286 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. there still I have no account ; but rather guess the negative.* The siege of Leith, which followed hereupon, in all its details, — especially the preface to it, that sudden invasion of the Queen Regent and her Frenchmen from Dunbar, forcing Knox and his Covenanted Lords to take refuge in the * Quarrel Holes ' {quarry holes) , on the Eastern flank of the Calton Hill, with SaHs- bury Crags overhanging it, what he elsewhere calls 'the Craigs of Edinburgh,' as their one defensible post against their French enemies : this scene, which las.ted two nights and two days, till once the French struck into Leith, and began fortifying, dwells deeply impressed on Knox's memory and feelings. Besides this perfect clearness, naivete and almost unintentional picturesqueness, there are to be found in Knox's swift-flowing History many other kinds of
- geniality,' and indeed of far higher excellences than
are wont to be included under that designation. The grand Italian Dante is not more in earnest about this inscrutable Immensity than Knox is. There is in
- The Muse's TJireoiodie, by Mr. H. Adanison (first printed in 1638),
edited, with annotations, by James Cant (Perth, 1774), pp. 126-7.
