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340 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH, as an industrious burgher. He was imported from Holland, it is believed, near the beginning of last century, and first did duty with Rpade in hand at a seedsman’s door in the Canongate ; from thence he passed to a grocer in the High Street, and soon after he made his appearance in the Bow, where his antiquated costume consorted well with the oldfashioned neighbourhood. Since the destruction of this, his last retreat, he has found a fit refuge in the lobby of the Antiquarian Museum. On the opposite side of the street, the last tenement on the east side of the first turning, and situated, as its titles express, “without the place where the old Bow stood,” was popularly known as the Clockmaker’s Land. It had been occupied in the reign of Charles 11. by Paul Romieu,’ an ingenious knockmaker, who is believed to have been one of the French refugees, compelled to forsake his native land on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In 1675, as appears from the records of the Corporation of Hammermen, a watch was, for the fist time, added to the knockmaker’s essay, previous to which date it is probable that watches were entirely imported. There remained on the front of this ancient tenement, till its demolition, some portions of a curious piece of mechanism which had formed the sign of its ingenious tenant. This was a gilt ball representing the moon, originally made to revolve by clockwork, and which enjoyed to the last a share of the admiration bestowed on the wonders of the Bow. Other and more curious erections than those we have described had occupied the ground along this steep descent at a still earlier period, when the secular clergy shared with the Templars the dwellings in the Bow. In the “ Inventar of Pious Donations,” to which we have already frequently referred, a charter is recorded, bearing date February 15, 1541, whereby 6‘ Sir Thomas Ewing mortifies to a chaplain in St Giles Kirk, an annual rent of twentysix shillings out of Henry Spittal’s Land, at the Upper Bow, on the east side of ye transse y’of, betwixt Bartil Kairn’s Land on the south, St James Altar Land on the north, and the King’s Street on the west.” Below the Clockmaker’s Land, the tortuous thoroughfare turned suddenly at an acute angle, and presented along its devious steep a strange assemblage of fantastic timber and stone gables; several of them being among those strange relics ’of a forgotten order of things, the Temple Lands, and one of them, with its timber ceilings curiously adorned with paintings2 in the style already described in the Guise Palace, bearing the quaint legend over its antique lintel, in ornamental characters of a very early date :- HE YT a THOLIS * OVERCVMMIS. Behind these lay several steep, narrow, and gloomy closes, containing the most singular groups of huge, irregular, and diversxed tenements that could well be conceived. Here a crazy stunted little timber dwelling, black with age, and beyond it a pile of masonry rising story above story from some murky profound beyond, that left its chimneys scarcely rivalling those of its dwarfish neighbour after climbing thus far from their foundation. in the depths below. One of these, which we have engraved under the name of ‘‘ The Haunted CZose,” is the same in which the worthy gentlewoman, the neighbour of Major Weir, beheld the spectral giantess vanish in a blaze of fire, as she returned down the West Bow at the witching hour of night. The close, for all its wretched degradation, which had won Minor Antiquitiea Information derived fifty years ago (1833) from a man who WM then eighty years of age. a Some curious fragments of this ceiling are now in the collection of C. K. Sharpe, Esq. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH, as an industrious burgher. He was imported from Holland, it is believed, near the ...

Book 10  p. 372
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ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 41 I the entrance to the churchyard, at the foot of the Candlemaker Row, the following moral distich was originally inscribed :- Remember, Man, as thou goes by, AE thou art now, 80 once was I ; As I am now, 80 shalt thou be ; Remember, Man, that thou must die.’ The principal gateway, opposite the east end of the church, is a work of more recent construction, and appears, from the records of Monteith, to have involved the destruction of the monument of no less illustrious a citizen than Alexander Miller, master tailor to King James VI., who died in the year 1616. The Old Greyfriars’ Church, as it was styled, was suddenly destroyed by a fire which broke out on the morning of Sunday the 19th of January 1845, and presented to the astonished parishioners a blazing mass of ruins as they assembled for the services of the day. It bore on the north-east pillar the date 1613, and on a panel surmounting the east gable that of 1614, underneath the city arms. It was a clumsy, inconvenient, and ungainly edifice, with few historical associations and no architectural beauties to excite any regret at its removaL It is very different, however, with the surrounding churchyard, which it disfigured with. its lumpish deformity. Its monuments and other memorials of the illustrious dead who repose there form an object of attraction no less for their interesting associations than their picturesque beauty ; while it is memorable in Scottish history as the scene of the signing of the Covenant by the enthusiastic leaguers of 1638, and the place of captivity, under circumstances of peculiar cruelty, of the insurgent Covenanters taken in arms at Bothwell Brig. Like other great cemeteries it forms the peaceful resting-place of rival statesmen and politicians, and of many strangely diverse in life and fortune. Here mingle the ashes of George Heriot, the father of the royal goldsmith ; George Buchanan, Alexander Henderson, Sir George Mackenzie, Sir James Stewart, Principal Carstairs, Sir John de Medina, the painter; Allan Ramsay, Colin Maclaurin, Thomas Ruddiman, and many others distinguished in their age for rank or genius. The Carmelites, or Whitefriars, though introduced into Scotland in the thirteenth century, did not acquire an establishment in Edinburgh till 1518, when the Provost and Bailies, conveyed, by charter dated the 13th April, “ to Jo. Malcolme, provincial of the Carmelites, and his mcceseors, y’ lands of Green-side, with the chapel1 or kirk of the Holy Cross y’of.” From this we learn that a chapel existed there in ancient times, of which no other record has been preserved, and adjoining it was a cross called the Rood of Greenside. It was the scene of martyrdom of David Stratoun and Norman Gourlay, a priest and layman, who were tried at Holyrood House, in the presence of James V. ; and on the 27th of August 1534, were led ‘‘ to a place besydis the Roode of Grepsyd, and thair thei two war boyth hanged and brunt, according to the mercy of the Papisticall Kirk.”’ The tradition has already been referred to that assigns the same locality for the burning of Major Weir. On the suppression of the order of Carmelites at the Reformation, John Robertson, a benevolent merchant, founded on the site of their convent an hospital for lepers, “pursuant Monteith’s Theatrum Mortalium, p. 1. The last word is evidently intended to be pronounced in the old broad Scottish fashion, &e. ’ Inventar of Pious Donations. Knox’s Hist., Wodrow Soc., uol i. p. 60. ... ANTIQUITIES. 41 I the entrance to the churchyard, at the foot of the Candlemaker Row, the following ...

Book 10  p. 450
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236 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. the 17th December’ 1596, already described, when the king was besieged in the Tolbooth by the excited citizens, Andrew Hart is specially mentioned as one of the very foremost in the rising that produced such terror and indignation in King James’s mind ; in so much so, that he was soon after warded in the Castle of Edinburgh, at his Majesty’s instance, as one of the chief authors of (‘ that seditious stirring up and moving of the treasonable tumult and uproare that was in the burgh.”’ We can fancy the sturdy old printer sallying out from the close, at the cry of “ Armour! armour ! ” hastily armed with his loug spear and jack, and joining the excited burghers, that mustered from every booth and alley to lay siege to the affrighted monarch in the Tolbooth, or to help ‘‘ the worthy Deacon Watt;” in freeing him from his ignoble durance. The house which stauds between the fore and back lands of the famed typographer, was celebrated during the last century as one of the best frequented taverns in the neighbourhood of the Cross, and a favourite resort of some of the most noted of the clubs, by means of which the citizens of that period were wont to seek relaxation and amusement. Foremost among these WLS the Cape Club, celebrated in Ferguson’s poem of Auld Reekie. The scene of meeting for a considerable period, where Cape Hall was nightly inaugurated, was in James Mann’s, at the Isle of Man Arms, Craig’s Close. There a perpetual High Jinks was kept up, by each member receiving on his election a peculiar name and character which he was ever afterwards expected to maintain. This feature, however, was by no means confined to the Cape Club, but formed one of the peculiarities of nearly all the convivial meetings of the capital, so that a slight sketch of ‘(the Knights of the Cape ” will suffice for a good sample of these old Edinburgh social unions. The Club appears from its minutes to have been duly constituted, and the mode of procedure finally fixed, in the year 1764 ; it had however existed long before, and the name and peculiar forms which it then adopted were derived from the characters previously assumed by its leading members.2 Its peculiar insignia were-lst, a cape, or crown, which was worn by the Sovereign of the Cape on state occasions, and which, in the palmy days of the Club, ita enthusiastic devotees adorned with gold and jewels; and, 2d, two maces in the form of huge steel pokers, which formed the sword and sceptre of his Majesty in Cape Hall, These, with other relics of this jovial fraternity, are now appropriately hung in the lobby of the Societies of Antiquaries. The first Sovereign of the order after its final constitution was Thomas Lancashire, the Once celebrated comedian, on whom Ferguson wrote the following epitaph :- Alae ! poor Tom, how oft, with merry heart, Have we beheld thee play the sexton’s part I Each merry heart muat now be grieved to Bee The sexton’s dreary part performed on thee. The comedian rejoiced in the title of Sir Cape, and in right of his sovereignty gave name to the Club, while the title of Sir Poker, which pertained to its oldest member, James Aitken, suggested the insignia of royalty. Tom Lancashire was succeeded on the throne by David Herd, the welI-known editor of what Scott calls the first classic edition of Scottish songs, whose knightly soubriquet was Sir Scrape. His secretary was Jacob More, the , ’ Calderwood’e Hit. vol. v. pp. 512, 520, 535. * A different account of the Knights of the Cape has been published, but the general accuracy of the text may be relied upon, being derived from the minute books of the Club. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. the 17th December’ 1596, already described, when the king was besieged in the ...

