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34= OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [G-ge Sqmm over the head with sufficient strength to cut him down. When this was seen, the casualty was so far beyond what had ever taken place before that both parties fled different ways, leaving poor Green Breeks, with his bright hair plentifully dabbled in ._? blood, to the care of the watchman, who (honest ? man) took care not to know who had done the mischief. The bloody hanger was flung into one of the meadow ditches, and solemn secrecy sworn on all hands j but the remorse and terror of the actor were beyond all bounds, and his apprehensions of the most dreadful character. The wounded hero was for a few days in the infirmary, the case being only a trifling one; but though inquiry was strongly pressed on him, uo argument could make him indicate the person from whom he had received the wound, though he must have been perfectly well known to him. When he recovered, the author and his brother opened a communication with him, through the medium of a popular gingerbread baker, with whom both parties were customers, in order to tender a subsidy in the name of smart-money. The sum would excite ridicule were I to name it ; but I am sure that the pockets of the noted Green Breeks never held so much money of his own. He declined the remittance, saying he would not sell his blood ; but at the same t h e repudiated the idea of being an informer, which he said was clam-that is, base or mean With much urgency he accepted a pound of snuff for the use of some old woman-aunt, grandmother, or the like-with whom he lived. We did not become friends, for the bickers were more agreeable to both parties than any other pacific amusement; but we conducted them ever after under mutual assurances of the highest consideration for each other.?? Lockhart tells us that it was in No. 25 that, at a later period, an acquaintance took place which by degrees ripened into friendship with Francis Jeffrey, born, as we have said, at No. 7, Charles Street, about 150 yards distant from Scott?s house. Here one evening Jeffrey found him in a small den on the sunk floor, surrounded by dingy books, and from thence they adjourned to a tavern and supped together. In that den ? he was collecting ?? the germ of the magnificent library and museum of Abbotsford.? Since those days,? says Lockhart, ? the habits of life in Edinburgh have undergone many changes ; and ? the convenient parlour ? in which Scott first showed Jeffrey his collection of minstrelsy is now, in all probability, thought hardly good enough for a tnenial?s sleeping-room.? There it was, however, that his first assay-piece a~ a poet-his bold rendering of Burger?s weird hre-was produced ; and there it was, too, that by his energy his corps of Volunteer Horse. was developed. The Ediiiburg4 Herald and Chronicle for 20th February, I 7 9 7, announced the formation of the corps thus :- LrAn offer of service, subscribed hy sixty gentlemen and upwards of this city and neighbourhood, engaging to serve as a Corps of Volunteer Lqht Dragoons during the present war, has been presented to His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Lieutenant of the county, who has expressed his high approbation of the pIan. Regular drilb have in consequence been established. ? Such gentlemen as wish to become members of this corps will make their application through &fr. Wulfer Scott, Advacuft-, Gmrge Square, secretary to the committee of management. ?The service is limited to Midlothian, unless in case of actual invasion or the imminent hazard, when it extends to all Scotland. No member of the corps can be required to join unless during his residence within the county.? Of this corps Scott was the quartermaster. In one of his notes to ?Wilson?s Memorials,? the cynical C. K. Sharpe says :-?? My grand-aunt, hfrs. Campbell of Monzie, had the house in George Square that now belongs to Mr. Borthwick (of Crookston). I remember seeing from the window Walter limping home in a cavalry uniform, the most grotesque spectacle that can be conceived. NoSody then cared much about his two German balIads. This was long before I personally knew him.? In 1797 Scott ceased to reside in No. 25 on his marriage, and carried his bride to a lodging in the second floor of No. 108, George Street ; however, the last rod he was under in his ?own romantic town? was that of the Douglas Hotel, St. Andrew Square, where, on his return from Italy, on the 9th of July, 1832, he was brought from Newhave4 in a state of unconsciousness, and after remaining there two nights, was taken home to Abbotsford to die. His signature, in a boyish hand, written with a diamond, still remains on a pane in one of the windows in 25, George Square, or did so till a recent date. On the 19th of June, 1795, Lord Adam Gordon, Commander of the Forces in Scotland, had the honour of presenting, in George Square, a new set of British colours to the ancient Scots Brigade of immortal memory, which, after being two hundred years in the Dutch service, had-save some fifty who declined to leave Holland-joined the British army as the 94th Regiment, on the 9th October in the preceding year, under Francis Dundas. Lord Adam, who was then a very old man, having entered the 18th Royal Irish in 1746, said, with some emotion:--? General Dundas and officers * ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [G-ge Sqmm over the head with sufficient strength to cut him down. When this was seen, ...

Book 4  p. 342
(Score 0.96)

42 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Craiglockhart Cluny (who died recently in London), Lady Gordon-Cathcart of Killochan Castle, who has since sold it out of the family. On the hill above it, to the south, is the .farmhouse of Braid, in which died, of consumption, in 1790, Niss Burnet of Monboddo, so celebrated for her beauty, which woke the muse of Burns, as his verses show. Southward of Morningside lie the Plewlands, ascending the slope towards beautiful Craiglockhart Hill, now being fast covered with semi-detached villas, feued by the Scottish Heritages Company, surrounding a new cemetery, and intersected by the suburban line of railway. Here was built lately a great hydropathic establishment. The new city poor-house, erected at a cost of Aso,ooo, occupies, with the ground for cultivation, an area of thirty-six acres, has accommodation for more than 2,000 inmates, and is fitted up with every modem improvement conducive to health and comfort. This quzrter of Edinburgh is bounded by Craiglockhart Hill-the name of which is said to have been Cra&och-ard, with some reference to the great sheet of water once known as Cortorphin Loch. It is 546 feet in height, and richly wooded, and amid its rocks there breed the kestrel-hawk, the brown owl, the ring-ousel, and the waterhen. Among the missing charters of David 11. is one to James Sandiland, ? in compensation of the lands of Craiglokart and Stonypath, Edinburgh,? and another to ? James Sandoks (?) of the same lands.? On a plateau of the hill, embosomed among venerable trees, we find the ancient Craig House, a weird-looking mansion, alleged to be ghosthaunted, lofty, massive, and full of stately rooms, when in old times dances were stately things, ?? in which every lady walked as if she were a goddess, and every man as if he were a great lord.? It is four storeys in height, including the dormer windows j the staircase tower rises a storey higher, and has crowstepped gables. On the lintel of the moulded entrance door are the initials S. C. P., and the date 1565. During the reign of James VI. we find it the abode of a family named Kincaid, cadets of the Kincaids of that ilk in Stirlingshire, as were all the Kincaids of Warriston and Coates. From Pitcairn?s ?? Criminal Trials,? it would seem that on the 17th December, 1600, John Kincaid of the Craig House, attended by a party of friends and followers, ?bodin in feir of weir,? i.e., clad in armour, with swords, pistols, and other weapons, came to the village of the Water of Leith, and attacked :he house of Bailie John Johnston, wherein Isabel Hutcheon, a widow, ?was in sober, quiet, and peaceable manner for the time, dreading nae evil, narm, or injury, but living under God?s peace and 3ur sovereign lord?s.?? Kincaid burst in the doors, and laying hands on :he said Isabel, carried her off forcibly to the Craig House, at the very time when the king was riding in the fields close by, with the Earl of Mar, Sir John Ramsay, and others. James, on hearing of the circumstance, sent Mar, Ramsay, md other of his attendants, to Craig House, which :hey threatened to set on fire if the woman was not instantly released. For this outrage Kincaid was tried on the 13th January, 1601, and was fined 2,500 marks, payable to the Treasurer, and he was dso ordered to deliver to the king ?his brown horse.? In 1604, Thomas, heir of Robert Kincaid, got m annual rent of Azo of land at Craiglockhart; 2nd two years after, John Kincaid, the hero of the brawl, succeeded his father, James Kincaid of that ilk, knight, in the lands of Craiglockhart. In 1609 he also succeeded to some lands at ?Tow-cros? (Toll cross), outside the West Port of Edinburgh. By a dispute reported by Lord Fountainhall, Craiglockhart seems to have been the property of George Porteous, herald painter, in I 7 I I. The house would seem then to have been repaired, and the north wing probably added, and the whole was let for a yearly rent of AIOO Scots. In 1726 Craig House was the property of Sir John Elphinstone, and in the early part of the present century it belonged to Gordon of Cluny. Prior to that, it had been for a time the property of a family named Lockhart, and there, on the 5th November, 1770, when it was the residence of Alexander Lockhart, Esq., Major-General John Scott of Balcomie and Bellevue was married to Lady Mary Hay, eldest daughter of the Earl of Err01 ; and their daughter and heiress, Henrietta, became the wife of the Duke of Portland, who added to his own name and arms those of the? Scotts of Balcomie. For some years prior to 1878, the Craig House was the residence of John Hill Burton, LL.D. and F.R.S.E., a distinguished historian and biographer, who was born at Aberdeen in 1809, the son of an officer of the old Scots Brigade, and who died in 188 I at- Morton House. We are told that his widowed mother, though the daughter of an Aberdeenshire laird, was left with slender resources, yet made successful exertions to give her children a good education. After taking the degree of M.A. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Craiglockhart Cluny (who died recently in London), Lady Gordon-Cathcart of Killochan ...

