as a charger, by an adjutant to an English regiment.  She was even fond of music—­and delighted to prance behind the band—­unterrified by cymbals or great drum.  She never moved in a roar of artillery at reviews—­and, had the Castle of Edinburgh—­Lord bless it—­been self-involved, at that moment, in a storm of thunder and lightning, round its entire circle of cannon, that mare would not so much as have pricked up her ears, whisked her tail, or lifted a hoof.  But the pibroch was more than horse-flesh and blood could endure—­and off we two went like a whirlwind.  Where we went—­that is to say, what were the names of the few first streets along which we were borne, is a question which, as a man of veracity, we must positively decline answering.  For some short space of time, lines of houses reeled by without a single face at the windows—­and these, we have since conjectured, might be North and South Hanover street, and Queen-street.  By and by we surely were in something like a square—­could it be Charlotte-square?—­and round and round it we flew—­three, four, five, or six times, as horsemen do at the Caledonian amphitheatre—­for the animal had got blind with terror, and kept viciously reasoning in a circle.  What a show of faces at all the windows then!  A shriek still accompanied us as we clattered, and thundered, and lightened along; and, unless our ears lied, there were occasional fits of stifled laughter, and once or twice a guffaw; for there was now a ringing of lost stirrups—­and much holding of the mane.  One complete round was executed by us, first on the shoulder beyond the pommel; secondly, on the neck; thirdly, between the ears; fourthly, between the forelegs, in a place called the counter, with our arms round the jugular veins of the flying phenomenon, and our toes in the air.  That was, indeed, the crisis of our fever, but we made a wonderful recovery back into the saddle—­righting like a boat capsized in a sudden squall at sea—­and once more, with accelerated speed, away past the pillared front of St. George’s church!

The castle and all its rocks, in peristrephic panorama, then floated cloud-like by—­and we saw the whole mile-length of Prince’s-street stretched before us, studded with innumerable coaches, chaises, chariots, carts, wagons, drays, gigs, shandrydans, and wheel-barrows, through among which we dashed, as if they had been as much gingerbread—­while men on horseback were seen flinging themselves off, and drivers dismounting in all directions, making their escape up flights of steps and common stairs—­mothers or nurses with broods of young children flying hither and thither in distraction, or standing on the very crown of the causeway, wringing their hands in despair.  The wheel-barrows were easily disposed of—­nor was there much greater difficulty with the gigs and shandrydans.  But the hackney-coaches stood confoundedly in the way—­and a wagon, drawn by four horses, and heaped up to the very sky with beer-barrels, like