subdue almost into similarity a Whole constructed of such various
elements, for it is all felt to be kindred with those guardian cliffs.
Those eternal heights hold the Double City together in an amity that
breathes over both the same national look--the impression of the same
national soul. In the olden time, the city gathered herself almost under
the very wing of the Castle; for in her heroic heart she ever heard,
unalarmed but watchful, the alarums of war, and that cliff, under
heaven, was on earth the rock of her salvation. But now the foundation
of that rock, whence yet the tranquil burgher hears the morning and the
evening bugle, is beautified by gardens that love its pensive shadow,
for it tames the light to flowers by rude feet untrodden, and yielding
garlands for the brows of perpetual peace. Thence elegance and grace
arose; and while antiquity breathes over that wilderness of antique
structures picturesquely huddled along the blue line of sky--as Wilkie
once finely said, like the spine of some enormous animal; yet all along
this side of that unrivered and mound-divided dell, now shines a new
world of radiant dwellings, declaring by their regular but not
monotonous magnificence, that the same people, whose "perfervid genius"
preserved them by war unhumbled among the nations in days of darkness,
have now drawn a strength as invincible from the beautiful arts which
have been cultivated by peace in the days of light.

And is the spirit of the inhabitation there worthy of the place
inhabited? We are a Scotsman. And the great English Moralist has asked,
where may a Scotsman be found who loves not the honour or the glory of
his country better than truth? We are that Scotsman--though for our
country would we die. Yet dearer too than life is to us the honour--if
not the glory of our country; and had we a thousand lives, proudly would
we lay them all down in the dust rather than give--or see given--one
single stain

"Unto the silver cross, to Scotland dear,"

on which as yet no stain appears save those glorious weather-stains,
that have fallen on its folds from the clouds of war and the storms of
battle. Sufficient praise to the spirit of our land, that she knows how
to love, admire, and rival--not in vain--the spirit of high-hearted and
heroic England. Long as we and that other noble Isle

"Set as an emerald in the casing sea,"

in triple union breathe as one,

"Then come against us the whole world in