ings, and much froth
of foolish talk from uninstructed lips in the following generations. As
Stratford-on-Avon is in respect to Shakspeare all Scotland is in respect
to Burns and Scott. It has even become a mark of culture and superiority
among certain fine spirits in consequence to pretend to despise the
former of these names--perhaps really to despise it, for there is no
fathom that can sound the depths of human foolishness even in the
learned and wise. The vulgarity of fame when it becomes the cry of the
most prosaic is, however, calculated justly to alarm the literary soul,
and in the excess of Scott monuments, and wooden quaighs, and tartan
paper-knives, there is a damping and depressing quality which we must
all acknowledge.

[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT'S HOUSE]

We need not, however, in these follies forget the illuminating presence
of Scott in the midst of all the picturesque scenes of what he has
proudly called "mine own romantic town." From the High School Yards and
"the kittle nine steps," from George Square, lying cosy but grey in the
hollow amid the enlarged and beautiful openings of the Meadows, to the
Parliament House, withdrawn in the square, once blocked by the Old
Tolbooth, now confronted solely by an embellished and restored
cathedral, and to the sober street on the other side of the hollow,
where to 39 North Castle Street he took his bride and set up his
independent home, there is no corner of Edinburgh where his step and
voice have not been. And some of the most characteristic scenes which we
can call to mind in recent history rise before us in his narrative as if
we had been there. The Porteous Mob riots in our ears, the flare of the
sudden fire at the gates of the Tolbooth, the blinding smoke, the tramp
of the crowd, the sudden concentrated force of that many-headed
multitude stilled by stern resolve into unity and action, are as visible
as if they had happened yesterday. And after ransacking all the serious
volumes that tell the story and picture the aspect of old Edinburgh, we
turn back to that tale, and for the first time see the tortuous passage
between the church and the Tolbooth, the dark old prison with its lofty
turrets, the Luckenbooths linked on to its dark shadow, oppressing the
now wide thoroughfare of the High Street, where these buildings have
left no trace. No topographical record or painstaking print comes within
a hundred miles of that picture, dashed in boldly by the way, to