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446 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
find that loss sufficiently supplied in other places, where they have a foot too much ; and be$des men’s works
generally resemble themselves-if the poems are lame, so is the author !
Claudero lived ostensibly by teaching a school, which he kept in an old tenement in the Cowgate, at the
bottom of the High School Wynd. By his poetic effusions he contrived to eke out a precarious income, deriving
no unfrequent additions to his slender purse, both by furnishing lampoons to his less witty fellow-citizens who
desired to take their revenge on some offending neighbour by such means, and by engaging to suppress similar
effusions, which he frequently composed on some of the rich but sensitive old burghers, who willingly feed
him to aecure themselves against such a public pillory, He latterly added to his pofasaional income by performing
half-merk marriages, an occupation which, no doubt, afforded him additional eatisfaction, as he was
thereby taking their legitimate duties out of the hands of his old enemies, the clergy.
Claudero, like other great men who have kept the world in awe, was himself subjected to a domestic rule
sutliciently severe to atone to his bitterest enemies for the mongs they suffered from his pen. His wife was an
accomplished virago, whose shrewish tongue subdued the poetic fire of the poor satirist the moment he came
within her sphere, though, probably with little increase. to her own comfort Like other poets’ helpmates, she
had, no doubt, frequent occasion to complain of an empty larder, and the shrill notes of her usual welcome
often helped to send the not unwilling bard to some favourite howf, with its jolly circle of boon companions.
The Echo of the Royal Porch of the Palace of Holyrood-
House, which fell under Military Execution, Anno 1753.” From this it would appear that the military
guardians of the Palace had been employed in this wanton act of destruction. The poet-or rather the Echo
of the Old Porch-thus speaks of these
“ The hst piece in Claudem’s collected poems is,
Sons of Mars, with black cockade :”-
‘‘ They do not always deal in blood ;
Nor yet in breaking human bones,
For Quixot-like they knock down stones.
Regardlesa they the mattock ply,
To root out Scota antiquity.”
In the same vein the poet mourns the successive demolition of the most venerable antiquities of Edinburgh ;
genedy allowing the expiring relic to speak ita own grievances: The following is the lament-for the old City
Cross, which, Claudero insinuates in the last line, was demolished lest ita tattered and time-worn visage should
shame the handsome polished front of the New Exchange ; and this idea is enlarged on in the piece with which
it is followed up in the collection, entitled :-cc The serious advice and exhortation of the Royal Exchange to
the Cross of Edinburgh, immediately before its execution.”
(‘ The Last Speech una Dying Wwda of the Cross of Edidurgh, which war hanged, drawn, and quartwed, on
Monday the 16th of March 1756, for the horrid CTinze of being am Ewrnhrance lo the Street.-
Ye sons of Scotia, mourn and weep,
Express your grief with sorrow deep ;
Let aged sires be bath’d in team,
And ev’ry heart be fill’d with fears ;
Let rugged rocks with grief abound,
And Echo8 multiply the sound;
Let rivers, hills, Iet woods and plains,
Let morning dews, let winds and rainB,
United join to aid my woe,
And loudly mourn my overthrow.-
For Arthur’r Orin and Edinbuvgh Cross,
Have, by new achemers, got a toss;
We, heels o’er head, are tumbled down,
The modern taste ia London town.

Book 10 p. 485
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312 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
“he tenement directly opposite to the site of St Mary’s Chapel, and forming the south
side of the alley leading into Boyd’s Close, is curious, as having been the residence of
James Norrie, painter, the celebrated decorator during the earlier part of last century,
to whom we have already frequently referred. His workshops lay immediately behind, and
adjoining to the coach-house of Lord Milton, as appears from the titles of the property.
Both of them were afterwards converted into stabling for Boyd‘s celebrated White Horse
Inn. This street then formed the approach to the town by one of the great roads from
the south of Scotland ; and here, accordingly, were several of the principal inns. At the
foot of the wynd was Mr Peter Ramsay’s famed establishment, from which he retired with
an ample fortune, and withdrew to his estate of Barnton, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh,
still possessed by his descendants. A large and handsome edifice, with considerable pretensions
to architectural ornament, near the foot of the Pleasance, was the Black Bull Inn,
another of these commodious and fashionable establishments, which the erection of the
North and South Bridges ruined, by diverting the current of visitors to the capital into a
new channel.
Nicoll reports, in 1650, that “ the toun demolished the hail1 houssis in St Marie Wynd,
that the enymie sould haif no schelter thair, bot that thai mycht haif frie pas to thair cannoun,
quhilk thai haid montit upone the Neddir Bow.”’ The earliest date now observable
is that of 1680, cut over the doorway of a house about the middle of the wynd, on the
east side, but one or two other tenements present features of an earlier character. At
the foot of the wpd was situated the Cowgate Port, one of the city gates, constructed
with the extended wall in 1513; and, at a later period, another was erected across the
wynd at its junction with the Pleasance, which was known as St Mary’s or the
Pleasance Port. This was the frequent scene of exposure of the dismembered limbs
of political offenders, as in the case of Garnock and other Covenanters, whose heads
were ordered “to be struck off, and set up upon pricks upon the Pleasance Port of
Edinburgh.”a The old ,Port was demolished on the approach of the rebels in
1715, from the daculty of maintaining it in case of assault; but part of the wall
remained, surmounted by one of the iron spikes, until it was demolished in 1837 to
make way for the new Heriot’s School. This ancient thoroughfare is commended in
Ferguson’s address to Add Reekie, as the unfailing resort of threadbare poets and
the like patrons of the Edinburgh rag-fair. It still continues to be the mart for such
miscellaneous merchandise, flaunting in the motley colours of cast-off finery, and
presided over by
“ St Mary, broker’s guardian ~aunt.”~
Beyond St Mary’s Port, lay the Nunnery dedicated to Sancta Maria de Placentia. It
stood about sixty yards from the south-east angle of the city wall, not far from the foot
of Roxburgh Street ; but of this ancient religious foundation little more is known than the
Chapel, Niddry’s Wynd ; the Virgin Mary’s Chapel, Portsburgh ; the Hospital of Our Lady, Leith Wynd ; the Chapel
and Convent of St Mary de Placentia in the Pleasance; the great Church at Leith, of old styled St Nary’s Chapel; and
the Collegiate Church of Restalrig, the seal of which-now of very rare occurrence-bears the figure of the Virgin and
Child, under a Gothic canopy.
Nicoll’s Diary, p. 24. Keith‘s Hist. Spottiswoode Soc., voL ii. p. 619.
The east side of this narrow wynd has now been entirely removed, and a spacious street substituted, named St
* Fountainhall’s Decisions, vol. i p. 159.
Mary’s Street.

Book 10 p. 340
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370 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
were exhumed in digging for the foundation of the north pier of the Dean Bridge. They
we very slightly burned, and the ornamental devices, which have been traced on the soft
clay, bear a striking resemblance to those usually found on the fragments of ancient
pottery which have been discovered in the Tumuli of the North
American Continent. Annexed is a view of one of those discovered
at the Dean, and now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries.
Another interesting feature which belongs to the history of the
New Town, in common with many other cities, is the absorption of
hamlets and villages that have sprung up at an early period in the
neighbouring country and been gradually swallowed up within its
extending outskirts. First among such to fall before the progress
of the rising town, was the village of Moutrie’s Hill, which stood
on the site of the Register Office and James’ Square, the highest
ground in the New Town. This suburban hamlet is of great antiquity, and its etymology
has been the source of some very curious research. Lord Hailes remarks on the subject,
‘‘ Moutrees is supposed to be the corruption of two Gaelic words, signifying the covert
or receptacle of the wild boar.”’ It appears, however, from contemporary notices, to
have derived its name from being occupied by the mansion of the Noutrays, a family of
distinction in the time of James V. A daughter of Alexander Stewart, designed of the
Grenane, an ancestor of the Earls of Galloway, who fell at the Battle of Flodden, was
married in that reign to Moutray of Seafield.’ Upon the 26th April 1572, while the
whole country around Edinburgh was a desolate and bloody waste by reason of long
protracted civil war, a party of the Regent Mar’s soldiers, who had been disappointed in an
ambuscade they had laid for seizing Lord Claud Hamilton, one of the opposite leaders,
took five of their prisoners, Lieutenant White, Sergeant Smith, and three common soldiers,
and hanged them immediately on their return to Leith. The leaders of the Queen’s party,
in Edinburgh, retaliated by like barbarous executions, “ and causit hang the morne theirefter
twa of thair souldiouris vpoun ane trie behind Movtrays Hous, in sicht of thair
aduersaris, in lycht, quha hang ane day, and wer takin away in the nycht be the saidis
aduersaris.”’ Another annalist, who styles the locality ‘‘ The Multrayes in the hill besyid
the toun,” adds, “ The same nycht the suddartia of Leith come to the said hill and cuttit
doun the deid men, and als distroyit the growand tries thairabout, quhairon the suddartis
wer hangit. Thir warres wer callit amang the peopill the Douglass wearres.” ‘ Near to
the scene of these barbarous acts of retaliation, on the ground UON occupied by the buildings
at the junction of Waterloo Place with Shakespeare Square: formerly stood an ancient
stronghold called Dingwdl Castle. It is believed to have derived its name from John
Dingwall, who was Provost of the neighbouring Collegiate Foundation of Trinity College,
and one of the original Judges of the Court of Session on the spiritual side. The rains of
the castle appear in Gordon of Rothiemay’s map as a square keep with round towers at
its angles; and some fragments of it are believed to be still extant among the fouudations
of the buildings on its site. Near to this also there would appear to have been an
‘
Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 96. * Wood’s Peerage, voL i p. 618. Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 262. ’ Ibid, p. 294.
* Shakespeare Square, in the centre of which stood the old Theatre Rojal, was removed in 1860 for the erection of
the new Poet-Office.

