... Letters,? that the Countess of Stair was subject
to hysterical fits-the result perhaps of all she ...
Book 1 p. 106
(Score 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Broughton Street.
ruary, Messrs. Margarot, Muir, Skirving, and
Palmer-to whose memory ...
Book 3 p. 178
(Score 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
memorials of still earlier fabrics here and there
meet the eye, and carry back ...
Book 6 p. 214
(Score 0.47)
... Hi1I.l THE BURYING-GROUND. I07
regulations, and is made as much as possible
the scene rather of the ...
Book 3 p. 107
(Score 0.47)
![Leith.] ST. JAMES?S CHAPEL. 243
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEITH-CONSTITUTION STREET, THE SHORE, COAL HILL, AND SHERIFF BRAE.
Constitution Street-Pirates Executed-St. James?s Episcopal Church-Town H a l l S t . John?s Church-Exchange Buildings-Head-quarten of
the Leith Rifle Volunteen4ld Signal-Tower-The Shore-Old and New Ship Taverns--The Markets-The Coal Hill-Ancient Council
House-The Peat Ne&-Shim Bme-Tibbie Fowler of the Glen-St. Thomas?s Church and Asylum-The Gladstone Family-Creat
Junction Road.
CONSTITUTION STREET, which lies parallel to, and
eastward of the Kirkgate, nearly in a line with the
eastern face of the ancient fortifications, is about
2,500 feet in lehgth, and soon after its formation
was the scene of the last execution within what is
termed (? flood-mark.? The doomed prisoners were
two foreign seamen, whose crime and sentence
excited much interest at the time.
Peter Heaman and Francois Gautiez were accused
of piracy and murder in seizing the briglane
of Gibraltar, on her voyage from that place to
the Brazils, freighted with a valuable cargo, including
38,180 Spanish dollars, and in barbarously
killing Johnson the master, and Paterson a seaman,
and confining Smith and Sinclair, two other
seamen, in the forecastle, where they tried to suffocate
them with smoke, but eventually compelled
them to assist in navigating the vessel, which they
. afterwards sank off the coast of Ross-shire. They
landed the specie in eight barrels on the Isle of
Lewis, where they were apprehended.
This was in thesummer of 1822, and they were,
after a trial before the Court of Justiciary, sentenced
by the Judge-Admiral to be executed on the 9th of
? the subsequent January, ?on the sands of Leith,
within the flood-mark, and their bodies to be afterwards
given to Dr. Munro for dissection.?
On the day named they were conveyed from the
Calton gaol, under a strong escort of the dragoon
.guards, accompanied by the magistrates of the city,
who had white rods projecting from the windows of
the carriages in which they sat, to a gibbet erected
? at the foot of Constitution Street-oi raiher, the
. northern continuation thereof-and there hanged.
Heaman was a native of Carlscrona, in Sweden ;
Gautiez wa8 a Frenchman. The bodies were put
4 in coffins, and conveyed by a corporal?s escort of
? dragoons to the rooms of the professor of anatomy.
During the execution the great bell of South Leith
church was ttilled with minute strokes, and the
papers of the day state that ? the crowd of spectators
was immense, particularly cn the sands, being little
short of from forty to fifty thousand; but, owing to
the excellent manner in which everything was
In 1823 the same thoroughfare witnessed another
legal punishment, when Thomas Hay, who had
- arranged, not the slightest accident happened.?
been tried and convicted of an attempt at assassination,
was flogged through the town by the common
executioner, and banished for fourteen years.
Between Constitution Street and the Links stands
St. James?s Episcopalian church, an ornate edifice
in the Gothic style, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott,
having a fine steeple, containing a chime of bells,
It was built in 1862-3, succeeding a previous chapel
of 1805 (erectedatthe cost ofx1,6ro)on an adjacent
site (of which a view is given on p. 240), and to which
attention was frequently drawn from the literary
celebrity of its minister, Dr. Michael Russell, the
author of a continuation o? Prideaux?s Connection
of Sacred and Profane History,? and other works.
