EDINBURGH, the ancient capital of Scotland, is situated in the county of Mid-Lothian or Edinburgh, to the south of the Firth of Forth. The Royal Observatory, which is built on the summit of the Calton Hill, in the north-eastern quarter of the city, is in 55° 57' 23" of N. lat., and 12m 43s 05x of time W. long, of the meridian of Greenwich.
The site of Edinburgh is altogether remarkable as that of a large city, and is the chief source of its peculiar char-acteristics. It occupies a group of hills separated by deep ravines, and is the central feature of a landscape of rare beauty. The county of Mid-Lothian forms towards the south-east a wild hilly district, diversified with fertile cultivated tracts, but, over an exten-sive area, broken in-to a rough pastoral country, rising at various points to upwards of 2000 feet above the level of the sea. On the north it is bounded by the Firth of Forth, from the shores of which the ground slopes gra-dually towards the south till it mergea in the range of the Pentland Hills, with its contour diversi-fied by various un-dulations and abrupt heights. On this irregular ground, amid the outlying spurs of the Pentlands, a bold cliff of trap-rock, which rises through the sandstone strata of the district, appears to have early attracted attention from its capacity for defence. Maitland, the earliest historian of the city, says, " The situation of Edinburgh plainly shows that its origin is owing to the castle;" and from its standing in St Cuthbert's parish, which surrounds the castle rock, he assumes that the first settlement was in the low ground to the north-west. From this a road anciently led up past the Well-House Tower, along the northern slope of the Castle Hill. By this access Queen Mary and other royal visitants rode up to the castle on various public entries, and then returned through the town, by way of the High Street and Canongate, to Holyrood. Symeon of Durham, under the date 854 A.D., includes Edinburgh among the churches and towns of Northumbria within the bishopric of Lindisfarne, and this is supposed to refer to the church of St Cuthbert. But the first erection of the Magh dun fortress, or " Maiden Castle," on the summit of the rock, must have tempted the natives of the district to seek the protection of its defences. Hence at an early period a hamlet grew up along the ridge which slopes from the castle rock towards the valley at the base of Salis-bury Crags, distinct from the Kirk-town of St Cuthbert.
In the reign of Malcolm Canmore the Castle of Edinburgh included a royal palace. There his pious queen, Margaret, the grand-niece of Edward the Confessor, died in 1093. It continued to be a royal residence during the reigns of her three sons, and hence the first rapid growth of the upper town may be referred to the 12th century. The parish church of St Giles is believed to have been erected on its present site in the reign of Alexander I., about 1110, and the huge Norman keep of the castle, built by his younger brother, David I., continued to be known as David's Tower till its destruction in the siege of 1572. Before his accession to the Scottish throne, David I. had been earl of Huntingdon, having acquired that manor and earldom in England by his marriage with Matilda the heiress of Waltheof, earl of Northumberland. He conse-quently frequented the English court, and became familiar with the military and ecclesiastical architecture introduced by the Anglo-Norman kings; and soon after his accession to the Scottish throne he founded the Abbey of Holyrood, which from an early date received the Scottish court as its guests. But notwithstanding the attractions of the abbey and the neighbouring chase, the royal palace continued for centuries to be within the fortress, and there both the Celtic and Stuart kings frequently resided. Edinburgh was long an exposed frontier town within a territory only ceded to Malcolm II. about 1020; and even under the earlier Stuart kings it was still regarded as a border stronghold. Hence, though the village of Canongate grew up beside the abbey of David I., and Edinburgh was a place of sufficient importance to be reckoned one of the four principal burghs as a judicatory for all commercial matters, nevertheless, even so late as 1450, when it became for the first time a walled town, it did not extend beyond the upper part of the ridge which slopes eastward from the castle rock. But the mural defences of the town were an evidence of wealth and growing prosperity ; and no sooner was it surrounded with protecting walls than its rapid increase led to the growth of an extensive suburb beyond their limits.
The other three royal burghs associated with Edinburgh were Stirling, Roxburgh, and Berwick ; and their enact-ments form the earliest existing collected body of the laws of Scotland. But the determination of Edinburgh as the national capital, and as the most frequent scene of parlia-mentary assemblies, dates from the assassination of James I. in 1436. Of the thirteen Parliaments summoned by that sovereign, only one, the last of them, was held at Edin-burgh, But his assassination that same year, in the Black-friars' monastery at Perth, led to the abrupt transfer of the court and capital from the Tay to the Forth. The corona-tion of James II. was celebrated in Holyrood Abbey instead of at Scone; and the widowed queen took up her residence, with the young king, in the Castle of Edinburgh. Of fourteen Parliaments summoned during this reign, only one was held at Perth, five met at Stirling, and all the others at Edinburgh; and, notwithstanding the favour shown for Stirling as a royal residence in the following reign, everyone of the Parliaments of James III. was held at Edinburgh. James II. showed special favour to Edinburgh by conferring on it various privileges relating to the holding of fairs and markets, and the levying of customs ; and by a royal charter of 1452 he gave it pre-eminence over the other burghs. Further immunities and privileges were conferred on it by James III.; and by a precept, known as the Golden Charter, of 1482, he conferred on the provost and magistrates the hereditary office of sheriff, with power to hold courts, to levy fines, and to impose duties on all merchandise landed at the port of Leith. Those privileges were renewed and extended by various sovereigns, and specially by a general charter granted to the city by James VI. in 1603, the year of his accession to the English throne.
James III. was a great builder ; and, in the prosperous era which followed on his son's accession to the throne, the new town of the 15th century spread over the open valley to the south, with the Cowgate as its chief thoroughfare. But the death of James IV. in 1513, along with other disastrous results of the battle of Flodden, brought this era of prosperity tc an abrupt close. The citizens hastened to construct a second line of wall, inclosing the Cowgate and the heights beyond, since occupied by the Greyfriars' Church and Heriot's Hospital, but still excluding the Canongate, as pertaining to the Abbey of Holyrood. The new wall long determined the limits of the town. For upwards of two centuries after its erection the requisite accommodation for the increasing population was secured by crowding buildings on every available spot within the protection of the walls, displacing the earlier structures by lofty piles of building within the straightened area, and projecting from them overhanging additions of timber. By those means the northern and southern slopes of the ridge along which the main street of the old town was formed were crowded with the picturesque alleys and closes which contributed so much to the peculiar aspect which the ancient city still retained when in 1808 Scott thus pictured it :—
_ "Such dusky grandeur clothed the height, Where the huge castle holds its state,
And all the steep slope down, Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, Piled deep and massy, close and high, Mine own romantic town."
Within this ancient civic area stand the collegiate church of St Giles—for a time the cathedral of the diocese of Edinburgh,—the Parliament House and law courts, and Edinburgh.
