... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound
and ten elders, of whom five shall retire ?by
rotation from year to year, ...
Book 3 p. 98
(Score 0.49)
... , MEMORIALS UP- EDINBURGH.
Balcarras, Lord, 208
Baldredus, Deacon of Lothian, 377
.Balfour, Sir James, ...
Book 10 p. 499
(Score 0.49)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inchkeith.
greatly enhanced the beauty and grandeur of this
interesting prospect by ...
Book 6 p. 292
(Score 0.49)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nether Bow.
with cannon stone-shot in 1544, ere advancing
;against the Castle. ? They ...
Book 2 p. 218
(Score 0.49)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
named themselves the ? Friends of the People,?
were alarming the authorities by ...
Book 6 p. 278
(Score 0.49)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
likely to have arisen. It happened by accident
that the Earl of ...
Book 2 p. 210
(Score 0.49)
... 18 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [cogs.
p. baronet of Nova Scotia by James VII., in
1687.
The close of the family is ...
Book 6 p. 318
(Score 0.49)
![North Bridge.] THE OLD THEATRE ROYAL. 343
able performer in fashionable comedy, and had
been long a favourite at the Canongate Theatre.
Bland was also well connected ; he had been a
Templar, an ofiicer in the army at Fontenoy, and
in the repulse of the British cavalry by the Highlanders
on Cliftonmoor in 1745. For twenty-three
years he continued to be a prime favourite on
these old boards ; he was the uncle of Mrs. Jordan ;
and Edmund Glover, so long a favourite also in
Edinburgh and Glasgow, was nearly related to him.
In 1774 Foote came from Dublin to perform here
again. ?We hear,? says Ruddiman?s Magazine,
?that he is to perform seven nights, for which he
is to receive A250. The Nabob, Th Bankmyt,
The Maidof Bath, and Pie9 in Pattms, all of which
have been written by our modern Aristophanes, are
the four pieces that will be exhibited.?
In these new hands the theatre became prosperous,
and the grim little enclosure named Shakespeare
Square-sprang up near it; but the west side
was simply the rough rubble wall of the bridge,
terminating in later years, till 1!60, by a kind of
kiosk named ?The Box,? in which papers and
periodicals weie sold. It was simply a place of
lodging-houses, a humble inn or two, like the Red
Lion tavern and oyster shop,
At intervals between 1773 and 1815 Mr. Moss
was a prime favourite at the Royal. One of his
cherished characters was Lovegold in The Miser;
but that in which he never failed to ?bring down
the house ? was Caleb, in He wouZd 6e a Soldier,
especially when in the military costume of the
early part of George 111,?s reign, he sang his song,
? I?m the Dandy 0.?
Donaldson, I in his Recollections,? speaks of
acting for ihe, benefit of poor Moss in 1851, at
Stirling, when he-who had delighted the audience
of the then capital in the Mmchant of Venice-was
an aged cripple, penniless and poor. ?? MOSS,? he
adds, ?? caught the inspiration from the renowned
Macklin, whose yew, by Pope?s acknowledgment,
was unrivalled, even in the days of David Gamck,
and he bequeathed to his protdgge? Moss that conception
which descended to the most original and
extraordinary Shylock of any period-Edmund
Kean.?
? During the management of West Digges most
of the then London stars, save Gamck, appeared in
the old Royal. Among them were Mr. Bellamy,
Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Barfy, Mr. and Mrs. Yates, and,
occasionally, Foote.
Of Mrs. Yates Kaygives an etching in the character
of the Duchess of Braganza, a play by an
obscure author named Henry Crisp. The period
to which his print refers was 1785, when-though
she was well advanced in years, having been borm
in 1729 (in London, but of Scottish parents)-
she was paid at the rate of a hundred guineas per
night by Mr. Jackson. From Mr. Digges she
and her husband received seven hundred guineas
at the end of one season. ?The gentlemen of
the bar and some even of the bench had been
zealous patrons of the drama since the Canongate
days, even to the taking a personal concern
in its affairs. They continued to do this for
many years after this time. Dining being then
an act performed at four o?clock, the aristocracy
were free to give their attendance at half-past six,
and did so in great numbers whenever there wasany
tolerable attraction. So fashionable, indeed,
had the theatre become, that a man of birth and
fashion named Mr. Nicholson Stewart came forward
one night, in the character of Richard III.,
to raise funds for the building of a bridge over the
Carron, at a ford where many lives had been lost.
On this occasion the admission to all parts of the
house was five shillings, and it was crowded by
what the journals of the day tell us was a poZite
audience. The gentleman?s action was allowed to
be just, but his voice too weak.??