Book 10  p. 257
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THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 259 escape from the shot of an assassin, which struck the candlestick before him as he sat at his studies ; and within these walls he at length expired, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, ‘‘ not so much oppressed with years as worn out and exhausted by his extraordinary labour of body and anxiety of mind.” A range of very picturesque buildings once formed the continuous row from ‘‘ Knox’s corner,” to the site of the ancient Nether Bow Port, but that busy destroyer, Time, seems occasionally to wax impatient of his own ordinary slow operations, and to demolish with a swifter hand what he has been thought inclined to spare. One of them, a curious specimen of the ancient timber-fronted lands, and with successive tiers of windows divided only by narrow pilasters, has recently been curtailed by a story in height and robbed of its most characteristic featnres, to preserve for a little longer what remains, while the house immediately to the east of Knox’s, which tradition pointed out as the mansion of the noble family of Balmerinoch, has now disappeared, having literally tumbled to the ground, Immediately behind the site of this, on the west side of Society Close, an ancient stone land, of singular construction, bears the following inscription over its main entrance :-R * H There appears to have been a date, but it is now illegible. The doorway gives access to a curious hanging turnpike stair, supported on corbels formed by the projection of the stone steps on the first floor beyond the wall. This is the same tenement already referred to as the property of Aleson Bassendyne, the printer’s daughter. The alley bears the name of Bassendyne’s Close, in the earliest titles ; more recently it is styled Panmure Close, from the residence there of John Naule of Inverkeilory, appointed a Baron of the Court of Exchequer in 1748-a grandson of the fourth Earl of Panmure, attainted in 1715 for his adherence to the Stuarts. The large stone mansion which he occupied at the foot of the close, was afterwards acquired by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, founded in 1701, and erected into a body-corporate by Queen Anne. Its chief apartment was used as their Hall; from which circumstance the present name of the close originated. The old timber land to the east of this close is said to have been the Excise Office in early times, in proof of which the royal arms are pointed out over the first floor. The situation was peculiarly convenient for guarding the principal gate of the city, and the direct avenue to the neighbouring seaport. It is a stately erection, of considerable antiquity, and we doubt not has lodged much more important official occupants than the Hanoverian excisemen. It has an outside stair leading to a stone turnpike on the first floor, and over the doorway of the latter is the motto DEW - BENEDICTAT. Since George II.’s reign, the Excise Office has run through its course with as many and rapid vicissitudes as might sufiice to mark the career of a prufligate spendthrift. In its earlier days, when a floor of the old land in the Nether Bow sufficed for its accommodations, it was regarded as foremost among the detested fruits of the Union. From thence it removed to more commodious chambers in the Cowgate, since demolished to make way for the southern piers of George IV. Bridge. Its next resting-place was the large tenement on the south side of Chessel’s Court, in the Canongate, the scene of the notorious Deacon Brodie’s last robbery. nom thence it was removed to Sir Lawrence Dnndas’s splendid mansion in St Andrew Square, now occupied by the Royal Bank. This may HODIE * MIHI * CRAS . TIBI . CVR * IGITVR CVRAS * ... HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 259 escape from the shot of an assassin, which struck the candlestick before him ...

Book 10  p. 281
(Score 0.61)

LEITH, AND THE NEW TOWN. 365 ing of them in tyme cuming as ze wilI anser to us thairapon.” This royal mandate, which was subscribed at Holyrood Palace on the 1st of March 1563, appears to have had the desired effect, as an ornamental tablet in the upper part of the building had the Scottish Arms, boldly sculptured, with two unicorns for supporters, and the inscription and date in large Roman characters-IN DEFENCE, M. R, 1565. Soon after the demolition of the Heart of Midlothian, the’doom of the ancient Tolbooth of Leith was pronounced, and plans procured for a new court-house and prison. Great exertions were then used by several zealous antiquaries, and particularly by Sir Walter Scott and Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., to induce the Magistrates of Edinburgh, under whose authority the work proceeded, to preserve the picturesque and venerable fagade, while the remainder of the building could be demolished and rebuilt according to the proposed plan. The proposition was treated with the usual good taste of our civic reformers. A deputation who waited on my Lord Provost to urge their petition, were cavalierly dismissed with the unanswerable argument, that the expense of new designs had already been incurred ; and so the singular old house of justice of Queen Mary was replaced by the commonplace erection that now occupies its site. Near the top of the Tolbooth Wynd, an ancient signal-tower stood, which i8 represented in the accompanying engraving. It waa furnished with little portholes at the top, resembling those designed for musketry in our old Border peel towers aud fortalices, but which were constructed here, we presume, for the more peaceful object of watching the owners’ merchant vessels as they entered the Firth. An unusually striking piece of sculpture, in very bold relief, occupied a large panel over the archway leading into the courtyard behind. It bore the date 1678, and, amongst sundry other antique objects, the representation of a singularly rude specimen of mechanical ingenuity. This consisted of a crane, the whole machinery of which was comprised in one large drum or broad wheel, made to revolve like the wire cylinder of a squirrel’s cage, by a poor labourer who occupied the quadruped’s place and clambered up, Sisyphus-like, in his endless treadmill. The perspective, with the grouping and proportions of the whole composition, formed altogether an amusizlg and curious sample of both the mechanical and the fine arts of the seventeenth century, At the foot of the Tolbooth Wynd, the good Abbot Ballantyne, who presided over the Monastery of Holyrood during the closing years of the fifteenth century, caused a handsome stone bridge of three arches to be erected Over the Water of Leith, and Boon after its completion, he built and endowed a chapel at the north end of the bridge, and dedicated it to the honour of God, the Virgin Mary, and St Ninian. The Abbot appears to have had considerable possessions in Leith. He appointed two chaplains to officiate, who were yearly to receive all the profits arising out of a house erected by the founder at the southern end of the Bridge of Leith, with four pounds yearly out of his lands or tenements in South Leith. In addition to the offerings made in the chapel, the tolls or duties accruing from the new bridge were to be employed in repairing the chapel, bridge, and tenement, and the surplus given to the poor. This charter of foundation was confirmed by James IV. on the 1st of January 1493.’ St Ninian’s Chapel was built with the consent of the Chapter of Holyrood Abbey, and the approbation of William, Archbishop of St Maitland, p. 25. a Ibid, p. 497. ... AND THE NEW TOWN. 365 ing of them in tyme cuming as ze wilI anser to us thairapon.” This royal mandate, ...

Book 10  p. 402
(Score 0.61)

L UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 209 so thick that they only got out a small cabinet with great difEculty. But albeit, his papers were lying on the floor, or hung about the walls of his closet in pocks, yet they durst not stay to gather them up, or take them, though they were desired to do it, so that that cabinet, and Alexander Christie, his servant’s lettron, which stood near the door of his lodging, with some few other things, was all that was got saved, and the rest, even to his Lordship’s wearing cloths, were burnt.” A very lively and graphic account of this conflagration or “ epitome of dissolution,” as it is there styled, is furnished in a letter written at the time of its occurrence by the celebrated Duncan Forbes of Culloden, to his brother Colonel Forbes, wherein Lord Crossrig fi@res in a special manner. It is dated “ Edinburgh, 6th February 1700,” and thus describes the event :- ‘‘ Upon Saturday’s night, by ten a clock, a fyre burst out in Mr John Buchan’s closet window, towards the Meal1 Mercate. It continued whill eleven a clock of the day, with the greatest frayor and vehemency that ever I saw fyre do, notwithstanding that I saw mer are burnt, by the easiest computation, betwixt 3 and 400 familys ; all the pryde of Eden’ is sunk ; from the Cowgate to the High Street all is burnt, and hardly one stone left upon another. The Commissioner, President of the Padt, Rest of the Session, the Bank, most of the Lords, Lawyers, and Clerks, were all burnt, and many good and great familys. It is said just now, by S’ John Cochran, and Jordanhill, that ther is more rent burnt in this fyre than the whole city of Glasgow will amount to. The Parliament House very hardly escapt ; all Registers confounded; Clerks Chambers, and processes, in such a confusion, that the Lords and Officers of State are just now mett at Rosse’s Taverne, in order to adjourneing of the Sessione by reason of the dissorder. Few people axe lost, if any att a11 ; but ther was neither heart nor hand left amongst them for saveing from the fyre, nor a drop of water in the cisternes ; twenty thousand hands flitting ther trash they know not wher, and hardly twenty at work. These babells, of ten and fourteen story high, are down to the ground, and ther fall’s very terrible. Many rueful spectacles, such as Corserig naked, with a child under his oxter, happing for his lyEe ; the Fish Mercate, and all from the Cow Gate to Pett Street’s Close, burnt; The Exchange, waults, and coal cellars under the Parliament Close, are still burneing.” ’ Among other renters of the numerous lodgings into which the lofty old lands were divided, the Faculty of Advocates are named as occupying one in (( the Exchange Stairs ” for their library, at the yearly rent of two hundred and forty pounds Scots. Within this the nucleus of the valuable library now possessed by them had been formed, on the scheme suggested by its founder, Sir George Mackenzie, “ that noble wit 6f Scotland,” as Dryden terms him, whose name, while it wins the respect o‘f the learned, is still coupled among the Scottish peasantry with that of “ the bluidy Clavers’,” and mentioned only with execrations, for the share he took, as Lord Advocate, in the persecution of the Covenanters, during the reign of Charles IL Under his direction and influence the fines , London burne. Act. Parl. vol. x. p. 284. ’ Culloden Papers, p. 27. In a pasquinade in Wodrow’s Collectionq purporting fa be “A Letter from the , Ghost of Sir WiUiam Anstruther of that ilk, once senatour of the Colledge of Justice,’’ to his former colleagues, and dated, ‘‘ EZysian Pielda, 27 January 1711,” the Lord Crossrig and E. Lauderdale are the only Lords of Seasion he meets with “in the agreeable aboads,” a compliment to the former somewhat marred by the known character of his aasociata. 2 D ... UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 209 so thick that they only got out a small cabinet with great difEculty. But ...