Book 10 p. 407
(Score 0.56)

260 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
be considered its culminating point. It descended thereafter to Bellevue House in
Drummond Place, built by General Scott, the father-in-law of Mr Canning, which house
was demolished in 1846, in completing the tunnel of the Edinburgh and Leith Railway ;
and now, we believe, the exciseman no longer possesses a ‘ I local habitation ” within the
Scottish capital.
On the southern side of the High Street, below “the Tron,” some few remains of
antiquity have escaped the ruthless hand of destruction, though the general character of
the buildings partakes largely of modern tameness and insipidity. Previoua to the
commencement of the South Bridge in 1785, the east end of the Tron Church, which has
since been considerably curtailed, abutted on to a large and stately range of building of
polished ashlar, with an arched piazza, supported on stone pillars, extending along nearly
the whole front. A large archway in this building, immediately adjoining the church,
formed the entrance to Marlin’s Wynd, in front of which a row of six stones, forming
the shape of a coffin, indicated the grave of Marlin, a Frenchman, who, having first paved
the High Street in the sixteenth century, seems to have considered that useful work his
best public monument ; but the changes effected on this locality have long since oblite- ‘
rated the pavior’s simple memorial. The same destructive operations swept away the whole
of Niddry’s Wynd, an ancient alley, abounding with interesting fabrics of an early date,
and associated with some of the most eminent citizens of former times. Here was the
civic palace of Nicol Udward, Provost of Edinburgh in 1591, a large and very handsome
quadrangle building, of uniform architectural design and elegant proportions, in which
King James VI. and his Queen took up their residence for a time in 1591.‘ This
building appears, from the description of it, to have been one of the most magdcent
private edifices of the Old Town.’ In the same wynd, a little further down on the
opposite side, stood St Mary’s Chapel, an ancient religious foundation dedicated to the
Virgin Mary. It was founded and endowed by Elizabeth, Countess of Ross, in 1504,
the widow of John, Lord of the Isles, who was outlawed and forfeited by James III. for
treasonable correspondence with Edward IV. of England. She was the eldest daughter
of James, Lord Livingston, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and appears to have held
considerable property by special charters in her own behalf. A modern edifice has been
substituted for the ancient chapel before the demolition of Niddry’a Wynd, which formed
the hall of the corporation of wrights and masons. It was acquired by them in 1618,
since which they have borne the name of the United Incorporations of May’s Chapel.
The modern erection appeared from it,s style to have been built early in the eighteenth
century, and its name is now transferred to their unpretending hall in Bell’s Wynd.
On entering Dickson’s Close, a little farther down the street, the first home the visitor
comes to on the left hand is a neat and very substantial stone edifice, evidently the work
of Robert Mylne, and built about the period of the Revolution. Of its first occupants
we can give no account, but one of its more recent inhabitants is calculated to give it a
peculiar interest. Here was the residence of David Allan, ‘‘ our Scottish Hogarth,” as
he was called, an artist of undoubted genius, whose fair fame has suffered by the tame
insipidity which inferior engravers have infused into his illustrations to Ramsay and
Burna. The satiric humour and drollery of his well-known ‘‘ rebuke scene ” in a country
...
l Bnte, p. 89. ’ For a detailed account of this very interesting old building, vide Minor Bntiquitieq p. 207,

Book 10 p. 282
(Score 0.56)

4 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
a right to dues to nearly the same amount from the royal revenues at the port of Perth,
the more ancient capital of Scotland; justifying the quaint eulogy of his royal descendant,
that “he was an soir sanct for the crown.’”
By another important grant of this charter, liberty is given to the Canons to erect a burgh
between the Abbey and the town of Edinburgh, over which they are vested with supreme
rule, with right of trial by duel, and by fire and water ordeal. Hence the origin of the
burgh of Canongate, afterwards the seat of royalty, and the residence of the Scottish
nobility, as long as Scotland retained either to herself. In the same charter also, the first
authentic notice of the parish church of St Cuthbert’s, and the chapelries of Corstorphine
and Libberton are found, by which we learn that that of St Cuthbert’s had already, at this
early date, been endowed with very valuable revenues ; while it confirms to its dependency
at Libberton, certain donations which had been made to it by ‘( Macbeth of Libberton,”
in the rei@ of David I., erroneously stated by Arnot a as Macbeth the Usurper.
The well-known legend of the White Hart most probably had its origin in some real
occurrence, magnified by the superstition of a rude and illiterate age. More recent observations
at least suffice to show that it existed at a much earlier date than Lord Hailes
referred it to.’ According to the relation of an ancient service-book of the monastery, in
which it is preserved, King David, in the fourth year of his reign, was residing at the
Castle of Edinburgh, then surrounded with ‘( ane gret forest, full of hartis, hyndis, toddis,
and sic like manner of beistis ; ” and on the Rood Day, after the celebration of mass, he
yielded to the solicitations of the young nobles in his train, and set forth to hunt, notwithstanding
the earnest dissuasions of a holy canon, named Alkwine. “ At last, quhen
he we; cumyn throw the vail that lyis to the eist fra the said Castell, quhare now lyis the
Cannongait, the staill past throw the wod with sic noyis and dyn of bugillis, that all the
bestis wer raisit fra thair dennis.” The King, separated from his train, was thrown from
his horse, and about to be gored by a hart with auful and braid tyndis,” when a cross
slipt into his hands, at sight of which the hart fled away. And the King was thereafter
admonished, in a vision, to build the Abbey on the spot.’ The account is curious, as
affording a glimpse of the city at that early period, contracted within its narrow limits,
and encircled by a wild forest, the abode alone of the fox and the hind, where now for
centuries the busy scenes of a royal burgh have been enacted.
David I. seems to have been the earliest monarch who permanently occupied the Castle
as a royal residence-an example which was followed by his successors, down to the disastrous
period when it was surrendered into the hands of Edward I. ; so that with the reigu
of this monarch, in reality begins the history of Edinburgh, as still indicated to the historian
in the vestiges that survive at the present day. After the death of David I., we find
the Castle successively the royal residence of his immediate successor, Malcolm IT., of
Alexander II., and of William, surnamed the Lion, until after his defeat and capture by
Henry IL of England, when it was surrendered with other principal fortresses of the kingdom,
in ransom for the King’s liberty. Fortunately, however, that which was thus lost
with the fortunes of war, was speedily restored by more peaceful means ; for an alliance
Sir D. Lindsay’s Satyre of the Estaitis.
Vide Liber Cart. Sancts Crucis, pp, 8 and 9.
Ed. 1806, vol. ii. p. 67.
Macbeth the Usurper waa slain 1056.
’ Amot, p. 5. Macbeth of Libberton’s name occurs aa a witness to several royal charters of David I. [1124-53.1
* Annals, David I. Liber Cart. Sancta, Crucis, p. xii.

Book 10 p. 5
(Score 0.56)

38 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
The streets of Edinburgh continued to partake largely of the general misrule that
prevailed throughout the kingdom during the long minority of James V. The Lord Home
had convened a council of the nobility so early as 1515, to devise some remedy for the
anarchy that existed, and at his urgent suggestion, John Duke of Albany was invited
from France to assume the reins of government. On his arrival the same year, “he
wes ressaueit with greit honour, and convoyit to Edinburgh with ane greit cumpany, with
greit blythnes and glore, and thair wes constitute and maid governour of this realme;
and sone thairefter held ane Parliament, and ressaueit the homage of the lordis and thre
estaittis ; quhai’r thair wes mony thingis done for the weill of this cuntrey. Evil1 doaria
wes punnesit; amang the quhilkis ane Petir Moffet, ane greit reyer and theif, was heidit,
and for exampill of vtheris, his head wes put on the West Port of Edinburgh.”’ The
Duke took up his residence at Holyrood, and seems to have immediately proceeded with
the enlargement of the Palace, in continuation of the works which the late King had
carried on till near the close of his life. Numerous entries in the Treasurer’s accounts,
for the year 1515-16, furnish evidence of the building being then in progress.
The new governor, after having made a tour of the kingdom and adopted many stringent
measures for strengthening his party, returned to Edinburgh, and summoned L convention
of the nobility to meet him in the Abbey of Holyrood. But already the Lord Chamberlain
had fallen out of favour, and ‘‘ Prior John Hepburn of St Andrews clamb next the
Governor, and grew great in the Court, and remembered of old malice and envy betwixt
him and the Humes.”’ Lord Home, who had been the sole means of the Duke of Albany’s
elevation to the regency, was suddenly arrested by his orders, along with his brother
William. An old annalist states, that “ the Ducke of Albany tooke the Lord Houme,
the chamberlane, and wardit him in the auld touer of Holyrudhouss, which was foundit by
the said Ducke,” ’ an allusion confirming the previous account of the new works in progress
at the palace. A series of charges were preferred against the brothers, of which the
most remarkable is the accusation by the Earl of Jlurray, the natural son of the late King,
that the Lord Chamberlain had caused the death of his father, ‘ L who, by many witnesses,
was proved to be alive, and seen to have come from the battle of Flowden.” They were
both condemned to be beheaded, and the sentence immediately thereafter put in execution,
“and their heads &t on the Tolbooth of Edinburgh,”6 from whence, as we have seen,
they were removed by their faithful adherents, and laid in consecrated ground.
Throughout the minority of James V. the capital continued to be disturbed by successive
outbreaks of turbulence and riot, from the contentions of the nobility and their
adherents, and especially from the struggles of the rival Earls of Angus and Arran. In
order to suppress this turbulent spirit, the Town Council augmented the salary of the
provost, and appointed four attendants armed with halberts, as a perpetual guard to wait
upon him, but altogether without effect on the restless spirit of the nobles.
During nearly the whole of this time the young monarch resided in the Castle of
Edinburgh, pursuing his education under the tuition of Gawin Dunbar, afterwards Archbishop
of Glasgow ; and his sports, with the aid of his faithful page, Sir David Lindsay ;
Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 5. * Marjoribank’s Annale, Liber Cart. p. lxxi. ’ Hawthornden, p. 85.
Crawfurd‘a Lives, vol. i p. 324. Balfour’a Ann. vol. i. p. 245.
a Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 296.