In 1781 the theatre passed into the hands of
Mr. John Jackson, author of a rather dull (c History
of the Scottish Stage, with a Narrative of Recent
Theatrical Transactions.? It was published at
Edinburgh in 1793. Like his predecessors in the
management he was a man of good education, and
well connected, and had chosen the stage as the
profession he loved best. In the second year of
his rule Siddons appeared in the full power of her
talent and beauty as Portia, at Drury Lane ; and
Jackson, anxious to secure her for Edinburgh,
hastened to London, and succeeded in inducing
her to make an engagement, then somewhat of an
undertaking when the mode of travel in those days
is considered; and on the zznd of May, 1784, she
made her appearance at the Theatre Royal, when,
as the Edinburgh Week0 Magazine records, ((the
manager took the precaution, after the first night,
to have ar. officer?s guard of soldiers at the principal
door. But several scuffles having ensued, through
the eagerness of the people to get places, and the
soldiers having been rash enough to use their
bayonets, it was thought advisable to withdraw the
guard on the third night, lest any accident had
happened from the pressure of the crowd, who
began to assemble round the doors at eleven in the
forenoon.?
Her part was Belvidera, Jaffier being performed
?Sketch of the Theatre Rod,? 1859.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p163.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 343")
... Bridge.] THE OLD THEATRE ROYAL. 343
able performer in fashionable comedy, and had
been long a favourite at ...
Book 2 p. 343
(Score 0.49)
![Parlient Close.] JOHN OSW.4LD. I79
his peculiar hze& or place of resort by day or
night, where merchants, traders, and men of every
station, met for consultation, or good-fellowship,
and to hear the items of news that came by the
mail or stage from distant parts; and Wilson,
writing in 1847, says, ? Currie?s Tavern, in Craig?s
Close, ?once the scene of meeting of various clubs,
and a favourite resort of merchants, still retains
.a reputation among certain antiquarian bibbers for
an old-fashioned luxury, known by the name
of jaj-in, a strange compound of small-beer and
whiskey, curried, as the phrase is, with a little
aatmeal.?
Gossiping Wodrow tells us in his ?I Analecta,?
that, on the 10th of June, 1712, ?The birthday of
the Pretender, I hear there has been great outrages
.at Edinburgh by his friends. His health was drunk
early in the morning in the Parliament Close j and
at night, when the magistrates were going through
the streets to keep th: peace, several were
taken up in disguise, and the King?s health (ie.,
James VIII.) was drunk out of several windows,
and the glasses thrown over the windows when
the magistrates passed by, and many windows
were illuminated. At Leith there was a standard
:set upon the pier, with a thistle and Nemo me
imjune Zaessit, and J ?R. VI11 ; and beneath,
Noe Abjuration. This stood a great part of the
-day.? Had the old historian lived till the close
.of the century or the beginning of the present,
he might have seen, as Chambers tells us, ?Singing
Jamie Balfour ?-a noted convivialist, of whom
a portrait used to hang in the Leith Golf-housewith
other topers in the Parliament Close, all bareheaded,
on their knees, and hand-in-hand, around
.the statute of Charles II., chorusing vigorously,
?T. King s h d enjoy his own again.? Jamie
Balfour was well known to Sir Walter Scott.
About the year 1760 John?s coffee-house was
kept by a man named Oswald, whose son John,
born there, and better known under his assumed
name of Sylvester Otway, was one of the most
extraordinary characters of that century as a poet
.and politician. He served an apprenticeship to a
jeweller in the Close, till a relation left him a
legacy, with which he purchased a commission in
the Black Watch, and in 1780 he was the third
lieutenant in seniority in the 2nd battalion when
serving in India. Already master of Latin and
Greek, he then taught himself Arabic, and, quitting
the army in 1783, became a violent Radical, and
published in London a pamphlet on the British
Constitution, setting forth his views (crude as they
were) and principles. His amatory poems received
she dpprobation of Bums; and, after publishing
various farces, effusions, and fiery political papers,
he joined the French Revolutionists in 1792, when
his pamphlets obtained for him admission into
the Jacobite Club, and his experiences in the
qznd procured him command of a regiment composed
of the masses of Paris, with which he
marched against the royalists in La Vendie, on
which occasion his men mutinied, and shot him,
together with his two sons-whom, in the spirit of
quality, he had made drummers-and an English
Zentleman, who had the misfortune to be serving
in the same battalion.
John third Earl, of Bute, a statesman and a
patron of literature, who procured a pension for
Dr. Johnson, and who became so unpopular as
a minister through the attacks of Wilkes, was
born in the Parliament Close on the 25th of May,
1713.
Near to John?s coffee-house, and on the south
side ,of the Parliament Close, was the banking-house
of Sir William Forbes, Bart., who was born at Edinburgh
in 1739. He was favourably known as the
author of the ?Life of Beattie,? and other works,
and as being one of the most benevolent and highspirited
of citizens. The bank was in reality established
by the father of Thomas Coutts, the eminent
London banker, and young Forbes, in October,
1753, was introduced to the former as an apprentice
for a term of seven years. He became a copartner
in 1761, and on the death of one of the
Messrs. Coutts, and retirement of another on
account of ill-health, while two others were settled
in London, a new company was formed, comprising
Sir William Forbes, Sir James Hunter Blair,
and Sir Robert Hemes, who, at first, carried on
business in the name of the old firm.
In 1773, however, Sir Robert formed a separate
establishment in London, when the name was
changed to Forbes, Hunter, and Co., of which
firm Sir William continued to be the head till his
death, in 1806.
