one valley, where the life of the town goes most busily
forward, there may be seen, shown one above and behind
another by the accidents of the ground, buildings in
almost every style upon the globe. Egyptian and Greek
temples, Venetian palaces and Gothic spires, are huddled
one over another in a most admired disorder; while, above
all, the brute mass of the Castle and the summit of
Arthur's Seat look down upon these imitations with a
becoming dignity, as the works of Nature may look down
the monuments of Art. But Nature is a more
indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in no way
frightened of a strong effect. The birds roost as
willingly among the Corinthian capitals as in the
crannies of the crag; the same atmosphere and daylight
clothe the eternal rock and yesterday's imitation
portico; and as the soft northern sunshine throws out
everything into a glorified distinctness - or easterly
mists, coming up with the blue evening, fuse all these
incongruous features into one, and the lamps begin to
glitter along the street, and faint lights to burn in the
high windows across the valley - the feeling grows upon
you that this also is a piece of nature in the most
intimate sense; that this profusion of eccentricities,
this dream in masonry and living rock, is not a drop-
scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of every-day
reality, connected by railway and telegraph-wire with all
the capitals of Europe, and inhabited by citizens of the
familiar type, who keep ledgers, and attend church, and
have sold their immortal portion to a daily paper. By
all the canons of romance, the place demands to be half