Book 10 p. 40
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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.

Book 10 p. 336
(Score 0.56)

I 60 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
aspectdormer windows rise above the line of roof-and a bold projection supported on
a large ornamental stone corbel, admits of a very tall window at an oblique angle below
it, evidently constructed to catch every stray gleam of light, ere the narrow alley gave way
to the improvements of the royal master-mason. Over the entrance to the stair there is
the very common inscription, Blissit. be. God. in . a l . his. Gi~?is., with the date 1580;
and while the whole of the east side is substantially built of hewn stone, the south front,
-looking directly down the old West Bow-is a very picturesque timber fapade, with
irregular’gables, and each story thrusting its beams farther into the street than the one
below it.
One of the earliest proprietors of this ancient dwelling appears from the titles to have
been Bartholomew Somerville, merchant burgess ; the most conspicuous among those
generous citizens to whose liberality we are mainly indebted for the establishment of the
University of Edinburgh on a lasting basis. “ In December [1839] following,” says
Craufurd, ‘‘ the Colledge received the greatest accession of its patrimony which ever had
been bestowed by any private person. Mr Bartholomew Somervale (the son of Peter
Somervale, a rich burgess, and sometime Baylie),’ having no children, by the good counsel
of his brothers-in-law, Alex. Patrick and Mr Samuel Talfar, mortified to the College
20,000 merks, to be employed for maintenance of an Professor of Divinity, and 6000
merks for buying of Sir James Skeen’s lodging and yaird, for his dwelling.” This
worthy citizen was succeeded in the old tenement by Sir John Harper of Cambusnethan.
Immediately to the east of Milne’s Court, a more modern erection of the same kind
exists, which is associated in various ways with some of the most eminent men that have
added lustre to the later history of the Scottish capital. To this once fashionable and
aristocratic quarter David Hume removed in 1762 from his previous place of residence in
Jack’s Land, Canongate; here also, and in the same house, BoHwell resided when he
received and entertained Paoli, the Patriot Corsican Chief, in 1771, and the still more
illustrious Dr Johnson, when he visited Edinburgh in 1773, on his way to the Western
Islands.
Entering by a narrow alley which pierces the line of lofty houses along the Lawnmarket,
the visitor finds himself in a large court, surrounded by high and substantial
buildings, which have now evidently fallen to the lot of humbler inhabitants than those for
whom they were erected, These spaces, walled off by the intervening houses from the
main street, were in the Scottish metropolis like the similar edsces of the French nobility,
frequently designed with the view of protecting those who dwelt within the gate from the
unwelcome intrusion of either legal or illegal force. But James’s Court scarcely dates
back to times so lawless, having only been erected by a wealthy citizen in 1727, on the
site of various ancient closes, containing the residences of judges, nobles, and dignitaries of
1 Peter Somerville’s house stood near the head of the West Bow, with the Somerville arms over the doorway, surmounted
by his initials, and the date 1602. ’ Craufurd’s Hist of the University, p. 136. An apartment on the first floor of this land, lighted by two large windows
looking into Milne’s Court, has a modern ceiling about ten feet from the floor-a comparison of thie, with the
height of the next story, shows, that a space of about three feet must be enclosed between it and the floor above. It is
exceedingly probable that the modern plaster-work may conceal another painted roof similar to those described in Blyth‘s
Close.

Book 10 p. 174
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I74 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
surmounted by the initials R G.; the arrangement of the interior seemed to have
been designed with a view to its occasional subdivision for the separate lodgment of
illustrious occupants. A projecting turret, which appears in our engraving, enclosed
a spiral stone stair, each of the steps of which was curiously hollowed in front into the
segment of a, circle. This stair afforded access to a small room in the highest floor of
the house, which tradit.ion, as well as the appearance of the apartment, pointed out as
the place of durance of the various noble captives that found a prison within its old walls.
An adjoining closet was also shown, where the lockman waa said to have slept, while in
waiting to do his last office on such of them as spent there the closing hours of life.
Popular rumour even sought to add to the number of these associations, by assigning the
former apartment as that in which the Earl of Argyle spent the last night before his
execution ; where one of his unprincipled and lawless judges was struck with astonishment
and remorse on finding his victim in a sweet and tranquil slumber only a few hours
before passing to the scaffold.
At the period of Argyle’s execution, however, A.D. 1685, this private stronghold of
James VI. had passed out of the hands of subservient customars, into the possession of
the descendants of Sir Thomas Hope,-one of the most resolute opponents of the aggressions
of royalty,-who were little likely to suffer their dwelling to be converted into the
state prison of the bigoted James VII. ; while it is clearly stated by Wodrow, that the
unfortunate Argyle was brought directly from the Castle to the Laigh Council Room,
thence to be conducted to execution.
Very soon after the erection of Gourlay’s house, it became the residence of Sir William
Durie, governor of Berwick, and commander of the English auxiliaries, during the memorable
siege of the Castle in 1573; and thither,-on its surrender, after the courageous
defence, of which a brief account has already been given,‘-the gallant Sir William
Kirkaldy of Grange, and his brother, with the Lord Hume, Lethington, Pittadrow, the
Countess of Argyle, the Lady Lethington, and the Lady Grange, were conducted to await
the bloody revenge of the Regent Morton, and the heartlessness of Queen Elizabeth, that
consigned Sir William Kirkaldy and his brother to the ignominious death of felons.’
David Moyses, who himself held an office in the household of James VI., informs us
that on the 27th of. May 1581, the very year succeeding that of the royal mandates in
favour of Gourlay, the Earls of Arran and Montrose passed from Edinburgh with a body
of armed men, to bring the Earl of DIorton from Dumbarton Castle, where he was in ward,
to take his trial at Edinburgh ; and “ upon the 29th of May, the said Earl was transported
to Edinburgh, and lodged in Robert Gourlay’s house, and there keeped by the waged men.”’
The Earl was held there in strict durance, until the 1st of June, and denied all intercourse
with his friends. On that day the citizens of the capital were mustered in arms on the
l Ante, p. 84.
“ The noblemen past to the said lieutennentis lugeing, callit Goudayes lugeing, thair to remayne quhill farder
aduertisement come fra the Quene of Ingland.”-Diurnal of Occurrenta, p. 333. Calderwood, who furnishes the list of
noble captives, mentions the Laird of Grange as hrought with others from the Abbey to the Cross for execution. Sir
William Durie, we may presume, declined to be hia gaoler, after his death was determined on.-“ When he aaw the
scaffold prepared at the Croce, the day faire, and the aunne ahping cleere, his countenance waa changed,” &c. The
whole narrative is curious and minute, though too long for inserting here.-Calderwood, vol. iii. p. 284.
Hoyses’ Memoira, p. 63. .