Kin&id tells us that, when their first bankinghouse
was building, great quantities of human
bones-relics of St. Giles?s Churchyard-were dug
up, which were again buried at the south-east
corner, between the wall of the edifice and the
Parliament Stairs that led to the Cowgate; and
that, ? not many years ago, numbers were also dug
up in the Parliament Close, which were carefully
put in casks, and buried in the Greyfriars? Churchyard?
In accordance with a longcherished desire of
restoring his family-which had been attainted for
loyalty to the house of StuartLSir William Forbes
embraced a favourable opportunity for purchasing](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p191.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 179")
... Close.] JOHN OSW.4LD. I79
his peculiar hze& or place of resort by day or
night, where merchants, ...
Book 1 p. 179
(Score 0.48)
... OLD -4ND NEW EDINBURGH. urffrey Street
of The Friend of India, and author of the ?Life
of Dr. IVilson of ...
Book 2 p. 290
(Score 0.48)
![Leith.] TRADE OF THE PORT. 289
Even in times of undoubted depression the
docks at Leith have always retained an appearance
of bustle and business, through the many large sailing
ships laden with guano and West Indian sugar
lying at the quays; but guano having been partly
superseded by chemical manures, and West Indian
by Continental sugar, the comparatively few vessels
that now arrive are discharged with the greatest
expedition. In the close of 1881 one came to
port with the largest cargo of sugar ever delivered
at Leith, the whole of which was for the Bonnington
Refinery.
As a source of revenue to the Dock Commission,
steamers which can make ten voyages for one performed
by a sailing vessel are, of course, very much
preferred ; and, as showing the extent of the Continental
sugar trade, it may be mentioned that quite
recently 184,233 bags were imported in a single
month. Most of this sugar is taken direct from the
docks to the refiners at Greenock.
A very important element in the trade of Leith
is the importation of esparto grass, both by sailing
vessels and steamers. This grass is closely pressed
by steam power into huge square bales, and these
are discharged with such celerity by the use of
donkey-engines and other appliances, that it is a
common thing to unload 150 tons in a single day.
The facilities for discharging vessels at Leith
with extreme rapidity are so admirable that few
ports can match it-the meters, the weighers, and
the stevedore firms who manage the matter, having
every interest in getting the work performed with
the utmost expedition.
As a wine port Leith ranks second in the British
Isles, and it possesses a very extensive timber trade;
and though not immediately connected with ship
ping, the wool trade is an important branch of
industry there, the establishments of Messrs. Macgregor
and Pringle, and of Messrs. Adams, Sons, and
Co., being among the most extensive in Scotland.
The largest fleet of Continental trading steamers
sailing from Leith is that of Messrs. James Cume
and Co. In 18Sr this firm had twenty-two
steamers, with a capacity of 17,000 tons. Messrs.
Gibson and Co. have many fine steamers, which
are. constantly engaged, while the Baltic is open
and free of ice, in making trading voyages to Riga,
Cronstadt, and other Russian ports
A trade with Iceland has of late years been
rapidly developed, the importation consisting of
ponies, sheep, wild fowl, and dried fish ; while in
the home trade, the London and Edinburgh Ship
ping Company do a very active and lucrative business,
having usually two, and sometimes three large
steamers plying per week between Leith and Loo-
133
don ; and in 1880, important additions were mad&
to tht lines .of trading steamers by several large
vessels owned by the Arrow Line being put on
the berth, to ply between Leith and New York ;
while the North of Scotland Steam Shipping
Company transferred their business to the port
from Granton.
So steadily has the trade with New York developed
itself, that from three to four steamers per
month now arrive at Leith, bringing cargoes of
grain, butter, oilcakes, linseed meal, tinned meats,
grass seeds, etc. Over 200,ooo sacks of flour Came
to Leith in one year from New York, and in one
month alone 33,312 sacks were imported.
Some of the Leith steamers sail direct to NewYork
with mixed cargoes; others load with coal, and proceed
there, vid the Mediterranean, after exchanging
their cargo for fruit. Then Messrs. Blaik and
Co., of Constitution Street, have large steamers of
3,650 tons burden each, built specially for this
trade. The passage from New York, ?north
about,? i.e., through the Pentland Firth, usually
occupied sixteen days, but now it is being reduced
to twelve
Prior to the opening of the Edinburgh Dock a
difficulty was found in berthing some of the great
ocean-going steamers, and many that used to bring
live stock from New York had to land them on the
Thames or Tyne, the regulations of the Privy
Council flot permitting these animals to be landed
at Leith.
?( Permission was first asked by the Commission,?
says a local print in 1881, ?to enable the animals
to be taken to the Leith slaughter-house, which is
on the south side of the new docks, and only a few
yards from one of the entrances. The Privy
Council having refused this request, the Dock
Commission, with a desire to foster the trade, then
made arrangements with the Leith Town Council,
by which they could build a slaughter-house within
the docks. Asite was proposed and plans prepared;
but being objected to again by the Privy
Council, the subject was allowed to lie over.?