Book 10  p. 228
(Score 0.61)

308 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. authority on which this rests, it is probable that the utmost countenance afforded by these divines waa their presence at the rehearsal, and the dinner which succeeded it in the Erskihe Club, at the Abbey.’ The old tenement, wherein this singular assemblage took place, has been entirely demolished to make way for a chapel and school founded by the Duchess of Cordon for the inhabitants of the Sanctuary. The antique building to the south, separated from this by the vennel mentioned above, appears from the titles to have been the residence of Francis Lord Napier at the memorable era of the Union Parliament. The ancient Tennis Court, the frequent scene of the dramatic amusements of the royal occupants of Holyrood, which survives now only in name, immediately without the Water Gate, has been repeatedly referred to in the course of the work.’ The game of Tennis, which was a favourite sport throughout Europe during last century, is now almost unknown. Its last most celebrated Scottish players are said to have been James Hepburn, Esq. of Keith, and the famous John Law, of Laurieston, afterwards Comptroller- General of the finances in France.8 The whole ground to the eastward of the Tennis Court appears in Edgar’s map as open garden ground attached to the Palace, with the exception of the small building known as Queen Mary’s Bath; but shortly after Lord Adam Gordon, Commander of the Forces in Scotland, took up his residence at Holyrood Palace in 1789, he granted permission to several favourite veterans, who had served under him abroad, to erect small booths and cottages along the garden wall; and they so effectually availed themselves of the privilege that several of the cottages have since risen to be substantial three and four storied lands. John Keith, a favourite subaltern, obtained at that time the piece of ground immediately adjoining Queen Mary’s Bath, and in the course of rearing the large building, which now remains in the possession of his daughters, he had to demolish part of a turret staircase which led to the roof of the Bath. Here, on removing a portion of the slating, a richly-inlaid dagger of antique form, and greatly corroded with rust, was found sticking in the sarking of the roof. It remained for many years in the possession of the veteran owner, and used to hang above the parlour fire-place along with his own sword. His daughter, to whom we owe these particulars, described the ancient weapon (( as though it had the king’s arms on it, done in gold.” It was finally lent to a young friend, to add to his other decorations, preparatory to his figuring in one of the processions during the visit of George IV. to Edinburgh in 1822, and was lost through the carelessness of the borrower. This very curious relic of antiquity has been supposed, with considerable appearance of probability, to have formed one of the weapons of the murderers of Rizzio, who are known to have escaped through this part of the royal garden^.^ This curious and exceedingly picturesque lodge of the ancient Palace is well worthy of preservation, and it is to be hoped will meet with due care in any,projected improvements in the neighbourhood of Holyrood House. The tradition of its having been used as a bath by the Scottish Queen is of old standing. Pennant tells us ic Pi& Burton’s Life of Hume, VOL i. p. 420, where it is shown that Dr Robertaon was not then principal, nor Dr Ferguson, professor; though thin is of little account, if they lived at the time in friendship with Home. Among the company at the Abbey were Lord Elibank, Lord Milton, Lord Kamea, and Lord Yonboddo. a Ants, p. 103. ’ Ante p. 76. * Archseol. Scot., voL i. p. COS. We have made thie curioue discovery the subjed of careful investigation, and feel aesured that no one who make, the name inquiries at the respectable proprietora of the house will entertain any doubt on the subject. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. authority on which this rests, it is probable that the utmost countenance afforded by ...

Book 10  p. 336
(Score 0.6)

THE OLD THEATRE ROYAI,. 341 North Bridge.] happy reminiscences and bright associations in the minds of thousands; and it was one of the very few theatres that, escaping the ravages of fire, attain to a good old age. Prior to the reign of George 111. there was not a single theatre in Scotland countenanced by the law of the land. One which was erected in Glasgow in 1752, and on which a military guard mounted nightly, was demolished about two years after, by a mob when returning from one of Whitefields sermons ; but when the New Town' of Edinburgh was projected, a clause was introduced into the Act empowering t h e Crown to grant royal letters patent for the establishment of a theatre in Edinburgh. Mr. David ROSS, manager of a small one then existing, amid many difficulties, in the Canongate, and latterly of Covent Garden Theatre -a respectable man, who had managed two houses in Londonobtained the patent, and the foundationstone of the new theatre was laid on the 16th of March, 1768. prologue, which was written by Janies Boswell, who, in the following lines, referred to the new theatre as the first one licensed in Scotland :- " Whilst in all points with other lands she vied, The stage alone to Scotland was denied : Mistaken zeal, in times of darkness bred, O'er the best minds its gloomy vapours spread ; Taste and religion were opposed in strife. .---.*--- GEORGE DRUXMOND, LORD PROVOST. (From f :e E i i , ~ a v . n ~ by Mac&enzie, ofter ih2 Original in the Rwal In$mra*y.) . . In the stone was laid a silver plate, inscribed thus:- '' The first stone of this new theatre was laid on the 16th day of March, in the year of our Lord 1768, by David Ross, patentee and first proprietor of a licensed stage in Scotland. May this theatre tend to promote every moral and every virtuous principle, and may the representations be such *' To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live on each scene and be what they behold." But Mr. ROSS'S first legitimate performances as a licensed manager took place in the old theatre, which opened unusually late in the season, owing to a dreadful riot' that happened in January, and the repairs incident to which occupied ten months, during which there were no representations whatever. Ross opened then, with the patented company on the 9th of December, 1767, with the tragedy of the RnrZ of Essex. He spoke the And 'twas a sin to view this glass of life ! When the muse ventured, the ungracious task, To play elusion with unlicensed mask, Mirth was restrained ty statutory awe, And tragic greatness feared the scourge of law ; Illustrious heroes errant vapants seemed, And gentlest nymphs were sturdy begsnrs deemed." By the proposals for building this new theatre, according to the S o t s Mugazine for 1768, Mr. Ross had to raise Lz,.joo by twenty-five shares, at LIOO per share, for which the subscribers were to receive 3 per cent., and free access to all performances and every part of the house, except behind the scenes. "The house is to be IOO feet in length by 50 broad. To furnish new scenes, wardrobe,- and necessary decorations will, it is computed, cost A1,500 more: and the whole building, &c., is to be insured for A4,000, and mortgaged as security to pay the interest. As it would be impossible to procure good performers should the tickets continue at the low prices now paid, it is proposed to make the boxes qs., the pit 3s., the first gallery zs., and the upper IS. For these prices, says Mr. ROSS, this stage shall vie with those of London and Dublin. There shall be five capital men-actors, one good man-singer, one second ditto ; three capital womenactresses, two capital women-singers, one capital man-dancer, and one woman ditto; the rest as good as can be had : the orchestra shall be conducted with a good first fiddler, as a leader, a harpsichord, and the rest of the band persons of merit." ... OLD THEATRE ROYAI,. 341 North Bridge.] happy reminiscences and bright associations in the minds of thousands; ...

Book 2  p. 341
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232 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. of a royal order that every one should give him that title. He was succeeded in the old mansion by his son, Sir Lewis Craig, and had the satisfaction of pleading as advocate while he presided on the bench under the title of Lord Wrightslands. The house in Warriston’s Close was subsequently occupied by Sir George Urquhart, of Cromarty, and still later by Sir Robert Baird, of Sauchton Hall. But the most celebrated residenter in this ancient alley is the eminent lawyer and statesman, Sir Archibald Johnston, of Warriston, the nephew of its older inhabitant, Sir Thomas Craig. He appears from the titles to have purchased from his cousin, Sir Lewis Craig, the house adjoining his own, and which is entered by a plain doorway on the west side of the close, immediately below the one last described. Johnston of Warriston took an early and very prominent share in the resistance offered to the schemes of Charles I., and in 1638, on the royal edict being proclaimed from the Cross of Edinburgh, which set at defiance the popular opposition to the hated Service Book, he boldly appeared on a scaffold erected near it, and read aloud the celebrated protest drawn up in name of the Tables, while the mob compelled the royal heralds to abide the reading of this counter-defiance. It is unnecessary to sketch out very minutely the incidents in a life already familiar to the students of Scottish history. He was knighted by Charles I., on his secondvisit to Scotland in 1641, and assumed the designation of Lord Warriston on his promotion to the bench. He was one of the Scottish Commissioners sent to mediate between Charles I. and the English Parliament ; and after filling many important offices he sat by the same title as a peer in Cromwell’s abortive House of Lords ; and, on the death of the Protector, he displayed his keen opposition to the restoration of the Stuarts by acting as President of the Committee of Safety under Richard Cromwell. On the restoration of Charles 11. he became an object of special animosity, and having boldly refused to concur in the treaty of Breda, he escaped to Hamburgh, from whence he afterwards retired to Rouen in France. There he was delivered up to Charles by the French King, and after a tedious imprisonment, both in the Tower of London and the old Tolbooth of Edinburgh, he was executed with peculiar marks of indignity, on the spot where he had so courageously defied the royal proclamation twenty-five years before. His own nephew, Bishop Burnet, has furnished a very characteristic picture of the hardy and politic statesman, in which he informs us he was a man of such energetic zeal that he rarely allowed himself more than three hours sleep in the twenty-four. When we consider the leading share he took in all the events of that memorable period, and his intimate’intercourse with the most eminent men of his time, we cannot but view with lively interest the decayed and deserted mansion where he has probably entertained such men as Henderson, Argyle, Rothes, Lesley, Monck, and even Cromwell ; and the steep and straitened alley that still associates his name with the crowded lands of the Old Town.’ The following quaint and biting epitaph, penned by some zealous cavalier on the death The importance which waa attached to this close 88 one of the most fahionable localities of Edinburgh during the last century appears from a propoaitiou addressed by the Earl of Morton to the Lord Provost in 1767, in which, among other conditions which he demands, under the threat of opposing the extension of the royalty to the grounda on which the New Town is built, he requires that a timber bridge shall be thrown over the North Loch, from the foot of Warriston’s Close to Bereford‘s Parks, and the public Register Offices of Scotland, built at the coat of the town, “on the highest level ground of Robertson’s and Wood‘e farms.” To this the magistrates reply by stating, among other objections, that the value of the property in the close alone is f,ZO,OOO !-Proposition by the Earl of Yorton, fol. 5 pp. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. of a royal order that every one should give him that title. He was succeeded in the ...