Book 10 p. 189
(Score 0.56)

274 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Tweeddale, a somewhat versatile politician, who joined the standard of Charles I. at
Nottingham, in 1642, during the lifetime of his father. He afterwards adopted the
popular cause, and fought at the head of a Scottish troop at the Battle of Marston Moor.
He assisted at the coronation of Charles 11. at Scone, and sat thereafter in Cromwell’s
Parliament as member for the county of Haddington. He was sworn a privy councillor
to the King on his restoration, and continued in the same by James VII. He lived to
take an active share in the Revolution, and to fill the office of High Chancellor of
Scotland under William 111.) by whom he was created Marquis of Tweeddale, and
afterwards appointed High Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament in 1695, while the
grand project of the Darien expedition was pending. He died at Edinburgh before that
scheme was carried out, and is perhaps as good a specimen as could be selected of the
weathcock politician of uncertain times. The last noble occupant of the old mansion
at the Nether Bow was, we believe, the fourth Marquis, who held the office of Secretary
of State for Scotland from 1742 until its abolition. The fine old gardens, which descended
by a succession of ornamental terraces to the Cowgate, were destroyed to make
way for the Cowgate Chapel, now also forsaken by its original founders. This locality
possesses a mysterious interest to our older citizens, the narrow alley that leads into
Tweeddale Court having been the scene, in 1806, of the murder of Begbie, a porter
of the British Linen Company’s Bank-an occurrence which ranks, among the gossips
of the Scottish capital, with the Ikon Basilike, or the Man in the Iron Mask. !heeddale
House was at that time occupied by the British Linen Banking Company, and. as Begbie
was entering the close in the dusk of the evening, having in his possession 24392,
which he was bringing from the Leith Branch, he was stabbed directly to the heart
with the blow of B knife, and the whole money carried off, without any clue being
found to the perpetrator of the deed. A reward of five hundred guineas was offered
for his discovery, but although some of the notes were found concealed in the grounds
of Bellevue, in the neighbourhood of the town, no trace of the murderer could be
obtained. There ia little doubt, however, that the assassin was James Mackoull, a
native of London, and ‘( a thief by profession,” who had the hardihood to return to
Edinburgh the following year, and take up his residence in Rose Street under the name
of Captain Moffat. He was afterwards implicated in the robbery of the Paisley Union
Bank, when 220,000 were successfully carried off; and though, after years of delay,
he was at length convicted and condemned to be executed, the hardy villain obtained a
reprieve, and died in Edinburgh Jail fourteen years after the perpetration of the
undiscovered murder. The exact spot on which this mysterious deed was efYected is
pointed out to the curious. The murderer must have stood within the entry to a stair
on the right side of the close, at the step of which Begbie bled to death undiscovered,
though within a few feet of the most crowded thoroughfare in the town. The lovers
of the marvellous may still be found occasionally recurring to this riddle, and notlist
of Lady Yester’s “Mortifications ” (MS. Advoc. Lib.) is the following:--“At Edinburgh built and repaired ane
great lodging, in the south side of the High Street, near the Nether Bow, and mortified out of the same me yearly an :
rent 200 m. for the poor in the hoapital beside the College kirk 9’; and yrafter having resolved to bestow ye s‘ lodging,
with the whole furniture yrin to Jo : now E. of Tweeddale, her ay, by consent of the Town Council, ministers, and
kirk sessions, she redeemed the a‘ lodging, and freed it, by payment of 2000 merks, and left the sd lodging only burdened
with 40 m. yearly.’’

Book 10 p. 298
(Score 0.56)

3 34 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
world associations with the knights of St John. Here was the strange old timber-fronted
tenement, where rank and beauty held their assemblies in the olden time. Here was the
Provost’s lodging where Prince Charles and his elated counsellors were entertained in
1745, and adjoining it there remained till the last a moment0 of his royal ancestor, James
11.’~m assive wall, and of the old Port or Bow whereat the magistrates were wont to
present the silver keys, with many a grave and costly ceremonial, to each monarch who
entered his Scottish capital in state. Down this steep the confessors of the Covenant were
hurried to execution. Here, too, was the old-fashioned fore stair over which the amazed and
stuppified youth, who long after sat on the bench under the title of Lord Monboddo, gazed in
dreamy horror as the wretched Porteous was dragged to the scene of his crime, on the night
of the 7th September 1736, and near by stood the booth at which the rioters paused,
and with ostentatious deliberation purchased the rope wherewith he was hung at its foot.
Nor must we forget, among its most durable memorabilia, the wizards and ghosts who
claimed possessions in its mysterious alleys, maintaining their rights in defiance of t6e
march of intellect, and only violently ejected at last when their habitations were tumbled
about their ears.
This curious zig-zag steep was undoubtedly one of the most ancient streets in the Old
Town, and probably existed as a roadway to the Castle, while Edwin’s burgh was comprised
in a few mud and straw huts scattered along the higher slope. Enough still remains
of it to show how singularly picturesque and varied were the tenements with which
it once abounded. At the corner of the Lawnmarket is an antique fabric, reared ere
Newton’s law of gravitation wa,s dreamt of, and seeming rather like one of the mansions
of Laputa, whose builders had discovered the art of constructing houses from the chimneytops
downward! A range of slim wooden posts sustains a pile that at every successive
story shoots further into the street until it bears some resemblance to an inverted
pyramid. The gables
and eaves of its north front, which appear in the engraving of the Weigh-house, are
richly carved, and the whole forms a remarknhly striking specimen, the finest that now
rhmains, of an ancient tim6er-land. Next come8 a stone-land, with a handsome polished
ashlar front and gabled attics of the time of Charles I, Irregular string courses decorate
the walls, and a shield on the lowest crowwstep bears the initials of its first proprietors,
I. O., I. B., with a curious merchant’s mark between. A little lower down, in one of the
numerous supplementary recesses that added to the contortions of this strangely-crooked
thoroughfare? a handsomely sculptured doorway meets the view, now greatly dilapidated
and time-worn. Though receding from the adjoining building, it forms part of a stone
turnpike that projects considerably beyond the tenement to which it belongs : so numerous
were once the crooks of the Bow, where every tenement seemed to take up its own
independent standing with perfect indifference to the position of its neighbours. On a
curiouslr-formed dormer window which surmounts the staircase, the city motto appears
to have been cut, but only the first. word now remains legible. Over the doorway below,
a large shield in the centre of the lintel bears the Williamson arms, now greatly defaced
with this inscription, and date on either side, SOLID. EO. HONO.R E T. GLOBIA, D . W .
1 . 6 . 0. 4 . The initials are those of David Williamson, a wealthy burgese in the time
of James VI. But the old stair once possessed-or was believed to possess-strange pro-
It is, nevertheless, a fine example of an old burgher dwelling.

Book 10 p. 365
(Score 0.56)

MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
@if go@ @t. Bpn affIeitit be,
a9cb pail Bag Cbre$t cbm pain to me.
Btuitb ge Map, wafk gotn tbairiti,
Cm5rate ge trii rb, altanbobn -
The last word, obviously Bin, had been curiously omitted, and a dash substituted for
it, as though for a guess or puzzle. In the centre of this roof there was a ring,
apparently for the purpose of suspending a lamp, and in one of the walls there
was a niche with a trefoil arch very slightly ornamented. The fireplace, which was
of very large dimensions, was entirely without ornament, and in no way corresponded
with the style of finish otherwise prevailing in the apartment, although its size and
massive construction seemed to prove that it must have been a portion of the original
fabric.
Another ceiling of a similar form, in a room adjoining this, on the west side of Blyth’g
Close, was adorned with a variety of emblematic designs, mostly taken from Paradin’s
Emblems (the earliest edition of which, as far as we are aware, was published at Lyons
in 1557), and from the Traictd des Devises Royales, although some of them are not to
be found in either of these works,-such as a hand amid flames, holding up a dagger,
with the motto, Agere et pati fortia; 8 branch covered with apples, Ab insomni non
custodita dragoni; and two hands out of a cloud, one ho1ding.a sword, and the other a
trowel, In utrumque paratus, This species of emblematic device was greatly in vogue in
the sixteenth century, and various other works of similar character still exist in the libraries
of the curious. Among other devices on this ceiling, may be mentioned an ape crushing
her offspring in the fervour of her embrace, with the motto, Cc~cus amr prolis ; a serpent
among strawberry plants, Latet unguis in Hr6a ; a porcupine with apples on its spikes,
Magnum vectigal parsimonia, &c.l These devices were united by a series of ornamental
borders, and must have presented altogether an exceedingly lively and striking appearance
when the colours were fresh, and the other decorations of the chamber in consistent
harmony therewith.’
Another interesting feature in the decoration of the ceilings of this once magnificent
mansion, was the blazonry which distinguished the chief ornaments remaining in some of the
rooms. These consisted of the armorial bearings of the Duke of Chatelherault, with his
initials, I. H.; those of France, with the initials H. R.; and, lastly, those of Guise,
impaled with the Scottish Lion, and having the Queen Regent’s intitials, N. R.3 The first
of these occupied the centre of a large entablature in the ceiling of the outer vestibule of
the apartment, where the elegant Gothic niche stood, to which we have given the name of
l It is much to be regretted that no attempt was made to preserve these interesting specimens of early decorations,
which could have been so easily done, as they were all painted on wood. The restoration in one of the apartments of
the New College would have formed a pleasing memorial of the building that it superseded. The only fragmente that
we know of are now in the collection of C. K. Sharpe, Esq. ’ A few items from “A Collection of Inventories, &c.,” 1815, may afford some idea of the probable furnishing of the
walla. “ The Quene Regentis movables, A.D. 1561; Item, ane tapestrie maid of worsett mixt with threid of gold of
the hiatone of the judgment of Salamon, the deid barne and the twa wiffis. Item, ane tapestrie of the historie of the
Creatioun, contening nyne peces; ane of the King Ruboam, contening foure peces ; ane other of little Salamon,” &a.,
p. 126. Sex
cartis of aundrie cuntreis. Twa paintit brcddis, the ane of the muses, and the uther of crotescque or conceptis. Aucht
paintit broddis of the Doctouris of Almaine,” &c.-Ibid, p. 130.
“Of Rownd Cfloibbis and Paintrie. Item, twa gloibbis, the ane of the heavin, the uther of the earth.
* All now in the posseasion of C. K. Sharpe, Esq.

