I arrived in Edinburgh yesterday night at 11 o’clock. I slept at Stamford, York, and Newcastle, and by so doing felt quite fresh at the end of my journey. I never preconceived a place better than Edinburgh. It is exactly what I fancied it, and certainly is the most beautiful town in the world. You can scarcely call it a city; at least, it has little of the roar of millions, and at this time is of course very empty. I could not enter Scotland by the route you pointed out, and therefore was unable to ascertain the fact of the Chevalier being at his Castellum. I should in that case have gone by Carlisle. I called on the gentleman to whom Wright [a solicitor] gave me a letter this morning. He is at his country house; he will get a letter from me this morning. You see, therefore, that I have lost little time.
I called at Oliver
& Boyd’s this morning, thinking
that you might have written. You had not, however. When you write to me,
enclose to them, as they will forward, wherever I may be, and my stay at an
hotel is always uncertain. Mr. Boyd was most particularly
civil. Their establishment is one of the completest I have ever seen. They are
booksellers, bookbinders, and printers, all under the same roof; everything but
making paper. I intend to examine the whole minutely before I leave, as it may
be
| 188 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
I arrived at York in the midst of the Grand [Musical] Festival. It was late at night when I arrived, but the streets were crowded, and continued so for hours. I never witnessed a city in such an extreme bustle, and so delightfully gay. It was a perfect carnival. I postponed my journey from five in the morning to eleven, and by so doing got an hour for the Minster, where I witnessed a scene which must have far surpassed, by all accounts, the celebrated commemoration in Westminster Abbey. York Minster baffles all conception. Westminster Abbey is a toy to it. I think it is impossible to conceive of what Gothic architecture is susceptible until you see York. I speak with cathedrals of the Netherlands and the Rhine fresh in my memory. I witnessed in York another splendid sight—the pouring in of all the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood and the neighbouring counties. The four-in-hands of the Yorkshire squires, the splendid rivalry in liveries and outriders, and the immense quantity of gorgeous equipages—numbers with four horses—formed a scene which you can only witness in the mighty and aristocratic county of York. It beat a Drawing Room hollow, as much as an oratorio in York Minster does a concert in the Opera House. This delightful stay at York quite refreshed me, and I am not the least fatigued by my journey.
As I have only been in Edinburgh a few hours, of course I have little to say. I shall write immediately that anything occurs. Kindest remembrances to Mrs. Murray and all.
I find Froissart a most entertaining companion, just the fellow for a traveller’s evening; and just the work too, for it needs neither books of reference nor accumulations of MS.
