Stanza XXIII. l. 490. Dun-Edin Edwin's hill-fort, poetic for Edinburgh.
l. 497. The Braid Hills, S.E. of Edinburgh, recently added to the recreation grounds of the citizens.
Stanza XXIV. Blackford Hill has now been acquired by the City of Edinburgh as a public resort. The view from it, not only of the city but of the landscape generally, is striking and memorable.
ll. 511-15. Cp. Wordsworth's 'The Fountain—a Conversation'—
How merrily it goes!'
Twill murmur on a thousand years,
And flow as now it flows.
I cannot choose but think
How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.
My heart is idly stirred,
For the same sound is in my ears
which in those days I head.'
Stanza XXV. l. 521. 'The Borough, or Common Moor of Edinburgh, was of very great extent, reaching from the southern walls of the city to the bottom of Braid Hills. It was anciently a forest; and, in that state, was so great a nuisance, that the inhabitants of Edinburgh had permission granted to them of building wooden galleries, projecting over the street, in order to encourage them to consume the timber; which they seem to have done very effectually. When James IV mustered the array of the kingdom there, in 1513, the Borough-moor was, according to Hawthornden, "a field spacious, and delightful by the shade of many stately and aged oaks." Upon that, and similar occasions, the royal standard is traditionally said to have been displayed from the Hare Stane, a high stone, now built into the wall, on the left hand of the highway leading towards Braid, not far from the head of Bruntsfield Links. The Hare Stane probably derives its name from the British word Har, signifying an army.'—Scott.
Stanza XXVI. ll. 535-538. The proper names in these lines are Hebrides; East Lothian; Redswire, part of Carter Fell near Jedburgh; and co. of Ross.