Book 5  p. 42
(Score 0.95)

Albany Street.] GENERAL SCOTT. 19= Gray was ordained his successor to that charge in 1773, but he resigned it ten years afterwards. In 1785 he was appointed joint Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh with the celebrated Adam Ferguson, LL.D., and discharged the duties of that chair till the death of his friend Professor Robinson, in 1805, when he was appointed his successor. Among his works are ? Elements of Geometry ? published in I 796 ; ?Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth ? in 1804; ?? Outlines of Natural Philosophy;? besides many papers to the scientific department of the Edinburgh &view and to various other periodicals. He died at No. 2, Albany Street, in his seventieth year, on the 20th of July, 1819. An unfinished ?? Memoir of John Clerk of Eldin,? the inventor of naval tactics, left by him in manuscript, was published after his death in the ninth volume of the ? Edinburgh Transactions.? An interesting account of the character and merits of this illustrious mathematician, from the pen of Lord Jeffrey, was inserted in the ?? Encyclopzdia Britannica ? and in the memoir prefixed to his works by his nephew, and a noble monument to his memory is erected on the Calton Hill. Northwards of the old village of Broughton, in the beginning of the present century, the land was partly covered with trees ; a road led fkom it to Canonmills by Bellevue to Newhaven, while another road, by the water of Leith, led westward. In the centre of what are now the Drummond Place Gardens stood a country house belonging to the Lord Provost Drummond, and long inhabited by him ; he feued seven acres from the Governors of Heriot?s Hospital. The approach to this house was by an avenue, now covered by West London Street, and which entered from the north road to Canonmills. On the site of that house General Scott of Balcolnie subsequently built the large square threestoreyed mansion of Bellevue, afterwards converted into the Excise Office, and removed when the Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee Railway Company constructed the now disused tunnel from Princes Street to the foot of Scotland Street. In 1802 the l a d s of Bellevue were advertised to be sold ?by roup within the Justiciary Court Roomy for feuing purposes, but years elapsed before anything was done in the way of building. In 1823 the papers announce that ?? preparations are making for levelling Bellevue Gardens and filling up the sand-pits in that neighbourhood, with a view to finishing Bellevue Crescent, which will connect the New Town with Canonmills on one side, as it is already connected with Stockbridge on the other.? By that year Drummond Place was nearly completed, and the south half of Bellevue Crescent was finished and occupied; St. Mary?s parish church was founded and finished in 1824 from designs b j Mr. Thomas Brown, at the cost of A13,ooo for 1,800 hearers. It has a spire of considerable elegance, 168 feet in height. General Scott, the proprietor of Bellevue, was one of the most noted gamblers of his time. It is related of him that being one night at Stapleton?s, when a messenger brought him tidings that Mrs. Scott had been delivered of a daughter, he turned laughingly to the company, and said, ?You see, gentlemen, I must be under the necessity of doubling my stakes, in order to make a fortune for this little girl.? He accordingly played rather deeper than usual, in consequence of which, after a fiw hours? play, he found himself a loser by A8,ooo. This gave occasion for some of the company to rally him on his ?? daughter?s fortune,? but the general had an equanimity of temper that nothing could ruffle, and a judgment in play superior to most gamesters. He replied that he had still a perfect dependence on the luck of the night, and to make his words good he played steadily on, and about seven in the morning, besides clearing his .&8,000, he brought home A15,ooo. His eldest daughter, Henrietta, became Duchess of Portland. Drummond Place was named after the eminent George Drummond, son of the Laird of Newton, a branch of the Perth family, who was no less than six times Lord Provost of the city, and who died in 1776, in the eightieth year of his age. The two most remarkable denizens of this quarter were Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddam (previously of 93, Princes Street) and Lord Robertson. Among the attractions of Edinburgh during the bygone half of the present century, and accessible only to a privileged few, were the residence and society of the former gentleman. Born of an ancient Scottish family, and connected in many ways with the historical associations of his country, by his reputation as a literary man no less than by his high Cavalier and Jacobite tenets, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe was long looked up to as one of the chief authorities on all questions connected with Scottish antiquities. No. 93, Princes Street, the house of Mrs. Sharpe of Hoddam, was the home of her son till the time of her death, and there he was visited by Scotc Thomas Thomson, and those of the next genera ... Street.] GENERAL SCOTT. 19= Gray was ordained his successor to that charge in 1773, but he resigned it ten ...

Book 3  p. 191
(Score 0.95)

'THE OLD TOWN. 13 ~ clear April day, and the ethereal blue' of the heavens above its grey rocks, are exquisite.' The general view of the Old Town referred to here by Aird is certainly the most imposing, but in its details and component parts it is scarcely less interesting. To it belongs the Castle, as itself an object of view. And here let us quote from PeteJs Utm-the best description we have read, or that probably exists, now, we fear, little read-of this great old antiquity :- 'From whatever side you approach the city, whether by water or by land, whether your foreground consist of height or of plain, of heath, of trees, or of the buildings of the city itself, this gigantic rock lifts itself high above all that surrounds it, and breaks upon the sky with the same commanding blackness of mingled cliffs, buttresses, and battlements, These indeed shift a d vary their outlines at every step, but everywhere there is the same unmoved effect of general impression, the same lofty and imposing image to which the eye tuns with the same unquestioning worship. Whether you pass on the southern side, close under the bare and shattered blocks of granite, where the crumbling turrets on the summit seem as if they had shot out of the kindred rock in some fantastic freak of Nature, and where, amidst the overhanging mass of darkness, you vainly endeavour to descry the track by which Wallace scaled; or whether you look from the north, where the rugged cliffs find room for some scanty patches of moss and broom to diversify their barren grey, and where the whole mass is softened into beauty by the wild green glen which inteienes between the spectator and the foundations ;-wherever you are placed, and wherever it is viewed, you feel at once that here is the eye of the landscape and €he essence of the grandeur. ' Neither is it possible to say under what sky or atmosphere all this appears to the greatest advantage. The heavens may put on what aspect they choose, they never fail to adorn it. If the air be cloudless and serene, what canbe finer than the calm reposing dignity of those old towers, every delicate angle of the fissured rock, every loophole and every lineament seen clearly and distinctly in all their minuteness ! Or if the mist be wreathed around the bases ofthe rock, and frowning fragments of the citadel emerge only here and there from the racking clouds that envelop them, the mystery and the gloom only rivet the eye the faster, and half-baffled'imagination does more than the work of sight. At times the whole detail is lost to the eye,-one murky tinge of impenetrable brown wraps rock and fortress from the root to the summit ; all is lost but the outline ; but the outline atones abundantly for all that is lost. The cold glare of the sun, plunging slowly down into a ... OLD TOWN. 13 ~ clear April day, and the ethereal blue' of the heavens above its grey rocks, ...

Book 11  p. 19
(Score 0.94)

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge. after nnmixous schemes and suggestions, the North Bridge was widened in 1873, after designs by Messrs. Stevenson. The average number of footpassengers traversing this bridge daily is said to be considerably in excess of go,ooo, and the number of wheeled vehicles upwards of 2,000. The ground at the north-east end of the bridge has been so variously occupied in succession by an edifice ?named Dingwall?s Castle, by Shakespeare Square, and the oldTheatre Royal, with its thousand memories of the drama in Edinburgh, and latterly Jay the new General Post Office for Scotland, that we must devote a chapter or two to that portion ? of it alone. CHAPTER XLIII. EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE. Diogwall?s Castle-Whitefield?s ? Preachings?-History of the Old Theatre Royal-The Building-David Ross?s Management--Leased to Mr. Foote-Then to Mr. Digges-Mr. Moss-- Yates-Next Leased to Mr. Jackson-The Siddons Fumre-Reception of the Great Actress-ME. Baddeley-New Patent-The Playhouse Riot-?The Scottish Roscius ?-A Ghost-Expiry of the Patent. BUILT no one knows when, but existing during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there stood on the site now occupied by the new General Post Office, an edifice named Dingwall?s Castle. In 1647, Cordon of Rothiemay, in his wonderfully distinct and detailed bird?s-eye view of the city, represents it as an open ruin, in form a square tower with a round one at each angle, save on the north-east, where one was fallen down in part. All the sloping bank aiid ground between it and the Trinity College church are shown as open, but bordered on the west by a line of houses, which he names Niniani Suburbium seu nzendicorum Fatea (known latterly as the Beggar?s Row), and on the west and north by high walls, the latter crenellated, and by a road which descends close to the edge of the loch, and then runs along its bank straight westward. This stronghold is supposed to have derived its name from Sir John Dingwall, who was Provost of the Trinity College church before the Reformation ; and hence the conclusion is, that it was a dependency of that institution. He was one of the first Lords of Session appointed on the 25th May, 1532, at the formation of the College of Justice, and his name is third on the list. Of him nothing more is known, save that he existed and that is all. . Some fragments of the castle are still supposed to exist among the buildings on its site, and some were certainly traced among the cellars of Shakespeare Square on its demolition in 1860. During the year 1584 when the Earl of Arran was Provost of the city, on the 30th September, the Council commissioned Michael Chisholm and others to inquire into the order and condition of an ancient leper hospital which stood beside Dingwall?s Castle; but of the former no distinct trace is given in Cordon?s view. In Edgar?s map of Edinburgh, in 1765, no indication of these buildings is given, but the ground occupied by the future theatre and Shakespeare Square is shown as an open park or irregular parallelogam closely bordered by trees, measuring about 350 feet each way, and lying between the back of the old Orphan Hospital and the village of Multrie?s Hill, where now the Register House stands. It was in this park, known then as that of the Trinity Hospital, that the celebrated Whitefield used yearly to harangue a congregation of all creeds and classes in the open air, when visiting Edinburgh in the course of his evangelical tours. On his coming thither for the first time after the Act had passed for the extension of the royalty, great was his horror, surprise, and indignation, to find the green slope which he had deemed to be rendered almost sacred by his prelections, enclosed by fences and sheds, amid which a theatre was in course of erection. The ground was being ?appropriated to the service of Satan. The frantic astonishment of the Nixie who finds her shrine and fountain desolated in her absence, was nothing to that of Whitefield. He went raging about the spot, and contemplated the rising walls of the playhouse with a sort of grim despair. He is said to have considered the circumstance as a positive mark of the increasing wickedness of society, and to have termed it a plucking up of God?s standard, and a planting of the devil?s in its place.? The edifice which he then saw in course of erection was destined, for ninety years, to be inseparably connected with the more recent rise of the drama in Scotland generally, in Edinburgh in particular, and to be closely identified with all the artistic and scenic glories of the stage. It was long a place replete with interest, and yet recalls ... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge. after nnmixous schemes and suggestions, the North Bridge was widened in ...