We have mentioned the transference of the
North of Scotland steamers from Granton to
Leith, and this change has proved monetarily
advantageous, not only to the Cornmission, but to
the majority of the shippers and passengers, and a
special berth was assigned at the entrance of the
Prince of M?ales?s Dock for the Aberdeen steamers,
so that they sail even after high water. Besides
the usual consignments of sheep, cattle, and ponies,
vast quantities of herrings, in barrel, are brought to
Leith, generally for re-shipment to the Continent of
Europe.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p108.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 289")
... TRADE OF THE PORT. 289
Even in times of undoubted depression the
docks at Leith have always retained an ...
Book 6 p. 289
(Score 0.48)
![238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
other, Willielmina, became the wife of John Lord
Glenorchy.
The fate of the Earl of Sutherland, and of his
countess, whose beauty excited the admiration of
all at the coronation of George III., was a very
cloudy one. In frolicking with their first-born, a
daughter, the earl let the infant drop, and it sustained
injuries from which it never recovered, and
the event had so serious an effect on his mind,
that he resorted to Bath, where he died of a
malignant fever. For twenty-one days the countess,
then about to have a babe again, attended him
unremittingly, till she too caught the distemper, and
predeceased him by a few days, in her twenty-sixth
year. Her death was sedulously concealed from
him, yet the day before he expired, when delirium
passed away, he said, I am going to join my dear
Wife,? as if his mind had already begun to penetrate
the veil that hangs between this world and the
next.
In one grave in Holyrood, near the north-east
corner of the ruined chapel, the remains of this
ill-fated couple were laid, on the 9th of August,
1766.
Lady Glenorchy, a woman remarkable for the
piety of her disposition, was far from happy in her
marriage j but we are told that she met with her
rich reward, even iii this world, for she enjoyed
the applause of the wealthy and the blessings of the
poor, with that supreme of all pleasures-the conviction
that the eternal welfare of those in whose
fate she was chiefly interested was forwarded by
her precepts and example.?
In after years, the Earl of Hopetoun, when
acting as Royal Commissioner to the General
Assembly, was wont to hold his state levees in the
house that had been Lord Alva?s.
To the east of hfylne?s Square stood some old
alleys which were demolished to make way for the
North Bridge, one of the greatest local undertakings
of the eighteenth century. One of these alleys was
known as the Cap and Feather Close, immediately
above Halkerston?s Wynd. The lands that formed
the east side of the latter were remaining in some
places almost intact till about 1850.
In one of these, but which it was impossible
to say, was born on the 5th of September, 1750,
that luckless but gifted child of genius, Robert
Fergusson, the poet, whose father was then a clerk
in the British Linen Company; but even the site
of his house, which has peculiar claims on the
interest of every lover of Scottish poetry, cannot
be indicated.
How Halkerston?s Wynd obtained its name we
have already told. Here was an outlet from the
ancient city byway of a dam or dyke across the
loch, to which Lord Fountainhall refers in a case
dated zIst February, 1708. About twenty years
before that time it would appear that the Town
Council ?had opened a new port at the foot
of Halkerston?s Wynd for the convenience of those
who went on foot to Leith; and that Robert
Malloch, having acquired some lands on the other
side of the North Loch, and made yards and built
houses thereon, and also having invited sundry
weavers and other good tradesmen to set up
on Moutree?s Hill [site of the Register House], and
the deacons of crafts finding this prejudicial
to them, and contrary to the 154th Act of Parliament,
I 592,?? evading which, these craftsmen paid
neither scot, lot, nor stent,? the magistrates closed
up the port, and a law plea ensued between them
and the enterprising Robert Malloch, who was
accused of filling up a portion of the bank of the
loch with soil from a quarry. ?The town, on the
other hand, did stop the vent and passage over the
loch, which made it overtlow and drown Robert?s
new acquired ground, of which he complained as
an act of oppression.?
Eventually the magistrates asserted that the loch
was wholly theirs, and ?( that therefore he could
drain no part of it, especially to make it regorge
and inundate on their side. The Lords were
going to take trial by examining the witnesses, but
the magistrates prevented it, by opening the said
port of their own accord, without abiding an order,
and let the sluice run,? by which, of course, the
access by the gate was rendered useless.
Kinloch?s Close adjoined Halkerston?s Wynd, and
therein, till about 1830, stood a handsome old
substantial tenement, the origin and early occupants
of which were all unknown. A mass of curious
and abutting projections, the result of its peculiar
site, it had a finely-carved entrance door, with
the legend, Peir. God. in . Luzy., 1595, and the
initials I. W., and the arms of the surname of
Williamson, together with a remarkable device, a
saltire, from the centre of which rose a crosssymbol
of passion.
Passing Allan Ramsay?s old shop, a narrow bend
gives us access to Carrubber?s Close, the last stronghold
of the faithful Jacobites after 1688. Episcopacy
was abolished in 1689, and although from
that period episcopal clergymen had no legal provision
or settlement, they were permitted, without
molestation, to preach in meeting-houses till I 746 ;
but as they derived no emolument from Government,
and no provision from the State, they did not,
says Arnot, perplex their consciences with voluminous
and unnecessary oaths, but merely excluded](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p058.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 238")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
other, Willielmina, became the wife of John Lord
Glenorchy.
The fate of ...
