2 EDINBURGH PAST ANI) PRESENT.
by giving a series of dissolving views of various parts and points of prospect
that we can hope, in the faintest approximation, to describe the Modern
Athens.
I t were superfluous to quote Scott’s magnificent lines in the fourth canto
of Marnuon, closing with the words-
‘ Where’s the coward that would not dare
To fight for such a land ! ’-
words to which O’Connelrs recitation, heard by 30,000 on the Calton Hill, in
the September of 1835, seemed to give a new force and meaning, as though
a ray of autumnal gold had been shed down upon them, and transfigured
them in your sight. Less known than these, but hardly less beautiful, are
those in the Introduction to the 5th canto of the Poem, contrasting the
Edinburgh of the past with that of the present day :-
‘. . . Caledonia’s Queen is changed,
Since on her dusky summit ranged,
Within its steepy limits pent,
By bulwark, line, and battlcment,
And flanking towers, and Iaky flood,
Guardcd and garrisoned she stood,
Denying entrance or resort,
Save at each tall embattled port. . . .
Stern then, and steel-girt, was thy brow,
Dun-Edin ! 0, how altered now,
When safe amid thy mountain court
Thou sitst like Empress at her sport,
And liberal, unconfined, and free,
For thy dark cloud, with umbered lower
That hung o’er cliff, and lake, and tower,
Thou gleam’st against the western ray
Tcn thousand lines of brighter day.’
FLINGINTGH Y WHITE ARMS TO THE SEA,
In the 5th canto we have a gleam of Edinburgh by night :-
‘ You might have heard a pebble fall,
A beetle hum, a cricket sing,
An owlet flap his boding wing,
On Giles’s steeple tall.
The antique buildings, climbing high,
Whose Gothic frontlets sought the sky
Were here wrapt deep in shade ;
