passed the Lord-Commissioner's house, the guards were in
attendance, who cautioned him not to go by the Palace, as all the
gates would be shut and guarded for an hour to come, on which
he went by the back of St. Anthony's gardens, and found his way
into that little romantic glade adjoining to the saint's chapel and
well. He was still involved in a blue haze, like a dense smoke,
but yet in the midst of it the respiration was the most refreshing
and delicious. The grass and the flowers were loaden with dew;
and, on taking off his hat to wipe his forehead, he perceived that
the black glossy fur of which his chaperon was wrought was all
covered with a tissue of the most delicate silver--a fairy web,
composed of little spheres, so minute that no eye could discern
any of them; yet there they were shining in lovely millions.
Afraid of defacing so beautiful and so delicate a garnish, he
replaced his hat with the greatest caution, and went on his way
light of heart.

As he approached the swire at the head of the dell--that little
delightful verge from which in one moment the eastern limits and
shores of Lothian arise on the view--as he approached it, I say,
and a little space from the height, he beheld, to his astonishment,
a bright halo in the cloud of haze, that rose in a semicircle over
his head like a pale rainbow. He was struck motionless at the
view of the lovely vision; for it so chanced that he had never seen
the same appearance before, though common at early morn. But
he soon perceived the cause of the phenomenon, and that it
proceeded from the rays of the sun from a pure unclouded
morning sky striking upon this dense vapour which refracted
them. But, the better all the works of nature are understood, the
more they will be ever admired. That was a scene that would