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the civic Council Chambers. Here also in earlier years of the present century stood the old Tolbooth, or Heart of Mid-Lothian, and other buildings of note, including mansions of the Scottish nobility, and even of royalty. But it forms a mere historic nucleus of the modern city, which for a century past has been extending over the neighbouring heights, northward towards the ancient seaport of Leith, and southward and westward to the lower slopes of the Pentland Hills. The area included within the parliamentary boundary extends to 4179 acres, or 6J square miles; but, owing to its singularly irregular site, while the lower parts of the city stand little more than 100 feet above the level of the sea, the higher parts rise in some places to 250 feet, and the summit of the castle rock is 383 feet above the sea. Within the same civic area, and entirely surrounded and in part encroached on by its streets, is the Calton Hill, occupied by the Eoyal Astronomical Observatory, the floor of which stands at a height of 349 feet above the and beyond the narrow valley, in which the Canongate and the Palace of Holyrood lie, Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags rear their lofty cliffs in boldly picturesque outline, the highest summit rising to the height of 822 feet, and affording a magnificent prospect over land and sea. Bridges connect the different ridges on which the city is built, with crowded thoroughfares underneath. Many of the public buildings occupy lofty terraces, and thereby show to greater advantage than their architectural designs would otherwise secure for them. The valley between the Old and the New Town, and the slopes of the castle rock, are laid out as public gardens; and the Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat furnish promenades and carriage drives of unequalled variety and beauty as the public parks of a large city. Fine white freestone abounds in the immediate neighbourhood, and furnishes abundance of the best building material; while the hard trap-rock, with which the stratified sandstones of the coal formation have been extensively broken up and overlaid, supplies good materials for paving and roadmaking.
Thus on a locality seemingly ill-adapted for the site of a great city, there has gradually arisen one which compares to advantage with the most picturesque and beautiful among the capitals of Europe. Sir David Wilkie came to it in 1799 fresh from a Fifeshire manse, to begin the studies in the Edinburgh school of design which ultimately secured for him his high fame as an artist. When he returned to it in later years, familiar with all that European art had to disclose, he thus gave utterance to his matured impressions :—
" What the tour of Europe was necessary to see elsewhere I now find congregated in this one city. Here are alike the beauties of Prague and of Salzburg ; here are the romantic sites of Orvietto and Tivoli; and here is all the magnificence of the admired bays of Genoa and Naples. Here, indeed, to the poetic fancy may be found realized the Roman Capitol and the Grecian Acropolis."
The name of Edinburgh is a memorial of the intrusion of a new people, when, in the beginning of the 7th century, the race of Ida reared the fortress of Edwin's-burgh on the rocky height, and thereby established the Anglian power on the Forth. But this Teutonic invasion was not the first occupation of the site. Camden aimed at identifying it with the SrpaToVeSov TLrepaiTov of Ptolemy ; and although this has been rejected by later Boman antiquaries, the convergence of Boman roads towards the place, the traces of Boman art discovered from time to time within the old civic area, and the evidence of two Roman seaports, at Inveresk and Cramond, both connected with it by roads of Roman structure,'—all tend to confirm the idea that Edinburgh was one of the sites occupied by the Roman invaders. On their withdrawal it remained an important stronghold on the southern frontier of the Pictish kingdom. One learned Anglo-Saxon scholar, the Rev. D. H. Haig, in his Anglo-Saxon Conquest of Britain, has identified it as the Hill of Agned, the scene of Arthur's victory of Cat Bregion.
For centuries after the founding of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria, the lowlands extending from the Forth to the Tweed continued to be a debatable land held by uncertain tenure; it was to a large extent settled anew by Anglo-Saxon and Norman colonists under Malcolm Canmore and his sons. Edinburgh accordingly remained a frontier post beyond the Forth, until it became the capital of the Stuart kings. Then, for the first time, it rose into importance as a town. It shared in their triumphs, and bore the chief brunt in their repeated disasters; and, even after their forfeiture of the crown, some of its most picturesque associations are with the Stuart claimants for the throne of their ancestors. Nevertheless Edinburgh continued till near the close of the 18th century to be circumscribed within the narrow bounds of the ancient city and the burgh of Canongate, with the main street extending along the height of the slope from the Castle to Holyrood Palace, and the Cowgate as the only other thoroughfare admitting of the passage of wheeled carriages. Hence the vehicle in general use was the sedan chair, by means of which the Scottish nobility and gentry paid fashionable visits in the narrow wynds of their ancient capital, and proceeded iu full dress to the assemblies and balls, which were conducted with the most aristocratic exclusiveness in an alley on the south side of the High Street, which still bears the name of the Assembly Close.
Beyond the walls of the ancient city lay the burghs of Calton, Easter and Wester Portsburgh, the villages of St Cuthbert's, Moutrie's Hill, Broughton, Canonmills, Silver-mills, and Deanhaugh—all of which have been successively swallowed up in the extension of the modern city. The ancient seaport of Leith, though a distinct parliamentary burgh, governed by its own magistrates, and electing its own representative to Parliament, has already extended its buildings, at one point at least, so as to conjoin with those of the neighbouring city.
The progress of Edinburgh during the present century has been remarkable in many ways. In 1801 the population, including the Canongate and other extra-mural suburbs, but exclusive of Leith, was 66,544; in 1871 it had risen to 196,979. But the characteristics of the city and its population are peculiar. From an early date the special associations with the national literature have been identified with the ancient capital. Barbour, indeed, the contemporary of Chaucer, was archdeacon of Aberdeen; and the royal author of the King's Quair is chiefly associated with Perth; but in the following reign Edinburgh had become the favourite residence of the Scottish kings. One of the foremost charges against James III. was that he preferred the society of artists and musicians to that of the rough barons of his court. Under the patronage of his son, the printing press was first set up at Edinburgh in 1507. At the court of Holyrood, so long as James IV. reigned, the rivalry of rank and genius involved no conflict. Of the three great poets of the reign, Dunbar is believed to have been a grandson of the earl of March; Walter Kennedy was a younger son of the first Lord Kennedy ; Gawin Douglas the third son of the earl of Angus ; and Dunbar enumerates six or seven other literary contemporaries. In his Remonstrance to the King, he notes among the servitors of his royal master glazing-wrights, goldsmiths, lapidaries, apothecaries, painters, and printers; and some of his own poems appear to have been among the first works issued from the Edinburgh press by the Scottish Caxton, Walter Chepman. Gawin Douglas, the author of the Palace of Honour, and the translator of Virgil, was provost of the collegiate church of St Giles; and Boull, another literary contemporary named by Dunbar in his Lament for the Makaris, is believed to have been provost of the neighbouring collegiate church of Corstorphine. In the following reign Sir David Lindsay was the leader among the literary men of the Scottish capital; and in 1554 his famous Satire of the Three Estates was enacted in the presence of the court, at Greenside, a natural amphitheatre on the north-
at £271,658 against a debt of £425,195, which was compounded for by the issue of 3 per cent, bonds of annuity—the loss to the creditors thus amounting to 25 per cent, of their clairas
west side of the Calton Hill, which appears to have been I the favourite tilting ground, and general arena for public displays,—including even the burning of heretics and witches.