Book 2  p. 340
(Score 0.94)

St. Cavid Street.] DAVID HUME. 161 which a denomination was conferred upon the street in which his house is situated. ?Perhaps, if it be premised that a corresponding street at the other angle of St. Andrew Square is called St. Andrew Street-a natural enough circumstance with reference to the square, whose title was determined on the plan-it will appear likely that the choosing of ? St. David Street ? for that in which Hume?s house stood was not originally designed as a jest at his expense, though a second thought and whim of his friends might quickly give it that application? Burton, in his ?? Life of Hume,? relates that when the house was first inhabited by him, and when the street was as yet without a name-a very dubious story, as every street was named on the On Sunday the 25th of August, 1776, Hume died in his new house. On the manner of his death, after the beautiful picture which has been drawn of it by his friend, Adam?Smith, we need not enlarge. The coolness of his last moments, unexpected by many, was universally remarked at the time, and is still well known. He was buried in the place selected by himself, in the old burial-ground on the western slope of the Calton HilL A conflict between vague horror of his imputed opinions and respect for the individual who had passed a life so pure and irreproachable, created a great sensation among the populace of Edinburgh, and a vast concourse attended the body to the grave, which for some time was an object of curiosity to many Edinburgh. Adam Smith, Blair, and Ferguson, were within easy reach, and what remains of Hume?s correspondence with Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, Colonel Edmonstone, and Mrs. Cockburn, gives pleasant glimpses of his social surroundings, and enables us to understand his contentment with his absence from the more perturbed, if more brilliant, worlds of Paris and London. In 1775 his health began to fail, and it was evident that he would not long enjoy his new residence. In the spring of the following year his disorder, which appears to have been a hzniorrhage of the bowels, attained such a height that he knew it must be fatal, so he made his will, and wrote ? My Own Life,? the conclusion of which is one of the most cheerful and dignified leave-takings of life and all its concerns. wilderness, and may meditate undisturbedly upon the epitome of nature and man-the kingdoms of this world-spread out before him. Surely there is a fitness in the choice of this last resting-place by the philosopher and historian who saw so clearly that these two kingdoms form but one realm, governed by uniform laws, and based alike on impenetrable darkness and eternal silence; and faithful to the last to that profound veracity which was the secret of his philosophic greatness, he ordered that the simple Roman tomb which marks his grave should bear no inscription but, ?DAVID HUME. Born, 1711. Died, 1776.? Leavhg it to posterity to add the rest.? It is a curious fact, sometimes adverted to in Edinburgh, but which cannot be authenticated, according to the Book of Days, that in the room ... Cavid Street.] DAVID HUME. 161 which a denomination was conferred upon the street in which his house is ...

Book 3  p. 161
(Score 0.94)

56 EDINBURGH PAST AND PRESENT. On the following day her Majesty unveiled the Albert Memorial in Charlotte Square. James Smith in his poem-a copy of which the Queen was graciously pleased to accept-writes :- ’ ‘ Welcome to lair Dunedin’s bowers : Her lordly halls and regal towers, Enwreath’d with bannerets and flowers, Fond wishes breathe to thee. Hark to the shouts that greet thy name ! Hark to the bugle’s loud acclaim I Roll on, the chariot of thy fame, Queen of the Brave and Free I Through mighty myriads, vast and dense, Thou rovest void of fear ; The people’s love thy sure defence,- Thy buckler, sword, and spear. God’s blessing possessing, Thy days illustrious shine With glory; while o’er thee, Peace, love, and joy entwine. Lo I mid the warlike trumpet’s blare, And cheers that rend the balmy air, Behold unveil’d a Statue Gr,- True likeness of the dead ! Calmly majestic and serene; Prince Albert looks upon his Queen, Who thinks on all that once hath been, And lowly bows her head. Memorial from the hardy North, Embalm’d in sighs and tears; Fond tribute to departed worth, Through all the rolling years Descending, unending ; The grandeur, the splendour Proclaiming, Queen of Fame, That crowns thy Husband’s name.’ On this occasion the sculptor, John Steell, R.S.A., and Professor Oakeley, received the honour of knighthood, and Lord Provost Falshaw the dignity of a Baronetcy. With reference to an earlier Royal visit to Holyrood, the Queen in her Diary says:--‘We saw the rooms where Queen Mary lived, her bed, the dressing-room into which the murderers entered who killed Rizzio, and the spot where he fell, where, as the old housekeeper said to me, “if the lady would stand on that side,” I would see that the boards were discoloured by the blood. Every step is full of historical recollections, and our living here is quite an epoch in the annals of this old pile, which has seen so many deeds, more bad, I fear, than good.’ Let 11s now suppose ourselves, as the scene in thk Engraving suggests, by the Tron Church on a New Year‘s eve. Looking down the street, the house of John Knox projects a little into the roadway; nearer the eye, on the right of the picture, a modem turret leaning against the midnight sky marks the site of old Blackfriars’ Wynd; while in the foreground the tall ‘lands’ on the left tell us where Fergusson the poet was born, and ’ Whaur . . . Ramsay woo’d the Muses In days long past.‘ A light from Hunter Square falls upon the church, and looking above the ... EDINBURGH PAST AND PRESENT. On the following day her Majesty unveiled the Albert Memorial in Charlotte Square. ...

Book 11  p. 87
(Score 0.93)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 3 a genteel annuity upon him. This, however, from his debilitated habit of body, was delayed from time to time, till death put it out of his power. But, to the honour of his heir, he was so sensible of Mr. Ray’s good offices to his father, as well as of his father’s intentions, that he voluntarily made a settlement of $20 per annum for life upon him. After the death of his patron, our author attempted to etch in aquafortis, and having published some of his Prints executed in this way, he met with so much unexpected success, that he at last determined to drop his old profession altogether, which he did accordingly in 1785. (‘ Our Author has drawn himself in this Print, sitting in a thoughtful posture, in an antiquated chair (whereby he means to represent his love of antiquities), with his favourite cat (the largest it is believed in Scotland) sitting upon the back of it ; several pictures hanging behind him ; a bust of Homer with his painting utensils on the table before him, a scroll of paper in his hand, and a volume of his works upon his knee.” Mr. Kay continued from the above period till about the year 1817 to exercise his talents in engraving. For a period of nearly half a century, few persons of any notoriety who figured in the Scottish capital have escaped his notice, and he has occasionally indulged himself in caricaturing such local incidents as might amuse the public. In this wa.y he has formed a collection altogether unique ; and we concur with Mr. Chambers’ in thinking that “it may with safety be affirmed that no city in the empire can boast of so curious a chronicle.” It is right, in addition to this, to mention that his etchings are universally admitted to possess one merit, which of itself stamps them with value, namely that of being exact and faithful likenesses of the parties intended to be represented. The emoluments derived from his engravings and painting miniature likehesses in water colours, together with the annuity from the Dirleton family, regularly paid by Sir Henry Jardine, rendered him tolerably independent. He had a small print-shop on the south side of the Parliament Square, in which he sold his productions, and the windows of which, being always filled with his more recent works, used to be a great attraction to the idlers of the time. It was, with the rest of the old buildings in the square, destroyed by the great fire in November 1824. In his outward appearance he was a slender, straight old man, of middle size, and usually dressed in a garb of antique cut, of simple habits, and quiet unassuming manners. He died at his house, No. 227 High Street, Edinburgh, 21st February 1826, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. His widow survived him upwards of nine years; her death took place in November 1835. The son alluded to by Mr. Kay in his biography predeceased his father. “ Biographical Dictionary of Illustrious Scotsmen.” ... SKETCHES. 3 a genteel annuity upon him. This, however, from his debilitated habit of body, was ...

Book 8  p. 3
(Score 0.93)

222 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. with which he watched over and soothed the decline of a venerable mother (who died not above four years ago) afforded a convincing proof. The variety of his knowledge, the cheerfulness of his disposition, the unaffectedness of his character, and even the occasional touch of eccentricity in his manners-all contributed to make him as amusing and agreeable an associate as we ever encountered at the convivial board.”-Literary Gazette, 12th July 1834. In Dr. Watt’s Bibliotheea Britannicn, the record of Mr. Rylance’s avowed works, previous to 1824, is limited to-“ A tribute to the Memory of William Pitt,” 8v0, 1806; “Sketches of the Causes and Consequences of the late Emigration to the Brazils,” 8v0, 1808 j and “ A Vocabulary of English Words, chiefly derived from the Saxon, with their Signification in Spanish,”-to which is added, “ A short English Grammar for Spaniards,” SYO, 1813. NO. xcm. LEVELLING OF THE HIGH STREET OF EDINBURGH. THE idea of levelling the High Street was entertained so far back as 1785 ; and the ‘I contest” which ensued is a matter of some notoriety in the civic history of the Scottish capital. The projected improvement was one of considerable importance, as it contemplated the reduction of a very inconvenient and somewhat dangerous rise in the centre of the street, which greatly incommoded the communication by the north and south approaches. Under the patronage of Sir James Hunter Blair, then Lord Provost, the undertaking was acceded to by a majority of the Town Council, and an advertisement issued in consequence, stating that a contractor was wanted “ to level the High Street, and to dig and carry away from it about 6000 cubic yards of earth.” This advertisement was generally understood to mean simply the reduction of the “ crown 0’ the causey” to a level with the sides ; but, when the operation commenced, it was discovered that the plan was much more extensive, and that, in following it out, some parts of the street would require to be lowered more than five feet. The proprietors of houses and shops became alarmed. Meetings were called, and a serious and formidable opposition to the measure was organised. A bill of suspension and interdict (somewhat analogous to an injunction in England) was presented ; and subsequently, on the 8th October, an interlocutor was pronounced, appointing a condescendence (or specification of facts) to be given in, showing in what manner the adjacent houses, vaults, etc., would be affected by the proposed alterations. Reports were then lodged by Messrs. Brown and Kay on the part of the Town Council ; and by Messrs. Young and Salisbury, on that of the proprietors. The bill of suspension was passed. ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. with which he watched over and soothed the decline of a venerable mother (who died not ...