Book 2 p. 238
(Score 0.48)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. 250
Sleat, and so named probably from the vast resort
and slaughter of seals ...
Book 2 p. 250
(Score 0.48)
... vii
. CHAPTER XXXI.
PAGE ALLEYS OF THE HIGH STREET (continued).
Blackfriars Wynd-The Grant of ...
Book 2 p. 389
(Score 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Fountainbridge.
tional cemetery, a little to the south, beyond Ardmillan
Terrace, ...
Book 4 p. 218
(Score 0.48)
![Lasswade.] CLERK OF ELDIN. 359
nishing supplies for local consumption and to
other quarters, Lasswade sends about 30,000 tons
of coal to Edinburgh every year.
Auchindinny is a small village situated on the
right bank of the Esk at the boundary with Penicuick,
and is about five-and-a-half miles distant
from Lasswade. It is inhabited by lace and paper
makers.
Scott, in his ballad ? The Gray Brother,? groups
all the localities we have noted with wonderful
effect :-
? I Sweet are the paths, oh passing sweet I
By Esk?s fair streams that run,
Impervious to the sun.
O?er airy steep, through copsewood deep,
? There the rapt poet?s step may rove,
And yield the muse the day ;
There Beauty, led by timid Love,
May shuq the tell-tale ray.
? From that fair dome, where suit is paid
By blast of bugle free,
To Auchindinny?s hazel shade,
And haunted Woodhouselee.
Who knows not Melville?s beechy grove,
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
And Roslin?s rocky glen,
And classic Hawthornden I
?Yet never path from day to day,
The pilgrim?s footsteps range,
To Burndale?s ruined grange.?
Save but? the solitary way,
South of Lasswade Bridge, on the road to Polton
-an estate which, in the early part of the eighteenth
century, gave the title of Lord Polton to a senator
of the College of Justice, Sir William Calderwood,
called to the bench in I 71 I in succession to Lord
Anstruther-is a house into which a number 01
antique stones were built some years ago. One
of these, a lintel, bears the following date and
legend :-
? 1557. A. A. NOSCE TEIPSVM.
Lasswade has always been a favourite summe1
resort of the citizens of Edinburgh. Sir Walter
Scott spent some of the happiest summers of his
life here, and amid the woodland scenery is supposed
to have found materials for his description
of Gandercleugh, in the Tales of my Land.
lord.?
His house was a delightful retreat, embowered
among wood, and close to the Esk. There he
continued all his favourite studies, and commenced
that work which Erst established his name i-2 litera.
ture, ? The Minstrelsy of the Scottish %order,?
which he published at Edinburgh in 1802, and
_ _ _
dedicated to his friend and chief, Henry Duke of
Buccleuch.
In prosecuting the collection of this work, Sir
Walter made various excursions-? raids ? he used
to call them-from Lasswade into the most remote
recesses of the Border glens, assisted by one or
two other enthusiasts in ballad lore, pre-eminent
among whom was the friend, whose ?untimely fate
he lamented so long, and whose memory he embalmed
in verse-Dr. John Leyden.
De Quincey, the ? English opium-eater,? spent
the last seventeen years of his life in a humble
cottage near Midfield House, on the road from
Lasswade to Hawthornden, and there he prepared
the collected edition. of his works. He died in
Edinburgh on the 8th December, 1859.
On high ground above the village stands Eldin
House (overlooking Eldindean), the residence of
John Clerk, inventor of what was termed in its day,
before the introduction of ironclads and steam rams,
the modern British system of naval tactics. He
was the sixth son of Sir George Clerk of Penicuick,
oneof the Barons of Exchequer in Scotland, and
inherited the estate of Eldin in early life from his
father. Although the longest sail he ever enjoyed
was no farther than to the Isle of Arran, in the Firth
of Clyde, he had from his boyhood a passion for
nautical affairs, and devoted much of his time to
the theory and practice ot naval tactics.
After. communicating to some of his friends the
new suggested system of breaking an enemy?s line
of battle, he visited London in 1780, and conferred
with several eminent men connected with the navy,
among others, Mr. Richard Atkinson, the friend of
the future Lord Kodney, and Sir Charles Douglas,
Rodney?s ?? Captain of the Fleet ? in the mernorable
action of 12th April, 1782, when the latter
was victorious over the Comte de Grasse between
Dominica and Les Saintes, in the West Indies.
Since that time his principle was said to have
been adopted by all our admirals ; and Howe, St.
Vincent, Duncan, and even Nelson, owe to the
Laird of Eldin?s manmuvre their most signal
victories.
In 1782 he had fifty copies of his ?Essay on
Naval Tactics ? printed, for distribution among his
private friends. It was reprinted in 1790, and
second, third, and fourth parts were added in the
seven subsequent years, and eventually, in 1804,
the whole work was re-published anew, with a
preface explaining the origin of his discoveries.
? Although Lord Rodney, as appears by a fragmentary
life of Clerk written by Professor Playfair,
in the ? Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,?
never concealed in conversation his obliga](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p178.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 359")
... CLERK OF ELDIN. 359
nishing supplies for local consumption and to
other quarters, Lasswade sends about ...
