reproof of flattery--

How can you say to me,--I am a king?

would sound with melancholy sadness and truth.

The reader of "the age and body of the time" need not be told that the
tenancy of Holyrood by the Ex-King of France has suggested its present
introduction, although the Engraving represents the Palace about the
year 1640. The structure, in connexion with the Chapel,[1] is thus
described in Chambers's _Picture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 61.

The Chapel and Palace of Holyrood are situated at the extremity of the
suburb called the Cannongate. The ordinary phrase "the Abbey," still
popularly applied to both buildings, indicates that the former is the
more ancient of the two. Like so many other religious establishments,
it owns David I. for its founder. Erected in the twelfth century, and
magnificently endowed by that monarch, it continued for about four
centuries to flourish as an abbey, and to be, at least during the
latter part of that time, the residence of the sovereign. In the year
1528, James V. added a palace to the conventual buildings. During the
subsequent reign of Mary, this was the principal seat of the court; and
so it continued in a great measure to be, till the departure of King
James VI. for England. Previously to this period, the Abbey and Palace
had suffered from fire, and they have since undergone such revolutions,
that, as in the celebrated case of Sir John Cutler's stockings, which,
in the course of darning, changed nearly their whole substance, it is
now scarcely possible to distinguish what is really ancient from the
modern additions.