Book 8  p. 313
(Score 0.93)

184 .BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Sir John Stuart Forbes, who succeeded him in the title and estates, married a daughter of the late Marquis of Lothian; the second, Charles, was a banker in the firm of Sir William Forbes and Co. ; and the third, James David, was the distinguished Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. The scene represented in the background of the Print is referable to the charity almost daily bestowed by Sir William on a number of “ pensioners,” who were in the habit of frequenting the Parliament Square at stated periods, where they were certain of meeting their benefactor as he entered or retired from the banking-house. No. LXXVII. THOMAS FRASER (A NATURAL). THIS is another of those “Characters” for which Edinburgh was so much famed some fifty or sixty years ago. Tom was a thorough mountaineer, and extremely fond of the “ dew.” He would do any thing for a sip of his favourite beverageAance, sing, run, fight, carry a load, or perform any thing at all, only promise him “ a dram and a sneeshin.” He is here represented as in possession of what seemed to him the very essence of human bliss-a glass of whiskybestowed by his kind hostess, to whom his attitude and eye are significant of the most heartfelt gratitude. Tom was employed as a sweeper about the stables of Mr. Peter Ramsay, vintner,’ at the Cowgate Port, where he constantly resided; and at night, a little straw in one of the stalls formed the shake-down of the poor natural. In short, the stable, as the song has it, “ Served him for kitchen, parlour, and hall.” He never partook of any thing in the house, except when called in for the entertainment of a company, to whom, for a glass of whisky, he would either exhibit himself in a Highland reel, or sing a song, in which he could ingeniously accompany himself with a very harmonious bass, produced by his fingers upon the table or pannel of the door. Thomas died in 1789. 1 Brother to William Ramsay, Esq., the fint proprietor of Barnton, and father of the late Williain Ramsay, Esq., banker. The “Traditions of Edinburgh” mention that “General Paoli was its guest, in 1773 ;” the same authority adds, as illustrative of the more homelymannera of former times, “that the sows upon which the late Duchess of Gordon and her witty sister (Lady Wallace) rode, when children, were not the common vagrants of the High Street, but belonged to Peter Ramsay, the celebrated stabler in St. Mary’s Wynd, ,and were permitted to roam abroad. The two romps used to watch the animals as they were let loose in the forenoon from the stable-yard, and get upon their backs the moment they issued from the ‘close. The late Mr. William Ramsay, of Charlotte Square, took great pleasure in talking of his father, and used to affirm that he was the best judge of horses and dogs in the kingdom. Ramsay’s Inn was an establishment of great respectability in its day. ... .BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Sir John Stuart Forbes, who succeeded him in the title and estates, married ...

Book 8  p. 259
(Score 0.93)

24 BI 0 GRAPH I C AL SI< ETCHES, Camp, and created (5th March 1783) an English Peer by the title of Baron Rawdon of Rawdon. On the King’s illness, having formed ail intimacy with his late Majesty George IV., then Prince of Wales, he became a zealous adherent of his Royal Highness, and was the mover of the amendment in favour of the Prince in the House of Lords. He was equally intimate with the Duke of York, and acted as his second in the duel with Colonel Lennox. In 1791 Lord Rawdon succeeded to the bulk of the property of his maternal uncle, the Earl of Huntingdon, while his mother obtained the barony of Hastings, and the other baronies in fee possessed by her brother.’ In 1793 he succeeded his father as second Earl of Moira. The same year he obtained the rank of Major-General, and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of an army intended to co-operate with the Royalists in Brittany; but before any effective movement could be made the Republicans had triumphed. The Earl was despatched in 1794 with ten thousand men to relieve the Duke of York, then retreating through Holland, and nearly surrounded with hostile forces. This difficult task he successfully accomplished. On returning to England, he was appointed to a command at Southampton. Politics now became his chief study. He was regular in his parliamentary duties; and, being generally in the opposition, became very popular. One of his speeches, delivered in the House of Ijords in 1797, on the threatening aspect of affairs in Ireland, excited considerable interest, and was aftervards printed and circulated throughout the country. The year following, several members of the House of Commons having met to consider the practicability of forming a new administration, on the principle of excluding all who had rendered themselves obnoxious on either side, his lordship was proposed as the leader. The scheme, however, was abandoned. The Earl, having been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Scotland in 1803, arrived at Dumbreck’s Hotel, St. Andrew Square, on the 24th October of that year, accompanied by Sir William Keir, one of his Aides-de- Camp, and afterwards took up his residence in Queen Street. In 1804 his lordship was married by Dr. Porteous, the Bishop of London, to Flora Muir Campbell (in her bwn right), Countess of Loudon. The ceremony took place at the house of Lady Perth, Grosvenor Square, London. The Prince of Wales gave the bride away. The title of the Earl of Huntingdon remained dormant until claimed by and allowed to the late Earl in 1819. An account of the proceedinp adopted towards recovering the dormant honours was published by Mr. Nugent Bell, to whose extraordinary exertions the success of the noble claimant wa8 almost entirely attributable. It is one of the most amusing works of the kind ever written : and the interest is kept up to the last. ... BI 0 GRAPH I C AL SI< ETCHES, Camp, and created (5th March 1783) an English Peer by the title of ...

Book 9  p. 32
(Score 0.92)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 283 ever ; took out his license as a sportsman ; and, to the astonishment of every one, survived for ten years afterwards. Mr. Bell died at his house, north side of the Canongate, on the 6th of May 1807. The vintner’s boy was the late MR. CHARLES OMAN, the first tenant of the extensive premises called the Waterloo Hotel, for which he paid the enormous sum of S1500 per annum. Mr. Oman waa a native of Caithness, but came to Edinburgh in early life. On leaving the ‘‘ Star and Garter Tavern,” in Writers’ Court, he was appointed Keeper of the Archers’ Hall, and subsequently succeeded the well-known Buyle, as tenant of the coffee-house in Shakspeare Square. From thence Mr. Oman removed to more commodious premises in West Register Street. Here he remained till his entering on the lease of the Waterloo Hotel, which he held till May 1825, when he removed to Charlotte Square. The hotel was afterwards kept by his widow. He died there in the month of August following. MR. JOHN RAE, who figures as bottle-holder, and who had been one of the social party when the pedestrian match was entered into, possessed a spirit of joviality and good-humour that could well relish the amusement of such an enterprise. He was a younger son of Mr. James Rae, formerly described in this Work, and was brought up under his father’s tuition to the medical profession. He entered the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in the year 1781, and was Deacon of the Incorporation, and their President during the years 1804-5. Mr. Rae was considered a good surgeon, but he more particularly confined himself to the dental branch, and was certainly the most scientific and extensively employed dentist in Edinburgh. He peculiarly excelled in extracting teeth ; insomuch that, witnessing his dexterity on one occasion, the Hon. Henry Erskine characterised the operation as suaviter in modo et fortiter in RE. He served at one time as fugleman to the First Regiment of the Royal Edinburgh Volunteers, and no one could have acquitted himself with greater ability in that capacity. Thoroughly acquainted with the manual exercise, his activity and expertness were such as forcibly to remind the onlookers of Jmtiee Shallow’s paragon of a soldier :-“ I remember at Milne-End Green there was a little quiver fellow, and--would manage you his piece thus ; and-a-would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in; rub, tuk, tuk, woulda- sing ; bounce would-a-say ; and away again would-ego, and again would-a-come : I shall never see such a fellow !” Mr. Rae was afterwards Captain-Lieutenant and Surgeon of the Second Battalion ; and latterly Captain of a corps of sharp-shooters. He held this commission at the time of his death, which occurred in the spring of the year 1808, in consequence of an apoplectic attack : he was buried with military honours. He married a daughter of Mr. John Fraser, W.S., by whom he had two daughters who survived. During the Volunteer system Mr. Rae took an active part. He was understood to leave considerable property. ... SKETCHES. 283 ever ; took out his license as a sportsman ; and, to the astonishment of every one, ...