According to h o t , the congregation had an origin
that was not uncommon in the eighteenth century,
when the persecution
was set on foot against those of the Episcopal
communion in Scotland who did not take the
oaths required by law, the meeting-house in Leith
was shut up by the sheriff of the county. Persons
of this persuasion being thus deprived of the form
of worship their principles approved, brought from
the neighbouring country Mr. John Paul, an English
clergyman, who opened this chapel on the 23rd
June, 1749. It is called St. James?s chapel. Till
of late the congregation only rented it, but within
these few years they purchased it for Azoo. The
clergyman has about L60 a year salary, and the
organist ten guineas. These are paid out of the
seat rents, collections, and voluntary contributions
among the hearers. It is, perhaps, needless to add
that there are one or more meeting-houses for
sectaries in this place (Leith), for in Scotland there
are few towns, whether of importance! or insighificant,
whether populous or otherwise, where there
are not congregations of sectaries.?
The congregation of St. James?s chapel received,
in about the year 1810, the accession of a nonjuring
congregation of an earlier date, says a writer
in 1851, referring, doubtless, to that formed in the
time of the Rev. Mr. Paul.
The Leith Post Office is at the corner of Mitchell
and Constitution Streets; it was built in 1876, is
very small, and in a rather meagre Italian style.
The Town Hall, which is at the corner of Constitution
and Charlotte Streets, was built in 1827, at a
After the battle of Culloden,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p062.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 243")
... ST. JAMES?S CHAPEL. 243
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEITH-CONSTITUTION STREET, THE SHORE, COAL HILL, AND SHERIFF ...
Book 6 p. 243
(Score 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
. of the greatest hits in the annals of the Theatre
Royal; and it was ...
Book 2 p. 350
(Score 0.47)
... Park.1 LORD- DOUGLAS. 351
?My dear little ones, Archy and Sholto, are, I
bless God, in very good health. I ...
Book 4 p. 351
(Score 0.47)
... he delighted in music and the theatre, and
it was his own advanced taste and spirit that led
.him, in 1725, ...
Book 1 p. 83
(Score 0.46)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
belonged to different vehicles. It is standing opposite
the Tron Kirk. ...
Book 5 p. 154
(Score 0.46)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord PmYoss.
tion of five new professorships. A few years after
his death a bust of ...
Book 4 p. 282
(Score 0.46)
![Liberton?s Wynd.] DOWIE?S TAVERN. 119
town mansion of the abbot, with a beautiful chapel
attached to it, and may serve to remind us how
little idea we can form of the beauty of the
Scottish capital before the Reformation, adorned
as it was with so many churches and conventual
buildings, the very sites of which are now unknown,
Over the doorway of an ancient stone land in Gosford?s
Close,which stood immediately east of the Old
Bank Close, there existed a curious sculptured
lintel containing a representation of the crucifixion,
and which may with every probability be regarded
as another relic of the abbot?s house that once
occupied its site.?
This lintel is still preserved, and the house
which it adorned belonged to Mungo Tennant, a
wealthy citizen, whose seal is appended to a reversion
of the half of the lands of Leny, in 1540. It
also bears his arms, with the then common legend
-Soli. Deo. Honor. et. GZona.
In the lower storcy of this house was a stronglyarched
cellar, in the floor of which was a concealed
trap-door, admitting to another lower down, hewn
out of the living rock. Tradition averred it was a
chamber for torture, but.it has more shrewdly been
supposed to have been connected with the smugglers,
to whom the North Loch afforded by boat such
facilities for evading the duties at the city gates,
and running in wines and brandies. This vault is
believed to be still remaining untouched beneath
the central roadway of the new bridge. On the
first floor of this mansion the fifth Earl of Loudon,
a gallant general officer, and his daughter, Lady
Flora (latterly countess in her own right) afterwards
Marchioness of Hastings, resided when in town.
