey in arms,
And marked with many a seamy scar ;
The pond?rous wall and massy bar,
Grim rising o?er the rugged rock,
Have oft withstood assailing war,
And oft repelled th? invader?s shock.?
market, High Street, and Canongate, extends to I the doggerel elegy :-
Holyrood Palace f but
it is with the Esplanade
and banks we have
chiefly to deal at
present.
Those who now see
the Esplanade, a peaceful
open space, 5 10 feet
in length by 300 in
breadth,with the squads
of Highland soldiers at
drill, or the green bank
that slopes away to the
north, covered with
beautiful timber, swarming
in summer with little
ones in care of their
nurses, can scarcely
realise that thereon
stood the ancient Spur,
before which so many
men have perished
RUNIC CROSS, CASTLE BANK.
sword in hand, and that it was the arena of so
many revolting executions by the axe and stake,
for treason, hereay, and sorcery.
It lay in a rough state till 1753, when the earth
taken from the foundations of the Royal Exchange
\vas spread over it, and the broad flight of forty
steps which gave access to the drawbridge was
buried. The present ravelin before the half-moon
was built in 1723 ; but alterations in the level must
have taken place prior to that, to judge from
?Our old Blew Stone, that?s
His marrow may not be;
Large, twenty feet in length
His bulk none e?er did
Doiir and dief, and run with
When he preserved men.
Behind his back a batterie
Contrived with packs of
Let?s now think on, since
We ?re in the Castle?s
dead and gone,
he was,
ken ;
grief,
was,
woo,
he is gone,
view.?
The woolpacks evidently
refer to the siege
of 1689.
The Esplanade was
impraved in 1816 by a
parnpet and railing on
the north. and a fea
years after by a low mall on the south, strengthened
by alternate towers and turrets. A bronze statue of
the Duke of York and Albany, K.G., holding his
marshal?s b%ton, was erected on the north side in
1839, and a little lower down are two Celtic memorial
crosses of remarkable beauty. The larger and
more ornate of them was erected in 1862, by the
officers and soldiers of the 78th Ross-shire Highlanders,
to the memory of their comrades who fell
during the revolt in India in 1857-8 j and the