Book 6 p. 359
(Score 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill.
country where pedigree is the best ascertained of
any in the world, ...
Book 2 p. 372
(Score 0.48)
![Great Stuart Street.] LORD JERVISWOODE. 209
memories. He was the second son of George
Baillie of Jerviswoode; and a descendant of that
memorable Baillie of Jerviswoode, who, according
to Hume, was a man of merit and learning, a
cadet of the Lamington family, and called "The
Scottish Sidney," but was executed as a traitor on
the'scaffold at Edinburgh, in 1683, having identified
himself with the interests of Monmouth and Argyle.
* Lord Jerviswoode was possessed of more than
average intellectual gifts, i and still more with
charms of person and manners that were not confined
to the female side of his house. One sister,
the Marchioness of Breadalbane, and another, Lady
Polwarth, were both celebrated for their beauty,
wit, and accomplishments. On the death of their
cousin, in the year 1859, his eldest brother became
tenth. Earl of Haddington, and then Charles, by
royal warrant, was raised to the rank of an earl's
brother. ' '
Prior to this he had a long and brilliant course
in law, and in spotless honour is said to have been
'' second to none." He was called to the Bar in
1830, and after being Advocate Depute, Sheriff of
Stirling, and Solicitor-General, was Lord Advocate
in 1858, and M.P. for West Lothim in the following
year, and a Lord of Session. In 1862 he
became a Lord of Justiciary. He took a great
interest in the fine arts, and was a trustee of the
Scottish Board of Manufactures; but finding his
health failing, he quitted the bench in July, 1874.
* He died in his seventy-fifth year, on the 23rd of
July, 1879, at his residence, Dryburgh House, in
Roxburghshire, near the ruins of the beautiful
abbey in which Scott and his race lie interred. For
the last five years of his life little had been heard of
him in the busy world, while his delicate health
and shy nature denied him the power of taking part
in public matters.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE WESTERN NEW TOWN-HAYMARKET-DALRY-FOUNTAINBRIDGE.
Maitland Street and Shandwick Place--The Albert Institute-Last Residmn of Sir Wa!ter Scott in Edinburgh-Lieutenult-General Dun&
-Melville Street-Patrick F. Tytler-Manor Plan-%. Mary's Cathedral-The Foundation Lid-Ita Sic and Aspcct-Opened for
Service-The Copestone and Cross placed on the Spire-Haymarket Station-Wmter Garden-Donaldron's H o s p i t a l d t l c Terrpoh
Its Chur&es-C&tle Barns-The U. P. Theological Hdl-Union Canal-First Boat Launched-Ddry-The Chieslics-The Caledonian
Distille~-Fountainbridge-Earl Grey Street-Professor G. J. Bell-The . Slaughter-houses-Bain Whyt of Binfield-North British
India. Rubber WorkScottish Vulcanite Company-Their Manufactures, &,.-Adam Ritchie.
THE Western New Town comprises a grand series
of crescents, streets, and squares, extending from
the line of East and West Maitland Streets and
Athole Crescent northward to the New Queensferry
Road, displaying in its extent-and architecture,
while including the singulax-ly ' picturesque
ravine of the Water of Leith, a' brilliance' and
beauty well entitling it to be deemed, par excellence,
" Z?w West End," and was built respectively about
1822, 1850, and 1866.
. Lynedoch Place, so named from the hero of
Barossa, opposite Randolph Crescent, was erected
in 1823, but prior to that a continuation of the line
of Princes Street had been made westward towards
the lands of Coates. This was finally effected by
the erection of East and West Maitland Streets,
Shandwick Place, and Coates and Athole Crescents.
In the latter are some rows of stately old trees,
which only vigorous and prolonged remonstrance
prevented fiom being wantonly cut down, in accordance
with the bad taste which at one time
prevailed in Edinburgh, where a species of war
was waged against all.groWing timber.
75
The Episcopal chapel of St Thomas is now
compacted with the remaining houses at the east
end of Rutland Street, but presents an ornamental
front in 'the Norman style immediately east of
Maitland Street, and shows there a richly-carved
porch, with some minutely beautiful arcade work.
Maitland Street and Shandwick Place, once a
double line of frontdoor houses for people of good
style, are almost entirely lines of shops or other
new buildings. In the first years of the present
century, Lockhart of Castlehill, Hepburn of Clerkington,
Napier of Dunmore, Tait of Glencross,
and Scott of Cauldhouse, had their residences in
the former; and No. 23, now a shop, was the
abode, about the year 1818, of J. Gibson Lockhaqt,
the son-in-law and biographer of Sir Walter
Scott He died at Abbotsford in 1854 .
In Shandwick Place is now the Albert Institute
of the Fine Arts; erected in 1876, when property
to the value of £25,ooo was acquired for the
purpose. The objects of this institute are the
advancement of the cause of art generally, but
more especially contemporary Scottish art; to](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p029.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 209")
... Stuart Street.] LORD JERVISWOODE. 209
memories. He was the second son of George
Baillie of Jerviswoode; and ...