Here, too, was the mansion of Hume Rigg of
Morton, who died in it in 1788. It is thus described
in a note to Kay?s works :-? The dining and
drawing-rooms were spacious ; indeed, more so
than those of any private modern house we have
seen. The lobbies were all variegated marble, and
a splendid mahogany staircase led to the upper
storey. There was a large green behind, with a
statue in the middle, and a summer-house at the
bottom; but so confined was the entry to this
elegant mansion that it was impossible to get even
a sedan chair near to the door.?? On the zoth
January, 1773, at four k.~., there was? a tempest,
says a print of the time, ? and a stack of chimneys
on an old house at the foot of Gosfords Close,
possessed by Hugh Mossman, writer, was blown
down, and breaking through the roof in that part
of the house where he and his spouse lay, they
both perished in the ruins. . . . . In the
storey below, Miss Mally Kigg, sister to Rigg of
Morton, also perished.?
So lately as 1773 the Ladies Catharine and
Anne Hay, daughters of John Marquis of Tweeddale,
and in that year their brother George, the
fifth Marquis, resided there too, in the thud floor
of the front ? land ? or tenement. ? Indeed,? says
Wilson, ?the whole neighbourhood was the favourite
resort of the most fashionable and distinguished
among the resident citizens, and a perfect
nest of advocates and lords of session.? In the
pear 1794 the hall and museum of the Society of
Antiquaries were at the bottom of this ancient
thoroughfare.
Next it was Liberton?s Wynd, the avenue of which
is still partially open, and which was removed to
make way for the new bridge and other buildings.
Like many others still extant, or demolished, this
alley, called a wynd as being broader than a
close, had the fronts of its stone mansions so added
to and encumbered by quaint projecting out-shot
Doric gables of timber, that they nearly met overhead,
excluding the narrow strip of sky, and, save
at noon, all trace of sunshine. Yet herein stood
Johnnie Dowie?s tavern, one of the most famous in
the annals of Convivialia, and a view of which, by
Geikie, is preserved by Hone in his Year Book.?
Johnnie Dowie was the sleekest and kindest of
landlords ; nothing could equal the benignity of
his smile when he brought ?ben? a bottle of his
famous old Edinburgh ale to a well-known and
friendly customer. The formality with which he
drew the cork, the air with which he filled the long,
slender glasses, and the regularity with which he
drank the healths of all present in the first, with
his dozrce civility at withdrawing, were as long remembered
by his many customers as his ?Nor?
Loch trouts and Welsh rabbits,? after he had gone
to his last home, in 1817, leaving a fortune to his
son, who was a major in the amy. With a laudable
attachment to the old costume he always wore
a cocked hat, buckles at the knees and shoes, as
well as a cross-handled cane, over which he
stooped in his gait. Here, in the space so small
and dark, that even cabmen would avoid it now,
there came, in the habit of the times, Robert Fergusson
the poet, David Herd the earliest collector
of Scottish songs, ? antiquarian Paton,? and others
forgotten now, but who were men of local note
in their own day as lords of session and leading
advocates. Here David Martin, a well-known
portrait painter, instituted a Club, which was
quaintly named after their host, the ?Dowie
College;? and there his far more celebrated
pupil Sir Henry Raeburn often accompanied
him in his earlier years; and, more than all,
it was the favourite resort of Robert Bums,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p131.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 119")
... Wynd.] DOWIE?S TAVERN. 119
town mansion of the abbot, with a beautiful chapel
attached to it, and may ...
Book 1 p. 119
(Score 0.46)
![High Street.] ST. MARY?S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz?choZaus
Ea?wfirtus. It occupied the western side of Lockhart?s
Court, and was accessible only by a deep
archway.
In an Act passed in 158r, ?<Anent the Cuinzie,?
Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, Provost of Edinburgh,
and Nicol Edward, whose houses were both
in this wynd, are mentioned with others. The
latter appears in 1585 in the Parliament as Commissary
for Edinburgh, together with Michael Gilbert;
and in 1587 he appears again in an Act of
Parliament in favour of the Flemish craftsmen,
whom James VI. was desirous of encouraging ; but,
!est they should produce inferior work at Scottish
prices, his Majesty, with the advice of Council,
hes appointit, constitute, and ordainit, ane honest
and discreit man, Nicolas Uduart, burgess of Edinburgh,
to be visitor and overseer of the said craftsmen?s
hail warks, steiks, and pieces . . . the said
Nicolas sal have sic dueties as is contenit within
the buke, as is commonly usit to be payit therfore
in Flanderis, Holland, or Ingland ; I? in virtue
of all of which Nicholas was freed froin all watching,
warding, and all charges and impositions.
