The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-17 00:00:00

ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH.

Edinburgh has grown out of three old towns or hamlets.
She had her military centre in the grand old Castle, whose
first ages are lost in the obscurity of the pre-historic periods ;
her ecclesiastical centre in Holyrood, with its attendant vil-
lage of Abbey Hill, and burgh of Canongate ; and her com-
mercial centre, of at least five centuries standing, ;al the port
of Leith. It is more than probable that the Castle Hill has
formed the site of a stronghold ever since man took posses-
sion of the island. Its fortifications wouvledsshibalvye
rtetresehsa,dekwno,
consisted of a few grassy mounds, topped, like
place
growygarulelpws a
onunp andthage
long
after
tohfe
thheillfovirttsr
fieodf
fNoretw;
aledalantdlienonwl
wtonshinareSciontltahned pr a soe
sloping
t ol e
eo
pwat
igithateneorngs,
by lines of palisades ; it would then
would encircle it, and a town would
The ecclesiastical portion of the
which it afforded. Every succeeding age would witness
6:llan,dalmfoorsnit unaderfoi
new changes ; there would be changes in the towers and
ramparts, and changes in the gradually growing city below.
In the year 1600 Edinburgh was little more than half a mile
in length by little more than a quarter of a mile in breadth.
It has since become 'what we now see it—a great metro-
polis, for which man has done much, but nature more.
its military position. At the distance of about three quar-
ters of a mile from the hamlet under the battlements, there
rose far adown the sloping talus, as early as the year 1200,
a second hamlet, separated from the first by open fields and
thickets of brushwood, and which had grown around the
ecclesiastical centre of the place. The old chapel of Holy-
rood was founded, in fulfilment of a vow by David 1., on
the spot which ho narrowly escaped being destroyed by a
furious hart at bay. On the third day after the celebration
of the mass, the King, yielding to the solicitations of his
young nobles, set forth from the Castle, it is, said to hunt,
notwithstanding the earnest dissuasions of a holy canon.
" At last, quhen, he was comyn threw the veil that lies to
the eist fra the said Castell, quhere now lyes the Cannon-
gait, the staill past threw the wood with sic noyis and din,
of buyillis, that all the bestes were raisit fra their dennis.;
The King, separated from his train, was thrown from
horse, and about to be gored by a hart " with I
of which the hart fled away. And the King,7B
Tqbe account is
braid tyndis," when a cross slipt into his hands,:dtairlioneissibgehdt
in a vision to build the Abbey on the spot. a
aimrding a
•c,‘-t‘ntracted within
glimpse of the city at that early
per iowild forest.--flugh
its narrow limits, and encircled by a
Miller's llistory of Edinburgh.
curious," remarks Mr. Daniel IVilsodn, s
_

HEAR Hat !—" If 1 have a fault," says Prince
':"'""--------'------- -- ------
Napoleon—and we compliment his
modest Imperial High-
upon the y which can
ness, says the Telegraph,
suggest the admission of such a possibility—" it is that of
extreme frankness?' This particular foible is not one of
which he has been generally accused; in fact, its existence
had scarcely been suspected until it was thus candidly con-
fessed.