Book 10 p. 162
(Score 0.56)

412 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
to a vow on his receiving a signal mercy from God.” The hospital was placed under the
control of the Town Council, who drew up a series of most gtringent statutes to secure the
good conduct and above all the perfect isolation of the wretched inmates. A gallows was
erected at the end of the hospital to enforce obedience, and eveu the opening of the gate
between sunset and sunrise was declared punishable with the halter. The grassy vale,
within whose natural amphitheatre the earliest exhibitions of the regular drama were
witnessed by the Court of the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, and where the crowds of the
neighbouring capital were attracted at one time by the pastimes that accompanied a Wupinschaw,
and at another by the terrors of judicial vengeance, retained till near the close of
last century nearly the same features that led to its selection for such displays in the reign
of James 11. Pennant, writing in 1769, remarks :-‘( In my walk this evening I passed
by a deep and wide hollow beneath the Caltoun Hill, the place where those imaginary
criminals, witches, and sorcerers, in less enlightened times, were burnt ; and where at festive
Bemons the gay and gallant held their tilts and tournaments.” l The locality still retains
its ancient name of Greenside; but the grassy slope, fromwhence it derived its name, ia
now one of the most densely-populated districts of the New Town.
Beyond the Monastery of, the Carmelites, on the outskirts of Leith, at the south-west
corner of St Anthony’s Wynd, stood the Preceptory of St Anthony, founded by Sir
Robert Logan of Restalrig in 1435. This was the only establishment of the order in
Scotland. They followed the rule of St Augustine, and appear to have been a sort of
religious knights, though not Knight Templars, as they are erroneously styled by Maitland,
who has been misled in this by a charter of James VI. The “Rentale Buke,”
containing a list of the benefactors to the preceptory, written on vellum, in the year 1526,
with a few additions in a later hand, is preserved in the Advocates’ Library, wherein ‘‘ It
is statuit and ordanit in our Scheptour for sindri resonabil causis that the saulis of thaim
that has gevin zeirlye perpetual1 rent to this Abbay and Hospital1 of Sanct Antonis besyd
Leith, or has augmentit Goddis seruice be fundacion, or ony vther vays has gevyn substanciusly
of thair gudis to the byggyn reperacion and vphaldyng of the forsaid Abbay and
place, that thai be prayit for euerylk sunday till the day of dome.” a The list of benefactors
which follows exhibits a pretty numerous array, though in the majority of cases the
benefactions are of no great value. The obituary closes in 1499, and in little more than
half a century thereafter, the prayers for the dead, which the chapter of the preceptory
had ordained to last till the day of doom, were abruptly brought to a close, and the church
or preceptory reduced nearly to a heap of ruins, during the siege of Leith in 1560.’ No
other Scottish foundation appears to have been dedicated to this saint, notwithstanding
his celebrity by means of the picturesque legends which the Romish calender associates
with his name. The ancient Hermitage and Chapel of St Anthony, which occupies a site
of such singular beauty underneath the overhanging crags of Arthur’s Seat, are believed
to have formed a dependency of the preceptory at Leith, and to have been placed there to
catch the seaman’s eye as he entered the Firth, or departed on some long and perilous
voyage ; when his vows and offerings wouId be most freely made to the patron saint, and
the hermit who ministered at his altar. No record, however, now remains to add to the
1 Pennant’s Tour, voL i. p. 69, Lit of Benefadora, &c. Bann. Misc., vol. i i p. 299. Ante, p. 66.

Book 10 p. 451
(Score 0.55)

280 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Orknay, of the rycht of the Grammar Schole during his lyftyme, in favouris of the
baillies and counsall,” who accordingly restored it to him, “ to be haldin of thame, as
thai quha hes undoutitt rycht to dispone the samyne.”l At the head of Rae’s Close, a
little further to the eastward, another long and interesting inscription of the same period,
though earlier in its style, is inscribed over the entrance to the close. It consists of the
following prayer :-
WSERERE ME1 DOMINE ; A PECATO, PROBRO, DEBITO,
ET MORTE SUBITA, ME LIBERA. 1 - 6 - 1 * 8 *
This, which is one of the most beautiful inscriptions of the Old Town, has been recently
partially concealed by a modern shop front; but the whde is given, with a slight variation,
in the Theatmm Mortalium.’ Immediately adjoining this, another stone tenement
of similar character presents its antique gabled faqade to the street, adorned with a
curious figure of a turbaned Moor occupying a pulpit, projecting from a recess over the
second floor. Various romantic stories are told of the Morocco Land, as this ancient
tenement is styled. The following is as complete an outline of the most consistent of
them as we have been able to gather, though it is scarcely necessary to premise that it
rests on very different authority from some of the historical associations previously
noticed :-
During one of the tumultuous outbreaks for which the mob of Edinburgh has rendered
itself noted at all periods, and which occurred soon after the accession of Charles I. to his
father’s throne, the provost-who had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious to the
rioters-was assaulted, his house broken into and fired, and mob law completely cstablished
in the town. On the restoration of order several of the rioters were seized, and,
among others, Andrew Gray, a younger son of the Master of Gray, whose descendants
now inherit the ancient honours and title of that family. He was convicted as the ringleader
of the mob, and, notwithstanding the exertions of powerful friends, such was the
influence of the provostwho was naturally exasperated by the proceedings of the riotersthat
young Gray was condemned to be executed within a day or two after his trial. The
last day of his doomed life had drawn to a close, and the scaffold was already preparing at
the Cross for his ignominious death j but the Old Tolbooth showed, as usual, its proper
sense of the privileges of gentle blood. That very night he effected his escape by means
of a rope and file conveyed to him by a faithful vassal, who had previously drugged a
posset for the sentinel at tAe Purses, and effectually put a stop to his interference. A boat
lay at the foot of one of the neighbouring closes, by which he was ferried over the North
Loch ; and long before the town gates were opened on the following morning, a lessening
Register of the Burgh of the Canongate ; Naitland Club Niscellany, vol. ii. p. 345.
Monteith’s Theatrum MwtaZium, p. 248, where the last two words are incorrectly transposed. Rae’s Cloae
appears, from repeated references to it in the Register of the Burgh, to have been the only open thoroughfare at that
period between Leith Wynd and the Water Gate. e.g., Orders are given, 6th December 1568, “to caus big vpe the
fuit of Ra Cloce.” Again, 18th October 1574, “The Bailleis and Couosale ordains thair Thesaurer to big and upput
an8 yett upon Rais Cloce, and mak the sarnyn lokfast,” a charge for which afterwards appeara in the Treasurer’s accounts.
Mait. f i c . vol. ii pp. 316, 330, 336. Even in 1647, when Gordon’s bird’s-eye view was drawn, only one other
thoroughfare appeara, and nearly the whole ground lying behind the row of houses in the main street consists of open
gardens, with a wall running along the North Back of the Canongate.

Book 10 p. 304
(Score 0.55)

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.

Book 10 p. 252
(Score 0.55)

LEITH, AND THE NEW TOWN. 369
strangle in its birth the rising haven. They purchased the superiority of it from James V. ;
and the Chapel of St James, which appears to have been a dependency of the Preceptory
of St Anthony at Leith,’ being suppressed at the Reformation, it sunk into the mere
fishing village it still remains. The houses are mostly of a homely and uninteresting
character, though on one near the west end of the village a large sculptured pediment is
decorated with a pair of globes, a quadrant, anchor, &c., surmounted by a war galley of
antique form, and with the inscription and date,-rn THE NEAM OF GOD, 1588.
Notwithstanding the modern title of the New Town of Edinburgh, it is not altogether
destitute of antique and curious associations deserving of notice in these Memorials of the
olden time. It has not yet so completely swallowed np‘the arkient features of the broad
landscape that stretched away of old beyond the sedgy banks of the North Loch, but that
some few mementoes of bygone times may still be gleaned amid its formal crescents and
squares. In preparing the site of the New Town and digging the foundations of the houses,
numerous very curious relics of the aborginal owners of the soil have been brought to light.
In the summer of 1822 an ancient grave was discovered by some workmen when digging the
foundation of a house on the west side of the Royal Circus. It position was due north and
south, which is generally regarded as a proof of high antiquity. It was lined all round with
flat stones, and the form of a skeleton was still discernable when opened, lying with the
head to the south ; but the whole crumbled to dust so soon as it was touched. During the
following year, 1823, several rude stone coffins were disclosed in digging the foundation .
of a house on the north side of Saxe-Coburg Place, near St Bernard‘s Chapel ; one of which
contained two urns of baked day, now preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries.
This was, in all probability, a burial-place of the period when the Romans had
penetrated thus far northward; and the Britons, in imitation of their example, adopted the
practice of cremation, while they adhered to the ancient form of their sepulchres. A
minute account is printed in the Archsologia Scotica2 of the discovery, in 1822, of a number
of stone coffins near the ancient Roman station at Cramond. They were of rude construction,
and laid in regular rows, lying due east and west. A representation is also given
of a key found in one of the coffins, not greatly differing in shape from those now in use.
No mention, however, is made of urns, and it is probable that they belong to a more recent
period, after the introduction of Christianity among the ancient Britons. Other stone
coans were discovered about the same time immediately opposite to St Mary’s Church,
in levelling the ground for the New Road ; and similar evidences of the occupation of the
district by native tribes at a very remote period are frequently met with all round Edinburgh.
Several such were found in 1846, along the coast of Wardie, in excavating for the
foundations of one of the bridges of the Granton Railway. During some earlier operations
for the same railway, on the 2ith September 1844, a silver and copper coin of Philip 11.
of Spain, along with a quantity of human bones mingled with sand and shells, were discovered,
apparently at a former level of the beach ; and which were supposed at the time to
be a memento of some Spanish galleon of the Great Armada. Rude clay urns are also of
frequent occurrence ; several such, filled with decayed and half burned bones, and ashes,
“Rentale Portua Gracie alias ’ hchmlogia Saotica, vol. iii. pv,o 4c0a.t a lie New Havyne.”-MS. Ad. Lib. Analysia of’ C Ibhaidr,t uvlaorl.i eisi,i J p. .( 34. 8D, alyell, Esq.
3 A