Book 10  p. 252
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364 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill. + CHAPTER XLVII. MOULTRAY?S HILL-HER MAJESTY?S GENERAL REGISTER HOUSE. The Moultrays of :hat Ilk-Village of Moultray?s Hill-The Chapel of St. Ninian-St. James?s SquaeBuuker?s Hill-Mr. Dundas-Robert Burns?s House-State of the Scottish Records-Indifference .of the Government in r74c-The Register House built-Its Objects and Sie-Curious Documents prc;erved in this House-lhe Office of Lord Clerk Register-The Secretary?s Register-The Register of Sasines-The Lyon King .f Arms-Sir Dnrid Lindesay-Sir James Balfour-Sir Alexander ErskintNcw Register House-Great and Privy Seals of Scotland-The Wellington Statue. AT the north end of the bridge, and immediately opposite it and the New General Post Office, the ground forming the east end of the main ridge onwhich the New Town is built rises to some elevation, and bore the name of Multrie?s or Moultray?s Hill, which Lord Hailes in his ?Annals ? supposes to be the corruption of two Gaelic words ?signifying the covert or receptacle of the wild boar;? but it would appear rather to have taken its name from the fact of its being the residence of the Moultrays of Seafield, a baronial Fifeshire family of eminence in the time of James IV., whose lonely old tower stands in ruins upon a wave-washed rock near K i n g h o r n. Alexander Stemart of Grenane (ancestor of the Earls of Galloway), who fell: at Flodden, left sixteen daughters, one of whom was married to Moultray of Seafield, and another to Tours of Inverassize,? in a criminal trial, as recorded by Pitcairn. In 1715 Alexander Malloch of Moultray?s Hill quitted this ancient house at Edinburgh, to join the DK. JOHN HOPE. (AferKay.) leith, whose castle in those days would be quite visible from the height where St. James?s Square stands. The name first occurs in Scottish records, in the time of David II., when ? I Henry Multra? had the lands of Greenhill, near Edinburgh, of Henry Braid of that ilk. On the 7th of February, 1549, John Moultray of Seafield signed a charter in the chartulary of Dunfermline. In 1559, the laird being of the Catholic faction, had to furnish the insurgent lords with corn and cattle. They besieged his tower, and took him prisoner, but released him on parole not to assist the queen regent?s French troops. In 1559 Moultray of Seafield m?as chancellor of ?ane Highlanders under Brigadier Macintosh of Borlum, but was shot dead in mistake by them near the village of Jock?s Lodge; and after 1739 the older family, which became extinct, was represented by the Moultrays of Rescobie. From the abode of this old race, then, Moultray?s Hilltook itsname. Gordon of Rothiemay?s map shows a large quadrangular edifice, with gables and dormer windows crowning the apex of the hill, which may be the residence of the family referred to ; but by 1701 quite a suburban village had sprung up in that quarter, the occupants of which, weavers and other tradesmen, had the quarrel, recorded elsewhere, withthe magistrates of Edinburgh, who, to punish them, closed Halkerston?s Wynd Port, and, by the loch sluice, flooded the pathway that led to their houses. In 1765 the village seems to have consisted of at least ten distinct blocks of several houses each, surrounded by gardens and parks, on each side of the extreme east end of the Long Gate (now Princes Street), and from thence Leith Street takes precisely the curve of the old road, on its way to join the Walk. At the eastern foot of this hill, exactly where now stands the western pier of the Regent Bridge, deep down in a narrow hollow, stood the ancient chapel of St. Ninian (or St. Ringan, ?whose fame,? says Nirnmo, ?? has been embalmed in the many churches ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill. + CHAPTER XLVII. MOULTRAY?S HILL-HER MAJESTY?S GENERAL REGISTER ...

Book 2  p. 364
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High Street.] U?ARRISTON?S CLOSE. 223 the floors as a picture gallery or exhibition, a new leature in the Edinburgh of the seventeenth century, and long before any such idea had been conceived in France, England, or any other country. Some of his best works were in possession of the late Andrew Bell, engraver, the originator of the ?? Encyclopzdia Britannica,? who married his granddaughter. ?For some years after the Revolution,? says Pinkerton, ? he was the only painter in Scotland, and had a very great run of business. This brought him into a hasty and .incorrect manner.? So here, in the Advocates? -* ~ Close, in the dull and anorose Edinburgh of the seventeenth cendury, was the fashionable lounge of the dilettanti, .the resort of rank and beauty-a quarter from which the haut ton of the ,present day would shrink with aversion. He died at Prestonpans in the year 1730, in his eighty-fifth year, after having witnessed as startling a series of political changes as ever occurred in a long lifetime. Taking the ancient .alleys seriatim, Roxburghe Close comes next, numbered as 341, High Street, and. so - -_ -- = --_= -- -+- next we come to in descending the north side of the street, remains only in name, the houses on both sides being entirely new, and its old steep descent broken at intervals by convenient flights of steps; but until r868 it was nearly unchanged froin its ancient state, some relics of which still remain. It had handsome fronts of carefully-polished ashlar, with richly-decorated doorways with pious legends on their lintels, to exclude witches, fairies, and all manner of evil ; there were ornate dormer named, it may COnfi- HOUSE OF LORD ADVOCATE STEWART, AT THE FOOT dently be supposed OF ADVOCATES? CLOSE, w e s ~ SIDE. (though it cannot be proved as a fact) from having contained the town residence of some ancient Earl of Roxburghe. All its ancient features have disappeared, save a door built up with a handsome cut legend in raised Roman letters :-?WHATEVER ME BEFALL I THANK THE LORD OF ALL. J. M., 1586.? This is said to have been the dwelling-place of the Roxburghe family, but by tradition only. If true, it takes the antiquary back to the year in which .Sir Walter Kerr of Cessford (ancestor of the Dukes .of Roxburghe), ? baron of Auld-Roxburghe, the .castle thereof and the lands of Auldtonbum, &c.,? died at a great age, the last survivor, perhaps, of the affray in which Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch gerished at Edinburgh. Warriston?s Close (anciently called Bruce?s), the windows on the roofs with steep crow-stepped gables, black with the smoke and storms of centuries. MIHI . SEMPER. DEUS. 1583,? was the legend which first caught the eye above a door of a tenement on the west ? side, long occupied bj James Murray, Lord Philiphaugh, raised to the bench November Ist, 1689, without having any predecessor, being 0n.e of the set of judges nominated after the Re- , volution. After being chosen member of Parliament for Selkirk in 1681, he had become an object of special jealousy to the Scottish Cavalier Government. He was imprisoned in 1684, and under terror ? QUI . ERrr . ILLE . of being tortured in the iron boots, before the Privy Council in the high Chamber below the Parliament House, he gave evidence against those who were concerned in the Rye House Plot. Lord Philiphaugh had the character of being an upright judge, but the men of his time never forgot or forgave the weakness that made him stoop to save his life, though many of them might no doubt have acted in the same way, the Scottish Privy Council of that time being a species of Star Chamber that did not stand on trifles. Farther down the close was another edifice, the lintel of which like some others that were in the same locality, has been with great good taste rebuilt, as a lintel, into the extensive printing and publishing premises of the Messrs. Chambers, a ... Street.] U?ARRISTON?S CLOSE. 223 the floors as a picture gallery or exhibition, a new leature in the ...

Book 2  p. 223
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THE WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. 345 the builder’s initials, a large ornamental shield bears the device of a pot full of lilies, one of the most common emblems of the Virgin Mary. John Lowrie’s initials are repeated in ornamental characters on the eastern crow-step, separated by what appears to be designed for a baker’s peel, and probably indicating that its owner belonged to the ancient fraternity of baxters. The burgh of Easter Portsburgh, which is associated with its western neighbour under the same baron bailie, comprehends the Potterrow and adjoining district of Bristo, and includes several buildings of considerable interest, though not of great antiquity. One edifice, however, which appears in our view of the Potterrow, was a singular specimen of the ancient t i m b lands, and differed in character from any example of that style of building that now remains. It bore the distinctive title of the Mahogany Land, an epithet popularly applied to the most ornamental timber erections in different parts of the town, and had undoubtedly existed at the time when the Collegiate Church of St Mary stood in the neighbouring fields. Directly opposite to its site is a lofty building, erected, as appears from its title-deeds, in 1715, and which, we are informed by its proprietor, formed the lodging of the Earl of Morton. It has evidently been a mansion of some importance. A broad and handsome archway leads into an enclosed court behind, where there is cut, in unusually large letters, the inscription-BLIsET . BE. GOD . FOR. AL . HIS . GIFTIS .-and a monogram, now undecipherable. Robert, twelfth Earl of Morton, succeeded to the title the same year in which the house was built, and was again succeeded by his brother George, appointed Vice-Admiral of Scotland in 1733. He died at Edinburgh in 1738, and was buried in the Greyfriars’ Churchyard. Other associations, however, far surpassing those of mere rank and ancient lineage, will make this locality long be regarded as a peculiarly interesting nook of the Scottish metropolis. Nearly at the point of junction of the Potterrow with Bristo Street-once one of the two great thoroughfares from the south-there is a little, irregular, and desolate-looking court of antique buildings, bearing the name of General‘s Entry. The south and east sides of this little quadrangle are formed by a highly-decorated range of buildings. The crow-stepped gable at the south-east angle is surmounted by a curious old sun-dial, bearing the quaint punning moral, We shall die all; aud beyond this a series of sculptured dormer windows appear, in the highly-decorated style of the seventeenth century. On one of the sculptured pediments is a shield, bearing the unusual heraldic device of a monkey, with three stars in chief. It is surrounded by a border of rich Elizabethan scroll work in high relief; and beyond this, the initials J. D. The adjoining window bears, as its principal ornament, an ingenious monogram, formed of large ornamental Roman characters. The tradition is one of old standing, which assigns this mansion as the residence of General Monk, during his command in Scotland under Oliver Cromwell. This is usually referred to as the origin of the present name of the locality ; nor is the tradition altogether without some appearance of probability in support of it. The house, we believe, was erected by Sir James Dalrymple, afterwards Viscount Stair, justly regarded as the most eminent judge who ever presided on the Scottish Bench. He ia well known to have been a special favourite of General Monk, who frequently consulted him on matters of state, ahd recommended him to Cromwell in 1657 as the fittest person to be appointed a judge. Under these circumstances, it may be inferred, with little hesitation, that Monk was a frequent visitor, if not a constant guest, at General’s Entry, when he came into the capital from his head- * 2x ... WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. 345 the builder’s initials, a large ornamental shield bears the device of a pot full ...