The names of Knox (died 1572), Buchanan (1582), Alexander Montgomery (1605),Drummond of Hawthornden (1649), Allan Bamsay (1757), Smollett (1771), Fergusson (1774), and Burns (1796), carry on the literary associations of the Scottish capital nearly to the close of the 18th century, when various causes combined to give them a new significance and value. In the later years of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century the university of Edinburgh was distinguished by teachers who gave it a prominent rank among the European schools of science and letters ; while members of the legal faculty disputed with them in friendly rivalry. Gregory (died 1701), the Monros (the elder 1767, the second 1817), Cullen (1790), Black (1799), Blayfair (1819), Dugald Stewart (1828), and Leslie (1832), all figure among the professors of the university; while David Hume (1776), Adam Smith (1790), Bobertson the historian (1793), Henry Mackenzie (1831), and others of the same literary circle gave ample range to its intel-lectual triumphs. To this succeeded the era of Marmion and The Lady of the Lake, followed by the Waverley Novels, and Blackwood's Magazine and the Edinburgh Review, when Scott, Wilson, Brougham, Jeffrey, Cockburn, and Chalmers gave the character to the literary society of Edinburgh which won for it the name of Modern Athens. To this the actual correspondence of its site to that of Athens no doubt also contributed. Various travellers have noted the resemblance between the distant view of Athens from the Aegean sea, and that of Edinburgh from the Firth of Forth. The popular recognition of this unfortunately tempted the citizens to aim at a reproduction of the Parthenon of Athens on the summit of the Calton Hill, in commemora-tion of Wellington and his brothers in arms, by whom the victory of Waterloo was made the harbinger of peace to Europe. The abortive scheme, as an incompleted project, undesignedly reproduces the ruin of the ancient Acropolis.
Literary taste and culture still characterize Edinburgh society ; but—apart from the exceptional influences of preeminent genius—the causes which largely contributed to give it so special a character no longer exist. In Scott's early days a journey to London was beset with difficulties, and even dangers ; whereas railways have now brought it within a few hours' distance, and Scottish artists and literary-men are tempted to forsake Edinburgh for the great centre of all national activities. Nevertheless, the influence of the past survives in many ways. Edinburgh is not a manu-facturing city, but retains even now something of the character of the Scottish capital, as the resort of those whose means enable them to enjoy in ease and comfort its social amenities, without indulging in the costly gaieties which a London season involves. The supreme courts of law hold their sittings in Edinburgh, and still retain some of the most characteristic features impressed on them when remodelled by James V. in 1532. The Court of Session has the lord president as its head; and the High Court of Justiciary is presided over by the lord justice-general and the lord justice-clerk. The judges, as senators of the College of Justice, have also the title of lord, not infre-quently coupled with that of their landed estate—as Fountainhall, Kaimes, Hales, Monboddo, Woodhouselee, or Colonsay; and the advocates and writers to the signet—as the two leading branches of the Scottish legal profession are styled,—help to give a legal tone to the society of the Scottish capital.
The university, with the medical schools and other educational institutions, have long added to the attractions of Edinburgh. As a school of art it has also required a special character ; and the names of Runciman, Nasmyth, Baeburn, Wilkie, Allan, M'Culloch, Watson Gordon, Harvey, and Drummond (without referring to living painters and sculptors) are all familiar, and some of them eminently distinguished in art. A school of design was established at Edinburgh in 1760 by the Honourable Board of Trustees for Manufactures, at which Baeburn, Wilkie, Allan, and other leading Scottish artists, along with many others of less note, obtained their preliminary training. With its aid the application of art to manufacturing design and decoration has received an important stimulus. Steel and wood engraving have also largely benefited by the same facilities; and this in its turn has aided in fostering the printing press as a special branch of trade for which Edin-burgh has long been celebrated. In early days the names of Chepman, Millar, Bassandyne, Charteris, Hart, Watson, and Buddiman figure among its celebrated typographers; and more recent enterprise has added to the reputation of the Edinburgh press.
But although a large unemployed population, in close proximity to a coal-field and to the fertile Lothians, and with the command of the chief seaport of the east of Scotland, gives a stimulus to important industries, the Scottish capital lays no claim to rivalry with Glasgow or Dundee as a manufacturing town. The unique beauty of its site, and the abundance of fine building material, while they have fostered the desire for developing its architectural features have begot a disinclination to encourage such manufactures as would tend to interfere with the amenities of the city. The anxiety with which these are guarded commands the sympathy of all classes of the community. The distinctive contrast between the Old and the New Town is kept ever in view. The predominant character of the former is a seemingly lawless picturesqueness, resulting from the extreme irregularities of the sites occupied by its most prominent buildings on the abrupt slopes of the ridge which is crowned by the ancient fortress. The symmetrical for-mality of the New Town is all the more effective from the contrast which it thus presents to the older districts of the city. In most of the old historical cities of Europe the stranger recalls the contrast as he proceeds from modern to older districts; but in Edinburgh he can look down on the city from the castle, the Calton Hill, or Arthur Seat, and view the whole spread out like a map before him; or, as he traverses the beautiful terrace of Princes Street, adorned with statues, monuments, and public buildings, he looks across the fine pleasure grounds in the intervening valley to the quaint old town with its still older castle.
The improvements effected on the Old Town during the past forty years, while they have swept away many interesting historical remains, have on the whole resulted in a more effective development of its picturesque features. During the same period the New Town, and the still more recent extensions to the west and south, have been carried out with a careful eye to the general results ; and alike in the Old and the New Town the advantageous sites of the chief public buildings largely contribute to their architec-tural effect.
The Castle.—The central feature of Edinburgh is the castle, which includes structures of very diverse dates. The oldest of its buildings, occupying the very summit of the rock, is St Margaret's Chapel, an interesting relic, belonging at latest to the reign of Queen Margaret's youngest son, David I., and by some good authorities believed to be the actual chapel in which the queen of Malcolm Canmore worshipped. Next in interest are the ancient hall and other remains of the royal palace, which form two sides of the quadrangle styled palace yard, and occupy the summit of the rock towards the south. These buildings include the apartments occupied by the regent, Mary de Guise, and her royal daughter, Queen Mary, and the room in which James VI. of Scotland and I. of England was bom. Here also is the Crown Room, in which are deposited the Scottish regalia, or " The Honours of Scotland," as they are called, along with a beautiful sword of state presented to James IV. by Pope Julius II., and the jewels restored to Scotland on the death of Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts. The arsenal, a modern building on the west side of the castle rock, is capable of storing 30,000 stand of arms. In the armoury a display of arms of various dates is made; and on the Argyll battery, immediately to the south of St Margaret's Chapel, stands a huge piece of ancient artillery, called Mons Meg, of which repeated mention is made in Scottish history.