In that court dwelt, in 17534761, George Lockhart
of Carnwath One of the thirteen roonis in his
house contained a mantelpiece of singular magnificence,
that reached the lofty ceiling; but the
house had a peculiar accessory, in the shape of (? a
profound dungeon, which was only accessible by a
secret trapdoor, opening through the floor of a
small closet, the most remote of a suite of rooms
extending along the south and west sides of the
court. Perhaps at a time when to be rich was
neither so common nor so safe as now, Provost
Edward might conceal his hoards in this massy
more.?
The north side of Lockhart?s Court was long
occupied by the family of Bruce of Kinnaird, the
celebrated traveller.
In Niddry?s Wynd, a little below Provost Edward?s
house on the opposite side, stood St.
Mary?s Chapel, dedicated to God and the Blessed
Virgin Mary, according to Arnot, in 1505. Its
foundress was Elizabeth, daughter of James, Lord
Livingstone, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and
Countess of Ross-then widow of John Earl of
Ross and Lord of the Isles, who, undeterred by
the miserable fate of his father, drew on him, by
his treasonable practices, the just vengeance of
James III., and died in 1498.
Colville of Easter U?emyss, and afterwards
Richardson of Smeaton, became proprietors and
patrons of this religious foundation ; and about
the year 1600, James Chaliners, a macer before the
Court of Session, acquired a right to the chapel,
and in 1618 the Corporations of Wrights and
Masons, known by the name of the United Incorporations
of Mary?s Chapel, purchased this subject,
?where they still possess, and where they hold
meetings,? says Arnot, writing in 1779.
In the CaZedonian Mercury for 1736 we read
that on St. Andrew?s Day the masters and wardens
of forty masonic lodges met in St. Mary?s Chapel,
and unanimously elected as their grand-master
William Sinclair of Roslin, the representative of
an ancient though reduced family, connected for
several generations with Scottish freemasonry.
For this ancient chapel a modern edifice was
substituted, long before the demolition of Niddry?s
Wynd; but the masonic lodge of Mary?s Chapel
still exists, and we believe holds its meetings
there.
Religious services were last conducted in the
new edifice when Viscountess Glenorchy hired it.
She was zealous in the cause of religion, and conceived
a plan of having a place of worship in
which ministers of every orthodox denomination
might preach; and for this purpose she had St.
Mary?s Chapel opened on Wednesday, the 7th
March, 1770, by the Rev. Mr. Middleton, the
minister of a small Episcopal chapel at Dalkeith ;
but she failed to secure the ministrations of any
clergyman of the Established Church, though in
1779 the Rev. William Logan, of South Leith, a
poet of some eminence in his time, gave his course
of lectures on the philosophy of history in the
chapel, prior to offering himself as a candidate for
the chair of civil history in the University.
On the east side of Niddry?s Wynd, nearly opp0-
site to Lockhart?s Court, was a handsome house,
which early in the eighteenth century was inhabited
by the Hon. James Erskine, a senator, better
known by his legal and territorial appellation of
Lord Grange, brother of John Earl of Mar, who
led? the great rising in 1715 on behalf of the
Stuarts. He was born in 1679, and was called to
the Scottish bar in 1705. He took no share in
the Jacobite enterprise which led to the forfeiture
of his brother, and the loss, ultimately of
the last remains of the once great inheritance in
the north from which the ancient family took its
name.
He affected to be a zealous Presbyterian and
adherent of the House of Hanover, and as such he
figures prominently in the ?? Diary? of the indus .
trious \ffodrow, supplying that writer with many
shreds of the Court gossip, which he loved so
dearly ; but Lord Grange is chiefly remembered for
the romantic story of his wife, which has long filled](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p067.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 247")
... Street.] ST. MARY?S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz?choZaus
Ea?wfirtus. It occupied the ...
