The old spirit of the Scottish Reformation, which in John Knox's days had waged such determined war against Popery, was not dead, though it had been forced to smoulder unseen under the iron despotism of James and his cruel agents. With the first news of coming succour it burst into a flame. Holyrood Chapel was attacked with the most resolute determination. A body of an hundred men defended it with fire-arms, which they freely used against the assailants. Twelve of the latter were shot dead, and many more were wounded; but this only increased the fury of the mob. They persevered, in spite of the cries of the wounded and dying, with that resolute and cool determination which has been frequently noted as the characteristic of an Edinburgh mob when roused to action. The armed defenders of the royal chapel were at length overpowered, and the place delivered up to the will of the populace. It had been newly fitted up with magnificently carved stalls and costly appurtenances, while the altar had been decorated with a gorgeousness designed to aid in presenting the worship of the Romish church in its most

out of windows, so there is a greater and more solemn preparation of angels to carry my soul to Christ's bosom.' He then ended with that noble burst of Christian eloquence so much admired and so often imitated: And now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell, father and mother, friends and relations; farewell the world and all delights; farewell meat and drink; farewell sun, moon, and stars. Welcome God and Father; welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant; welcome blessed Spirit of grace, the God of all consolation; welcome glory; welcome eternal life; and welcome death."""

attractive form. A new organ-loft also had been erected, and a fine instrument (recently sent by the king from London) put up in it. All these were at once devoted to destruction, and the venerable fabric was only abandoned when the newly completed decorations destined for the service of the Romish priesthood had been reduced to an unsightly heap of ruins.

While these proceedings were going on at the palace, the students of the university assembled in a body, and marching in procession to the cross, with bands of music and the college mace borne before them, they erected a huge bonfire and burned the pope in effigy. On the 11th of April, 1688, William and Mary were proclaimed at the cross, king and queen of Scotland; but the castle was still held by the duke of Gordon for king James, and the rival parties in Scotland each looked on in hope of triumph. From the flight of the chancellor till March, 1689, when a convention of the Scottish estates was summoned to meet at Edinburgh, all law was practically suspended, except such as the magistrates enforced with the countenance and aid of the citizens.

The sack of Holyrood completely established the superiority of the Presbyterian party in Edinburgh, most of whom were familiar with the use of arms, and the royalist soldiers had. to confine themselves exclusively to the castle. The mob now pursued their triumph by assaulting the houses of the wealthy Roman Catholics, and the most hateful officers of the

crown, who then resided chiefly in the Canongate. These they "rabbled," as the phrase then was, gutting them, and sometimes setting them on fire. "When at length," says the author of the Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, "the convention met, the adherents of the exiled king crowded to the capital in hopes of yet securing the majority in his favour. Viscount Dundee openly marched into the town with a train of sixty horse, while the Whigs, (as the Presbyterian party were then called,) with equal promptitude, but more secretly, gathered an armed body of the persecuted Presbyterians, whom they concealed in garrets and cellars, ready to sally out at a concerted signal, and turn the scale in favour of their cause. The sumptuous old oaken roof of the Parliament Hall then witnessed as stirring scenes as ever occurred in the turbulent minority of the Jameses within the more ancient Tolbooth. Dundee arose in his place in the convention, and demanded that all strangers should be commanded to quit the town, declaring his own life and those of other of the king's friends to be endangered by the presence of banded assassins. On his demand being rejected, he indignantly left the assembly, and the convention, with locked doors and the keys on the table before them, proceeded to judge the government of king James, and to pronounce his crown forfeited and his throne vacant, beneath the same roof where he had so often sat in judgment on the oppressed."

As viscount Dundee, retreating, left the town at the head of his dragoons, he stopped beneath the castle, and clambering up the rock, held a conference with the duke of Gordon, in which he strove in vain to induce him to accompany him to the north. Finding him resolved to remain in charge of the fortress which had been committed to his trust, Dundee then engaged the duke to hold it out, while he proceeded to the Highlands to raise forces and muster the friends of king James. The citizens were filled with the utmost alarm at this interview, dreading that the guns of the castle would be turned on the town. The drums beat to arms, and a body of troops which the duke of Hamilton had quartered in the city, was called out to pursue Dundee; but the latter made good his retreat, and the duke of Gordon being nearly destitute of provisions, and but lukewarm in his adherence to a failing cause, at length yielded up the castle on the 13th of June, 1689 -the last considerable stronghold in Scotland that had remained in the interest of its exiled and dethroned monarch. Under the new dynasty a new era opened for Edinburgh, and here therefore appropriately terminates our sketch of the history of the old metropolis of Scotland.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE OLD TOWN.

EDINBURGH, as is well known, is divided by the area of the ancient North Loch into the old and new town; the former containing the relics of those periods of its history which have been sketched in the preceding chapters, the latter being the creation of modern tastes in the present century. The bridging over the deep valley wherein the waters of the North Loch were accumulated of old, first by the erection of the north bridge, completed in 1772, and subsequently by the gradual formation of the earthen mound, literally paved the way for the rising of the modern city, which excites such universal admiration, no less from its architectural uniformity and elegance, than by the contrast it presents to the massive and picturesque grouping of its venerable neighbour, where

"Such dusky grandeur clothes 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!"

It is with the ancient city that we have alone