Holyrood Palace, the venerable abode of Scottish royalty, was originally an abbey of canons regular of the rule of St Augustine, founded by David I. in 1128. The ruined nave of the abbey church still retains portions of the original structure. Conjoined to this is a part of the royal palace erected by James IV. and V., including the apartments occupied by Queen Mary, and the scene of the murder of Rizzio in 1566. The abbey suffered in repeated English invasions. It was sacked and burnt by the earl of Hertford in 1544, and again pillaged and left in ruin by the same invaders in 1547, almost immediately after the accession of Edward VI. to the English throne. In a map of 1544, preserved among the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum, the present north-west tower of the palace is shown standing apart, and only joined to the abbey by a low cloister. Beyond this is an irregular group of buildings, which were replaced at a later date by additions more in accordance with a royal residence. But the whole of this later struc-ture was destroyed by fire, while in occupation by the soldiers of Cromwell, in 1650; and the more modern parts of the present building were commenced during the Protectorate, and completed in the reign of Charles II. by Robert Mylne, in accordance with a design of Sir William Bruce of Kinross. They include the picture gallery, 150 feet in length, famous for its fanciful array of 106 mythical portraits of Scottish kings, the reputed descendants of King Fergus I., but also adorned with a remarkable triptych, painted about 1484, containing portraits of James III. and his queen, Margaret of Denmark, and believed to have formed the altar-piece of the collegiate church of the Holy Trinity, founded by the widowed queen of James II. in 1462, and only demolished in 1848. The picture gallery is interestingly associated with festive scenes during the brief presence of Prince Charles Edward in Edinburgh in 1745 ; and in it the elections of representative peers for Scotland take place. The exiled Comte d'Artois, after-wards Charles X. of France, had apartments granted for the use of himself and the emigrant nobles of his suite, on their escape from the first French Revolution, and they continued to reside in the palace till August 1799. When driven from the French throne by the revolution of 1830, the same unfortunate prince once more found a home in the ancient palace of the Stuarts. In the interval between those two visits it was graced by the presence of George IV. in 1822; and it has been repeatedly occupied for brief periods by Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. A beautiful fountain, the design of which is a restoration of the ruined fountain in the quadrangle of Linlithgow Palace, stands in the centre of the outer court of Holyrood, ind forms a memorial of the interest evinced by Prince Albert in the ancient Scottish palace.
The Parliament House, in which the later assemblies of the Scottish estates took place, until the dissolution of the Parliament by the Act of Union of 1707, has ever since been set apart as the place of meeting of the supreme courts of law. The great hall, with its fine open-timbered oaken roof, under which the last Scottish Parliament assembled still stands, and forms the ante-room of the advocates and other practitioners, and of their clients, during the session of the supreme courts. But the surrounding buildings, including the court-rooms, the Advocates' and the Signet Libraries, are all modern additions. The Advocates' Library is the largest and the most valuable library in Scot-land. It was founded in 1682, at the instance of Sir George Mackenzie, king's advocate under Charles IT., and then dean of the faculty, and has been augmented by important gifts. It is regarded with just pride as the national library, and is one of the five libraries entitled by the Copyright Act to receive a copy of every work printed in Britain. The number of volumes now included in the collection is estimated to amount to 260,000. The Library of the Society of Writers to the Signet contains upwards of 50,000 volumes, and, although more private in its character, it has always been available for research by literary students.
The General Register House for Scotland, which stands at the east end of Princes Street, is an important adjunct to the supreme courts; and, in its ample provisions for the registry and safe-keeping of all deeds and judicial records, it compares favourably with the system in vogue in England. Not only is there adequate accommodation, in fire-proof chambers, for all Scottish title-deeds, entails, contracts, and mortgages, and for general statistics, including births, deaths, and marriages, but there also are deposited all the ancient national records, the full historical value of which is only now beginning to be generally appreciated. The general record department is in charge of the lord clerk register and keeper of the signet, assisted by a deputy clerk register, a deputy keeper of the records, a curator of the historical department, and other officials.
The Royal Institution, a fine structure of the Grecian Doric order, surmounted by a colossal statue of the Queen, executed in stone by Sir John Steell, furnishes official accommodation for the Board of Trustees for Manufactures, and the Board of Fishery, and also for the School of Art and Statue Gallery of the Royal Institution, the Museum of National Antiquities, and the libraries and public meetings of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. This beautiful building is thus made the centre of varied intellectual activity, in artistic culture and design, scientific, historical, and archaeological research, as well as in the practical application of the fine arts, and of the newest disclosures in science, to the manufacturing and trading interests of the whole nation.
Among those the National Museum of Antiquities claims special attention. The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland was founded in the year 1780 by a body of noblemen and gentlemen, who held their first meetings at the house of the earl of Buchan; andalmostimmediately after its founda-tion they devoted themselves to the formation of an Archaeological Museum. The history of the early years of the society is a curious commentary on the manners of the Scottish capital a century ago. With the dukes of Montrose and Argyle, the earls of Buchan, Bute, Fife, and Kintore, and many of the leading Scottish gentry among its active members, a suitable hall secured for the meetings of the society in the Cowgate was successively exchanged for others in Webster's Close, and Gourlay's Close, Lawn-market—the reason assigned for abandoning the latter being that the alley was too narrow to allow of the members reaching the society's hall in their sedan chairs. After passing through various vicissitudes, and occupying more than one hall in the New Town, it was found that the collections of the society had attained to a magnitude and value which rendered it no longer possible for a private society to do justice to them. Archasological investigations, moreover, have now come to occupy a no less important relation to the researches of science than to the study of history ; and in many of the capitals of Europe similar collections are promoted as objects of national importance. Negotiations were accordingly entered into with the Government in 1849 and subsequent years, which resulted in the appropriation of the galleries in the Royal Institution, formerly devoted to the exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy, to the reception of the collections of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland as a National Museum of Antiquities. The council of the society, with the addition of two members of the Board of Trustees as representatives of the Crown, continue to have the charge of the collections, which are open to the public, like the British museum and other national collections. The museum is specially rich in Scottish antiquities, illustrative alike of prehistoric archaeology, of Roman, Celtic, and Teutonic remains, and of mediaeval civil and ecclesiastical art; and its native and foreign collections of primitive antiquities are arranged with a view to illustrate modern archaeological science, by the comparative classification of numerous examples of primitive flint, stone, and bronze relics, sepulchral pottery, implements and weapons, and of personal ornaments of gold, silver, and bronze. The society publishes its pro-ceedings annually, and from time to time issues its transactions, embodying the more important historical and archaeological treatises submitted to its meetings, in the quarto volumes of the Archceologia Scotica.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh was incorporated by royal charter in 1783, for the encouragement of philosophical inquiry and scientific research. Its extensive library and other collections are accommodated in the apartments occupied by it in the Royal Institution buildings ; and its proceedings and transactions are now voluminous, and embody many important scientific papers.
The Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, was instituted in 1826, and incorporated by royal charter in 1838, on the model of the Royal Academy of London. Subsequent to the completion of the Royal Institution buildings the central range of galleries was appropriated to the annual exhibitions of the Academy; but in August 1850 Prince Albert laid the foundation-stone of the National Gallery, a building exclusively devoted to the promotion of the fine arts in various ways, including the accommodation of the Royal Scottish Academy, and which has also greatly contributed to the architectural beauty of the city. The low valley, or ravine, which separates the Old from the New Town, is not only spanned by the North and Waverley Bridges, but is also crossed midway by a huge earthen viaduct, formed by depositing the materials excavated for the foundation of the houses erected on the neighbouring terrace of Princes Street. This, which long formed an unsightly blemish, was at length utilized for the improvement of the city, as the site of the Royal Institution building. But there still remained in the rear a huge excrescence styled the Earthen Mound, cumbered with temporary buildings, and an eyesore to all who appreciated the amenities of the general view. The property of this as a building site was acquired by the Board of Trustees under an Act of Parliament, which vested it, and the buildings erected thereon, in the Board, subject to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury; and in 1854 the new galleries were completed. The building is of the Greek Ionic order, thereby pleasantly contrasting with the more massive Doric of the Boyal Institution building; and the view of the two, as seen from East Princes Street, grouping together with the Castle, the Free Church College, and the masses of the Old Town buildings rising behind, is singularly striking and effective. The National Gallery provides for the public display of a fine national collection of paintings and sculpture, acquired by purchase and bequest, for the annual exhibitions of the Boyal Scottish Academy, and for the Life Academy and other schools specially designed for the advancement of the fine arts in Scotland.
The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1582, by a royal charter granted by King James VI., and its rights, immunities, and privileges have been remodelled, ratified, and extended at various subsequent periods. In 1621 an Act of the Scottish Barliament ratified to the university of Edinburgh all rights and privileges enjoyed by other universities in the kingdom, and those were renewed under fresh guarantees in the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland, and in the Act of Security. Important changes have since been made on the constitution of the university by an Act of the British Parliament passed in 1858. But while the college, as such, bears the name of the College of King James, or King's College, and James VI. is spoken of as its founder, it originated in the liberality of the citizens of Edinburgh. William Little of Craigmillar, and his brother Clement Little, advocate, along with James Lawson, the colleague and successor of Knox, may justly be regarded as the true founders of the college. In 1580 Clement Little gave all his books, amounting to 300 volumes, for the beginning of a library, and this was augmented by other valuable benefactions, one of the most interesting of which was the library of Drummond of Hawthornden, the friend of Ben Jonson—a collection rich in choice specimens of our rarer early literature. The University Library now contains about 139,000 printed volumes, and above 700 volumes of MSS., many of which are of great interest and value.
The buildings of the university occupy the site of the ancient collegiate church of St Mary in the Field, or the Kirk of Field, as it was familiarly termed. The present structure is a classical building, inclosing an extensive quadrangle. The older parts of it, including the east front, are from the design of Mr Robert Adam; but his plans were revised and modified with great taste by Mr W. H. Playfair, with a view to the completion of the building; and the whole is now finished, with the exception of a cupola designed to surmount the east front, for which the requisite funds have been bequeathed to the university. This edifice affords accommodation for the lecture rooms in the four faculties of arts, law, medicine, and theology, and for the museums and library. But although entirely reconstructed on a greatly enlarged scale during the present century, they have already proved to be inadequate for the requirements of this celebrated school of science and letters; and extensive new buildings are now in progress at Teviot Bow, designed to accommodate the departments of science and.medicine, and to leave the older building exclusively for the departments of arts, law, aud theology. The new build-ings will accordingly include a university convocation hall, class-rooms, laboratories, dissecting rooms, and museums.
In connection with this, the Royal Infirmary is also in progress of completion, on a new site, and on a greatly enlarged scale, with operating theatre and other requirements in connection with the medical school, and with all the most modern improvements in the arrangement and construc-tion of hospitals. For this a site nearly adjoining to that of the new college buildings, previously occupied by George Watson's Hospital, has been selected. It embraces a large area between the Heriot's Hospital grounds and the Meadows, and separated by the fine avenue of the Meadow Walk from the new medical schools. By this means the important requisites of free air and the immediate vicinity of extensive pleasure grounds are secured; and thus the primary object of the infirmary as a benevolent institution for ministering to the wants of those afflicted with disease, or suffering from injuries, is efficiently combined with its indispensable uses as a school for clinical instruction and practical training in the healing art.
The Royal Botanical Garden is another important adjunct to the university as a school of science. The professor of botany is regius keeper of the garden ; but its special requirements necessitate its removal from the crowded centre of the city. It has accordingly undergone four suc-cessive changes of site since its foundation in 1670 by Sir Andrew Balfour and Sir Robert Sibbald. It now occupies a fine area of 27 acres on the north side of the city, in Inverleith Row. This is carefully laid out with a special view to botanical instruction. It includes a herbarium and palm houses, with an extensive range of hot-houses, a museum of economic botany, a lecture room, and other requisites for the students of botany who attend here the lectures of the professor during the summer term.
The Royal Observatory, which has already been referred to as one of the architectural adornments of the Calton Hill, also constitutes an important adjunct to the university. The astronomer royal for Scotland holds along with that office the professorship of practical astronomy.
Museum of Science and Art.—One other important institution of practical instruction, in intimate connection with the university, is the Museum of Science and Art, situated immediately to the west of the university building, and in direct communication with it. The first keeper of the museum, Dr George Wilson, was also professor of technology in the university, but the chair has not been filled since his death, though his successor in the charge of the museum delivers lectures from time to time in the large lecture room in the east wing of the building, which is capable of accommodating about 800 sitters. The Museum of Science and Art embraces not only the objects of science included in the departments of geology, mineralogy, palaeontology, and natural history, as well as other allied sciences, but also of industrial art, and of the raw productions of com-merce, illustrative of nearly all the chief manufactures of Great Britain, and of many foreign countries.
Royal College of Surgeons.—The museum and lecture-rooms of the Royal College of Surgeons are accommodated in a handsome classical building in Nicolson Street, in the immediate vicinity of the university buildings. The College of Surgeons is an ancient corporate body, with a charter of the year 1505, and exercises the powers of instructing in surgery and of giving degrees. Its graduates also give lectures on the various branches of medicine and science requisite for the degree of doctor of medicine, and those extra-academical courses are recognized, under certain restrictions, by the university court, as qualifying for the degree. The museum contains a valuable collection of anatomical and surgical preparations adapted to the advancement of the study of surgical science.