Book 4 p. 209
(Score 0.48)
![238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and hailk hir lands callit the King?s
Werk in Leith, within the boundis specifit in the
infeftment maid to him thairupon, quhilkis than
-war alluterlie decayit, and sensyne are reparit and
re-edifit, he the said Johne Chisholnie, to the policy
.and great decoration of this realme, in that office,
place, and sight of all strangeris and utheris re-
- sortand to the Schore of Leith.?
In 1575 it had been converted into a hospital
- for the plague-stricken ; but when granted to Bernard
Lindsay in 1613, he was empowered to keep
four taverns in the buildings, together with the
tennis-court, for the then favourite pastime of
?catchpel. It continued to be used for that purpose
till the year 1649, when it was taken pos-
2 session of by the magistrates of Edinburgh, and
. converted into a weigh-house.
? In what part of the building Bemard Lindsay
commenced tavern-keeping we are unable to say,?
observes Campbell, in his ? History of Leith,? ? but
.are more than half disposed to believe it was that
old house which projects into Bernard Street, and
is situated nearly opposife the British Linen Com-
,pany?s Bank.? ?? The house alluded to,? adds
Robertson on this, ?has a carved stone in front,
representing a rainbow rising from the clouds, with
a date 165-, the last figure being obliterated, and
-can hatre no reference to Bernard Lindsay.?
The tennis-court of the latter would seem to have
been frequently patronised by the great Marquis of
Montrose in his youth, as in his ?? Household Accounts,?
under date 1627, are the following entries
.(Mait. Club Edit.) :-
?? Item to the poor, my Lord taking coch . . qs.
Item, carrying the graith to Leth . . . . 8s.
Item, to some poor there . . . . . . 3s
Item, to my Lord Nepar?s cochman . .
Item, for balls in the Tinnes Court of Leth..
. . 6s. Sd.
16s.?
The first memorial of Bernard Lindsay is in
the Parish Records ? of South Leith, and is dated
17th July, 1589 :-? The quhilk days comperit
up Bemard Lindsay and Barbara Logan, and gave
their names to be proclamit and mareit, within
this date and Michaelmas.-JoHN LOGANE, Cautioper.?
Another record, 2nnd September, I 633, bears
that the Session ? allowis burial to Barbara Logane,
-.elict of Bernard Lindsaye, besyde her husbande in
the kirk-yeard, in contentation yairof, 100 merks to
be given to the poor.?
From Bernard Lindsay, the name of the present
Bernard Street is derived. Bernard?s Nook has
long been known. ?? In the ? Council Records? of
Edinburgh, 1647,? says Robertson, ?is the following
entry :-? To the purchase of the Kingis Werk,
in Leith, 4,500 lib. Scot.? A previous entry, 1627,
refers to dealing with the sons of Bernard Lindsay,
?for their house in Leith to be a custom-house. . . .?
We have no record that any buildings existed beyond
the bounds of the walls or the present
Bernard Street at this time, the earliest dates on
the seaward part of the Shore being 1674-1681.?
The old Weigh-house, or Tron of Leith, stood
within Bernard?s Nook, on the west side of the
street ; but local, though unsupported, tradition
asserts that the original signal-tower and lighthouse
of Leith stood in the Broad Wynd.
Wilson thus refers to the relic of the Wark
already mentioned :-?? A large stone panel, which
bore the date 1650-the year immediately succeeding
the appropriation of the King?s Wark to
civic purposes-appeared in the north gable of the
old weigh-house, which till recently occupied its
site, with the curious device of a rainbow carved
in bold relief springing at either end from a bank
of clouds.?
? So,? says Arnot, ?? this fabric, which was reared
for the sports and recreations of a Court, was
speedily to be the scene of the ignoble labours of
carmen and porters, engaged in the drudgery of
weighing hemp and of iron.?
Eastward of the King?s Wark, between Bernard?s
Street and chapel, lies the locality once so curiously
designated Little London, and which, according to
Kincaid, measured ninety feet from east to west,
by seventy-five broad over the walls. ? How it
acquired the name of Little London is now
unknown,? says Camphell, in his ? History ? ;
?but it was so-called in the year 1674, We do
not see, however,? he absurdly remarks, ?that it
could have obtained this appellation from any
other circumstauce than its having had some
real or supposed resemblance to the [English]
metropolis.?
As the views preserved of Little London show it
to have consisted of only four houses or so, and
these of two storeys high, connected by a dead
wall with one doorway, facing Bemard Street in
1800, Campbell?s theory is untenable. It is much
more probable that it derived its name from being
the quarters or cantonments of those 1,500 English
soldiers who, under Sir Williani Drury, Marshal of
Berwick, came from England in April, 1573, to
assist the Regent Morton?s Scottish Companies in
the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. These men
departed from Leith on the 16th of the following
June, and it has been supposed that a few of them
may have been induced to remain, and the locality
thus won the name of Little London, in the same](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p057.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 238")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and ...
Book 6 p. 238
(Score 0.48)
... Giles.
elasticity which the nation displayed in its endless ? naceus,? in the Harleian Collection in the ...
Book 1 p. 142
(Score 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith.
and verse, the Ireland Scholarship, and a studentship
at Christ ...
