home.

Venice, it has been said, differs from all other cities in the sentiment
which she inspires. The rest may have admirers; she only, a famous fair
one, counts lovers in her train. And indeed, even by her kindest
friends, Edinburgh is not considered in a similar sense. These like her
for many reasons, not any one of which is satisfactory in itself. They
like her whimsically, if you will, and somewhat as a virtuoso dotes upon
his cabinet. Her attraction is romantic in the narrowest meaning of the
term. Beautiful as she is, she is not so much beautiful as interesting.
She is pre-eminently Gothic, and all the more so since she has set
herself off with some Greek airs, and erected classic temples on her
crags. In a word, and above all, she is a curiosity. The Palace of
Holyrood has been left aside in the growth of Edinburgh, and stands grey
and silent in a workman's quarter, and among breweries and gas works. It
is a house of many memories. Great people of yore, kings and queens,
buffoons, and grave ambassadors, played their stately farce for
centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been plotted, dancing has lasted deep
into the night, murder has been done in its chambers. There Prince
Charlie held his phantom levees, and in a very gallant manner
represented a fallen dynasty for some hours. Now, all these things of
clay are mingled with the dust, the king's crown itself is shown for
sixpence to the vulgar; but the stone palace has outlived these changes.
For fifty weeks together, it is no more than a show for tourists and a
museum of old furniture; but on the fifty-first, behold the palace
reawakened and mimicking its past. The Lord Commissioner, a kind of
stage sovereign, sits among stage courtiers; a coach and six and
clattering escort come and go before the gate; at night, the windows are
lighted up, and its near neighbours, the workmen, may dance in their own
houses to the palace music. And in this the palace is typical. There is
a spark among the embers; from time to time the old volcano smokes.
Edinburgh has but partly abdicated, and still wears, in parody, her
metropolitan trappings. Half a capital and half a country town, the
whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the one and
flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, it is half alive
and half a monumental marble. There are armed men and cannon in the
citadel overhead; you may see the troops Marshalled on the high parade;
and at night a