GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF EDINBURGH.
BY THE REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.
THERaEr e various difficulties which press heavily upon a writer who
ventures on such a task as the description of Edinburgh. There is the fact
that it has been so often described before, and that, after a thousand able
efforts to describe it, it remains, unless by Scott, undescribed and indescribable.
There is the kindred fact that there are so many fine points of view, each of
BANK OF SCOTLAND.
which constitutes a beautiful fragment, but to piece a11 of which into a satisfactory
whole-hic Cabor hoc ojus est/ To paint London is felt to be as
impossible as to paint Chaos, but from the comparative smallness and
compactness of Edinburgh it is always alluring the limner to try his hand on
it-too often to his proper discomfiture and disgrace. It must, after all, be
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