universally loyal heart, and badges of welcome and symbols of good-will were proudly displayed even on the "prenticecap and work-day garment." This joy of expectancy and bustle of preparation, gave perfect ease to the minds of the most sensitively loyal, although they wondered at their own confidence and composure.

I chanced to witness the ceremony of conducting the regalia from the castle to the palace of Holyrood. Those who see the mere fact in every occurrence in human affairs, however exciting, perceived no more in this, than the removal from one house to another of a circle of gold and gems, and marvelled why the people cheered for thousands, as the crown was carried along, rent the air with their acclamations. There could not be a stronger proof than this, that there is more of poetry in what many a learned man of prose calls the vulgar mind, than in his own. There was more to be proud of in

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our countrymen's cheers to this circle of gold, than of any thing done by them during the royal visit, excepting always their standing in silence, with heads uncovered, as their King passed to humble himself in the house of prayer. None shouted for the Old Crown," as they were heard to call it, who did not know the history of the unconquered kingdom of which it is the ancient emblem-who did not, moreover, know that many a crown has rolled in the dust since it has been the pride of a kingdom, which is more fresh and vigorous than it was ever known in former ages. What wonder then that the people cheered! They connected the symbol with the country-cheered for Scotland when they cheered for Scotland's crown, and, in these generous accents said to their King,

"There is

your crown.

And He who wears the crown immortally

Long guard it yours."

The most timid on the subject of the ap

proaching reception of the wearer of that crown were now at ease. You, Sir, witnessed that striking scene, and did not record it in your book, as meaningless homage to a circle of gems.

For preparations so unwonted, the want of rational precedents occasioned much perplexity. It was in vain to turn up the record of the mummeries and pedantries with which the citizens of Edinburgh received and entertained the Stuarts in the seventeenth century. It was hopeless, in the nineteenth, to call out and embody the heathen gods, and compose speeches to be spoken by the cardinal virtues, to build an actual Parnassus, and stock it with the professors of the university with the Principal habited as Apollo on the summit. Precedent was to be established, not to be followed; and a fitting reception of a great Monarch, by a highly improved and enlightened people, which should engraft on the venerable stem of an ancient, all the intelli

ligence, improvement, and elegance of a modern kingdom, was yet to be designed, outlined, and realized. It is not easy to express the satisfaction which was generally felt, when you yourself were seen zealously engaged in planning the preparations. They instantly assumed a higher cast. To whom could the duty have fallen with more classical propriety! You, who could have pictured the whole in exquisite poetic fiction, were the best fitted to rear it up in proud reality, and to give to it a shape and substance in which there should be no inconsistency, no want of keeping, no deficiency of historical type or characteristic warrant. At a glance, you saw the whole with the poet's, with the moralist's, with the patriot's eye. You awoke, as if with magic touch, the dormant chivalries, the antique pageantries, the venerable symbols of an ancient kingdom;-summoned the peers, the knights, the squires, the burgesses, the yeomen, the bold peasantry;-unfurled

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their banners and their blazonries, the memories of former days and glorious deeds;-graced all the picturesque of ancient drapery with the charm of modern elegance;―lighted up the love of country till it glowed in every bosom ;-while all our best loved reveries, and all your Muse's song of Scotland's kingdom, started into life and freshness, waiting for Scotland's King.

When the beautiful plan was sketched out in the general, many could afford useful hints for the details. Every thing was imagined and realized, that should at once suit the feelings of the prince, and the wishes and character of the people; nothing was forgotten that might even display to the best advantage the noble features of our country's landscape; and prepared in all that should do their country credit and their king honour, the Scottish lieges of George the Fourth, conscious that they merited the distinction, expected, after an interval