Royal College of Physicians.—The Royal College of Physicians is another learned corporate body, organized as such, with special privileges by a charter of incorporation granted to them by Charles II. in 1681. The meetings of the body take place in their hall, a handsome building on the terrace overlooking the Queen Street Gardens, where they have a valuable library and a museum of materia medica. But the college as a body takes no part in the educational work of the university.
The three older Scottish universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen were all founded in the 15th century, by the authority of papal bulls, and derived their original endowments chiefly from the liberality of influential ecclesiastics, who had large revenues and church property at their disposal. They originated a part of that grand conception of the 15th century, which aimed at organizing the learning of the age into local branches of one university system, embracing the whole scholarship of Christendom, and recognizing the graduates of all universities as members of one corporate brother-hood, co-extensive with the Christian world. The Scottish univer-sities still differ from those of Oxford and Cambridge in perpetuat-ing some curious relics of this cosmopolitan university system.
The first conception of the University of Edinburgh is also due to a learned Scottish ecclesiastic, Robert Reid, bishop of Orkney, a favourite councillor of James V., who died at Dieppe in 1558,—as was believed from poison,—when on his way home, after fulfilling his duties as one of the commissioners for the marriage of the Queen of Scots to the Dauphin of France. He left a bequest of 8000 merks towards the founding of a college at Edinburgh, and is stated by the historian of the family of Sutherland to have destined a much larger sum for the same purpose, but it was diverted by the earl cf Morton to hi3 own use. The above-named bequest was only recovered after long delay, when, in 1581, it was appropriated to the purchase, from the provost of the Kirk of Field, of the grounds now occupied by the university buildings. The circum-stances attendant on the death of this first benefactor of the University remind us of the ecclesiastical changes already in pro-gress in the 16th century. The actual foundation of the University of Edinburgh dated subsequent to the Reformation ; and it is honourably distinguished among the national universities of Great Britain as the creation of the citizens themselves.
The Royal Charter granted by James VI. in 1582 contemplates a university on a wide basis, with the conditions necessary for liberal study, and arrangements suited to the progress of modern science; and it is wonderful how much has been accomplished in spite of the meagreness of the whole endowment. By the Univer-sities (Scotland) Act of 1858, provision is made for the better government and discipline of the Scottish universities, and that of Edinburgh was materially affected by its operations. The civic origin of the university had placed the patronage of the chairs, and the supreme control of the university, to a very considerable extent in the hands of the city corporation. The administration of the responsible duties thus devolving on the town council reflects, on the whole, great credit on the city ; and its exercise of the patronage of university chairs was abundantly justified by the high rank attained by the university under the distinguished professors selected by it. But the university had long outgrown the healthful operation of such anomalous relations; and by the new Act, it has been remodelled as a corporation, consisting of a chancellor, vice-chancellor, rector, principal, professors, registered graduates and alumni, and matriculated students. The chancellor is elected for life by the general council, of which he is head ; and the rights of the city as the original founder of the university have been recog-nized by giving to the town council the election of four of the seven curators, with whom rests the appointment of the principal, the sole patronage of seventeen of the chairs, and a share in other appointments. For further details see UNIVERSITIES.
New College.—One of the proceedings consequent on the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, and the formation of the Free Church, was the establishment of New College at Edinburgh, in connection with that church. As originally projected, it was designed to include scientific and literary as well as theological chairs. Since then, however, this and the other colleges of the Free Church of Scotland, established at Aberdeen and Glasgow, have assumed the mere limited character of purely theological colleges—though in that of Edinburgh a chair of natural science is still retained. New College Buildings, designed in the pointed style of the 16th century, are erected on the site of the palace of Mary de Guise, and include a hall for the general assembly, or supreme court of the church. They occupy a prominent site at the head of the Mound, immediately in the rear of the National Gallery ; and the two central towers, with a lower one in the same style, attached to the church at the north-east angle, contribute to give elevation to the facade which has been aptly designed to harmonize with the lofty surrounding buildings of the Old Town.
The United Presbyterian Church has also its theological hall for the training of its ministers. The building hitherto occupied for the accommodation of the students, and also for the meetings of its church courts, is situated in Queen Street; but in September 1877 the New Edinburgh Theatre, in Castle Terrace, was purchased with the view of being converted to those uses.
Literary Institutions.—Next door to the United Presbyterian premises in Queen Street is the Philosophical Institution, of which Mr Thomas Carlyle is president. The lending library of this institution is extensive and valuable, and its annual winter courses of lectures are of a high character, and command great popular interest. The Edinburgh Literary Institute, formed on a nearly similar basis, has its building in South Clerk Street, in the southern part of the city.
Schools.—The public seminaries of Edinburgh, including the hospitals and other charitable foundations chiefly directed to the training and education of youth, are upon a very liberal scale. The High School of the burgh dates its existence from an early period in the 16th century. The Burgh Record, under date March 12, 1554, contains an order for the building of the grammar school on the east side of the Kirk of Field Wynd. At a later date, and down to the present century, it occupied the site of the Blackfriars' monastery founded by Alexander II. in 1230. But in the year 1825 the foundation stone was laid of the beautiful classical building which now occupies a prominent site on the southern slope of the Calton Hill. It was originally, and till a comparatively recent date, a purely classical school; but it now furnishes systematic instruction in all the departments of a liberal and commercial educa-tion, including the ancient and modern languages, the natural sciences, mathematics, &c.
The Edinburgh Academy, which was established in 1824, and incorporated by royal charter of George IV., is a proprietary school under the superintendence of a board of directors elected by the subscribers. It is arranged into two divisions, the classical and the modern school, for the senior- classes. It has established a high character for its classical training, and has already taken an honourable rank among the public schools of Great Britain, by the distinctions achieved by its pupils both at the English and Scottish universities.
Charitable Foundations.—Foremost among the charitable foundations for the education and training of youth is George Heriot's Hospital, founded by the jeweller of James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, who at his death in 1624 left his estate in trust to the magistrates and ministers of Edinburgh for the maintenance and education of poor fatherless sons of freemen of the city. The build-ing erected for the purposes of the charity is a noble quadrangular edifice, enriched with the elaborate details of the transitional style of domestic architecture of the earlier Stuart kings of England. It occupies a commanding site on the summit of a ridge known of old as the High Biggs, lying between the Grassmatket and the Meadows, and forms a striking feature in the view of the city from various points. 180 boys are maintained on the foundation, 120 resident, and 60 non-resident. Those among them who give proof of diligence and ability are afterwards maintained during a full course of four years at the university; and those who are apprenticed to trades are also provided with funds for five years, amounting in all to £50 sterling, with an additional £5 on proof of good behaviour at the close.
