SCOTCH COURTIERS, AND THE COURT.

"Edina! Scotia's darling seat! Hail to thy palaces!"

BURNS.

Old Holyrood's tow'rs in deep silence have slept,

While nobles and kings from her halls are all swept,

And race after race, now consign'd to the tomb,

Have left her long shrouded in darkness and gloom.

Here monarchs once reign'd, wielding sceptre and crown,

No trace though surviving, of all their renown,

But a long line of portraits begun the year one,

When Fergus the Great was first crown'd on a stone.
Historians and poets have gaz'd on that pile;

Kings, princes, and peers, lie interr'd in that aisle:

B

Ah! hundreds of years seem recall'd in an hour,

Since Stuart and Bruce reach'd their zenith of pow'r.
Their fabulous hist'ry's an old woman's tale;
And had she herself done their portraits in mail,
One scarcely could muster worse pictures to show,
Of more than a hundred kings all in a row!

Their wigs are sublime, and their faces on fire,
Each son stares precisely the same as his sire:
One Dutchman, 'tis said, all their likenesses hit,
Not Rembrandt, nor Vandyke, but Mynheer De Wit.
Extinct are the voices that once sounded there,

And lost are the smiles that all then seem'd so fair;
Yet time-honour'd names old tradition still saves,
Unwreck'd 'mid oblivion's fast-flowing waves.

The Stuarts, who reign'd amid wars and dark strife,
Ne'er parted from honour, till parted from life;

In fate, as in feature, alike,-they each died,

By battle or treason, in manhood's full pride.

The Bourbons, while France in its blood's left to welter,

Found here hospitality, welcome, and shelter;

Charles Dix with his priests, had their chapel be-dight,

And Madame de Gontaut her parties at night.

But great were the days yet remember'd by all, When George and his courtiers enliven'd that hall, When mountain and valley pour'd forth a gay throng,

When minstrels and bards all united in song.

When kilted Macgregor assembled his clan,

When Campbell and Stuart had muster'd each man,
Macdonalds, Macleans, and Mackenzies at call,

Clan Jamphrey,' 'tis feared, the most num'rous of all.
Reviews and processions arose at command,

Wealth, splendour, and honours enliven'd the land,
While bag-pipes and tartans were all in a blaze,
And Scott himself welcom'd the king in his lays."
We hear yet the echo of days long gone by,
We see too their relics and gaze with a sigh;
For years have strode on, full of weal or of woe,
And sorrow has mark'd well how swiftly they flow.

Now Scotland's fair palace, like Hampton Court's left, A quality work-house of nobles bereft;

1 Clan Jamphrey, the common Scotch expression for a miscellaneous mob, rather of the class ragamuffin.

2 Sir Walter Scott published then a parody on that well-known Jacobite air, "Carle an' the king come."

And few to its cloister'd old walls have retir'd,

Yet high are the chieftains that right who acquir'd.'
Around, too, a refuge from troublesome duns,
For bankrupts degraded to poverty's sons,

Who, spending and spent, in dishonour grow grey,
The debt e'en of nature unwilling to pay.

When strangers would see how the palace now fares,

Their steps echo loudly on carpetless stairs;

No sofa to welcome them stretches its arms,

No stool for the weary enticingly charms.

The seat of Queen Mary no mortal sits down on, As well might he try to put Fergus's crown on; While viewing the state-room once fit for a king, All notions of comfort disgusted take wing.

The bed where Prince Charlie attempted to sleep, And Cumberland next lay, sad vigils to keep;

1 The Dukes of Hamilton and Argyll retain apartments in Holyrood House, as well as the Marquis of of Breadalbane and Lord Strathmore.

2 The room is pointed out in which the young Chevalier lodged during the year '45, and where, a few weeks afterwards, Cumberland, returning from the bloody field of Culloden, occupied the same apartment, and the very same bed, which is yet standing.

The couch of Queen Mary, all hanging in tatters;
Her mirror, too!-Who can suspect that it flatters?

The boudoir is shown! a burlesque on boudoirs,
The wall, roof, and sides, dark and bare as the floors,
A catacomb scarcely so cold or so gloomy,

A cellar itself quite as cheerful and roomy.

There Rizzio's ghost yet bemoans his sad fate,

There wanders disconsolate, early and late,

With doublet thrown back, and in silk attire clad, A stranger he haunted, who died raving mad.'

1 The first tea-parties in Scotland were given in Holyrood House by Queen Anne, when residing there with the court of her father, James VII. Queen Mary's sitting-room, in which the murder of Rizzio was perpetrated, measures only 12 feet square! An anecdote was frequently told in society many years ago, of two Englishmen of fortune, who, when viewing this apartment, entered into a vehement controversy respecting the possibility of apparitions appearing, and the one who said such a visitation was impossible undertook for a large bet to pass the night in that dismal-looking chamber. Accordingly, he was provided with lights, wine, and every imaginable comfort to beguile his long vigil, and his friend, in the meanwhile, secretly hired a dress exactly resembling that of Rizzio. Thus disguised, when the clock struck one, he slowly entered the room, and gazed at his friend, who looked up, and with apparent calmness returned the scrutiny, till the intruder withdrew. Next day, when they met, he who had personated the ghost asked his friend what he had seen, and the reply was, "Nothing!" "Were you not disturbed?" "No." The gentleman continued during their interview apparently absent in mind, and three days afterwards he went violently mad, was shut up in an asylum, and soon afterwards died there.