In the Greyfriars' Churchyard of Edinburgh I have often spent a solitary hour, during what, in Scotland, is called the "gloaming." The large and handsome monument which still records the sufferings of the covenanted friends of freedom, always occupied my deepest thoughts; and when I looked around me on the quiet solitude of the scene, on the modest and unassuming style of the sacred edifice, and on the old and scarcely-visible fort,[1] which had stood so many sieges, and witnessed so many changes, I have often let the moon peep upon my meditative movements, over the top of the Calton Hill, Arthur's Seat, or Salisbury Crags. There passed, on the outside of the wall, the light-hearted carter, whistling alongside of his horse; or the fish-wife, proclaiming the caller commodity she wished to sell; or the merry school boy, indicating his relish of freedom from school restraint by boisterous mirth and unrestrained motion;--and yet, on the inner side of the wall, all was alone and peaceful, as if I had taken up my station in a far-off Highland glen. These were the days of my youthful feelings, and warm and generous emotion. If my blood did not _boil_ within me, it warmed exceedingly, as the vision of other times and far different scenes crossed my brain, and was reflected from my heart. From the works of our historians--of Knox and Woodrow in particular--I had early become acquainted with the history of those times, (which are still continuing to interest our feelings and influence our judgment;) and I could not fail to image out more particularly the dismal aspect which this very locality presented in 1679. Whilst engaged one evening in these reveries, I inadvertently wandered away behind the church, and stood looking out upon the moonshine, which, "o'er the dark a silver mantle threw;" whilst the officer of the Greyfriars' Church, seeing nobody in the yard, quietly and unperceived by me, locked the door, and retired to his home in the Netherbow. Accordingly, when I began to think, about eleven o'clock, of home and repose, I was not a little surprised to find all egress by the customary outlet impossible. The night was indeed lovely--mild and still; but yet there was something not altogether satisfactory in being compelled to enjoy it in company with the dead of many generations. A large mastiff, too, which had concealed itself for some time under the wall, came forth into the moonlight, with a bone in his jaws--manifestly a human skull. [Footnote 1: Edinburgh Castle] "And I saw the lean dog, _beneath the wall_, Hold o'er the dead its carnival; And its white tusks crunched o'er the whiter skull As it slipped through its jaws, when the edge grew dull, As it lazily mumbled the bones of the dead."