The popular character of Heriot's Hospital, and the effective architecture of its building, have largely influenced the disposition of later charitable bequests in Edinburgh, somewhat to the detriment of the university. Following the example of the jeweller of King James, successive benefactors have founded George Watson's Hospital, the Merchant Maiden Hospital, the Trades' Maiden Hospital, the Orphans', John Watson's, Donaldson's, and Stewart's hospitals—all more or less modelled on the original founda-tion. Several of their buildings are also possessed of con-siderable architectural beauty, foremost among which is Donaldson's Hospital, the founder of which amassed a large fortune as a printer, and bequeathed nearly the whole of it in trust for the erection and endowment of a hospital for the maintenance of poor boys and girls. The trustees have taken advantage of the liberty of choice permissible under such terms to select one-half of the children admitted to the hospital from the class of the deaf and dumb. The building has accommodation for 300 children. In 1877 it contained 214, of whom 120 were boys and 94 girls. Of those 70 of the former and 45 of the latter were deaf and dumb. Experience has thus far tended to show that the constant intercourse between the deaf mutes and their more fortunate companions exercises a beneficial influence on both.
George Watson's Hospital, founded by the bequest of another citizen in 1738, and the Merchant Maiden Hospital, founded so early as 1605, were designed to extend to the sons and daughters of merchants of Edinburgh similar advantages to those which the Heriot's Hospital secured for burgesses' sons. The Trades Maiden Hospital provided for burgesses' daughters, and John Watson's, Daniel Stewart's, and other similar institutions provided in like manner for the maintenance and education of poor children of various classes. But the multiplication of such charities threatened to outgrow the legitimate wants of the community, and needlessly to withdraw many children from the healthful influences of home training. Hence a growing feeling of the abuses of the system, at the very time when the revenues of Heriot's Hospital were greatly increased in consequence of the extension of the New Town over its lands, at length led to an application to Parliament for power to modify the disposition of the surplus revenue. By the Act thus obtained the governors of that institution were empowered to expend such surplus funds in erecting and maintaining ele-mentary schools for the free education of poor children of deceased burgesses and freemen, and generally of the children of poor citizens of Edinburgh. There are now eighteen of those Heriot foundation schools, in différent parts of the city, divided into the two classes of juvenile and infant schools, giving free education, and, in certain cases of extreme poverty, also a sum of money in lieu of maintenance, to 4400 boys and girls.
The example thus set has been followed by the governing bodies of other similar institutions. The Merchant Company, as trustees of the George Watson's, Merchant Maiden, Gillespie's, and Stewart's charities, taking advantage of powers given by the Endowed Institu-tions (Scotland) Act, obtained power to convert the George Watson's Hospital into a school ; and since then, they have sold the building and grounds to the corporation of the Royal Infirmary, and the New Infirmary is now in progress on the site. The Edinburgh Merchant Company's Schools now include the George Watson's College-Schools, in which ample provision is made for furnishing a liberal educa-tion for boys, qualifying them for commercial or professional life, for the civil service, and for entering the university. Bursaries are also offered for competition, which secure a free enjoyment of the entire course of studies to the successful competitors, and furnish the sum of £25 annually, for four years, after leaving the schools. A similar institution provides corresponding advantages for girls ; and the Edinburgh Educational Institution, or Ladies' College, in like manner furnishes a high-class education in the ancient and modern languages, mathematics, the natural sciences, and in music and other more strictly feminine accomplishments ; and bursaries and other prizes, of like value to those offered for competi-tion in the College Schools, are placed within reach of the ablest and most diligent female students.
Experience has, therefore, amply confirmed the wisdom of the course thus pursued in the readaptation of this class of charities to the wants of the age ; and the example of Edinburgh is likely to influence other cities where similar endowments are, in some cases at least, very partially turned to useful account.
Edinburgh is otherwise well provided with both public and private schools, to which pupils resort, not only from many parts of the kingdom, but from the colonies. Tbe Fettes College was apparently designed by the teems of the will of its founder, Sir William Fettes, to correspond very nearly to Heriot's Hospital. But the trustees have so far modified that idea as to establish a college for boys modelled after the great public schools of England, and designed to furnish a liberal education in the fullest sense of the term. The college building which has been erected at Comely Bank, the estate of the founder, on the north side of Edinburgh, is a structure of an imposing and stately character in the semi-Gothic style of architecture prevalent both in France and Scotland in the 16th century.
The Church of Scotland Training College, the Free Church Normal School, Merchiston Academy, occupying the antique tower of Napier, famous as the inventor of logarithms, and the Watt Institution and School of Arts, all merit notice among the more important educational institutions; and under the Edinburgh School Board efficient schools are now in operation in various districts of the city, mostly lying beyond the range of the Heriot's schools.
Charities.—Among the public charities of the city the Trinity Hospital, no longer maintained as a hospital with resident pensioners, now expends its income in pensions of from ¿£10 to ¿£20, to 172 poor burgesses, their wives, or children, not under the age of fifty years. The benevolent branch of the Gillespie's Hospital endowment is similarly administered. The Chalmers' Hospital, founded by George Chalmers in 1836, destined for the reception of the sick and hurt, stands on the southern slope of Lauriston, overlooking the Meadows, and at no great distance from the New Boyal Infirmary, to which it is a useful adjunct. In addition to those, it may suffice to name the Convalescent House—where, in a pleasant country home near Corstor-phine, the convalescents of the Infirmary are transferred from the surgical or fever wards of that hospital to healthful fresh air,—the Boyal Hospital for Sick Children, the Home for Crippled Children, the Hospital for Incurables, the Boyal Maternity Hospital, along with other kindred institutions. The Boyal Asylum for the Insane is at Morningside, on the southern outskirts of the city; and the Boyal Blind Asylum, and the Deaf and Dumb Benevolent Society, each provide for the special classes indicated by their names.
Prisons.—The different city prisons are grouped together on the southern terrace of the Calton Hill, styled of old the Dow Craig, so as to form a very striking feature in the general view of the city from various points. They are con-structed in a semi-castellated style; and the house of the governor of the jail, built on the summit of a rock overlook-ing the whole, and on the very edge of a bold perpendicular cliff, looks not unlike one of the old castles familiar to the voyager on the Rhine.
The General Post-Office is the central office for Scotland, alike for postal and telegraphic service, and the building devoted to those purposes is a large and effective structure in the Italian style of architecture, at the east end of Princes Street, directly opposite to the Begister Office.
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.—During the establishment of Episcopacy in Scotland, Edinburgh was the seat of a bishop, and the ancient collegiate church of St Giles rose to the dignity of a cathedral. The annual meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Edinburgh is now the grand public manifestation of the predominance of Presbyterianism as the national church. Annually in the month of May a nobleman, commissioned to act as the representative of the Queen, takes up his abode at the Palace of Holyrood, and proceeds from thence in state to the High Church, and thence to the Assembly Hall on the Castle Hill, as the lord high commissioner to the General Assembly of the national church. The lord provost and magistrates loyally offer to him the keys of the city. Levees, receptions, and state dinners revive in some degree the ancient glories of Holyrood; and, as the General Assembly of the Free Church and the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church are usually held at the same time, the streets of Edinburgh present a singular aspect to a stranger.
