The Picture of Scotland

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Edina ! Scotia's darling seat, All hail thy palaces and tower s ! Burns. The county of Edinburgh, or as it is more commonly called, Mid-Lothian, in point of natural features bears a strong resemblance to Linlithgowshire, to which it adjoins to the east; being simply an inclined plain, rising up from the southern shore of the Frith of Forth, interspersed by a few hills and rising grounds. It extends only twelve miles in length along the coast, but increases at what may be called the back of the county to upwards of thirty; the breadth varies from sixteen to twenty miles. Few Scottish counties afford more minerals than that of Edinburgh, which everywhere abounds in coal, lime-stone, and free-stone, all of superior quality. As, however, its external peculiarities are not very striking, we shall hasten to give an account of the city of Edinburgh, which forms, beyond all question, its most interesting feature. Edinburgh is picturesquely situated upon several rising grounds, about two miles south from the Frith of Forth. Though the capital of Scotland, it is inferior in point of population to Glasgow, and in that of antiquity to Perth, and even towns of much inferior rank. It seems to have been entirely unknown to the Romans, none of whose roads touch upon its site, though they had stations at no great distance on both sides. The castle, which existed before any part of the city, is first mentioned by historians in 4,52, when it was taken byEDINBURGH OUTLINE OF HISTORY. 49 the Saxons, from the Picts, who bad previously possessed it. It was once retaken by the Picts, and again taken by the Saxons, before 1020, when Malcolm II, king of Scotland, obtained it, along with the whole district of Lothian, from Eadulf, a Northumbrian Earl. About this time, it is probable that the r...