40 EDINBURGH FAST AND PRESENT.
mansion standing amidst the deep solitary woods, the high ragged rocks, and
the foaming waters of the Findhorn.
Toward Morningside, with its, alas ! too well known magnificent Asylum,
you pass Merchiston Castle, where Napier, the famous inventor of Logarithms,
one of Scotland’s highest scientific men, spent the greater portion of his life.
Above Faicon Hall on the roadside at its highest point, is seen the Bore Stone,
marked by an inscription, into which James IV. sunk the shaft of his royal
IIfiRcHISTON CASTU.
standard on setting out for Flodden (ah ! how different from that of a similar
designation still to be seen near Bannockburn, where Scotland’s flag at the
close of that ‘bloody summer day,’ June 24th, 1314, was stirred by the breeze
of victory, and seemed in every fold and flutter to be speaking of freedom !) ;
and it was in the first house on the left in Church Hill that Chalmers was found
in his bed--dead, yet with an aspect which might have accompanied the
triumph of a translation. It is refreshing, after the excitement and exhaustion
of passing so many classic spots and speaking silences, to find yourseIf
now in the free fresh country, amidst the quiet commonplace of its fields and
the breathing balm of its summer winds !
There are still some places of great interest which must not, even in a
review so rapid and sketchy, be omitted, such as the Greyfriars Church and
Churchyard, the Grassmarket and the Cowgate.
’ Built in 1612, half blown up in 1718, compIetely destroyed by fire in
-
THE OLD TOWN. 41
1845, Old Greyfriars Church was restored and reopened in 1857. What a
strange and varied history it has gone through!--'not a church, but a
caravanserai.' Here, after a sermon by Alexander Henderson of Leucbars in
1663, the Solemn League and Covenant was signed, laid out on a gravestone,
the parchment at length failing them, and many of the signatures being written
STONE ON WHICH TAB COVENANT WAS SIGNED.
in blood ! (In the Engraving the stone is enclosedaithin' the railing, and a
glimpse of light rests on it.) Here'"Dr>Robertson the historian rolled along
his splendid sentences in the morning, and Dr. John Erskine in the afternoon
pierced and scattered them by hii Presbyterian dagger ! the one contending that
virtue, were she coming to earth in human form, would be adored ; the other
announcing that sheshad come in the person of Christ, and had been crucified
and slain. Here Dr. Robert Lee, a reformer too, in his own way, discerning
perhaps his time as well as Henderson did his, introduced an organ and a
liturgy, and struck a chord of innovation which his successor, the sagacious
and daring Wallace-now Editor of the Scofsman-boIdIy and successfully
followed.
The Greyfriars Churchyard stands on the ruins of the Franciscan
Monastery, and strange it was that the first man of note buried in it should
be George Buchanan, the scourge of the Franciscans as well as of the other
orders of monks-described by Miiton as 'white, black, and grey, With all
their trumpery.' Buchanan's funeral was attended by a 'great company of
the faithful,' and, standing near a small tablet erected to his memory by a
working blacksmith-his only monument here,-let us recall for an instant into
honourable remembrance the greatest of Scottish Latin scholars and not the
least of Scottish poets, the noble, brave-hearted, outspoken, manly, and eloquent
F
