But the unique charm of Salisbury Green as a city dwelling lies in its natural surroundings. The terraced lawn slopes to the east, and commands a historic landscape of rare beauty. The couchant lion of Arthur Seat, a mountain in miniature, rises on the left in a succession of bold cliffs and grassy slopes to a height of eight hundred feet. The basaltic columns of Samson’s Ribs form a singularly bold feature at its base. On the right, the rich undulating landscape terminates in an insulated rock crowned with the picturesque ruin of Craigmillar Castle, famous in Scottish history in the days of the Jameses and Mary Stuart. Right below, Duddingston Loch forms the central feature, with the old village churchyard beyond. Under its mouldering heaps the rude forefathers of many a generation lie around the venerable parish church. Though defaced by tasteless modern additions, the church still retains the richly-moulded Norman chancel arch and south doorway, the work of the same builders who reared the Abbey of Holyrood in the time of David I.; while away in the distant landscape are North Berwick Law, Aberlady Bay, the Bass Rock, and beyond the Firth of Forth the Fifeshire hills. The sudden transition from the dust and bustle of the Dalkeith Road to the garden terrace and the unique landscape beyond, never failed to excite admiring wonder in the visitor who saw it for the first time. It includes such a variety of attractive features, and differs so greatly from anything usually visible from the windows or garden-terrace of a city dwelling, that even the most unimpressible yielded to some sense of surprise. Many a hearty tribute has accordingly been paid to its beauty. The French artist, Gustave Doré, was charmed with the magnificent panorama; J. J. Hayes, the Arctic explorer, and Bayard Taylor, familiar as a traveller with the beauties of many lands, owned its attractions as exceptionally rare; and the expression of quiet delight with which Augustus Hare--fortunate in an unusually warm, bright day of early summer--lingered over every detail of the historic landscape, has left a vivid impression on the minds of those who recall the incidents of his visit. It was no show-place for strangers, for few men shrank with more instinctive reserve than William Nelson from anything savouring of display; but to friends and friends’ friends it was ever accessible. An American visitor, who, like so many others from beyond the Atlantic, received a hospitable welcome at Salisbury Green, thus recalls the place and its owner:--“I shall never forget the greeting that made us all so much at home, the gentle humour of our host at table, and then the quiet saunter in the summer evening in the garden; Samson’s Ribs, a most curious geological formation, and the hill beyond reflecting the setting sun, on one of those long summer evenings we know nothing of in America. Mr. Nelson pointed out a ruined castle where Queen Mary resided, and a rock out in the sea that had been a prison of the Covenanters. Altogether the scene and its pleasant associations are unforgetable.”