Book 2 p. 247
(Score 0.46)
![Bomington] THE LAIRDS OF PILRIG. 91
His History of the Church and State of Scotland,?
though coloured by High Church prejudices,
is deemed a useful narration and very candid record
of the most controverted part of our national
annals, while the State documents used in its compilation
have proved of the greatest value to every
subsequent writer on the same subject. Very
curious is the list of subscribers, as being, says
Chambers, a complete muster-roll of the whole
Jacobite nobility and gentry of the period, including
among others the famous Rob Roy, the outlaw !
The bishop performed the marriage ceremony of
that ill-starred pair, Sir George Stewart of Grandtully
and Lady Jane Douglas, on the 4th of August, I 746.
In I 7 5 5 he published his well-known ? Catalogue
of Scottish Bishops,? a mine of valuable knowledge
to future writers.
The latter years of his useful and blameless life,
during which he was in frequent correspondence
with the gallant Marshal Keith, were all spent at
the secluded villa of Bonnyhaugh, which belonged
to himself. There he died on the 27th of January,
1757, in his seventy-sixth year, and was borne,
amid the tears of the Episcopai communion, to his
last home in the Canongate churchyard. There he
lies, a few feet from the western wall, where a plain
stone bearing his name was only erected recently.
In 1766 Alexander Le Grand was entailed in the
lands and estates of Bonnington.
In 1796 the bridge of Bonnington, which was of
timber, having been swept away by a flood, a
boat was substituted till 1798, when another wooden
bridge was erected at the expense of A30.
Here in Breadalbane Street, northward of some
steam mills and iron-works, stands the Bonnington
Sugar-refining Company?s premises, formed by a few
merchants of Edinburgh andLeith about 1865, where
they carry on an extensive and thriving business.
The property and manor house of Stewartfield
in this quarter, is westward of Bonnington, a square
edifice with one enormous chimney rising through a
pavilion-shaped roof. We have referred to the entail
of Alexander Le Grand, of Bonnington, in 1766.
The Scots Magazine for 1770 records an alliance
between the two proprietors here thus :-?At Edinburgh,
Richard Le Grand, Esq., of Bonnington
(son of the preceding?), to Miss May Stewart,
daughter of James Stewart of Stewartfield, Esq.?
On the north side of the Bonnington Road, and
not far from Bonnington House, stands that of
Pilrig, an old rough-cast and gable-ended mansion
among aged trees, that no doubt occupies the site
of a much older edifice, probably a fortalice.
In 1584 Henry Nisbett, burgess of Edinburgh,
became caution before the Lords of the Privy
Council, for Patrick Monypenny of Pilrig, John
Kincaid of Warriston, Clement Kincaid of the
Coates, Stephen Kincaid, John Matheson, and
James Crawford, feuars of a part of the Barony
of Broughton, that they shall pay to Adam Bishop
of Orkney, commendator of Holyrood House,
?what they ow-e him for his relief of the last
taxation of _f;zo,ooo, over and above the sum of
?15, already consigned in the hands of the col-
Lector of the said collection.?
In 1601 we find the same Laird of Pilrig engaged
in a brawl, ?forming a specimen of the
second class of outrages.? He (Patrick Monypenny)
stated to the Lords of Council that he had
a wish to let a part of his lands of Pilrig, called the
Round Haugh, to Harry Robertson and Andrew
Alis, for his own utility and profit. But on a certain
day, not satisfied, David UuA; a doughty indweller in
Leith, came to these per?sons, and uttering ferocious
menaces against them in the event of their occupying
these lands, effectually prevented them from
doing so.
Duff next, accompanied by two men named
Matheson, on the 2nd of March, 1601, attacked
the servants of the Laird of Pilrig, as they were
at labour on the lands in question, with similar
speeches, threatening them with death if they persisted
in working there; and in the night they,
or other persons instigated by them, had come
and broken their plough, and cast it into the
Water of Leith. ?John Matheson,? continues the
indictment, ?? after breaking the complenar?s plew,
came to John Porteous?s house, and bade him gang
now betwix the Flew stilts and see how she wald go
till the morning:? adding that he would have his
head broken if he ever divulged who had broken
the plough,
The furious Duff, not contentwith all this,trampled
and destroyed the tilled land. In this case the
accused were dismissed from the bar, but only, it
would appear, through hard swearing in their own
cause.
