Architect.  MDCCLXXVI.

The builder of the Palace was Robert Milne, the descendant of a family of distinguished masons.  He was the “master mason,” and a record of him in large letters on a pillar ran—­

  FVN .  BE .  RO .  MILNE .  M.M. .  I .  JYL . 1671.

After leaving Holyrood we walked up Calton Hill, where we had a splendid view of the fine old city of Edinburgh seated on rocks that are older than history, and surrounded by hills with the gleaming Firth of Forth in the distance.  The panorama as seen from this point was magnificent, and one of the finest in Great Britain.  On the hill there were good roads and walks and some monuments.  One of these, erected to the memory of Nelson, was very ugly, and another—­beautiful in its incompleteness—­consisted of a number of immense fluted columns in imitation of the Parthenon of Athens, which we were told was a memorial to the Scottish heroes who fell in the Wars of Napoleon, but which was not completed, as sufficient funds had not been forthcoming to finish what had evidently been intended to be an extensive and costly erection.  We supposed that these lofty pillars remained as a warning to those who begin to build without first sitting down and counting the cost.  They were beautifully proportioned, resembling a fragment of some great ruin, and probably had as fine an effect as they stood, as the finished structure would have had.

[Illustration:  “MONS MEG.”]

Edinburgh Castle stood out in the distance on an imposing rock.  As we did not arrive during visiting hours we missed many objects of interest, including the Scottish crown and regalia, which are stored therein.  On the ramparts of the castle we saw an ancient gun named “Mons Meg,” whose history was both long and interesting.  It had been made by hand with long bars of hammered iron held together by coils of iron hoops, and had a bore of 20 in.; the cannon-balls resting alongside it were made of wood.  It was constructed in 1455 by native artisans at the instance of James II, and was used in the siege of Dumbarton in 1489 and in the Civil Wars.  In Cromwell’s list of captured guns in 1650 it was described as “the great iron murderer Meg.”  When fired on the occasion of the Duke of York’s visit to Edinburgh in 1682 the gun burst.  After this bad behaviour “Meg” was sent to the Tower of London, not, however, to be executed, but to remain there until the year 1829, when, owing to the intercession of Sir Walter Scott with King George IV, the great gun was returned to Edinburgh, and was received with great rejoicings and drawn up with great ceremony to the castle, where it still remains as a relic of the past.

On our way we had observed a placard announcing a soiree in connection with the I.O.G.T. (the Independent Order of Good Templars), and this being somewhat of a novelty to us we decided to patronise it.  Accordingly at 7 p.m. we found ourselves paying the sum of ninepence each at the entrance to the Calton Rooms.  As we filed through along with others, a cup and saucer and a paper bag containing a variety of cakes were handed to us, and the positions assigned to us were on either side of an elderly gentleman whom we afterwards found to be a schoolmaster.