Book 10 p. 406
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I 68 MEMORIALS OF EDIN3URGH.
dramatic exhibitions, this having been used at one time as a public theatre. On passing
through this, an inner room is reached, which exhibits an exceedingly interesting series
of decorations of an earlier period, still remaining in tolerable preservation. The ceiling,
which is richly ornamented in stucco, in the style that prevailed during the reign of
Charles IL, has a large circle in the centre, containing the royal crown, surrounded by
alternate roses and thistles, and with the date 1678. The remainder of the ceiling is
arranged in circular and polygonal compartments, with the Scottish Lion Rampant, and
the Lion Statant Gardant, as in the English crest, alternately. The walls of this apartment
are panelled in wood, and decorated in the very richest dyle of old Norrie’sl art,
justifying his claim to rank among the landscape painters of Scotland. Every panel in
the room, on shutters, walls and doors, contains a different landscape, some of them
executed with great spirit; even the keystone of an arched recess has a mask painted on
it, and the effect of the whole is singularly beautiful, notwithstanding the injury that
many of the paintings have sustained.
This fine old mansion was originally the residence of Sir John Smith of Grotham,
Provoat of Edinburgh, who, in 1650, was one of the Commissioners chosen by the Committee
of State, to convey the loyal assurances of the nation to Charles 11. at Breda,
taking with them, at the same time, ‘‘ The Covenant to be subscryvit by his Majestie.” a
So recent, we may add, has been the desertion of this locality by the wealthier citizens of
Edinburgh, that the late Professor Pillans, who long occupied the Chair of Humanity
in the University of Edinburgh, was born and brought up within the same ancient
dwelling.
The inner court, of which we furnish an engraving, is a neat, open, paved square, that
still looks as though it might afford a fitting residence for the old courtiers of Holyrood.
The building which faces the visitor on passing through the second large archway, has
long been regarded with interest as the residence of Bailie Macmoran, one of the Magistrates
of Edinburgh in the reign of James VI., who was shot dead by one of the High
School boys, during a barring-out or rebellion in the year 1595. The luckless youth who
fired the rash shot was William Sinclair,’a BOR of the Chancellor of Caithness, and
owing to this he was allowed to escape, his father’s power and influence being too great
to suffer the law to take its course. Until the demolition of the Old High School in 1777,
the boys used to point out, in one part of the building, what was called the Bailie’s
Window, being that through which the fatal shot had been fired.
The Bailie’s initials, I. M., are visible over either end of the pediment that surmounts
the building, and the close is styled, in all the earlier titles of the property, Macmoran’s
Close.’ After passing through several generations of the Macmorans, the house was
Among the List of Subscribers to the first edition of Ramsay’s Poems, published in 1721, are the names of James
Norrie and John Smibert (the friend of the poet), Painters.
* Nicol’s Diary, p. 4. ’ “ William Sinclair, eone to William Sinclair, Chansler of Catnes. . . . . . . There wes ane number of
schollaris, being gentlemen’s bairns, made ane muitinie. . . . . . Pntlie the hail1 townesmen ran to the schooll,
and tuik the said bairns and put yame in the Tolbuith, bot the ha21 bairns wer letten frie w’out hurte done to yame for
ye wme, win ane ahort tyme yairafter.”-Birrell’s Diarp, p. 35.
This close affords a very good example of the frequent changes of name, to which heady the whole of them were
subjected; the last occupant of note generally supplying hia name to the residence of his amemor. It is styled in
the various titles, Macmoran’s, Sir John Smith’s, Royston’s, and Riddle’s Close.

Book 10 p. 182
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APPENDIX. 445
XVI. ST KATHERINE'S WELL.
THE marvellous hiatmy of the origin of this well (page 418) rests on very early authority, Boece gives the
following account of both the well and chapel :--" Ab hoc oppido plus minus duobus passuum miUibuq fons
cui olei guttze innatant, scatturit ea vi, ut si nihil inde collegeris, nihilo plus confluat ; quamtumvia autem
abstuleris nihilo minus remaneat. Natam esse aiunt effuso illic oleo Diva Catherina:, quod ad Divam
Margaritam, ex Monte Sinai adferebatur. Fidem rei faciunt, Fonti nomen Diva: Catherina: inditum, atque in
ejusdem honorem sacellum juxta, Diva Margaritze jussu aedificatum. Valet hoc oleum contra variaa cutis
scabricies." Dr Turner thus describes the substance which forms the peculiar characteristic of this and ~imilar
wells :-
" Petroleum and Bitumen. Under the= names are known certain natural tarry matters, more or less fluid,
which have evidently resulted from the decomposition of wood or coal, either by heat or by spontaneous action
under the surface of the earth. The most celebrated arathose of Persia and the Birman empire, and of Amiano
in Italy.',-(EJements of Chemistry, seventh edition, p. 1182.) I
The following analysis of the water of St Katherine's Well has been made expressly for this work, in the
chemical laboratory of Dr George Wilson, F.S.A. :-"The water from St Katherine's Well contains, after
filtration, in each imperial gallon, grs. 28.11 of solid matter, of which grs. 8.45 consists of soluble sulphates
and chlorides of the earths andalkalies, and gra. 19.66 of insoluble calcareous carbonates."
XVII. CLAUDERO.
THE eccentric poet claudero deserves special notice among the Memorials of Edinburgh in the olden time,
as he has not only commemorated in his verse some of the most striking objects of the Old Town that have
disappeared, but he appears to have been almost the sole remonstrant against their reckless demolition.
James Wilson, the poet and satirist, who amused the citizens some eighty gem ago with. his humorous and
somewhat coarse lampoons, was a native of Cumbernauld, some of whose characters form the subject of his
verse. He was a cripple, in consequence, it is said, of the merciless beating he received from his own parish
minister'at Cumbernauld, where he had rendered himself an object of universal hatred or fear by his. mi'schiefloving
disposition, The account of thk unwonted practice of clerical discipline, which is given in the
Traditions of Edinburgh, states that the occasion of his lameness was a pebble thrown from a tree at the minister
who, having been previously exasperated by his tricks, chased him to the end of a cloQed lane, and with his
cane inflicted such persong chastisement, as rendered him a cripple, and B hater of the whole body of the clergy
all the rest of his life. He went with a crutch under one arm, and a staff in the opposite hand ; one withered
leg swinging entirely free from the ground. The poetical merits of Claudero's compositions are of no very
high order, but it can hardly be doubted, notwithstanding, that all this youthful energy which rendered him
so great a torment to the whole village and parish, might have been turned to some good account under gentler
moral suasion than his Reverence of Cumbernauld applied with the paatoral stuff to his unruly parishioner.
Claudero had the good sense to disarm his numerous enemies of the handle they might find in the satirist's
own personal deformity, by being the first to laugh at himselE In his Miscellanier in Prose and Vwse,
published in 1766, and dedicated to the renowned Peter Williamson, he remarks in the author's preface :-" I
am regardleas of critics ; perhaps some of my lines want a foot ; but then, if the critic look sharp out, he will

Book 10 p. 484
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ECCL ESIA S TICA L ANTIQUITIES. 417
of Gillie Grange, by which a part of it is still known, and that of The Grange, mw the property
of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., preserve memorials of the grange or farm which
belonged of old to the Collegiate Church of St Giles. Here, towards the close of the
prosperous reign of James IV., Sir John Crawford, a canon of St Giles’s Church, founded
and endowed the Church of St John the Baptist, portions of the ruins of which are believed
still to form a part of the garden wall of a house on the west side of Newington, called
Sciennes Hall. The following notice of its foundation occurs in the Inoentar of Pious
Donations, bearing the date 2d March 1512 :-c‘ Charter of Confirmation of a Mortification
be Sir Jo. Crawford, ane of the Prebenders of St Giles Kirk, to a kirk bigged by
him at St Geillie Grange, mortyiefying yrnnto 18 aikers of land, of the said lands, with
the Quarrie Land given to him in Charitie be ye said brongh, with an aiker and a quarter
of a particate of land in his 3 aikers and a half an aiker of the said mure pertaining to
him, lying at the east side of the Common Mure, betwixt the lands of Jo. Cant on the
west, and the Common Mure on the east and south parts, and the Murebrugh, now bigged,
on the north.” This church was designed as a chantry for the benefit of the founder and
his kin, along with the reigning Sovereign, the Magistrates of Edinburgh, and such others
as it was usual to include in the services for the faithful departed in similar foundations,
The chaplain was required to be of the founder’s family or name, and the patronage was
assigned after his death to the Town Council of Edinburgh.
Almost
immediately after its erection, the Convent of St Katherine de Sienna was founded by the
Lady Seytoun, whose husband, George, third Lord Seton, was slain at the Battle of Flodden.
‘( Efter quhais deceisa,” pap the Chronicle of the House of Seytoun, “his ladye
remanit wido continualie xlv yeiris. Sche gydit
hir sonnis leving quhill he was cumit of age; and thairefter sche passit and remainit in
the place of Senis, on the Borrow Mure, besyd Edinburgh, the rest of her lyvetyme.
Quhilk place sche helpit to fund and big as maist principale.” The history of this religious
foundation, one of the last which took place in Scotland in Roman Catholic times,
and the very last, we believe, to receive additions to the original foundation, acquires a
peculiar interest when we consider it in connection with the general progress of opinion
throughout Europe at the period. The Bull of Pope Leo X. by which its foundation is
confirmed, is dated 29th January 1517. Cardinal WoIsey was then supreme in England,
and Henry VIII. was following on the career of a devoted son of the Church which
won him the title of Defender of t h FaitA. Charles V., the future Emperor of Germany,
had just succeeded to the crown of Spain, and Martin Luther was still a brother of the
order of St Aqwstine. This very year Leo X. sent forth John Tetzel, a Dominican monk,
authorised to promote the sale of indulgences in Germany, and soon the whole of Europe
was shaken by the strife of opinions. The peculiar circumstances in which Scotland then
stood, delayed for a time its participation in the movement; and meanwhiIe the revenues
of the convent of St Katherine de Sienna received various augmentations, and the Church
of St John the Baptist was permanently annexed to it as the chapel of the convent. The
nuns, however, were speedily involved in the troubles of the period. In 1544 their convent
shared the same fate as the neighbouring capital, from the barbarous revenge of the
The Church of St John the Baptist did not long remain a solitary chaplainry.
Sche was ane nobill and wyse ladye.
Hi& of House of Seytoun, p, 37.
3 6