There died at Pilrig, according to the Scots
Magazine for 1767, Margaret, daughter of the late
Sir Johnstone Elphinstone of Logie, in the month of
January ; and in the subsequent June, Lady Elphinstone,
his widow. The Elphinstones of Logie were
baronets of 1701.
These ladies were probably visitors, as the then
proprietor and occupant of the mansion was James
Balfour of Pilng, who was born in 1703, and became
a member of the Faculty of Advocates on
the 14th of November, 1730, Three years later
on the death of Mr. Bayne, Professor of Scottish
Law in the University of Edinburgh, he and Mr.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p102.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 91")
... THE LAIRDS OF PILRIG. 91
His History of the Church and State of Scotland,?
though coloured by High ...
Book 5 p. 91
(Score 0.46)
... Sq-I MISS JEANNIE ELLIOT. =7*
-was compelled to have recourse to a sedan chair
by which he was wont to be ...
Book 4 p. 271
(Score 0.46)
![Currie.] DR. JAMES ANDERSON. . 335
were appointed to look after the king?s exchequer,
?properties, and casualties,? were named. (?Moyses?
Memoirs.?)
In April, 1598, he witnessed at Stirling the
contract between James VL, Ludovick Stewart,
Duke of Lennox, and Hugh, fifth Earl of Eglinton,
for the marriage of the latter and Gabriella,
sister of the duke.
He is best known in Scottish legal literature by
his treatise ?? De Verborum Significatione,? and the
edition of the ?? Regiam Majestatem,? but Lord
Hailes doubted if his knowledge of Scottish antiquities
was equal to his industry.
In 1607, with reference to the latter work, Sir
James Balfour records in his Annales? that ?? The
ancient Lawes of Scotland, collected by s? John
Skeene, Clerke of Register, on the Lordes of the
Privey Counsall?s recommendation to the King,
by their letters of the 4th of Marche this yeire
wer ordained to be published and printed, on his
Majestie?s charges.?
This work, which was printed in folio at Edinburgh
in 1609, is entitled ? REGIAM MAJESTATEM
SCOTIR;. The auld lawes and constitutions of Scotland,
faithfullie collected furth of the Register, and
other auld authentick Bukes, from the dayes of King
hlalcolme the Second vntill the time of King Jame
the First.? It contains the Quoniam Attachianzentq
or Baron Laws, the Burgh Laws, the Forest Law:
of William the Lion, and many other quaint anc
curious statutes.
His son, Sir James Skene of Curriehill, succeedec
Thomas, Earl of Mehose, as President of thc
Court of Session in 1626. At what time he w;1!
made a baronet of Nova Scotia is unknown, bui
his death as such is thus recorded by Balfour :-
?The 20 of October (1663) deyed s? Jame:
Skeine of Curriehill, Knight and Barronet, Presi
dent of the Colledge of Justice, at his auen houssc
in Edinburghe, and was interred in the Greyfriar:
ther.? Re was buried within the church, when
his tomb was found a few years ago; and tht
house in which he died is that described as bein;
?beside the Grammar School,? within the south
east angle of the Flodden wall, and in after years
the official residence of the Professor of Divinity.
Sir Archibald Johnston (Lord Warriston) wa:
a considerable heritor in the parish of Currie
Maitland (Lord Ravelrig) we have already referrec
to, and also to Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton
?The Scotts of hlalleny, father and son, were like
wise eminent lawyers at the same period, and tht
latter had a seat on the bench,? says the ?Olc
Statistical Account? ; but if so, his name does no1
appear in the list of senators at that time.
(? Eglinton Memorials.?)
.
The late General Thomas Scott of Malleny, who
lied at the age of ninety-six, served on the contilent
of Europe, and in the American War under
.he Marquis of Cornwallis.
