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Newhaven.] REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303
In 1820 there were landed at the old stone
pier of Newhaven, John Baud and fourteen other
prisoners, ?f Radicals ? who had been taken after
the skirmish at Bonny Bridge, by the 10th Hussars
and the Stirlingshire yeomanry. They had been
brought by water from the castle of Stirling, and
were conveyed to gaol from Newhaven in six carriages,
escorted by a macer of justiciary, and the
detachment of a Veteran Battalion.
In the following year, and while railways were
still in the womb of the future, the Scots Magazine
announces, that a gentleman who had left
Belfast on a Thursday, ?reached Glasgow the
same evening, and embarked on board the Tounit
(steamer) at Newhaven on Friday, and arrived at
Aberdeen that night. Had such an event been
predicted fifty years ago, it would have been as
easy to make people believe that this journey would
have been accomplished by means of a balloon.?
About five hundred yards westward oi the stone
pier, a chain pier was constructed in the year 1821,
by Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown, of the
Royal Navy, at the cost of A4,ooo. It is five
hundred feet long, four feet wide, has a depth
at low water of from five to six feet, and served
for the use of the steam packets to Stirling,
Queensferry, and other places above and below
Leith; yet, being unable to offer accommodation for
the bulky steam vessels that frequent the harbour
of the latter or that of Granton, it is now chiefly
used by bathers, and is the head-quarters of the
Forth swimming club.
It was opened on the 14th of October, ISzr,
and was afterwards tested by a weight of twentyone
tons placed upon the different points of
suspension. In 1840 it became the property of
the Alloa Steam Packet Company.
In 1838 Newhaven was erected into a quoad
sma parish, by the aathority of the Presbytery .of
Edinburgh, when a handsome church was erected
for the use of the community, from a design by
John Henderson of Edinburgh.
Near it, in Main Street, is the Free Church,
designed in good Gothic style by James A. Hamilton
of Edinburgh, an elegant feature in the locality,
but chiefly remarkable for the ministry of the late
Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, who died in January, 1879-
a man who came of a notable race, as the wellknown
engineers of the same name were his
cousins, as was also Principal Fairbairn of Glasgow.
He was ordained minister at Newhaven in 1838.
The great majority of his congregation were fishermen
and their families, who were always keenly
sensible of the mode in which he prayed for those
who were exposed to the dangers of the deep.
During his long pastorate these prayers were.a
striking feature in his ministrations, and Charles
Reade, while residing in the neighbourhood, frequently
attended Newhaven Free Church, and has,
in his novel of ? Christie Johnstone,? given a lifelike
portrait of his demeanour when administering
consolation, after a case of drowning.
Perhaps the most useful of thii amiable old
pastor?s philanthropic schemes was that of the
reconstruction of the Newhaven fishing fleet. He
perceived early that the boats in use were wholly
unsuited for modem requirements, and some years
before his death he propounded a plan for replacing
them by others having decks, bunks, and
other compartments. As soon as a crew came forward
with a portion of the money required, Dr. Fairbairn
had no difficulty in getting the remainder
advanced. Thirty-three large new boats, each
costing about Lzso, with as much more for fishing
gear, were the result of his kindly labours. They
have all been prosperous, and hundreds of the
inhabitants of Newhaven, when they stood around
his grave, remembered what they owed to the
large-hearted and prudent benevolence of this old
ministei.
In 1864 a local committee was appointed for
the purpose of erecting a breakwater on the west
side of the present pier, so as to form a harbour
for the fishing craft. Plans and specifications
were prepared by Messrs. Stevenson, engineers,
Edinburgh, and the work was estimated at the
probable cost of L;~,OOO ; and while soliciting aid
from the Board of Fisheries, the Board of Trade,
and the ,magistrates of Edinburgh, the fishermen
honourably and promptly volunteered to convey ?
all the stonework necessary in their boats or otherwise
from the quarry at? Qleensferry.
The fishermen of Newhaven rarely intermany
With the women of other fisher communities ; and
a woman of any other class, unacquainted with the
cobbling of nets, baiting and preparation of lines,
the occasional use of a tiller or oar, would be useless
as a fisherman?s wife; hence their continued
intermarriages cause no small confusion in the
nomenclature of this remarkable set of people.
The peculiar melodious and beautiful cry of the
Newhaven oyster-woman-the last of the quaint
old Edinburgh street cries-is well known ; and so
also is their costume ; yet, as in time it may become
a thing of the past, we may give a brief description
of it here. ?A cap of linen or cotton,?J says a
writer in Chambers?s EdinQurgh Journal, ?? surmounted
by a stout napkin tied below the chin,
composes the investiture of the hood ; the showy
structures wherewith other females are adorned
,
.

... REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303 In 1820 there were landed at the old stone pier of Newhaven, John Baud and ...

Book 6 p. 303
(Score 0.59)

274 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Chambers Street.
Britannica? In 1763 he was Treasurer of the
Navy, and died at Marseilles in 1777.
For some years after that period Minto House
was the residence of Sir William Nairne of Dun-
? sinnan, a Judge of the Court of SesGon, who removed
there from one he had long occupied, before
his promotion to the bench, at the head of the
Back Stairs, and in which he had lived as Mr.
Nairne, at that terrible period of his family history,
when his niece, the beautiful Mrs. Ogilvie, was
tried and convicted for murder in 1766.
He was the last of his line ; and when he died, in
1811, at an advanced age, his baronetcy became
extinct, and a nephew, his sister?s son, assumed
the name and arms of Nairne of Dunsinnan.
The principal entrance to Minto House in those
days was from the Horse Wynd, when it was
noted chiefly as a remnant of the dull and antiquated
grandeur of a former age. It was next
divided into a series of small apartments, and let
to people in the humblest rank of life. But it was
not fated to be devoted long to such uses, for the
famous surgeon, Mr. (afterwards Professor) Syme,
had it fitted up in 1829 as a surgical hospital for
street accidents and other cases, Mr. Syme retained
the old name of Minto House, and the surgery
and practice acquired a world-wide celebrity,
Long the scent of demonstrations and prelections
of eminent extramural lecturers, it was swept away
in the city improvements, and its?successor is now
included in Chambers Street, and has become the
6? New Medical Scliool of Minto House,? so that
the later traditions of tbe site ~ l l be perpetuated.
Among other edifices demolished in Argyle
Square, together with the Gaelic? Church, was the
Meeting House of the Scottish Baptists, seated foi
240-one of two sections of that congregation
established in I 766.
Proceeding westward, from the broad site 01
what was once Adam Square, and the other two
squares of which we have just given the history,
Chambers Street opens before us, a thousand feet in
length, With an average of seventy in breadth, extending
from the South Bridge to that of George IV.
It was begun in 1871 under the City Improve
ment Act, and was worthily named in honour 01
the Lord Provost Chambers, the chief promoter 01
the new city improvement scheme. With the
then old squares it includes the sites of North
College Street, and parts of sites of the Horse and
College Wynds, and is edificed into four largc
blocks, three or four storeys high, in ornate example:
of the Italian style, with some specimens of the
French.
Chambers Street was paved with wooden blocks
in 1876, at a cost of nearly A6,000, and on that
occasion 322,000 blocks were used.
On the south side three hundred and sixty feet OF
Chambers Street are occupied by the north front.
of the University. Over West College Street-of
old, the link between the Horse Wynd and.
Potterrow-is thrown a glass-covered bridge, connecting
the University with the Museum of Science.
and Art, which, when completed, will occupy the
remaining 400 feet of the north side to where ?? The
Society ?-besides one of Heriot?s schools-exists.
now in name.
This great and noble museum is in the Venetian
Renaissance style, from a design by Captain
Fowkes of the Royal Engineers. The laying ofthe
foundation-stone of this structure, on the
23rd of October, 1861, was the last public act of
His Royal Highness the Prince Consort. It is
founded on plans similar to those of the Interna--
tional Exhibition buildings in London, and, by theyear
1870, contained-a great hall, 105 feet long,
seventy wide, and seventy-seven in height ; a hail
of natural history, 130 feet long, fifty-seven feet.
wide, and seventy-seven in height ; a south hall,
seventy feet long, fifty feet wide, and seventy-seven,
in height ; and two other great apartments. When
completed it will be one of the noblest buildings
in Scotland.
In 1871-4 the edifice underwent extension, the.
great hall being increased to the length of 270 feet,.
and other apartments being added, which, when
finished, will have a measurement of 400 feet in.
length, 200 feet in width, with an average of ninety
in height Already it contains vast collections in,
natural history, in industrial art, in manufacture,
and in matters connected with physical science.
The great aim of the architect has been to have
every part well-lighted, and for this purpose a glass
roof with open timberwork has been adopted, and
the details of the whole structure made as light as
possible. Externally the front is constructed of
red and white sandstone, and internally a more
elaborate kind of decoration has been carried out.
Altogether the effect of the building is light, rich,.
and elegant. .In the evenings, when open, it is
lighted up by means of: horizontal iron rods in the
roof studded with gas burners, the number of jets.
exceeding 5,000.
The great hall or saloon is a singularly noble
apartment, with two galleries The collection of
industrial art here comprises illustrations of nearly
all the chief manufactures of the British Isles and
foreign countries, and the lafgest collection in the
world of the raw products of commerce. It
possesses sections for mining and quarrying, for
?