Book 9  p. 376
(Score 0.92)

366 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill. - dedicated to him,?) but by whom founded or when, is quite unknown ; and from this edifice an adjacent street was for ages named St. Ninian?s Row. ?The under part of the building still remains,? to quote Arnot; (?it is the nearest house to the RegisteI Office on the south-east, except the row of houses on the east side of the theatre. The lower storey was vaulted, and the vaults still remain. On these a mean house has been superstructed, and the whole converted into a dwelling-house. The baptismal font, which was in danger of being destroyec was this year (1787) removed to the curious towel built at Dean Haugh, by Mr. Falter ROSS, Write to the Signet.? The ?? lower part ? of the building was evidently the crypt, and the font referred to, neatly-sculptured basin with a beautiful Gothi canopy, is now among the many fragments built b: Sir Walter Scott into the walls of Abbotsford. Thi extinct chapel appears to have been a dependenc: of Holyrood abbey, from the numerous notice that appear in licences granted by the abbots o that house to the Corporations of the Canongate for founding and maintaining altars in the church and in one of these, dated 1554, by Robert Stewart abbot of Holyrood, with reference to St. Crispin?, altar therein, he states, ?? it is our will yat ye Cor dinars dwelland within our regalitie. . . besyde our chapel1 of Sanct Ninian, out with Sanc Andrews Port besyde Edinburcht, be in brether heid and fellowschipe with ye said dekin anc masters of ye cordinar craft.? In 1775 one or two houses of St. James?s Squart were built on the very crest of Moultray?s Hill The first stone of the house at the south-eas corner of the square was laid on the day that news reached Edinburgh of the battle of Bunker?s Hill which was fought on the 17th of June in that year. ? The news being of coul?se very interesting, wa: the subject of popular discussion for the day, and nothing but Bunker?s Hill was in everybody?s mouth. It so happened that the two buildeE founding this first tenement fell out between themselves, and before the ceremony was concluded, most indecorously fell to and fought out the quarrel on the spot, in presence of an immense assemblage of spectators, who forthwith conferred the name of Bunker?s Hill upon the place, in commemoration of the combat, which it retains to this day. The tenement founded under these curious circumstances was permitted to stand by itself for some years upon the eminence of Bunker?s Hill; and being remarkably tall and narrow, as well as a solitary Zana?, it got the popular appellation of ?Hugo Arnot? from the celebrated historian, who lived in the neighbourhood, and whose slim, skeleton-looking figure was well known to the public eye at the period.? So lately as 1804 the ground occupied by the lower end of Katharine Street, at the north-eastem side of Moultray?s Hill, was a green slope, where people were wont to assemble, to watch the crowds returning from the races on Leith sands. In this new tenement on Bunker?s Hill dwelt Margaret Watson of Muirhouse, widow of Robert? Dundas, merchant, and mother of Sir David Dun- ? das, the celebrated military tactician. ?We used to go to her house on Bunker?s Hill,? says? Lord Cockbum, when boys, on Sundays between the morning and the afternoon sermons, when we were cherished with Scottish broth and cakes, and many a joke from the old lady. Age had made her incapable of walking even across the room; so, clad in a plain silk gown, and a pure muslin cap, she sat half encircled by a high-backed blackleather chair, reading, with silver spectacles stuck on her thin nose, and interspersing her studies and her days with much laughter and not a little sarcasm. What a spirit! There was more fun and sense round that chair than in the theatre or the church.? In 1809 No. 7 St. James?s Square was the residence of Alexander Geddes, A.R.Y.A., a well-known Scottish artist. He was born at 7 St. Patrick Street, near the Cross-causeway, in 1783. In 1812 he removed to 55 York Place, and finally to London, where he died, in Berners Street, on the 5th of May, 1844. His etchings in folio were edited by David Laing, in 1875, but only IOO copies were printed. A flat on the west side of the square was long the residence of Charles Mackay, whose unrivalled impersonation of Eailie Nicol Jarvie was once the most cherished recollection of the old theatre-going public, and who died on the 2nd November, 1857. In 1787 Robert Bums lived for several months in No. z (a common stair now numbered as 30) whither he had removed from Baxter?s Close in the Lawnmarket, and from this place many 3f the letters printed in his correspondence are dated. In one or two he adds, ?Direct to me xt Mr, FV. Cruikshank?s, St. James?s Square, New Town, Edinburgh.? This gentleman was one of ;he masters of the High School, with whom he passed many a happy hour, and to whose daughter ie inscribed the verses beginning- This square was not completed till 1790, ? Beauteous rosebud, young and gay, Blooming in thy early May,? &c. It was while here that he joined most in that irilliant circle in which the accomplished Duchess ? ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill. - dedicated to him,?) but by whom founded or when, is quite unknown ...

Book 2  p. 366
(Score 0.92)

been thrown down to facilitate the act. J?ames Hay had been provided with a key that opened the long-unused gate of the gloomy-domed mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie, a place still full of terror to boys, as it is supposed to be haunted by the blood-red spirit of the persecutor, and there he .secreted himself, while the following advertisement appeared in the Edinburgh Advertiser of the 24th .November, 1783 :- ?? ESCAPED FROM THE TOLBOOTH OF EDINBURGH, ?James Hay, indicted for highway roblery, ag.ed about IS years, by trade a glazier, 5 feet 10 inches high, slender made, pale complexion, long visage, brown hair cut short, pitted a little in the face with the small-pox, speaks slow with a Ruur in his tone, and has a mole on one of his cheeks. ?The magistrates offer a reward of Tuen& Guimus to any person who will apprehend and secure the said James Hay, to be paid by the City Chamberlain, on the said James Hay being re-committed to the Tolbwth of this city.? But James Hay had been a ?? Herioter,? brought up in the famous hospital which adjoins the ancient .and gloomy burying-ground ; thus, he contrived to make known his circumstances to some of his boy- . ish friends, and besought them to assist him in his .distress, as it was impossible for his father to do . so. A very clannish spirit animated ?the Auld Herioters? of those days, and not to succour one ,of the community, however undeserving he might be of aid, would have been deemed by them as a -crime of the foulest nature ; thus, Hay?s sshoolfellows supplied his wants from their own meals, -conveying him food in his eerie lurking-place, by .scaling the old smoke-blackened and ivied walls, at the risk of severe punishment, and of seeing sights <6 uncanny,? for six weeks, till the hue and cry abated, when he ventured to leave~the tomb in the night, and escaped abroad or to England, beyond reach of the law. ? The principal entrance to the Tolbooth,? to quote one familiar with the old edifice, ? was at the . bottom of the turret next the church. The gateway was of good carved stonework, and occupied by a door of ponderous massiveness and strength, having, besides the lock, a flap padlock, which, however, was generally kept unlocked during the day. In front of the door there always paraded a private of the Town Guard, with his rusty-red clothes and Lochaber axe or musket. The door .adjacent to the principal gateway was in the final days of the Tolbooth ? Michael Kettins? shoe-shop;?? but had formerly been a thiefs hole. After further .describing the tortuous access, the writer continues : A? You then entered the ha& which being free to all prisoners save those in the east end, was usual?ly dlled with a crowd of shabby-looking but very nerry loungers, A small rail here served as an rdditional security, no prisoner being permitted to :ome within its pale. Here, also, a sentinel of the rown Guard was always walking with a bayonet or i ramrod in his hand. The hall being also the chapel 3f the gaol, contained an old pulpit of singula$ fashion-such a pulpit as one could have imagined Knox to have preached from, and which indeed he is traditionally said to have actually done. At the right hand side of the pulpit was a door, leading up the large turnpike (stair) to the apartments occupied by the criminals, one of which was of plate-iron. The door was always shut, except when food was taken up to the prisoners. On the west end of the hall hung a board, whereon was inscribed the following emphatic lines :- ? A prison is a house of care, A place where none can thrive ; A touchstone true to try a friend, A grave for men alive. Sometimes a place of right, Sometimes a place of wrong, 5 . Sometimes a place for jades and thieves, And honest men among.? The floor immediately above the hall was occupied by one room for felons, having a bar along part of the floor, to which condemned criminals were chained, and a square box of plate-iron in the centre was called ?the cage? which was said to have been constructed for the purpose of confining some extraordinary culprit who had broken half the jails in the kingdom. Above this room was another of the same size appropriated to felons.? At the western end was the platform where public executions took place. Doomed to destruction, this gloomy and massive edifice, of many stirring memories, was swept away in 1817, and the materials of it were used for the construction of the great sewers and drains in the vicinity of Fettes Row, emphatically styled ? the grave of the old Tolbooth.? The arched doorway, door, and massive lock, Sir Walter Scott engrafted on a part of his mansion at Abbotsford; and in 1829 he found that ??a tom-tit was pleased to build her nest within the lock of the Tolbootha strong temptation,? he adds, in the edition of his works issued in the following year, ? to have committed a sonnet.? The City Guard-house formed long a ? pendicle? -to use a Scottish term-of the old Tolbooth. Scott has described this edifice as ?a long, low, ugly building, which, to a fanciful imagination, might have suggested the idea of a long black snail crawling up the middle of the High Street, and deforming its beautiful esplanade.? It stood in front of the Black Turnpike, and during the ... thrown down to facilitate the act. J?ames Hay had been provided with a key that opened the long-unused gate ...