He entered the army when a boy, and was a
:aptain in the 53rd Foot in October, 1777. It is
-ecorded of him that he carried some very impor-
:ant despatches in the barrel of his spontoon with
ucess and dexterity, passing through the American
hes in the disguise of aa armed pedler. These
services were recognised by Lord Melbourne, who
gave him a pension without solkitation.
He belonged latterly to the Scots Brigade ; was
t major-general of 1808, and a lieutenant-general
af 1813.
In 1882 his ancient patrimony of Malleny was
purchased by the Earl of Rosebery.
James Anderson, LLD., a miscellaneous writer
of considerable eminence, the son of a farmer, was
born at Hermiston, near Currie, in 1739, ?His
ancestors had been farmers,? says the Sots Magazine
for 1809, ?and had for several generations
farmed the same land, which circumstance is supposed
to have introduced him to that branch of
knowledge which formed the chief occupation of
his life.?
Among the companions of his youth, born in
the same hamlet, was Dr. James Anderson, who in
the early years of the present century was Physician-
General of the Forces in Madras. They were
related, educated together, and maintained a correspondence
throughout life.
Losing his father at the age of fifteen, he entered
upon the management of his ancestral farm, and
at the same time attended the chemistry class of
Dr. Cullen in the University of Edinburgh, studying
also several collateral branches of science. He
adopted a number of improvements, one of which,
the introduction of a small two-horse plough, was
afterwards so common in Scotland.
Amid his ? agricultural labours, so great was his
thirst for knowledge, and so steady his application,
that he contrived to acquire a considerable stock
of information; and in 1771, under the nouz de
phme of ? Agricola,? he contributed to Ruddiman?s
Edinburgh Week4 Xagazine a series of ? Essays
on Planting,? which were afterwards published in
a volume. In 1773 he furnished the article
Monsoon? to the first edition of the EmycZopdia
Britannica,. in which, curiously enough, he
confidently predicted the failure of?captain Cook?s
first expedition in search of a southern polar continent.
Previous to ,1777 he had removed from Hermistop
to a large uncultivated farm, consisting of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p154.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 335")
... DR. JAMES ANDERSON. . 335
were appointed to look after the king?s exchequer,
?properties, and ...
Book 6 p. 335
(Score 0.46)
... SKETCHES. 369
S. OP the Genealogy of the Family oP Seton in
the fourteenth century.
4, List of the ...
Book 8 p. 515
(Score 0.46)
... thrown down to facilitate the act. J?ames
Hay had been provided with a key that opened the
long-unused gate ...
Book 1 p. 134
(Score 0.46)
... N ~ S , attracted by the dampness of the soil,
where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet
eastward of ...
Book 1 p. 82
(Score 0.46)
... Seat.1 ST. ANTHONY?S CHAPEL. 319
farmers, who are maintained in it for six years;
?whom failing, the ...
Book 4 p. 319
(Score 0.46)
![ROBERT MONTEITH. . 3?5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found in the grand and sublime
of Nature, and his style is marked chiefly by
vigour, power, and breadth of effect-strong light
and deep shadow. As a man and a Christian
minister, his life was simple, pure, and irreproachable,
his disposition kind, affable, and benevolent.
He died of apoplexy in 1840, in his sixty-second
year.
The city must have had some interest in the loch,
as in the Burgh accounts for 1554 we read:-
?? Item : twa masons twa weeks to big the Park Dyke
at the loch side of Dudding?ston, and foreanent it
again on Priestfield syde, ilk man in the week xv?.
summa iijIi.
(?Item : for ane lang tree to put in the wall that
lyes far in the loch for outganging of ziyld beistis
v?.? ? (? Burgh Records.?)
The town or lands of Duddingston are included
in an act of ratification to James, Lord Lindsay of
the Byers, in 1592.
In the Acts of Sederunt for February, 1650, we
find Alexander Craig, in-dweller in the hamlet,
pilloried at the Tron of Edinburgh,. and placarded
as being a ? lying witness ? in an action-at-law
concerning the pedigree of John Rob in Duddingston;
but among the few reminiscences of this
place may be mentioned the curious hoax which
the episcopal incumbent thereof at the Restoration
played upon Cardinal de Retz.