Book 5 p. 82
(Score 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig,
Baron Norton was remarkable for his constant
attention to all religious ...
Book 5 p. 128
(Score 0.48)
![High Street.] STRICHEN?S CLOSE. 255
pike stairs compelled the use of taverns more than
now. There the high-class advocate received his
clients, and the physician his patients-each practitioner
having his peculiar how$ There, too,
gentlemen met in the evening for supper and conversation
without much expense, a reckoning of a
shilling being deemed a high one, so different then
were the value of money and the price of viands. In
1720 an Edinburgh dealer advertises his liquors at
the following prices :-? Neat claret wine at I Id.,
strong at 15d.; white wine at ~ z d . ; Rhenish at
16d.; old hock at zod., all per bottle; cherrysack
at 28d. per pint; English ale at 4d. per
bottle.?
In those days it was not deemed derogatory for
ladies of rank and position to join oyster parties in
some of those ancient taverns; and while there
was this freedom of manner on one hand, we are
told there was much of gloom and moroseness on
the other; a dread of the Deity with a fear of hell,
and of the power of the devil, were the predominant
feelings of religious people in the age subsequent
to the Revolution; while it was thought, so says
the author of ? I Domestic Annals ? (quoting Miss
Mure?s invaluable Memoirs), a mark of atheistic
tendencies to doubt witchcraft, or the reality of
apparitions and the occasional vaticinative character
of dreams.
A country gentleman, writing in 1729, remarks
on ?? the increase in the expense of housekeeping
which he had seen going on during the past twenty
years. While deeming it indisputable that Edinburgh
was now much less populous.than before the
Union, yet I am informed,? says he, ? that there is
a greater consumption since than before the Union
of all -provisions, especially fleshes and wheat.
bread. The butcher owns that he now kills thret
of every species for one he killed before the Union.
. . . . Tea in the morning and tea in tht
evening had now become established. There
were more livery servants, and better dressed.
and more horses than formerly.?
Lord Strichen did not die in the house in thf
close wherein he had dwelt so long, but at Stricher
in Aberdeenshire, on the 15th January, 1775, ir
his seventy-sixth year, leaving behind him the repu
tation of an upright judge. ? Lord Strichen was i
man not only honest, but highly generous; for
after his succession to the family estates, he paic
a large sum of debts contracted by his prede
cessor, which he was not under any obligation tc
pay.?
One of the last residents of note in Strichen?!
Close was Mr. John Grieve, a merchant in thc
Royal Exchange, who held the office of Lorc
?rovost in 1782-3, and again in 1786-7, and who
ras first a Town Councillor in 1765. When a
nagistrate he was publicly horsewhipped by some
r Edinburgh bucks ? of the day, for placing some
emales of doubtful repute in the City Guard
Xouse, under the care of the terrible Corporal
ihon Dhu--an assault for which they were arrested
.nd severely fined.
The house he 6ccupied had an entrance from
itrichen?s Close ; but was in reality one that beonged
to the Regent hlorton, having an entrance
rom the next street, named the Blackfriars Wynd.
3e afterwards removed to a house in Princes
street, where he became one of the projectors of
he Earthen Mound, which was long-as a mistake
n the picturesque-justly stigmatised as the RIud
Brig,? the east side of which was commenced a
ittle to the eastward of the line of Hanover Street,
ipposite to the door of Provost Grieve?s house,
ong ago turned into a shop.
John Dhu, the personage refTrred to, was a wellmown
soldier of the C;ty Guard, mentioned by Sir
Walter Scott as one of the fiercest-looking men he
lad ever seen. ?That such an image of military
violence should have been necessary at the close of
:he eighteenth century to protect the peace of a
British city,? says the editor of ?( Kay?s Portraits,?
?presents us with a strange contrast of what we
lately were and what we have now become. On
me occasion, about the time of the French Revolution,
when the Town Guard had been signalising
the King?s birthday by firing in the Parliament
Square, being unusually pressed and insulted by
the populace, this undaunted warrior turned upon
one peculiarly outrageous member of the democracy,
and, by one blow of his battle-axe, laid him
lifeless on the causeway.?
The old tenement, which occupied the ground
between Strichen?s Close and the Blackfriars Wynd
(prior to its destruction in the fire of zznd February,
18zj), and was at the head of the latter,
was known as ?Lady Lovat?s Land.? It was
seven storeys in height. There lived Primrose
Campbell of Mamore, widow of Simon Lord
Lovat, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1747,
and there, 240 years before her time, dwelt Walter
Chepman of Ewirland, who, with Miller, in 1507,
under the munificent auspices of James IV., introduced
the first printing press into Scotland, and on
the basement of whose edifice a house of the Revolution
period had been engrafted.
Though his abode was here in the High Street,
his printing-house was in the Cowgate, from whence,
in 1508, ?The Knightly Tale of Golagras and
Gawane ? was issued ; and this latter is supposed
He died in 1803.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p075.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 255")
... Street.] STRICHEN?S CLOSE. 255
pike stairs compelled the use of taverns more than
now. There the high-class ...
Book 2 p. 255
(Score 0.47)
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