Book 10 p. 457
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206 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
He particularly manifested his satisfaction during the following year, when the ejected
ministers had been allowed to return to their pulpits. “All this winter the King and Queen
remained in the Abbey, and came up to the toun aindrie tymes; dynned and supped in the
ministers’ houses behind the kirk. For the King keeped their houses in his owne hand, howbeit
they were restored to their general1 ministrie in Edinburgh.” l To resume our chronological
sketch: in the year 1617, on the return of King James to his Scottish capital, the
old churchyard had so entirely lost all traces of its original character that it was selected
as the scene of a magnxcent civic banquet, with which the magistrates welcomed him back
to his native city. The ministers appear to have been restored after a time to their manses
in the kirkyard, but this-was only by sufferance, and during the royal will ; for in 1632
the ancient collegiate buildings were at length entirely demolished, to make way for the
Parliament House, which occupies their site. On the 14th of August 1656 General
Monck was feasted in the great hall, along with Lord Broghall, President of the Council,
and all the councillors of state, and officers of the army. ‘‘ This feast,” says Nicoll, ‘‘ wes gevin by the toun of Edinburgh, with great solempnitie, within the Parliament Hous,
ritchlie hung for that end. The haill pryme men, and such of thair followeris as wer in
respect, wer all resavit burgessis, and thair burges tickettis delyverit to thame.” a The
Duke of York, afterwards James VII., was feasted by the city within the same old hall,
on his arrival in Edinburgh in the year 1680, along with his Duchess, and the Lady Anne,
who afterwards succeeded to the throne. In 1685 the equestrian statue of King Charles
was erected, almost above the grave of John Knox; and without extending too minutely
these more striking data, we may remind the reader, that the same hall in which the Duke
of York was entertained in 1680, was the scene of the magnificent banquet with which the
next royal visitor was welcomed in 182X3 The open area was at length enclosed with
buildings, at first only low booths, but these were soon after succeeded by the loftiest
private buildings ever reared in this, or probably any other town. In 1676, a considerable
portion of the new buildings were destroyed by fire. Another conflagration succeeded
this in 1700, known by the name of the ‘‘ Great Fire,” which swept the whole magnificent
range of buildings to the ground, and these were only re-erected to experience a third
time the same fate in the year 1824. On the last destruction of the eastern and larger
half of the old Parliament Close, the statue of King Charles was carted off to the Calton
Jail, where his Majesty lay incarcerated for several years, until the complete remodelling
of the whole locality, when he was elevated anew on a handsome pedestal, in which two
marble tablets have been inserted, found among some lumber in the rooms below the
Parliament House, and containing an inscription evidently prepared for the former
Calderwood’s Hist., vol. v. p. 673. Nicoll’s Diary, p. 183.
a The following curious remarks appear in B communisation to the Caledonian blereury, December 224 1788 :-‘‘ It
is somewhat remarkable that the last public dinner that was given in the Parliament House here was to King James
VII., then Duke of York, at which WRS present the Lady Anne, afterwards Queen Anne ; and that the next dinner
that should be given in the eame place-vie., this day-ahould be by the Revolution Club, in commemoration of
his expulsion from the throne ! The whole Court of Scotland,
and a numerous train of noblemen, with the Duke, were present. And the outer hall of the Parliament House
was thrown inta one room upon the occasion. Sir James Dick,
the then Lord Provost, presided (aa the present will do this day). The Duke of Ybrk, and all the noblemen who
were with him, were preaepted with the freedom of the city. The drink-money to the Duke’s servants amounted to
S220 sterling.”
The dinner was given by the Magistrates of Edinburgh.
This dinner cost the city above $21400 aterling.

Book 10 p. 225
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262 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Mackenzie, and who sat for nearly half a century on the Bench under the title of Lord
Strichen. From him it derived its present name of Strichen’s Close, and there is little
probability now that any of his plebeian successors will rob it of the title.
The front tenement, which extends between Strichen’s Close and Blackfriars’ Wynd,
presents no features of attraction as it now stands. It is a plain, modern land, re-erected
after the destruction of its predecessor in one of the alarming fires of the memorable year
1824, and constructed with a view to the humbler requisites of its modern tenants ; but
the old building that occupied its site was a handsome stone fabric of loftier proportions
than its plebeian successor, and formed even within the present century the residence of
people of rank. The most interesting among its later occupants was Lady Lovat, the relict
of the celebrated Simon, Lord Lovat, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1747 ; in consequence
of which it was generally known as Lady Lovat’s Land. It possesses, however,
more valuable associations than this, its ancient title-deeds naming as the original
proprietor, Walter Chepman, the earliest Scottish printer, who introduced the printingpress
into Scotland in the year 1507, under the munificent auspices of James IT. To
the press of Walter Chepman, the admirers of our early national literature still turn,
not without hope that additions may yet be made, by further discovery of its invaluable
fragments, to the writings of those great men who adorned the Augustan age of Scotland.
The building, however, which perished in the conflagration of 1824, did not appear to
be of an earlier date than the period of the Revolution ; soon after which many of the
substantial stone tenements of the Old Town were erected. The more ancient edifice
seems to have been one of the picturesque timber-fronted erections of the reign of
James IT., and formed the subject of special privileges granted by that monarch to his
valued servitor. In the Registers of the Privy Seal (iv. 173), there is preserved the
following royal licence, dated at Edinburgh, February 5, 1510 :-‘‘ A licence maid to
Walter Chepman,.burges of Edinburgh, to haif staris towart the Hie Strete and calsay,
with bak staris and turngres in the Frer Wynd, or on the forgait, of sic breid and
lenth as he sal1 think expedient for entre and asiamentis to his land and tenement;
and to flit the pend of the said Frer Wynd, for making of neidful asiaments in the
sammyn ; and als to big and haif ane wolt vnder the calsay, befor the for front of the
said tenement, of sic breid as he thinkis expedient; with ane penteis vnder the greissis
of his for star,” &c. The whole grant is a curious sample of the arbitrary manner in
which private interests and the general convenience of the citizens were sacrificed to the
wishes of the royal favourite. The printing house of Chepman & Millar was in the
8outh gait, or Cowgate’ of Edinburgh, as appears from the imprint on the rare edition of
‘‘ The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane,” and others of the earliest issues from
their press in the year 1508 ; and it no doubt was the same tenement with which, in
1528, Chepman endowed an altar in the chapel of the Holy Rood, in the lower churchyard
of St Giles. We would infer, however, from the nature of the royal grant, that the
ancient building at the Nether Bow was the residence of Walter Chepman, who was a
1 The names of streets so common in Scotland, formed with the adjunct gate, rarely if ever refer to a gate or part,
according to the modern acceptation of the word ; but to gait or street, as the King’s hie gait, or, aa here, the south gait,
meaning the south street The Water Gate, which is the only instance of the ancient me of the ward in Edinburgh,
is invariably written yett in early notices of it.