This gentleman, whose name was Robert Monteith,
had unfortunately become involved in an
amour with a lady in the vicinity, the wife of Sir
James Hamilton of Prestonfield, and was cpmpelled
to fly from the scene of his disgrace. He
was the son of a humble man employed in the
salmon-fishing above Alloa ; but on repairing to
Paris, and after attaching himself to M. de la
Porte, Grand Prior of France, and soliciting employment
from Cardinal de Retz, he stated he was
?one of the Monteith family in Scotland.? The
cardinal replied that he knew the family well, but
asked to which branch he belonged. ?To the
Monteiths of Salmon-net,? replied the unabashed
adventurer.
The cardinal replied that this was a branch he
had never heard of, but added that he believed
it was, no doubt, a very ancient and illustrious
family. Monteith was patronised by the cardinal,
who bestowed on him a canonry in Notre Dame,
and made him his secretary, in which capacity he
distinguished himself by his elegance and purity,
in the French language. This strange man is
author of a well-known work, published in folio,
entitled, ? Hisfoa?re des TroubZes de &andBretap,
depuis Z?an 1633 juspu?a Z?an 1649, pur Robed
Menfet de Salmonet.
It was dedicated to the Coadjutor Archbishop of
Pans, with a portrait of the author; and a trans- .
lation of it, by Captain James Ogilvie, was published
in 1735 by G. Strachan, at the ?Golden Ball,?
in Cornhill.
In the year of the Revolution we find the
beautiful loch of Duddingston, as an adjunct to
the Royal Park, mentioned in a case before the
Privy Council on the 6th March.
The late Duke of Lauderdale having placed
some swans thereon, his clever duchess, who was
carrying on a legal contest With his heirs, deemed
herself entitled to take away some of those birds
when she chose; but Sir James Dick, now proprietor
of the %ch, broke a lock-fast place in
which she had put them, and set them once more
upon the water. The irate dowager raised an
action against him, which was decided in her
favour, but in defiance of this, the baronet turned
all the swans off the loch ; on which the Duke of
Hamilton, as Heritable Keeper of the palace, came
to the rescue, as Fountainhall records, alleging
that the loch bounded the King?s Park, and that
all the wild animals belonged to him ; they were,
therefore, restored to their former haunts.
Of the loch and the landsof Priestfield (orPrestonfield),
Cockburn says, in his ?Memorials? :-?I know
the place thoroughly. The reeds were then regularly .
cut over by means of short scythes with very long
handles, close to the ground, and this (system)
made Duddingston nearly twice its present size?
Otters are found in its waters, and a solitary
badger has at times provoked a stubborn chase.
The loch is in summer covered by flocks of dusky
coots, where they remain till the closing of the ice
excludes them from the water, when they emigrate
to the coast, and return With the first thaw.
Wild duck, teal, and water-hens, also frequent it,
and swans breed there prolifically, and form one
of its most picturesque ornaments. The pike, the
perch, and a profusion of eels, which are killed by
the barbed sexdent, also abound there.
In winter here it is that skating is practised as an
art by the Edinburgh Club. ?The writer recalls
with pleasure,? says the author of the ?Book of
Days,? ?skating exhibitions which he saw there early
in the present century, when Henry Cockburn,
and the philanthropist James Sipson, were conspicuous
amongst the most accomplished of the
club for their handsome figures and great skill in
the art. The scene of that loch ? in full bearing J
on a clear winter day, with its busy and stirring
multitude of sliders, skaters, and curlers, the snowy
Paris, 166 I.?](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p135.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 315")
... MONTEITH. . 3?5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found in ...
Book 4 p. 315
(Score 0.46)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord Provosts.
burgh of great numbers of? His Majesty?s subjects
and strangers, there ...
Book 4 p. 280
(Score 0.46)
... QLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur?s Seat.
name of Arthur?s Seat were anciently covered with
wood. The other ...
Book 4 p. 306
(Score 0.45)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate.
mentioned as residents in it in 1501. He was
Provost in 1425, and was ...
Book 4 p. 242
(Score 0.44)
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