Book 10  p. 378
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234 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. for all the world.”1 It was the fate of this old mansion of the Earls of Angus to be linked at its close in the misfortunes of a Douglas. It formed during last century the banking-house of Douglas, Heron, & Company, whose failure spread dismay and suffering through a widely-scattered circle, involving both high and low in its ruin. The Chapel of Ease in New Street, erected in 1794, now partly occupies the site. Several other interesting relics of the olden time were destroyed to make way for this ungainly ecclesiastical edifice. One of these appears from the titles to have been the residence of Henry Kinloch, a wealthy burgess of the Canongate, to whose hospitable care the French ambassador was consigned by Queen Mary in 1565. An old diarist of the period relates, that ‘‘ Vpoun Monunday the ferd day of Februar, the seir of God foirsaid, thair come ane ambassatour out of the realm of France, callit Monsieur Rambollat, with xxxvj horse in tryne, gentilmen, throw Ingland, to Halyrudhous, quhair the King and Queenis Majesties wes for the tyme, accumpanyit with thair nobillis. And incontinent efter his lychting the said ambassatour gat presens of thair graces, and thairefter depairtit to Henrie Kynloches lugeing in the Cannogait besyid Edinburgh.” A few days afterwards, ‘( The Kingis Majestie [Lord Darnley], accumpanyit with his nobillis in Halyrudhous, ressavit the ordour of knychtheid of the cokill fra the said Rambollat, with great magniilcence. And the samin nycht at evin, our soueranis maid ane banket to the ambassatour foirsaid, in the auld chappell of Halyrudhous, quhilk wes reapparrellit with fyne tapestrie, and hung m a p s - centlie, the said lordis maid the maskery efter supper in ane honrable manner. And vpoun the ellevint day of the said moneth, the King and Quene in lyik manner bankettit the samin ambassatour ; and at evin our soueranis maid the maskrie and mumschance, in the quhilk the Queenis grace, and all her maries and ladies wer all cledin men’s apperrell; and everie ane of thame presentit ane quhingar, bravelie and maist artiticiallie made and embroiderit with gold, to the said ambassatour and his gentlemen.” * On the following day the King and Queen were entertained, along with the ambassador and his suite, at a splendid banquet provided for them in the Castle by the Earl of Mar ; and on the second day thereafter, Monsieur Rambollat bade adieu to the Court of Holyrood. It is to be regretted that an accurate description cannot now be obtained of the burgher mansion which was deemed a fitting residence for one whom the Queen delighted to honour, and for whose entertainment such unwonted masquerades were enacted. It was probably quite as homelya dwelling as those of the same period that still remain in the neighbourhood. The sole memorial of it that now remains is the name of the alley running between the two ancient front lands previously described, through which the ambassador and his noble visitors must have passed, and which is still called Kinloch’s Close after their burgher host. New Street, which is itself a comparatively recent feature of the old burgh, is a curious sample of a fashionable modern improvement, prior to the bold scheme of the New Town. It still presents the aristocratic feature of a series of detached and somewhat elegant mansions. Its last century occupants were Lord Kames-whose house is at the head of the street on the east side-Lord Hailes, Sir Philip and Lady Betty Anstruther, and Dr Hume of Godscroft’s History of the Douglases, p. 432. ’ Diurnal of Occurrenta, pp. 86, 87. There appears, indeed (Maitlaud, p. 149), to have been another Kinloch‘s lod,&g near the palace, but the correapondenoe of name and data Beems to prove the above to be the one referred to. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. for all the world.”1 It was the fate of this old mansion of the Earls of Angus to ...

Book 10  p. 308
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198 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. 1490 ; and in the following century it was the scene of the assassination of M‘Lellan of Bombie, who in the year 1525, was waylaid and slain there in open day, with perfect impunity, by the lairds of Lochinvar and Drumlanrig, during the turbulent sway of the Douglases, in the minority of James V. Numerous personal encounters occurred at the same place in early times, consequent on its vicinity to the Parliament House and courts of law; and even after the fruits of many revolutions had put an end to such scenes of violence, this dark alley maintained somewhat of its old character, as a favourite resort of the thief and pickpocket,-degenerate successors of the cateran and moss-trooper ! The timber land immediately in front of St Giles’s steeple was only three stories high, and with a very low-pitched roof, so as to admit of the clock being seen by passers in the High Street; while the one adjoining it to the west, after rising to the height of five stories and finishing with two very steep overhanging gables in front, had a sixth reared above these, with a flat lead roof,-like a crow’s nest stuck between the battlements of some ancient peel tower.’ The two most easterly lands in the Luckenbooths differed from the rest in being tall and substantial erections of polished ashlar work. The first of these was surmounted with stone gables of unequal size, somewhat in the style of “ Gladstone’s land,” at the head of Lady Stair’s Close, and apparently built not later than the reign of Charles I. The other building, which presented its main front down the High Street, though evidently a more recent erection, yielded in interest to none of the private buildings of Edinburgh. ‘( Creech’s Land,” as it was termed, according to the fashion of the burgh, after one of its latest and most worthy occupants, formed the peculiar haunt of the muses during the last century. ”hither Allan Ramsay removed in 1725,-immediately after publishing the fist complete edition of his great pastoral poem,-from the sign of the Mercury’s Head, opposite Niddry’s Wynd, and there,-on the first floor, which had formerly been the London Coffee House, *-he substituted for his former celestial sign, the heads of Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, and greatly extended his business with the profits of his successful devotion to the Muses. It was on his removal to this central locality that he established his circulating library,-the first institution of the kind known in Scotland, not without both censure and interference from some of the stricter leaders of society at that period. “ Profaneness,” says Wodrow, “ is come to a great height ; all the villanous, profane, and obscene books of plays, printed at London by Curle and others, are got down from London by Allan Ramsay, and lent out for an easy price to young boys, servant women of the better sort, and gentlemen; and vice and obscenity dreadfully propagated.” Ramsay’s fame and fortune progressed with unabating vigour after this period; and his shop became the daily resort of the leading wits and literati, as well as of every traveller of note that visited the Scottish capital. The buildings of the middle row were extremely irregular in character. Ante, p. 28. ’ Maitland informs us (p. 181) that the Krames were first erected against St cfiles’s Church in 1555. The Boothraw, or Luckenbooths, however, we have shown (ante, p. 172) was in existence 150 years before that, and probably much earlier. Maitland derives its latter name from a species of woollen cloth called Luken, brought from the Low Countries ; but Dr Jamieson assigns the more probable source in the old Scotch word Luckm, closed, or shut up ; signifying booths closed in, and admitting of being locked, in contradistinction to the open stands, which many still living can remember to have seen displayed in the Lawnmarket every market day. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. 1490 ; and in the following century it was the scene of the assassination of ...

Book 10  p. 217
(Score 0.59)

390 MEMQRIPLS OF EDINBURGH. Underneath the coat of arms, to the left of the above inscription, was the motto,--PIETbs, SINE VINDXCE, LVGET ; and Qn the right raide,-Jus EX ARM AT^ EST. The monumeqt which stood directly opposite to that of tbe Regent was generally understood ts be that of the Earl of Atholl, w40 was buried with greqt slolemnity in the south aisle of the church on $be 4th-of July 15i9, The sumptuous preparations for this funeral led to the interference of the General Assembly, by whom, ‘‘ commissiouq was givin to some brethrein to declare ta the lords that the Assemblie thought the croce and the straups superstitious &ad ethnick like, and to Crave they may be removed at the Erle of Atholl’ra buriall, The lords answered, they eould caus cover the mortcloath with blacke velvet, and remove the stro~vpe~,”T~h e lords, however, failed in their promise. The strqppes, or flambeaux, were use4 on the occasioa, sotwithstanding the promise to the contrary, in consequence of which g riot ensued. Crawford2 describes the stately monument, erected over hi4 graye; but, from his allusion to an allegorical device of a pelican, vulned, feeding her young-the crest of the Earls of Moray, but an emblem, as he conceives, designed tq signify the long devotion borng by the Earl of Atholl to his country-he has evidently mistaken for it that of the Regent. There was 4 vacapt panel on this monument, appwentlyintepded for inserting a brass plate similar to that, on the Earl of Murray’e tomb, but it had either been removed or never inserted, On the top had been a coat of arms, but all that remained was) a representation of two pigeons, and the date 1579: which, boweyer, may be received as conclusive evidence of its having been the Earl of Atholl’s monument, The portion of the Church which contained these monuments was approached by a door frpm the Parliament Close, which was never clased, so that the Regent’s Aisle waa a common place for appointments. It is alluded to in Sempill’s satirical poem, ‘‘ The Banishment of Poverty,” as a convenient lounge for idlers, where he humorously describes the repQst provided for him by the Genius of Poverty :- Then I knay go way how to fen ; I dined with Paints and noblemen, My guta rumbled like a hurle-barrow ; Ev’n sweet Saint Gilq and Earl of Murray. It probably originated PO less in the veneration with which ‘( the Good Regent’’ was regarded than in the Convenience of the place, that it was long a Gommon occurrence to make bills payable at “ the Earl of Murray’s ” tomb, and to fix on it as the place of assignation for those who proposed entering on any mutual contract.‘ The fact will seem hardly credible to future generations, that this national monument, erected, as the inscription on it expressed, as the tribute of a mourning countrr to their common father, was deliberately demolished during the alterations in 1829 in the process of enlarging the Assembly Aisle. Calderwood’s Hist., vol. iii. p, 446. 3 Crawford’q Officers of State, p. 136. Nisbet’s Heraldry, vol. ii. Ap. p. 180. ’ Kincaid‘s Hist. of Edinburgh, p. 179. ’ The custom is one of long standing. Among the Closeburn papers, in the possession of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., a contract by Sir Thorn= Kirkpatrick for the payment of a considerable Bum of money, dated in the reign of Charles I., makes it payable at Earl Murray’s tomb. There is a remarkable charter of James 11. in 1452, entailing the lands of Barntoun on Oeorge Earl of Caithness, and his heirs and asdgns, and hia natural daughter; with this proviso, that he, or his amigns, should cause to be paid to his bastard daughter, Janet, on a particular day, between the rising and setting of the sun, in the Pariah Church of St Oilea, in his burgh of Edinburgh, upon the high altar of the same, three hundred marks, usual money.cCaledonig vol. ii p. 774. The pigeons were probably young pelicans. ... MEMQRIPLS OF EDINBURGH. Underneath the coat of arms, to the left of the above inscription, was the ...

Book 10  p. 428
(Score 0.59)

THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 273 have tint and foirfaltit thair lyvis, lands, and guidis, and ordaynit thair armes to be rifEin, and thair names and armes to be eleidit out of the buikis thairof for euer.” The outlawed burgess’s house in the Fountain Close appears to have been immediately seized by his opponents as a forfeiture to the Queen, in whose name they acted, and to have been converted into a battery and stronghold for assailing the enemy, for which its lofty character and vicinity to the city wall peculiarly fitted it. A contemporary historian relates that ‘‘ the Regent, Johne Erle of Mar, for beseageing of the toun of Edinburgh, cawsit nyne pece of ordonance, great and small, be broght to the Cannogait, to have assailzeit the east port of the toun ; bot that place was not thoght commodious, .wharefore the gunnis war transportit to a fauxburg of the toun, callit Pleasands ; and thairfra they laid to thair batterie aganis the toun walls, whilk began the tent of September, and shot at a platfurme whilk was erectit upon a howheid, perteining to Adame Fullartoun.” Adam Fullarton speedily returned t o his house at the Nether Bow ; and while the English forces under Sir William Durie were casting up trenches and planting cannon for the siege of Edinburgh Castle in the name of the young Eing, he was again chosen a burgess of the Parliament which assembled in the Tolbooth on the 26th of April 1573.’ This date corresponds with that carved on the lintel of the old mansion in the Fountain Close. It may be doubted, however, whether it indicates more than its repair, as it is expressly mentioned by the contemporary already quoted, that (‘ thaj did litill or na skaith to the said hous and platforme.”’ We can hardly doubt that this ancient tenement will be viewed with increasing interest by our local antiquaries, associated as it is with so important a period of national history. The vincit veritas of the brave old burgher acquires a new force when we consider the circumstances that dictated its inscription, and the desperate struggle in which he had borne a leading part, before he returned to carve these pious aphorisms over the threshold that had so recently been held by his enemies. It only remains to be mentioned of the Fountain Close, that it formed, at a very recent period, the only direct access from the High Street to the Cowgate Chapel, while that was the largest and most fashionable Episcopal Chapel in Edinburgh. remains at the foot of it, though long since deserted by its noble occupants. It is mentioned by Defoe among the princely buildings of Edinburgh, ‘( with a plantation of lime trees behind it, the place not allowing room for a large garden.” This, however, must have been afterwards remedied, as its pleasure grounds latterly extended down to the Cowgate. Successive generations of the Tweeddale family have occupied this house, which continued to be their town residence till the general desertion of the Scottish capital by the nobility soon after the Union. The old mansion still retains many traces of former magnificence, notwithstanding the rude changes to which it has been since subjected. Its builder and f i s t occupant was Lady Pester, the pious founder of the church in Edinburgh that bears her name.“ By her it was presented to her grandson, John, second Earl of This desperate and bloody civil war was happily of brief duration. Immediately below this is the Marquis of Tweeddale’s Close, whose large mansion still ‘ Diurn, of Occurrenta, p. 244. Hist. of Jamee the Sext, Bann. Club, p. 94, a Diurn. of OCC.p, . 331. a Dame Margaret Ker, Lady Yester, third daughter of Hark, first Earl of Lothian, WBB born in 1672, the year of John Knox’s death, so that Tweeddale H o w ia a building of the early part of the seventeenth century. Among the ‘ Hist. of James the Sext, p. 251. Defoe’s Tour, vol. iv. p. 86. 2af ... HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 273 have tint and foirfaltit thair lyvis, lands, and guidis, and ordaynit thair ...

Book 10  p. 297
(Score 0.59)

242 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. The mansion of the Earl in the Old Stamp Office Close was celebrated at a subsequent period as Fortune’s tavern, a favourite resort of men of rank and fashion, while yet some of the nobles of Scotland dwelt in its old capital. At a still later period, it was the scene of the annual festivities during the Hittings of the General Assembly of the Kirk, towards the close of last century. The old Zarl of Leven, who was for many years the representative of majesty at the High Court of the Church, annually took up his abode at this fashionable tavern, and received in state the courtiers who crowded to his splendid levees.’ Still more strangely does it contrast with modern notions, to learn that the celebrated Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, began practice as an advocate while residing on the third flat of the old land a little further down the street, at the head of the Flesh Market Close, and continued to occupy his exalted dwelling for a considerable time. Below this close, we again come to works of more modern date. Milne Square, which bears the date 1689, exhibits one of the Old Town improvements before its contented citizens dreamt of bursting their ancient fetters, and rearing a new city beyond the banks of the North Loch. To the east of this, the first step in that great undertaking demolished some of the old lanes of the High Street, and among the rest the Cap and Feather Close, a short alley which stood immediately above Halkerston’s Wynd. The lands that formed the east side of this close still remain in North Bridge Street, presenting doubtless, to the eye of every tasteful reformer, offensive blemishes in the modern thoroughfare ; yet this unpicturesque locality has peculiar claims on the interest of every lover of Scottish poetry, for here, on the 5th of September 1750, the gifted child of genius, Robert Ferpson, was born. The precise site of his father’s dwelling is unknown, but now that it has been transformed by the indiscriminating hands of modern improvers, this description may sufice to suggest to some as they pass along that crowded thoroughfare such thoughts as the dwellers in cities are most careless to encourage.’ Availing ourselves of the subdivision of the present subject, effected by the improvements to which we have adverted, we shall retrace our steps, and glance at such associations with the olden time as may still be gathered from the scene of the desolating fires that swept away nearly every ancient feature on the south side of the High Street. Within the last few years, the sole survivor of all the antique buildings that once reared their picturesque and lofty fronts between the Lawnmarket and Niddry’s Wynd has been demolished, to make way for the new Police Office. It had strangely withstood the terrible conflagration that raged around it in 1824, and, with the curious propensity that still prevails in Edinburgh for inventing suggestive and appropriate names, it was latterly universally known as “ the Salamander Land.” ’ Through this a large archway led into the Old Fish Market Close, on the west side of which, previous to the Great Fire, the huge pile of buildings in the Parliament Close reared its southern front high over all the neigh- In 1812 an unwonted spectacle waa exhibited at the head of the Old Stamp Office .Close, in the execution of three young la& there, as the leadera in a riot that took place un New Year’s Day of that year, in which several citizens were killed and numerous robberies committed. The judges fixed upon this spot, as having been the scene of the chief bloodshed that had occurred, in order to mark more impressively the detestation of their crimes. A small work was published by the Rev. W. Innes, entitled “ Notes of Conversations ’’ with the criminals. ’ In Edgar’s map, the close is shown extending no farther than in a line with Milne’s Court, so that the whole of the east side etill remains, including, it may be, the poet’s birthplace. ’ We have been told that this land was aaid to have been the residence of Defoe while in Edinburgh ; the tradition, however, ia entirely unaupported by other testimony. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. The mansion of the Earl in the Old Stamp Office Close was celebrated at a ...

Book 10  p. 263
(Score 0.58)

KING’S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. ‘39 of carved wood work, exhibiting traces of gilding. An explosion of gunpowder, which took place in the lower part of the house in 1811, attended with loss of life, entirely destroyed the ancient fireplace, which was of a remarkably beautiful Gothic design. Notwithstanding the comparatively modern decorations, the house s till retains unequivocal remains of a much earlier period. The sculptured doorway in Blair’s Close, already alluded to, forming the original main entrance to the whole building, is specially worthy of notice, and would of itself justify us in assigning its erection to the earlier part of the sixteenth century. It very nearly corresponds with one still remaining on the west side of Blackfriar’s Wynd, the entrance to the turnpike stair of an ancient mansion, which appears, from the title-deeds of a neighbouring property, to have been the residence of the Earl of Morton. In the latter example, the heraldic supporters, though equally rudely sculptured, present somewhat more distinctly the same features as in the other, and both are clearly intended for unicorns.’ The south front of the building is finished with a parapet, adorned with gurgoils in the shape of cannons, and on the first floor * (in Blair’s Close) there is still remainins an ancient fireplace of huge old-fashioned dimensions. The jambs are neatly carved Gothic pillars, simiiar in design to several that formerly existed in the Guise Palace, Blyth’s Close ; and the whole is now enclosed, and forms a roomy coal-cellar, after having been used as a bedcloset by the previous tenant in these degenerate days. As late as 1783, this part of the old mansion was the residence of John Grieve, Esq., then Lord Provost of Edinburgh. This house has apparently been one of special note in early times from its substantial magnificence. It is described in one of the deeds as ;; that tenement or dwelling-house called the Solate House of old, of the deceased Patrick Edgar,” a definiiion repeated in several others, evidently to distinguish it from its humble thatched nei&%ours, ‘; lying on the south iide of the High Street of Edinburgh, near the Castle wal1,between the lands of the deceased Mr A. Syme, advocate, on the east, the close of the said Patrick Edgar on the west,” &c. It is alluded to in the Diurnal of Occurrents, 7th September 1570, where the escape of Robert Hepburn, younger of Wauchtoun, from the Earl of Morton’s adherents, is described It is added-‘; He came to the Castell of Edinburgh, quhairin he was ressauit with great difficultie ; for when he was passand in at the said Castell zett, his adversaries were at Patrik Edgar his hous end.” This mansion was latterly possessed, as we have seen, by the Newbyth family, by whom it was held for several generations ; and here it was that the gallant Sir David Baird was born and brought up.‘ It is said also to hare been F 1 The adoption of the royal supportera may possibly have been an assumption of the Regent’s, in virtue of his exercise of the functions of royalty. In which case, the building on the Castle Hill might be presumed alm to be his, and deserted by him from ita dangerous proximity to the Castle, when held by his rivals. This, however, is mere conjecture. A note in the Diurnal of Occurrents, 20th Nov. 1572, states-“ In this menetyme, James Earle of Mortouo, regent, lay deidlie seik j his Grace waa lugeit in Williame Craikia lugeing on the sout\ syid of the trone, in Edinburgh.” a To prevent misconception in the description of buildings, we may state that, throughout the Work, the floors of buildings are to be understood thus :-Sunk, or area floor, ground floor, 6rat floor, second floor, bcc., reckoning from below. ’ Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 186. ’ On Sir David Baird’s return from the Spanish Campaign, he visited his birth-place, and examined with great interest the acenes where he had passed his boyhoodi Chambem haa furnished a lively account of this in hm Traditions, vol. i. p. 155. ... STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. ‘39 of carved wood work, exhibiting traces of gilding. An ...

Book 10  p. 150
(Score 0.58)

ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 399 charter of James IV., dated a few months before the Battle of modden, the Abbots of Holyrood and Newbottle are empowered to erect into a new prebendary the chapelry of St Triduan’s aisle, founded in the Collegiate Church of Restalrig by James Bishop of Ross. The existence both of the church and parish at the death of Alexander III. is proved by various charters. In 1291, Adam of St Edmunds, parson of Lestalric, obtained a writ to the Sheriff of Edinburgh to put him in possession of his lands and rights ; and the same ecclesiastic swore fealty to Edward in 1296.l The portion of the choir now remaining cannot date earlier than the fourteenth century, and is much plainer jhan might be expected in a church enriched by the contributions of three successive monarchs, and the resort of so many devout pilgrims, as to excite the special indignation of one of the earliest assemblies of the Kirk as a monument of idolatry. An ancient crypt or mausoleum of an octangular form and of large dimensions, stands on the south side of the church. It is constructed internally with c1 groined roof springing from a single pillar in the centre ; and is still more beautifully adorned externally with some venerable yews that have taken root in the soil accumulated on its roof. This ancient mausoleum is believed to have been erected by Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig, knight, in the earlier part of the sixteenth century: and has evidently been constructed on the model of St Margaret’s Well, which still stands in its neighbourhood. It afterwards became the property of the Lords Balmerinoch, and on their forfeiture in 17’46 it passed to the Earls of Bute, whose property it now remains. In the year 1560 the Assembly, by a decree dated December 21, ‘‘ finds that the ministrie of the word and sacraments of God, and assemblie of the peiple of the whole parochin of Restalrig, be within the Kirk of Leith ; and that the Eirk of Restalrig, as a monument of idolatrie, be raysit and utterly castin doun and destroyed ; ” and eleven years thereafter we find ita materials taken to build a new port at the Nether Bow. Not far from the ancient Collegiate Church of Restalrig, on the old road to Holyrood Abbey, is the beautiful Gothic Well dedicated to St Margaret, the Patron Saint of Scotland. An octagonal building rises internally to the height of about four and a half feet, of plain ashlar work, with a stone ledge or seat running round seven of the sides, while the eighth is occupied by a pointed arch which forms the entrance to the well. From the centre of the water which fills the whole area of the building, pure aa in the days of the pious Queen, a decorated pillar rises to the same height as the walls, with grotesque gurgoils, from which the water has originally been made to flow. Above this springs a beautiful groined roof, presenting, with the ribs that rise from corresponding corbels at each of the eight angles of the building, a singularly rich effect when illuminated by the reflected light from the water below. A few years since this curious fountain stood by the side of the ancient and little frequented cross-road leading from the Abbey Hill to the . village of Restalrig. A fine old elder tree, with its knotted and furrowed branches, spread a luxuriant covering over its grass-grown top, and a rustic little thatched cottage stood in front oT it, forming altogether a most attractive object of antiquarian pilgrimage. Unhappily, however, the inexorable march of modern improvement has visited the spot. A station of the North British Railway now occupies the site of the old elder tree and the rustic cottage ; a Caledonia, voL ii p. 785. * “Obitus domini Roberti Logam, militia, donatoris fundi preceptoris Sancti Anthonii pmpe Leith, anno Domini 14%9.”-Obituarg of the Preceptmy of St Anthony. a The Booke of the U n i v e d Kirk, p. 5. ... ANTIQUITIES. 399 charter of James IV., dated a few months before the Battle of modden, the Abbots ...

Book 10  p. 438
(Score 0.58)

130 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig. By interdict the directors were compelled to give access to the well, which they grudgingly did by a species of drain, till the entire edifice was removed to where it now stands. Near the site of the well is the ancient church of Restalrig, which, curiously enough, at first sight has all the air of an entirely modern edifice ; but on a minute inspection old mouldings and carvings of great antiquity make their appearance in conjunction with the modern stonework of its restoration. It is a simple quadrangular building, without aisles or transept. The choir, which is the only part of the building that has escaped the rough hands of the iconoclasts of the sixteenth century, is a comparatively small, though handsome, specimen of Decorated English Gothic ; and it remained an open ruin until a fev years since, when it was restored in a manner as a chapel of ease for the neighbouring district. But a church existed here long before the present one, and it was celebrated all over Scotland for the tomb of St. Triduana, who died at Restalrig, and whose shrine was famous as the resort of pilgrims, particularly those who were affected by diseased eyesight. Thus, to this day, she is frequently painted as carrying her own eyes on a salver or the point of a sword. A noble virgin of Achaia, she is said to have come to Scotland, in the fourth century, with St. Rule. Her name inferred that the well afterwards called St. Margaret?s was the well of St. Triduana. Curiously enough, Lestalric, the ancient name of Restalrig, is that by which it is known in the present day; and still one of the roads leading to it from Leith is named the Lochsterrock Road The existence of a church andparish here, long prior to the death of King Alexander 111. is proved by various charters ; and in 1291, Adam of St. Edmunds, prior of Lestalric, obtained a writ, addressed to the sheriff of Edinburgh, to put him in possession of his lands and rights. The same ecclesiastic, under pressure, like many others at SEAL OF THE COLLEGIATE cnmcn OF RESTALRIG. is unknown in the Roman Breviary; but a recent writer says, ?? S t Triduana, with two companions, devoted themselves to a recluse life at Roscoby, but a Pictish chief, named Nectan, having been attracted by her beauty, she fled into Athole to escape him. As his emissaries followed her there, and she discovered that it was her eyes which had entranced him, she plucked them out, and, fixing them on a thorn, sent them to her admirer. In consequence of this practical method of satisfying a lover, St. Triduana, who came to Restalrig to live, became famous, and her shrine was for many generations the resort of pilgrims whose eyesight was defective, miraculous cures being effected by the waters of the well.? Sir David Lindsay writes of their going to ? St. Trid well to mend their ene;? thus it has been the time, swore fealty to Edward I. of England in 1296. Henry de Leith, rector of Restalrig, appeared as a witness against the Scottish Knights of the Temple, at the trial in Holyrood in 1309. The vicar, John Pettit, is mentioned in the charter of confirmation by James III., under his great seal of donations to the Blackfriars of Edinburgh in 1473.. A collegiate establishment of considerable note, having a dean, with nine prebends and two singing boys, was constituted at Restalrig by James III., and completed by James V. j but it seems not to have interfered with the parsonage, which remained entire till the Reformation. The portion of the choir now remaining does not date, it is supposed, earlier than from the fourteenth century, and is much plainer, says Wilson, than might be expected in a church enriched by the contributions of three pious monarchs in succession, and resorted to by so many devout pilgrims as to excite the special indignation of one of the earliest assemblies of the Kirk, apparently on account of its abounding with statues and images. By the Assembly of 1560 it was ordered to be ? raysit and utterly casten doun,? as a monument of idolatry; and this order was to some extent obeyed, and the ?? aisler stanis ? were taken by Alexander Clark to erect a house with, but were used by the Reformers to build a new Nether Bow Port. The parishioners of Restalrig were ordered in future to adopt as their parish church that of St. Mary?s, in Leith, which continues to the present day to be South Leith church. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig. By interdict the directors were compelled to give access to the well, ...

Book 5  p. 130
(Score 0.58)

ST LEONARD'S, ST MARY'S WYND, AND COWGATE. 331 operations, the workmen found beyond the old city wall, and at a depth of eighteen feet below the level of the present Cowgate, a common shaped barrel, about six feet high, standing upright, imbedded eighteen inches deep in a stratum of blue clay, and with a massive stone beside it. The appearance of the whole suggested the idea that the barrel had been so placed to collect the rain water from the eaves of a neighbouring house, and with a stepping-stone to enable any one to reach its contents. At a little distance from this, to the westward, and about the same depth, a large copper vessel was found, measuring fully eighteen inches in diameter by six inches deep. This interesting relic is now deposited in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, along with some portions of the barrel staves, and there can be no question that both had formed at a very remote period part of the eurta supelkx of a citizen of note. The size of the copper vessel is of itself a proof of its owner.% wealth, and could only have belonged to some person of distinction. But the most curious inference derived from these discoveries is the evidence they afford of the gradual rising of the street in the course of ages. Some years before a pavement was discovered, about twelve feet below the surface, in digging towards the east end of the Cowgate for a large drain, and here domestic utensils, at a still lower level, proved how gradual, yet unceasing, must have been the progress of this phenomenon common to all ancient cities. From the want of police regulations in the Middle Ages, refuse and rubbish accumulated on the street, and became trodden down into a firm soil, until even pavements were lost sight of, and the bases of the buildings were adapted to the new level.' In the ancient title-deeds of Merchant's Court, already referred to as the mansion of the Earl of Haddington, it is described as '(that great lodging, with the yaird, well, closs, and perta thereof, lying betwixt ye lands pertaining to umq" Wm. Speed, bailie, and me certain trance regal, leading to ye Grayfrer's Port, on ye west. The arable land, or croft of the Sisters of ye Nuns of ye Sheyns, on ye south, &c." On a part of this ground lying to the south of the Cowgate, and belonging to the Convent of St Catherine de Sienna, a corporation was established so early as 1598, for the brewing of ale and beer, commodities which have ever since been foremost among the staple productions of Edinburgh. The name Society, which still pertains to this part of the town, preserves B record of this ancient company of brewers, and from the same cause, the neighbouring Greyfriars or Bristow Port, is frequently styled Society Port' Between this and the Cowgate lies the once fashionable district, which a correspondent of the Edinburgh Advertiser in- 1764 styles '' that very elegant square, called Brown Square," and which he thinks wants nothing to complete its beauty but (' an elegant statue of his Majesty in the middle f " Such a project might not now seem so extravagant, since the improvers of the neighbourhood have swept away the east and west sides of it, and thrown it open to the great public thoroughfare of the neighbourhood; but at that time it was a little square area not so large as S c o l ~N~ov,. 16, 1844. ' '.The foundation and building of the howssis for sill and beir brewing, beqd the Grayfrier Port, callit the Societie, was begun in the yeir of God, 1598."-f&t. of King Jam the Sed, p. 374, In ye beginning of yie moneth, the Societie begrin to yr work at the Gxay Friar Kirke."-BireZs Diary. A curious fragment of the Old Town wall remains to the south of Society buildings, and one of them, built upon it, is a singular and unique Bpecimen of early architecture, wrought in ornamental panels between the windows, and with deep eaves to the roof, somewhat in the style of the old brick and timber fronts, common at Canterbury and other ancient English towna Adjoining thia was a Jong-established tavern, which bore the quaint name of the E& in thc Way. " Ap. 26,1598. ... LEONARD'S, ST MARY'S WYND, AND COWGATE. 331 operations, the workmen found beyond the old city wall, ...

