When the whole matter had been planned,--when the officers of the household for Scotland had got their robes of state,--when the archers had learned to walk without treading down the heels of each other’s shoes,--when the tailor, the barber, and the dancing-master had done the needful upon the Provost and Bailies,--when the tails of the Highland chiefs had run quarantine,--when the edge of the parsons’ appetites had been a little blunted,--when the wonted tattoo had ceased,--when lamps had been hung upon the front of every house,--when the ladies had drilled themselves in train-bearing, by the help of sheets and table-cloths, and learned to do their salutations without any inordinate smacking,--and when the elements of dazzling and of din had been collected upon all the heights, in the likeness of bone-fires, and bombs, and bagpipes,--it wanted only the placing of the royal foot upon the pier at Leith, to bring all those mighty things into forward and fervent action. Amid all those mighty preparations, there was one thing which was very remarkable, and which throws perhaps more light both upon the morale of the spectacle and the feelings of the people, than any other that could be mentioned. The Scots, generally, are allowed to be a people of song and of sentiment. There is a feeling in their melodies, an alternate pathos and glee in their songs, and an enthusiasm and romance in their legends, which are perhaps not equalled, and certainly not surpassed by those of any nation in the world. This may with truth be said of the nation, taking the average of times and of places; and, when it is considered that the Modern Athens holds herself up to the world as a sort of concentrated tincture or spirit of all that is fine or feeling in the country,--as being the throne of learning--the chosen seat of sentiment and of song; furthermore, when upon this occasion there was gathered in and about the Athens, all the lights which are acknowledged as shining, and all the fires which are recognised as burning, in taste and talent throughout Scotland; it must be acknowledged, that something might have been expected to go upon record worthy of such a people at such a time. It had been known that the great Seneschal of all those royal musters,--the ears of the Lord Advocate, the mouth of the Lord President, the eyes of the Lord Provost--to hear, to speak, and to stare, at mighty things as it were;--it had been known that, at the mere loosening of a bookseller’s purse-strings, his verse had flowed rapid as the Forth, and his prose spread wide as its estuary; and surely it was not too much to hope that he would consecrate in song, or conserve in story, an event which was so congenial to his avowed sentiments, and which must have been (from the fond and forward part he played in it) so gratifying to his individual vanity. When, too, it was recollected that this famed and favoured servant of the muse had