Places of Worship —The buildings set apart as places of worship by the various denominations include 30 belonging to the Church of Scotland, 29 to the Free Church, 23 to the United Presbyterian Church, 14 to the Episcopal Church, and about 30 others to different religious denominations, including a Jewish synagogue.
St Giles's Church.—Among the buildings dedicated to the worship of the different denominations, the ancient collegiate church of St Giles is the most important, alike in its architecture and its historical associations. The Begent Murray, the marquis of Montrose, and Napier of Merchiston are distinguished among the eminent men interred in the ancient church, by monuments marking their tombs. The choir, which has recently been cleared of encumbering galleries, and tastefully fitted up with oaken stalls, and a fine carved pulpit of Caen-stone, is a beautiful example of the ecclesiastical architecture of the 15th century; and the fine Gothic crown which surmounts the central tower forms one of the most characteristic features in every view of the city. The domes, towers, and spires of the various churches add to the general effect of the city, and in some cases they even present an imposing aspect from their ele-vated and commanding sites. But none of them is of sufficient importance to invite notice for any special architectural beauty, though several are works of merit. By the bequest of Miss Walker of Coates and Drumsheugh, who died in 1871, funds have been set apart for the erec-tion of a cathedral for the use of the Scottish Episcopal Church. The plans have been prepared by Sir G. Gilbert Scott, in the Early Pointed style of the 14th century, and include a nave, choir, transepts, and chapter-house. If completed according to the approved design, it will be the largest and finest church erected in Scotland, if not in Britain, since the Reformation.
Monuments.—The monuments and statues which adorn the city are of a peculiar character, and contribute to the singular aspect which Edinburgh presents to the eye of a stranger. The fame of Sir George Mackenzie, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, Playfair, Burns, and Scott is commemorated in the case of each by an effective monumental structure dedicated to his memory. Of these the most remarkable is the monument erected by public subscription in memory of Sir Walter Scott, which stands in the eastern division of the Princes Street Gardens. The design, which was furnished by a young architect, Mr G. W. Kemp, is that of a spiral Gothic cross, of great elegance both in outline and in details. A marble statue of Scott, by Sir John Steell, is placed under the central canopy; and the prin-cipal niches are occupied by figures of characters in Scott's writings. The Nelson monument, a lofty castel-lated turret which crowns the highest cliff of the Calton Hill, though of questionable architectural taste, is a striking feature in the general view of the city; and the Melville monument, a graceful and well-proportioned column 136 feet in height, surmounted by a colossal statue of Viscount Melville, first lord of the admiralty under Pitt, rises from the centre of St Andrew Square, and terminates the eastern vista of George Street, with a repro-duction, in its proportions and general outline, of the celebrated Trajan column at Bome. "Distant half a mile from this, at the west end of George Street, Charlotte Square furnishes a corresponding site for the monument of Prince Albert, from the design of Sir John Steell. A central pedestal, which sustains the equestrian statue of the Prince Consort, has at each of the four angles at its base a group of figures representing different classes of the com-munity paying honour to him; and bas-reliefs, executed, like the statues, in bronze, illustrate characteristic incidents in the Prince's career. George Street is further adorned at the intersection of two of the intermediate streets between St Andrew and Charlotte Squares, with colossal bronze statues by Chantrey of George IV. and Pitt. The beautiful garden terrace of Princes Street, on which the Scott monument stands, also affords appropriate sites for the statues of Allan Bamsay, John Wilson, and other distinoiiished Scotchmen; at other prominent points in the Old and New Towns are equestrian statues of Charles II., the duke of Wellington, and John, fourth earl of Hopetoun ; and also statues of the duke of York, Lord Melville, &c. The monument to the poet Burns, erected on a prominent site on the southern terrace of the Calton Hill, is in the style of a Greek peripteral temple inclosing a cella designed to form the shrine of a fine marble statue of the poet executed by Flaxman. But it proved to be too confined to afford a satisfactory view of the statue. This has accordingly been replaced by a bust from the chisel of Brodie; and the statue, after being placed for a time in the university library, now forms a prominent feature among the works of sculpture in the National Gallery.
Manufactures.—The principal manufactures may be classed under the following respective heads:—(1) Printing, lithographing, engraving, bookbinding, and type-founding ; (2) brewing, distilling, coopering, and manufacture of aerated waters; (3) furniture work, paper-hanging, and coach-building; (4) india-rubber work; (5) machinery and brassfounding; (6) tanning; (7) glass work; (8) confectionery.
The city is supplied with water from various extensive reservoirs formed in the valleys of the Logan Water, the Bavelaw Burn, and the North Esk, in the Pentland Hills, lying to the south of the city. A bold project was started in 1872 for securing an inexhaustible supply by bringing in the water from St Mary's Loch, a beautiful lake about three miles in length, at the head of the Vale of the Yarrow, in Selkirkshire ; but the plan met with consider-able opposition, and was abandoned for a less comprehensive measure, sanctioned by Parliament in 1874, whereby additional reservoirs have been constructed in the neighbouring valleys, and an adequate supply of water secured for the growing requirements of the city.
The population of the parliamentary borough of Edinburgh amounted in 1831 to 136,294, in 1851 to 160,302, and in 1871 to 196,979 (89,245 males and 107,734 females). In 1877 the population was estimated at 218,729; and the annual value of real property was ¿£1,538,738. The city returns 2 members to parliament, and its corporation consists of a lord provost, 6 bailies, a convener of the trades, a dean of guild, and 32 councillors.
Reference may he made to W. Maitland's History of Edinburgh (1753), Arnot's History of Edinburgh (1789), R. Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh (1824), and D. Wilson's Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time (1846-48). (D. W.)
Footnotes
See Fleming's Lithology of Edinburgh ; Hugh Miller, Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood ; Maclaren, Sketch of the Geology of Wife and the Lothians ; Arch. Geikie, The Geology of Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood, 1871; Sheet No. 32 of the one-inch Geol. Survey Map, with the accompanying memoir ; and several other papers in the Transac-tions of the Edinburgh Geological Society.
The mildness of the winter is well illustrated by the fact that Mr M'Nab of the Royal Botanic Gardens reported 138 species of flowers in bloom on New Year's Day 1874, of which 35 were winter or spring flowers, and 103 summer or autumn flowers. The Galanthus nivalis, or common snowdrop, blossoms, according to an average of 20 years, on the 25th of January, the Sepatica triloba on the 31st, and the Rhododendron nobleanw.n on the 25th of .February.
From this enumeration the manufactures of the city are excluded.
See Proc. of Scot. Antiq. Soc. 1862.
The extensive building operations engaged in by the corporation at the beginning of the century were the main cause of the insolvency of the city in 1833, when the property of the corporation was valued