Book 10 p. 284
(Score 0.55)

292 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
of the old Scottish Parliaments were not framed to curb the excesses of cobbler kings.
King Crispin and his train grew more extravagant every year. He latterly rode in this
fantastic annual pageant in ermined robes, attended by prince, premier, champion in
armour, and courtiers of all degrees, mounted on horseback, and decked in the most
gaudy costume they could procure, until at length the whole wealth and property of the
corporation were dissipated in this childish foolery, and King Crispin retired to private
life, and the humbler relaxation of cobbling shoes1 Mra Malcolm, an old dame of a
particularly shrewish disposition, who inhabited an attic in the Shoemakers’ Land
towards the close of last century, was long known by the title of the Princess, her
husband having for many years represented the Black Prince, and she his sable c o n s o r t
two essential characters in King Crispin’s pageant. There can be little doubt that this
frivolous sport was a relic of much earlier times, when the Cordiners of the neighbouring
capital, incorporat,ed in the pear 1449, proceeded annually, on the anniversary of their
patron saint, to the altar of St Crispin and St Crispinian, founded and maintained by
them in the collegiate church of St Gi1es.l Nor is it improbable, that in the Princess a
traditional remembrance was preserved of the Queen of the Canongate, mentioned in the
Treasury accounts of James IV.
The Canongate Tolbooth-a view of which heads this chapter-has long been a
favourite subject for the artist’s pencil, as one of the most picturesque edifices of the
Old Town. It formed the court-house and jail of the burgh, erected in the reign of
James VI., soon after the abolition of religious houses had left this ancient dependency
of the Abbey free to govern itself. Even then, however, Adam Bothwell, the Protestant
commendator of Holyrood, retained some portion of the ancient rights of his
mitred predecessors over the burgh. The present structure is the successor of a much
earlier building, probably on the same site. The date on the tower is 1591 ; and preparations
for its erection appear in the Burgh Register seven years before this, where it is
enacted that no remission of fees shall be granted to any one, “unto the tyme the
tolbuith of this burch be edefeit and kggit.”’ Nevertheless, we find by the Burgh
Registers for 1561, “ Curia capitalis burgi vici canonicorum Monasterii Sancte Crucis
prope Edinburgh, tenta in pretorio ejusdem ; ” and frequent references occur to the tolduith,
both as a court-house and prison, in the Registers and in the Treasurer’s accounts, e.g.,
1574, “ To sax pynouris att the bailleis command for taking doun of the lintall
stane of the auld tolbuith windo, iijs. id.” The very next entry is a fee (‘to ane
new pyper,” an official of the Burgh of whom various notices are found at this early
period.
The Hotel de ViZZe of this ancient burgh is surmounted by a tower and spire, flanked
by two turrets in front, from between which a clock of large dimensions projects into the
street. This formerly rested on curiously-carved oaken beams, which appear in Storer’s
views published in 1818, but they have since been replaced by plain cast-iron supports.
The building is otherwise adorned wit,h a variety of mottoes and sculptured devices in the
Maitland, p. 305. The earliest notice we have found of the Cordiners of Canongate occurs in the Burgh Register,
10th June 1574, where “ William Quhite, being electit and choain diacone of the cordonaris be his brethir for this
present yeir, . . . is reseavit in place of umquhill Andro Purves.” From this they appear to have been then an
incorporated body.-Canongate Burgh Register ; Mait. Misc. vol. ii. p. 329. ’ Canongate Burgh Register, 13th October 1584 ; Ibid, p. 353. .

Book 10 p. 317
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288 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
deemed it prudent to renounce the orders that had been tarnished by a composition 60
unwonted and unclerical.
The more recent history of the Edinburgh stage is characterised by no incidents of
very special note, until the year 1768, when it followed the tide of fashionable emigration
to the New Town, and the Theatre Royal was built in the Orphan’s Park,’ which had
previously been the scene of Whitfield’a labours during his itinerant visits to Edinburgh.
The eloquent preacher is said to have expressed his indignation in no measured terms when
he found the very spot which had been so often consecrated by his ministrations thus being
set apart to the very service of the devil.
The front land in the Canongate through which the archway leads into the Play-house
Close is an exceedingly fine specimen of the style of building prevalent in the reign of
Charles I. The dormer windows in the roof exhibit a pleasing variety of ornament, and
a row of storm windows above them gives a singular, and, indeed, foreign air to the
building, corresponding in style to the steep and picturesque roofs that abound in
Strasbourg and Mayence. A Latin inscription on an ornamental tablet, over the doorway
within the close, is now so much defaced that only a word or two can be deciphered. The
building where Ryan, Digges, Bellamy, Lancashire, and a host of nameless actors figured
on the stage, to the admiring gaze of fashionable audiences of lad century, has long since
been displaced by private erections.
Nearly fronting the entrance to this close, a radiated arrangement of the paving indicates
the site of St John’s Cross, the ancient eastern boundary of the capital. It still marks the
limit of its ecclesiastical bounds on the south side of the street, and here, till a comparatively
recent period, all extraordinary proclamations were announced by the Lion Heralds,
with sound of trumpets, and the magistrates and public bodies of the Burgh of Canongate
joined such processions as passed through their ancient jurisdiction in their progress to the
Abbey. A little further eastward is St John’s Close, an ancient alley, bearing over an old
doorway within it, the inscription in bold Roman characters :-THE . LORD . IS . ONLY. MY.
~VPORT. Immediately adjoining this is St John Street, a broad and handsome thoroughfare,
forming the boldest scheme of civic improvement effected in Edinburgh before the
completion of the North Bridge, and the rival works on the south side of the town.
This aristocratic quarter of last century was in progress in 1768, as appears from the date
cut over a back doorway of the centre house j and soon afterwards the names of the old
Scottish aristocracy that still resided in the capital-Earls, Lords, Baronets, and Lords
of Session-are found among its chief occupants. Here, in No. 13, was the residence of
Lord Monboddo, and the lovely Miss .Burnet, whose early death is so touchingly commemorated
by the Poet Burns, a frequent guest at St John Street during his residence
in the capital; and within a few daors of it, at No 10, resided James Ballantyne, the
partner and confidant of Sir Walter Scott in the literary adventures of the Great Unknown.
Here was the scene of those assemblies of select and favoured guests to whom the hospit-
’
So called from ita vicinity to the Orphan’s Hospital, a benevolent institution which obtained the high
commendations of Howard and the aid of Whitfield during the repeated visits made by both to Edinburgh.
A very characteristic portrait of the latter is now in the hall of the new Hospital erected at the Dean. The venerable
clock of the Nether Bow Port has also been transferred from the steeple of the old building to an elegant site over the
pediment of the new portico, where, notwithstanding such external symptoms of renewing ita youth, it still asserts ita
claim to the privileges and immunitiea of age by frequent aberrations of a very eccentric character.

Book 10 p. 312
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238 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
The entry money to the Club, which was originally half-a-crown, gradually rose to a guinea,
and it seems to have latterly assumed a very aristocratic character. A great regard for
economy, however, remained with it to the last. On the 10th of June 1776 it is resolved,
that they shall at no time take bad half-pence from the house, and also recommend it to
the house to take none from them I ” and one of the last items entered on their minutes,
arises from an intimation of the landlord that he could not afford them suppers under
sixpence each, when it is magnanimously determined by the Club in full conclave, I‘ that
the suppers shall be at the old price of four-pence half-penny I ” Sir Cape, the comedian,
appears to have eked out the scanty rewards of the drama, by himself maintaining a tavern
at the head of the Canongate, which was for some time patronised by the Knights of the
Cape. They afterwards paid him occasional visits to Comedy Hut, New Edinburgh, a
house which he opened beyond the precincts of the North Loch about the year 1770, and
there they held their ninth Grand Cape, as their great festival was styled, on the 9th of
June of that year.’ This sketch of one of the most famous convivial clubs of last century
will suffice to give some idea of the revels in which grave councillors and senators were
wont to engage, when each slipt off his professional formality along with his three-tailed
wig and black coat, and bent his energies to the task of such merry fooling, while his
example was faithfully copied by clerk and citizen of every degree. “ Such, 0 Themis,
were anciently the sports of thy Scottish children! ” The same hanut of revelry and wit
witnessed in the year 1785 the once celebrated charlatan, Dr Katterfelto, immortalised by
Cowper in “ The Task,” among the quackeries of old London,-
With his hair on end,
At hia own wonders wondering for his bread !
His advertisement a sets forth his full array of titles, as Professor of Experimental Philosophy,
Lecturer on Electricity, Chemistry, and Sleight of Hand, &c., and announces to his
Patrons and the Public, that the Music begins at six and the Lecture at seveu o’clock, at
Craig’s Close, High Street.
Another of the old lanes of the High Street, which has been an object of special note
to the local antiquary is Anchor Close. Its fame is derived, in part, at least, from the
famouR corps of Crochallan Fencibles, celebrated by Burns both in prose and verse-a
convivial club, whose festive meetings were held in Daniel Douglas’s tavern at the head of
the alley. Burns was introduced to this club in 1787, while in Edinburgh superintending
the printing of his poems, when, according to custom, one of the corps was pitted against
the poet in a contest of wit and irony. Burns bore the assault with perfect good humour,
and entered into the full spirit of th’e meeting, but he afterwards paid his antagonist the
compliment of acknowledging that ‘‘ he had never been so abominably thrashed in all his
life I ” The name of this gallant corps, which has been the subject of learned conjecture,
is the burden of a Gaelic song with which the landlord occasionally entertained his guests.a
The Club was founded by Mr William Smellie, Author of the Philosophy of Natural
History, and numbered among its members the Honourable Henry Erskine, Lords Newton
1 Provincial Cape Cluba, deriving their authority and diplomss from the parent body, were auccessively formed in
Glasgow, Manchester, and London, and in Charlestown, South Carolina, each of which was formally established in
virtue of a royal mmmisaion granted by the Sovereign of the Cape. The American off-ahoot of this old Edinburgh
frat’er Cnaitleyr loisn ascaMidI Mto ebme ust~ilyl J,f alonuurairsyh in2g4 tihn, t1h7e8 S8.o uthern States. Kerr’a Life of William Smellie, vol. ii. p. 256.

Book 10 p. 259
(Score 0.55)

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