Book 10  p. 361
(Score 0.58)

ST LEONARD’S, ST MARY’S WYND, AND COWGATE. 3’3 name.’ This district anciently formed a part of the town of St Leonards, as it is styled in the charter of Charles I. confirming the superiority of it to the magistrates of Edinburgh; and the name of Pleasance, that early superseded its quaint title of Dearenough, and by which the main thoroughfare of this ancient village is still known, preserves a solitary memorial of its long extinct convent. Some singularly primitive erections, which remain on the east side of the street, undoubtedly belong, at the latest, to the early part of the sixteenth century. A plain but very substantial substructure of stone is surmounted by a timber superstructure mainly consisting of a long sloping roof, pierced with irregular windows and loopholes wherever convenience has suggested an opening; while the whole plan of domestic archit,ecture is evidently the result of a state of society when it was no upusual occurrence for the villager to carry off his straw roof along with him, and leave the enemy to work their will on the deserted walls.’ St John’s Hill and the village of Pleasance form a portion of the long ridge which skirts the valley at the base of Salisbury Crags. The whole of this ground appears to have been ecclesiastical property in early times, and appropriated to various religious foundations, all of which were subject to the canons of Holyrood.s St Leonard’s Lane bounded it on the south, separating it on that side from the Borough Muir. At the junction of these lands there stood, in ancient times, a cross, which is understood to have been erected in memory of one Umfraville, a person of distinction, who was slain on the spot in some forgotten ~ontest.~T he shaft of the cross had long disappeared, having probably been destroyed at the Reformation ; but the base, a large square plinth, with a hollow socket in which it had stood, was only removed in the early part of the present century. On an eminence at the end of the lane stood the chapel and hospital of St Leonard, but not a fragment of either is now left, though the font and holy water stoup remained in Maitland’s time, and the enclosed ground was then Bet apart as a cemetery for self-murderers. The hospital was one of those erected for the reception of strangers, and the maintenance of the poor and infirm, and near to it there was another on the road betwixt Edinburgh and Dalkeith, founded by Robert Ballantyne, Abbot of Holyrood, for seven poor people. Of these hospitals, which were governed by a superior who bore the title of Magister, Spottiswoode enumerates twenty-eight in Scotland at the period of the Ref~rmation.~S t Leonard’a Chapel was the scene of a traitorous meeting of the Douglases, held on the 2d of February 1528, to concert the assassination of their Maitland, p. 176. Piacenza, or Placentia, is now the second town in the Duchy of Parma The Chiirch of S. Maria di Campagnq belongs to the Franciscan Friars. It was made the subject of special privileges by Pope Urban II., owing to his mother being buried there, A relic of a remoter era, a copper coin of the Roman Emperor Yespasian, was found in a garden in the Pleasance, and presented to the Society of Antiquaries in 1762.-Account of the Society, p. 72. 8 The following names of property in the neighbourhood of Ediuburgh occur in the Stent Rolls of Holyrood, 1578- 1630 :-‘‘ The Kirkland of Libertoun, the landis callit Pleasance and Deiranewch, the aikeris callit Biedmannis Croft of Sanct Leonardis gait, the landis of Bonyngtoun, the landis of Pilrig and mmmoun mvir, the landis of Wareistoun, the landis of Brochtoun, the landis of Coittia, the landis of Sauchtonhd and Sauchton,” &c.-Liber Cartarum, p. cxvii. 4 Maitland, p. 276, Umfraville was the name of an old border family of note, whose Castle of Harbottle, in the middle marches, passed by marriage into the Talbois family. Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Urnfraville, knight of Harbottle, is mentioned by Wood as married, about 1430, to Sir John Constable of Halaham, arceator of the Viscounts Dunbar. , Spottiswoode’s Religious Houses, p. 291. 2 B - ... LEONARD’S, ST MARY’S WYND, AND COWGATE. 3’3 name.’ This district anciently formed a part of the town of ...

Book 10  p. 341
(Score 0.56)

128 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. distinguished for his good taste and public spirit, No one maintained a more liberal establishment. His horses were always of superior mettle, and his carriage the most handsomely mounted in the district ; but, by his succession to the title and estates of Eglinton, a new and more extended field was opened. His predecessors, Earls Alexander and Archibald, had greatly improved their lands especially in the neighbourhood of Kilwinning. ‘‘ They set the example,” says a writer in 1803, “of introducing a new mode of farming-subdividing the land-sheltering it by belts of wooding, and planting the little rising mounts on their vast estates, by which means Ayrshire has become like a garden, and is one of the richest and most fertile counties in Scotland.” Earl Hugh was not behind his predecessors. The first thing which presented itself as an object of improvement was the old Castle ; which had been the family seat for nearly five hundred years. It was no doubt sufficiently strong, but always terminated by a dinner of “beef and greens,” and a suitable quantity of punch, at the expense of the vanquished ; and no penon waa more delighted than the Laird when he happened to dine at the expense of the Major. The Major, like his father, was social in his habits ; and, among those who used to frequent the “big house,” none were more welcome to dinner than the famous John Rankine, the Baron Bailie of Haughmerk-a small estate in the neighbourhood of Tarholton, then the property of one M‘Lure, a merchant in Ayr, but which now belongs to the Duke of Portland. Rankine WBS locally well known for his wit and Bacchanalian propensities ; but he has been rendered niore enduringly celebrated by the epistle of Burns, in which the poet addresses him- The wail 0’ cocks for fun and drinking.” “ 0 rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine, There are many anecdotes told of the Baron Bailie’s “ cracks and cants.” He had always a shilling to spend ; and while he kept the table in a roar, nothing gave him greater pleasure than to see his cronies, one by one, brought under by the stout John Barleycorn. The Bailie always seemed to drink fair; yet very seldom got top-heavy himself. One device by which he occasionally liept the bowl in circulation was a small wooden apparatus, on the principle of the modern “wheel of fortune,” xrliich he called “ whigmaleerie.” Whoever whigmaleerie pointed to was doomed to drink the next glass ; and by this species of “ thimble-rigging ” it may be guessed the Bailie seldom left many sober in the company. As an instance of the good old times, we may mention, by way of gossip, that during Rsnkine’s bailieship of Haughmerk, when the Martinmas rents were paid, his tenants were convened at the house of the miller on his estate, called the Mill-burn Mill, where ale and British spirits had been retailed by each successive miller, from time immemorial, and a good dinner and drink providedthe Bailie acting as croupier. None went from the Mill empty ; and sonie of the older people, who never drank but once a year, had frequently to be taken home in the miller’s cart. The celebrated Laird of Logan was another frequent visitor at Coilsfield j and when there on one occasion with John Hamilton of Bargany, a staunch supporter of the honour and credit of his native district of Carrick, Mossman, a native of Maybole, was brought before Mr. Montgomerie as a Justice of the Peace, on suspicion of having committed an act of theft, Mr. Montgomerie called in the aid of his friends, who were also in the commission of the peace, to investigate the case, when it was resolved that the prisoner ahould be sent to Ayr jail for trial. The Laird of Logan assigned three reasons for concurring in the warrant:-lst, Because the prisoner had been found on the king’s highway without cause : Zd, Because he had I‘ wan’ered in his discoune ;” and, 3d, Because he belonged to Carrick I The last was a fling at Bargany, and had the effect intended of provoking him to a warm defence of his district, Mossman suffered the last penalty of the law, for the trifling theft with which he waa charged, alongst with other two felons, at Ayr, on the 20th May 1785. At the execution of these unfortunate men, the main rope by which they were suspended broke when they were thrown off (it is supposed from having been previoiisly eaturated with vitriol) ; and they remained in a half-hanged state until a new rope was procured, to carry their sentence into execution. ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. distinguished for his good taste and public spirit, No one maintained a more liberal ...

Book 9  p. 171
(Score 0.55)

334 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nicolson Sheet There was then in Edinburgn a merchant, named Charles Jackson, to whom Charles 11. had acted as godfather in the Kirk of Keith, and Jackson was a name assumed by Charles after his escape in the Royal Oak. In consideration of all this, by an advertisement in the Courant, Mr. Jackson, as being lineally descended from a stock of royalists, ?invited all such to solemnise that memorable day (29th May) at an enclosure called Charles?s Field, lying a mile south from this city (where he hath erected a very useful bleachingfield), and there entertained them with a diversity of liquors, fine music, 8rc.? He had a huge bonfire lighted, and a tall pole erected, with a large banner displayed therefrom, and the royal oak painted on it, together with the bark in which his sacred majesty made his escape, and the colonel who accompanied him ?The company around the bonfire drank Her Majesty Queen Anne?s health, and the memory ot the happy Restoration, with great mirth and demonstrations of loyalty. The night concluded with mirth, and the standard being brought back to Mr. Jackson?s lodgings, was carried by ZoyaZ gentlemen bareheaded, and followed by several others with trumpets, hautboys, and bagpipes playing before them, where they were kindly entertained.? (Reliquiz Scofia.) CHAPTER XXXIX. NICOLSON STREET AND SQUARE. Lady Nicolson-Her Pillar-Royal Riding School-M. Angelo-New Surgeons? Hall-The Earl of Leven-Dr. Barthwick Gilchrist-The Blind Asylum-John Madmen-Sir David WilkicRaxburgh Parish-My Glenorchy?r Chapel. NICOLSON STREET, which runs southward to the Cross Causeway, on a line with the South Bridge,was formed about the middle of the eighteenth century, on the grounds of Lady Nicolson, whose mansion stood on an area now covered by the eastern end of North College Street ; and a writer in a public print recently stated that the house numhered as 82 in Nicolson Street, presently occupied as a hotel, was erected for and occupied by her after the street was formed. In Shaw?s ? Register of Entails ? under date of Tailzie, 7th October, 1763, and of Registration, 4th December, 1764, is the name of Lady Nicolson (Elizabeth Carnegie), relict of Mr. Tames Nicolson, with note of the lands and heritable subjects in the shire of Edinburgh that should belong to her at her death. In Edgar?s plan for 1765, her park, lying eastward of the Potterrow, is intersected by the ?New Road,? evidently the line of the present street, and at its northern end is her mansion, some seventy feet distant from the city wall, with a carriage gate and lodge, the only other building near it being the Royal Riding School, with its stables, on the site of the present Surgeons? Hall. On the completion of Nicolson Street, Lady Nicolson erected at its northern end a monument to her husband. It was, states Amot, a fluted Corinthian column, twenty-five feet two inches in height, with a capital and base, and fourteen inches diameter. Another account says it was from thirty to forty feet in height, and had on its pedestal an inscription in Latin and English, stating that Lady Nicolson having been left the adjacent piece of ground by her husband, had, out of regard for his memory, made it to be planned into ?? a street, to be named from him, Xicolson Street.? On the extension of the thoroughfare and ultimate completion of the South Bridge, from which it was for some years a conspicuous object, it was removed, and the affectionate memorial, instead of being placed in the little square, with that barbarous want of sentiment that has characterised many improvements in Edinburgh and elsewhere in Scotland in more important matters, was thrown aside into the yard of the adjacent Riding School, and was, no doubt, soon after broken up for rubble. One of the first edifices in the newly-formed thoroughfare was the old Riding School, a block of buildings and stables, measuring about one hundred and fifty feet each way. The first ?master of the Royal Riding Menage? was Angelo Tremamondo, a native of Italy, .as his name imports, though it has been supposed that it was merely a mountebank assumption, as it means the tremor of the world, a universal earthquake; but be that as it may, his Christian name in Edmburgh speedily dwindled clown to Aimhe. He was in the pay of the Government, was among the earliest residents in Nicolson Square, and had a salary of Lzoo per annum. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nicolson Sheet There was then in Edinburgn a merchant, named Charles Jackson, to whom ...

Book 4  p. 334
(Score 0.55)

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