Book 1  p. 134
(Score 0.92)

KING’S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. I45 1680. It contains some interesting local allusions, and among others, the following, to the mansion of his noble relatives, which would appear at that time to have been at Leith :- Kind widow Caddel sent for me But oh, alas 1 that might not be, To dine, aa she did oft, forsooth ; Her h.o. use was ov’r near the Tolbooth. I slipt my page, and stour‘d to Leith, To try my credit at the wine, But foul a dribble fyl’d my teeth, He catch’d me at the Coffee-sign. I staw down through the Nether-Wynd, My Lady Semple’s house was near ; To enter there was my design, Where Poverty durst ne’er appear. I din‘d there, but I baid not lang, My Lady fain would shelter me ; But oh, alas I I needs must gang, And leave that comely company. Her lad convoy’d me with her key, Out through the garden to the fiela, But I the Links could graithly see, My Governour was at my heels.1 There is a tradition in the family, that Lady Sempill having been a Catholic, the mansion was at that period a favourite place of resort for the Romish priests then visiting Scotland in disguise, and that there existed a concealed passage,-apparently alluded to in the poem,-by which they could escape on any sudden surprise. One other incident in connection with the Scottish muse deserves notice here :-Dr Austin, the author of the celebrated song, “ For lack of gold she has left me,” having (( given his woes an airing in song,” on his desertion by an inconstant beauty, for the Duke of Athol, married the Honourable Anne Sempill in 1754, by whom he had a numerous family. His house is still standing in the north-west corner of Brown Bquare. To the east of Sempill’s Close, there stood till recently an ancient and curious land, possessing all the characteristics of those already alluded to as the earliest houses remaining in Edinburgh. It consisted only of two stories, and its internal arrangements were of the simplest description. The entire main floor appeared to have formed originally a * Wataon’a Collectiou of Scots Poema, part i. p. 14, The full title of the Poem previously alluded to is, “A Picktooth for the Pope ; or, The Pack-man’s Paternoster, set downe in s Dialogue betwixt s Pack-man and P Priest” The work ia now very scarce. A polemical work by the same author, entitled ” Sucrilege sacredly handled,” London, 1619, contains in the preface the following quaint allusion to his name-“ A sacred and high aubject tpmeth to require a sacred pen-man too : True. And though I be not of the tribe of Levi, yet I. hope of the tents of &‘em, how Sineplc aoever.” VIGNETTE-Lord Sempill’s House, Sempill’s Close, Castle Hill. T . ... STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. I45 1680. It contains some interesting local allusions, and among ...

Book 10  p. 157
(Score 0.92)

the N ~ S , attracted by the dampness of the soil, where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet eastward of the tower there was found in the bank, in 1820, a large coffin of thick fir containing three skeletons, a male and two females, supposed to be those of a man named Sinclair and his two sisters, who were all drowned?in the loch in 1628 for a horrible crime. Eastward of this tower of the 15th century are the remains of a long, low archway, walled with rubble, but arched with well-hewn stones, popularly known as ?the lion?s den,? and which has evidently formed a portion of that secret escape or covered way from the Castle (which no Scottish fortress was ever without), the tradition concerning which is of general and very ancient belief; and this idea has been still further strengthened by the remains of a similar subterranean passage being found below Brown?s Close, on the Castle Hill. At the highest part of the latter stood the ancient barrier gate of 1450, separating the fortress from the city. This gate was temporarily replaced on the occasion of the visit of George IV, in 1822, and by an iron chuaux de fdse-to isolate the 82nd Regiment and garrison generally-during the prevalence of Asiatic cholera, ten years subsequently. There stood on the north side of the Castle Hill an ancient church, some vestiges of which were visible in Maitland?s time, in 1753, and which he supposed to have been dedicated to St, Andrew the patron of Scotland, and which he had seen referred to in a deed of gift of twenty merks yearly, Scottish money, to the Trinity altar therein, by Alexander Curor, Vicar of Livingstone, 20th December, 1488. In June, 1754, when some workmen were levelling this portion of the Castle Hill, they discovered a subterranean chamber, fourteen feet square, wherein lay a crowned image of the Virgin, hewn of very white stone, two brass altar candlesticks, some trinkets, and a few ancient Scottish and French coins. By several remains of burnt matter and two large cannon balls being also found there, this edifice was supposed to have been demolished durbg some of the sieges undergone by the Castle since the invention of artillery. Andin December, 1849, when the Castle Hill was being excavated for the new reservoir, several finely-carved stones were found in what was understood to be the foundation of this chapel or of Christ?s Church, which was commenced there in 1637, and had actually proceeded so far that Gordon of Rothiemay shows it in his map with a high-pointed spire, but it was abandoned, and its materials used in the erection of the present church at the Tron. Under all this were found those pre-historic human remains referred to in our first chapter. This was the site of the ancient water-house. It was not until ~ 6 2 1 that the citizens discovered the necessity for a regular supply of water beyond that which the public wells with their watef-carriers afforded. It cannot be supposed that the stagnant fluid of the north and south lochs could be fit for general use, yet, in 1583 and 1598, it was proposed to supply the city from the latter. Eleven years after the date above mentioned, Peter Brusche, a German engineer, contracted to supply the city with water from the lands of Comiston, in a leaden pipe of three inches? bore, for a gratuity of 650. By the year 1704 the increase of population rendered an additional supply from Liberton and the Pkntland Hills necessary. As years passed on the old water-house proved quite inadequate to the wants of the city. It was removed in 1849, and in its place now stands the great reservoir, by which old and new Edinburgh are alike supplied with water unexampled in purity, and drawn chiefly from an artificial lake in the Pentlands, nearly seven miles distant. On the outside it is only one storey in height, with a tower of 40 feet high; but within it has an area I 10 feet long, go broad, and 30 deep, containing two millions of gallons ofwater, which can be distributed through the entire city at the rate of 5,000 gallons per minute, Apart from the city, embosomed among treesand though lower down than this reservoir, yet perched high in air-upon the northern bank of the Esplanade, stands the little octagonal villa of Allan Ramsay, from the windows of which the poet would enjoy an extensive view of all the fields, farms, and tiny hamlets that lay beyond the loch below, with the vast panorama beyond-the Firth of Forth, with the hills of Fife and Stirling. ?The sober and industrious life of this exception to the race of poets having resulted in a small competency, he built this oddly-shaped house in his latter days, designing to enjoy in it the Horatian quiet he had so often eulogised in his verse. The story goes: says Chambers in his ?? Traditions,? ? that, showing it soon after to the clever Patrick Lord Elibank, with much fussy interest in its externals and accommodation, he remarked that the vyags were already at work on the subject-they likened it to a goosepie (owing to the roundness of the shape). ? Indeed, Allan,? said his lordship, ?now I see you in it I think the wags are not far wrong.? ? Ramsay, the author of the most perfect pastoral poem in the whole scope of British literature, and a song writer of great merit, was secretly a Jacobite, though a regular attendant in St. Giles?s Church. Opposed to the morose manners of his ... N ~ S , attracted by the dampness of the soil, where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet eastward of ...

Book 1  p. 82
(Score 0.91)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 229 The ‘I severe and lengthened disease” under which Mr. Moss had been labouring, terminated in his death on the 11 th of January 18 17. The following notice of this event occurs in the newspapers of the period :- “ Died, at Edinburgh, Mr. Moss, after a lingering disease of nearly three years’ duration, the pains of which he bore with exemplary fortitude, Mr. Moss was long the great dramatic favourite of the Edinburgh public ; and many still recollect the excellence with which he portrayed Lingo, and many characters of the same stamp.” No. xcv. NR. ROBERT MEIKLE. THIS gentleman maintained a very respectable professional character in Edinburgh as a writer, and was Assistant-Clerk in the Court of Session. He is said to have been extremely attentive. to business, and was much esteemed by his friends for the possession of many of those ‘‘ social qualities” which, in the Bacchanalian spirit of last century, were as much a passport to good society as temperance and decorum are in the present. We need scarcely add that he was a most zealous member of the honourable fraternity of free-masons, and seldom failed to join his brethren on the annual festival of the good Saint Andrew. A ridiculous incident, arising out of his ‘‘ social qualities,” is preserved of the “ Grand Clerk,” and a bottle friend, the “ Grand Secretary.” They had been enjoying themselves in Douglas’s tavern, Anchor Close-a favourite resort at that period--over a goodly dose of “ nut brown ale,” with a due proportion of Glenlivet, by way of stimulant ; when, staggering forth about ten o’clock at night, both perfectly “ glorious,” the one carelessly remarked to the other,- “ Robbie, ye’re fou’.” Robbie, misunderstanding his friend, replied, “ Confound you, sir! wha’s a sow B ’-at the same time aiming a terrible blow at his unconscious companion ; but the blow falling short, the “ Grand Clerk” tumbled into the gutter, and was ultimately carried home in a state much more easily conceived than described. Such scenes were by no means of rare occurrence in those “ golden days ; ” and what would now destroy the respectability of any professional gentleman, did not then at all affect his reputation. MR. MEIKLE filled the situation of Clerk to the Grand Lodge for fifteen years, with great credit to himself and benefit to the society; and was afterwards chosen Secretary in 1796. This latter office he held only fifteen months, in consequence of his death, which happened on the 18th of February 1797. He was succeeded in the clerkship by Mr. Thomas Sommers, glazier ; and, on this gentleman’s death, in 1799, the office was devolved upon Mr. James Bartram, brewer, who took his place in the grand centenary procession on St. Andrew’sday, 1836. Mr. Meikle was married, and had a family. ... SKETCHES. 229 The ‘I severe and lengthened disease” under which Mr. Moss had been ...

