through bad advice, error, or
rashness. The attendants of the late sovereign will be reduced
to the least possible number, and consist chiefly of ladies and
children, and his style of life will be strictly retired. In these
circumstances it would be unworthy of us as Scotchmen, or as men,
if this unfortunate family should meet with a word or a look from
the meanest individual tending to aggravate feelings which must
be at present so acute as to receive injury from insults, which
in other times would be passed over with perfect disregard. His
late opponents in his kingdom have gained the applause of Europe
for the generosity with which they have used their victory, and
the respect which they have paid to themselves in their moderation
towards an enemy. It would be a great contrast to that part of
their conduct which has been most generally applauded, were we,
who are strangers to the strife, to affect a deeper resentment
than those concerned more closely. Those who can recollect the
former residence of this unhappy prince in our Northern capital
cannot but remember the unobtrusive, quiet manner in which his
little court was then conducted, and now, still further restricted
and diminished, he may naturally expect to be received with civility
and respect by a nation whose good will he has done nothing to
forfeit. Whatever may have been his errors towards his own subjects,
we cannot but remember in his adversity that he did not in his
prosperity forget that Edinburgh had extended him her hospitality,
but that at the period when the fires consumed so much of our city,
he sent a princely benefaction to the sufferers.... If there be
any who entertain angry or invidious recollections of late events
in France, they ought to remark that the ex-monarch has by his
abdication renounced the conflict, into which perhaps he was engaged
by bad advice, that he can no longer be an object of resentment
to the brave, but remains, to all, the most striking example of
the instability of human affairs which our unstable times have
afforded. He may say, with our own deposed Richard,--

'With mine own hands I washed away my blame;
With mine own hands I gave away my crown;
With my own tongue deny my sacred state.'

"He brings among us his 'gray, discrowned head,' and in a 'nation
of gentlemen,' as we were emphatically termed by the very highest
authority, it is impossible, I trust, to find a man mean enough
to insult the slightest hair