Scott's Shadow: the Novel in Romantic Edinburgh
Chapter 1 k EDINBURGH, CAPITAL OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY How high the situation of poor Scotland ...inarts, in arms, and in litera ture—her universities every year more crowded—her philosophers advanc ing with so proud a career in the field of science—her little junta of accom plished men in the first literary journal that ever appeared in any country, giving law to the republic of letters—her moralists improving—her poets delighting the world. —Christian Isobel Johnstone, The Saxon and the Gae¨l; or, The Northern Metropolis (1814) The poets, the orators, and the lawyers, of the flat Boetian region of the dull and muddy Thames, being under the influence of the envious spirit of conscious inferiority, make a point of rarely noticing the pre-eminent endowments of the northern Athenians. The whole English people, the Irish, and all Europe, are chagrined at the superiority of the wise and learned of Edinburgh; yea, every other town that participates in the intellec tualising keenness of the Scottish air, turns the sharpness of its wits against the pretensions of the provincial capital. —John Galt, Glenfell; or, Macdonalds and Campbells. An Edinburgh Tale of the Nineteenth Century (1820) The tartan robe (which has got into vogue in France and Flanders) adorns the London fair ones; the border and other minstrelsy delight the lovers of literature; the Scottish novels turn the heads of the readers of light matter, and even those of the second class are found to amuse their perusers; the stage teems with imitations and representations from the former. —Felix MacDonogh, The Hermit in Edinburgh: or, Sketches of Manners and Real Characters and Scenes in the Drama of Life (1824) A KING AND NO KING In the early afternoon of 14 August 1822, the yacht The Royal George with its naval and civilian escort cast anchor off the Edinburgh port of Leith.
[Show full text]