Book 8  p. 323
(Score 0.91)

104 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. city clergy, nor even a parochial clergyman ; and yet he acquired and preserved a degree of popularity almost unprecedented, and gathered around him a congregation as numerous and attached as any in the town. There was much originality of thought, combined with richness of fancy, variety of illustration, earnestness, and zeal. He did not read his sermons, and seldom wrote more than a general outline ; but there was so much method in their arrangement, and he had his subject so thoroughly at command, that he was never at a loss. His articulation was frequently indistinct, and his phraseology peculiar ; his reasoning was plausible rather than solid, but his addresses, especially at the communion table, were full of pathos and impassioned zeal ; and when he had fairly entered on his subject he became exceedingly animated-his voice was often elevated to the highest pitch-and it was almost impossible for anyone who heard him to remain unaffected. On one occasion a Polish Jew, who had begun to inquire into the truths of Christianity, was directed to this Chapel ; and although he could then understand but little of what he heard, yet he was so attracted by the manner of Dr. Jones, and so satisfied, as he himself said, that the man was in earnest, that from that, moment he resolved to become a stated hearer. He followed up this resolution ; and the result was, in a short time after, he was publicly baptized by the Doctor. Dr. Jones, it may be here remarked, was one of the clergymen who, in the year 1794, attended in prison the unfortunate Watt, who was condemned and executed for treason. Watt left behind him a full confession of the particulars of a conspiracy-a document which, though attempted to be discredited, was so fully attested by Dr. Jones and Dr. Baird as to place its authenticity beyond a doubt. In private life Dr. Jones was highly esteemed, alike for his unaffected kindness and urbanity ; for his unflinching rectitude ; the extent of his information ; and the uniform consistency of his Christian deportment. His conversation was both instructive and amusing ; and having been acquainted with many of the most eminent clergymen in England and Scotland, his anecdotes were very attractive. Long before his death, a whole generation of his early clerical friends had entirely passed away ; aad, at the close of fifty years, he found himself one of only two alive, of a hundred and forty ministers of different denominations, who, within the bounds of the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, were running their course when he was inducted into his charge : at that period, too, of his own congregation there were only twenty who then survived out of nearly two thousand who had been assembled on the day when he preached his introductory sermon. In 1810 the Marischal College of Aberdeen, at the suggestion of his friend, the late Dr. TViIliam Lawrence Brown, then Principal of that College, conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Upon the 9th June 1828, when he entered the fiftieth year of his ministry, he was presented by. his congregation with a handsome piece of plate, ae' a As a preacher Dr. Jones was very impressive and commanding. ' ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. city clergy, nor even a parochial clergyman ; and yet he acquired and preserved a ...

Book 9  p. 139
(Score 0.91)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 91 The seconds think it proper to add, that both parties behaved with the utmost coolness and intrepidity. “ RAWDON. ‘ I WINCHILSEA ‘‘ Tuesday evening, May 26th.” It is reported that her Majesty the Queen, who might have been supposed inclined to resent an attempt upon the life of her son, so far from appearing to do so, politely received the Colonel shortly afterwards at the Spanish ambassador’s gala. On the 28th Colonel Lennox found it necessary to solicit his Royal Highness, as Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, to permit a call of the officers to colisider of “ certain propositions touching his conduct and situation,” which the Duke at once agreed to. The opinion of this military convention was as follows :-“ It is the opinion of his Majesty’s Coldstream Regiment of Guards, that Colonel Lennox, subsequent to the 15th instant, has behaved with courage, but from the peculiarity of the circumstances, not with judgment.” In consequence of this ambiguous decision, the Colonel and his friends deemed it proper for him to leave the Guards. He, accordingly, on the 16th of June, exchanged with Lord Strathaven of the 35th, which regiment was then stationed in Edinburgh Castle ; previous to joining, however, Colonel Lennox had occasion to fight another duel, a pamphlet having been published by one Theophilus Swift, Esq., throwing reflections on the character of the Colonel. The latter immediately called on Mr. Swift ; a meeting was the consequence, on the morning of the 3d July, in a field near to the Uxbridge road-Mr. Swift attended by Sir William Brown, and Colonel Lennox by Colonel Phipps. The principals took their stations at the distance of ten paces, when Lennox, being the injured party, was allowed to fire first. The ball took effect in the body of Rlr. Swift,’ whose pistol went off without injury. Mr. Swift soon recovered from the effects of the wound. Colonel Lennox at length arrived in Edinburgh on the 21st of the month. In the evening the Castle was illuminated in honour of his joining the regiment, on which occasion he gave “ an excellent entertainment to the officers, and ten guineas to the privates, to drink his health,” the officers also giving ten guineas for the same purpose. Shortly after, he visited Gordon Castle, where he was married to Lady Charlotte, eldest daughter of the Duke of Gordon, and niece to the celebrated Lady Wallace. About this time the Incorporation of Goldsmiths in Edinburgh made the Colonel an honorary member of their body, and presented him with the free- ’ This gentleman’s father was nearly related to the celebrated Dean Swift, a life of whom he published. After the Colonel’s succession to the Dukedom, and his appointment to the Lieutenancy of Irelaud, in 1807, it occurred that &. Swift was one of the party at a ball given at Dublin Castle. On being presented to the royal depute, Mr. Swift humorously remarked, “ This is a Werent ball from that your Highness favoured me with the last time we met.” ... SKETCHES. 91 The seconds think it proper to add, that both parties behaved with the utmost coolness ...

Book 8  p. 129
(Score 0.89)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 239 “ Our fathers’ bluid the kettle bought, And wha wad dare to spoil it 4 By heaven ! the sacrilegious dog Shall fuel be to boil it.” In consequence of the alliance of Spain with’ France, a meeting of the Lieutenants of the city, and the officers of the Edinburgh Volunteers, was held on the 14th September 1796, when they resolved,--“ that as this apparent increase of strength on the part of our enemies must give them additional confidence, it is highly necessary to show them that this country ‘is capable of increasing its exertions in proportion to the force brought against it.” Accordingly, an augmentation of their corps being deemed necessary, another battaliod was speedily organised, called the Second Regiment of Edinburgh Volunteers. In 1797, when the French were every day expected to attempt a landing in Ireland, the First Regiment tendered their services to perform the duty of the Castle, in order to allow the withdrawal of the regular troops ; and, in 1801, when the danger seemed more immediately to menace our own shores, the former offer of service was followed up with characteristic spirit. The Lieutenant-Colonel commanding, the Right Honourable Charles Hope (Lord President and Privy Councillor), in his letter to General Vyse, at this alarming crisis, says-“ In the event of an enemy appearing on our coast, we trust that you will be able to provide for the temporary security of Edinburgh Castle by means of its own invalids, and the recruits and convalescents of the numerous corps and detachments in and about Edinburgh ; and that, as we have more to lose than the brave fellows of the other volunteer regiments who have $xtended their services, we trust you will allow us to be the first to share in the danger, as well as in the glory, which we are confident his Majesty’s troops will acquire under your command, if opposed to an invading army.” On the cessation of hostilities in 1802 the Volunteers were disbanded, after eight years of military parade, during which period “they had many a time and oft ” marched to and from the camp at Musselburgh, and, on the sands of Leith, maintained the well-contested bloodless fight. They closed their first period of service on the 6th of May 1802. Early in the forenoon of that day they assembled in Heriot’s Green, where they first obtained their colours ; and, having formed a hollow square, the Lieutenant-Colonel read Lord Hobart’s circular letter, conveying his Majesty’s thanks, and also the thanks of the two Houses of Parliament. He likewise read a resolution of the Town Council of Edinburgh, conveying, in the strongest and most handsome terms, the thanks of the Community to the whole Volunteers of the city ; and a very flattering letter from his excellency Lieut.-General Vyse. The regiment was afterwards marched to the Parliament Square, where, being formed, the colours were delivered to the Magistrates, who lodged them in the Council Chamber, and the corps was dismissed’ Not the least important practical ’benefit reaultiog from the patriotic feeling of the Volunteers, consisted in the frequent collections made among them in aid of the poor of the city. “ On the 3d of January 1797 they assembled in their uniforms at St. Andrew’a Church, where an excellent diecourse ... SKETCHES. 239 “ Our fathers’ bluid the kettle bought, And wha wad dare to spoil it 4 By heaven ...

Book 8  p. 336
(Score 0.89)

102 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Peerage by patent dated December 21st of that year, by the title of Viscount Melville, of Melville, in the county of Edinburgh, and Baron Dunira, in the county of Perth. Neither the important services which Lord Melville had rendered his country, nor his own well-known disinterested and generous nature, could protect him from a prosecution-persecution we had nearly said-instituted ostensibly on the grounds of public justice, but which was carried on with a spirit of bitterness, that, to say the least of it, was calculated to create serious doubts as to the purity of the motives of those with whom it originated. On the 8th of April 1805, his lordship, who had previously held for a short time the appointment of First Lord of the Treasury, was accused in the House of Commons, by Mr. Whitbread, of having misapplied or misdirected certain sums of public money, with a view to his own private advantage and emolument. Articles of impeachment having been preferred, his lordship was brought to trial before his Peers in Westminster Hall, on the 29th of April 1806. The result was a triumphant acquittal (12th June following) from all the charges. In truth, the utmost extent of any blame imputable to him was, that he had placed too much confidence in some of the subordinates in his office. After his acquittal, Lord Melville was restored to his place in the Privy Council, from which he had been removed pending his trial, but he did not again take office. From this period he lived chiefly in retirement, participating only occasionally in the debates of the House of Lords. His lordship died very unexpectedly in the house of his nephew, Lord Chief Baron Dundas, in George Square, on the 29th May 181 1 ; hTing come to Edinburgh, it is believed, to attend the funeral of his old friend Lord President Blair, who had died suddenly a few days before, and was at the moment lying in the house adjoining that in which Lord Melville expired. His Lordship was distinguished in his public life by a singular capacity for business, by unwearjed diligence in the discharge of his numerous and important duties, and, as a speaker, by the force and acuteness of his reasoning. In private life his manners were affable and unaffected, his disposition amiable and affectionate. A striking instance of the kindliness of his nature is to be found in the fact, that to the latest period of his life, whenever he came to Edinburgh, he made a point of visiting all the old ladies with whom he had been acquainted in his early days, patiently and perseveringly climbing, for this purpose, some of the most formidable turnpike-stairs in the Old Town. In his person he w-as tall and well-formed, while his countenance was expressive of high intellectual endowments. The city of Edinburgh contains two public monuments to Lord Melville's memory. The one, a marble statue by Chantrey, which stands in the large hall of the Parliament House; the other a handsome column, one hundred and thirty-five feet high, situated in the centre of St. Andrew's Square. This noble pillar is surmounted by a statue of his lordship, fifteen feet in height. Lord Melville married first, Elizabeth, daughter of David Rannie, Esq., of ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Peerage by patent dated December 21st of that year, by the title of Viscount Melville, ...

Book 8  p. 149
(Score 0.89)

Parliament Close.] ?? THE BEACON.? I81 pied by John Kay, the well-known engraver and caricaturist, whose ?Portraits? of old Edinburgh characters certainly form, with their biographies, perhaps the most unique collection in Europe. During his whole career he occupied the same small print-shop ; the solitary window was filled with his own etchings, which amounted to nearly go0 in pumber. He had originally been a barber, but after 1785 devoted himself solely to the art of etching and miniature painting. He died in 1830, at No. 227, High Street, in his eighty-fourth year. - menced business in the Parliament Close, where, in 1783, he started a new monthly miscellany, named 2% Edinburgh Magazine, illustratec3 with engravings, the principal papers in which were articles on Scottish antiquities, the production ot his own pen. He was also the projector of the Edivbu~g8 iYeraZd, which, however, was soon discontinued. Relinquishing his establishment in the Close about 1792, he devoted himself to a literary life in London j but, after a somewhat chequered career, returned to Edinburgh, where about the year 1636. At their base was an ancient public well. The Edinburgh WeekZy Juurnal for 1821 mentions that a man fell over ?the stairs which lead from the Kirkheugh to the Parliament stairs;? and the sameJoumaC for 1828 states that ?workmen are engaged in taking down the large double tenement in the Cowgate, at the back of the Parliament House, called Henderson?s Stairs, part of which, it will be remembered, fell last summer, and which had been condemned sixty years ago,? in 1768. In 1781 James Sibbald, an eminent bookseller and literary antiquarian, the son of a Roxburgh farmer, who came to Edinburgh with LIOO in his pocket, after being employed in the shop of Elliot the publisher, purchased the old circulating library that had belonged to Allan Ramsay, and cornliament Close, or Square as it was then becoming more generally named, was the scene of an unseemly literary fracas, arising from political hatred and circumstances, by which one life was ultimately lost, and which might have imperilled even that of Sir Walter Scott. A weekly paper, called the Beacon, was established in Edinburgh, the avowed object of which was the support of the then Government, but which devoted its colun~ns the leading Whig nobles and gentlemen of Scotland. This system of personal abuse gave rise to several actions at law, and on the 15th of August a rencontre took place between James Stuart of Dunearn, who conceived his honour and character impugned in an article which he traced to Duncan Stevenson, the printer of the paper, in the Parliament Square. Stuart, with a horsewhip, lashed the latter, who was not slow in retaliating with a stout cane. ?The parties were speedily separated,? says the Scots Magazine for 1816, ?and Mr. Stevenson, in the course of the day, demanded from Mr. Stuart the satisfaction customary in such cases. This was refused by Mr, Stuart, on the ground that, ?as the servile instrument of a partnership of slander,? he was unworthy of receiving the satisfaction of a gentleman. ... Close.] ?? THE BEACON.? I81 pied by John Kay, the well-known engraver and caricaturist, whose ...

Book 1  p. 181
(Score 0.89)

I82 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament Close. for a considerable amount, binding themselves to support the Beacon, against which such strong proceedings were instituted that the print was withdrawn from the public entirely by the zznd of September. ?But the discovery of the bond,? continues the magazine just quoted, ?was nearly leading to more serious consequences, for, if report be true, Mr. James Gibson, W.S., one of those who had been grossly calumniated in the Beacon, had thought proper to make such a demand upon Sir Walter Scott as he could only be prevented from, ordinary scene for the indulgence of mirth and of festivity than this subterranean crypt or denfacetiously named the Greping O#ce-certainly could not well be conceived, nor could wit, poetry, and phgsic well have chosen a darker scene; yet it was the favourite of one whose writings were distinguished for their brilliancy and elegant htinity. He died in 1713, and was buried in the Greyfriars? Churchyard. In the fourth floor of the Zand overlooking the aforesaid cellar, there dwelt, about 1775, Lord to the justice of Heaven; but it seems scarcely credible, though such was the fact, that the still more calamitous fire of 1824, in the same place, was ?attributed by the lower orders in and near Edinburgh also to be the judgment of Heaven, specially commissioned to punish the city for tolerating such a dreadful enormity as-the Musical Festival ! ? . Early on the morning of the 24th of June, rF24, a fire broke out in a spirit-vault, or low drinkingshop, at the head of the Royal Bank Close, and it made great progress before the engines arrived, and nearly all the old edifices being panelled or wainscoted, the supply of water proved ineffectual to check the flames, and early in the afternoon the eastern half of the Parliament Square was a heap of blackened ruins. To the surprise of all who witnessed this calamity, and observed the hardihood and temerity displayed by several persons to save property, or to arrest the progress of the flames, the only individual who fell a sacrifice was a city oflicer named Chalmers, who was so dreadfully scorched that he died in the infirmary a few days after. liament Close, was attributed by the magistrates?is portrait of George 111. :- ? Well done, my lord ! With noble taste, You?ve made Charles gay as five-and-twenty, We may be xarce of gold and cam, ?But sure there?s lead and oil in plenty ; Yet, for a public work like this, You might have had some famous artist ; Though I had made each merk a pound, I would have had the very smartest. ? Why not bring Allan Ramsay down, From sketching coronet and cushion? ? And knows-the English Constitution. But why thus daub the man all over, The cream complexion of HANOVER? ? For he can paint a living khg, The mgk-white s#ed is well enough ; And to the swarthy STUART give In 1832, when a drain was being dug in the Parliament Square, close by St. Giles?s Church, there was found the bronze seal of a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem. It is now preserved in the Museum of Antiquities, and bears the legend, ? S. AERNAULD LAMMIUS.? the son of the poet, who had just painted the ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament Close. for a considerable amount, binding themselves to support the ...

Book 1  p. 182
(Score 0.89)

LEITH, AND THE NEW TOWN. window forms the chief ornament of this portion of the building, finished with unusually fine Elizabethan work, and surmounted by a coronet and thistle, with the letter C. Behind this a simple square tower rises to a considerable height, finished with a bartizaned roof, apparently designed for commanding an extensive view. Such is the approach to the sole remaining abode of royalty in this ancient burgh. The straitened access, however, conveys a very false idea of the accommodation within. It is a large and elegant mansion, presenting its main front to the east, where an extensive piece of garden ground is enclosed, reaching nearly to the site of the ancient town walls; from whence, it is.probable, there waa formerly an opening to the neighbouring downs. The east front appears to have been considerably modernised. Its most striking feature is a curiously decorated doorway, finished in the ornate style of bastard Gothic, introduced in the reign of James VI. An ogee arch, filled with rich Gothic tracery, gurmounts the square lintel, finished with a lion’s head, which seems to hold the arch suspended in its mouth ; and on either side is a sculptured shield, on one of which a monogram is cut, characterised by the usual inexplicable ingenuity of these quaint riddles, and with the date 1631.l Here, according to early and credible tradition, was the mansion of John, third Lord Balmerinoch, where he received the young King, Charles 11.) on his arrival at Leith on the 29th July 1650, to review the Scottish army, which then lay encamped on the neighbouring links, numbering above forty thousand men. Charles having failed in obtaining the Scottish Crown on his own terms, notwithstanding his being proclaimed Eing at the Cross of Edinburgh on the execution of Charles I., had now agreed to receive it with all devout solemnity on the terms dictated by the Presbyterian royalists, as a covenanted King. He proceeded from Leith on Friday, 2nd August, and rode in state to the capital of his ancestors, amid the noisiest demoustrations of welcome from the fickle populace. From the Castle, where he was received with a royal salute, he walked on foot to the Parliament House, to partake of a banquet provided for him at the expense of the City, and from thence he returned the same evening to my Lord Balm er inoch’ s House at Leith. We have furnished a view of the fine old building at the Coalhill, near the harbour, which is believed to have been ‘(th e handsome and spacious edifice ” erected by the Queen Regent for the meeting of her council. It is a large and stately fabric, and presents numerous evidences of former magnificence in its internal decorations. The tradition is confirmed by further evidence ; as a small and mean-looking little court behind, though abandoned probably for considerably more than a century to the occupation of the very poorest and most squalid of ‘the population, still retains the imposing title of the Parliament Square. The whole of the buildings that enclose this dignified area abound with the dilapidated relics of costly internal adornment; some large and very fine specimens of oak carving were removed from it a few years since, and even a beautifully carved , The arms on the amnd shield do not upp port the tradition, (IS they are neither those of Lord Balmerinoch, nor of his ancestor, James Elphinstone, Lord Coupar, to whom the coroneted C might otherwise have been suppased to refer. The Earla of Crawford are also known to have had a mansion in Leith, but the arm8 in no degree correspond with those borne by any of theae families. They are-quarterly, 1st and 4th the Royal Arms of Scotland ; 2nd and 3rd, a ship with Bails furled ; over all, on B shield of pretence, a Cheveron. AB, however, the house appears by the date to have been built nineteen yeara before the visit of Charles to Leith, and the period waa one when forfeiture and ruin compelled many noble families to abandon their possessions, it is still possihle that the tradition may be truatworthy, which assigne it aa the mansion of Lord Balmerinoch, and the lodging of the Merry Monarch, 22 . ... AND THE NEW TOWN. window forms the chief ornament of this portion of the building, finished with ...

Book 10  p. 397
(Score 0.89)

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