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Chambers Street. Britannica? In 1763 he was Treasurer of the Navy, and died at ...

Book 4 p. 274
(Score 0.59)

I72 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
.but the3ittle .warlike episode connected with Inchkeith
forms a part of it.
In the rare view of Holyrood given at page 45
.of Vol. II., Inchkeith is shown in the distance, with
its castle, a great square edifice, having a round
tower at each corner. The English garrison here
were in a position which afforded them many
.advantages, and they committed many outrages on
the shores of Fife and Lothian; and when it be-
.came necessary to dislodge them, M. de Biron, a
French officer, left Leith in a galley to reconnoitre
to the island, and evident selection of the only
landing-place, roused the suspicions of the garrison.
Finding theirintentions discovered, they made direct
for the rock, and found the English prepared to
dispute every inch of it with them.
Leaping ashore, with pike, sword, and arquebus,
they attacked the English hand to hand, drove
them into the higher parts of the island, where
Cotton, their commander, and George Appleby,
one of his officers, were killed, with several English
gentlemen of note. The castle was captured, and
@he island-the same galley in which, it is said,
little Queen Mary afterwards went to France. The
English garrison were no doubt ignorant of Biron?s
object in sailing round the isle, as they did not fire
upon him.
Mary of Lorraine had often resorted to Leith
since the arrival of her cour.trymen ; and now she
took such an interest in the expedition to Inchkeith
that she personally superintended the embarkation,
on Corpus Christi day, the 2nd of June,
1549. Accompanied by a few Scottish troops, the
French detachment, led by Chapelle de Biron, De
Ferrieres, De Gourdes, and other distinguished
.officers, quitted the harbour in small boats, and to
.deceive the English as to their intentions sailed up
and down the Firth ; but their frequent approaches
the English driven pell-mell into a corner of the
isle, where they had no alternative but to throw
themselves into the sea or surrender. In this combat
De Biron was wounded on the head by an
arquebus, and had his helmet so beaten about his
ears that he had to be carried off to the boats.
Desbois, his standard-bearer, fell under the pike
of Cotton, the English commander, and Gaspare
di Strozzi, leader of the Italians, was slain. An
account of the capture of this island was published
in France, and it is alike amusing and remarkable
for the bombast in which the French writer indulged.
He records at length the harangues of
the Queen Regent and the French leaders as the
expedition quitted Leith, the length and tedium of
the voyage, and the sufferings which the troops

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith. .but the3ittle .warlike episode connected with Inchkeith forms a part of ...

Book 5 p. 172
(Score 0.59)

University,] A STUDENTS? RIOT. I1
placed in the city charter room; and this order
occurs often afterwards, or is referred to thus :-
?? In 1663 the magistrates came down with their
halberts to the college, took away all our charters
and papers, declared the Provost perpetual rector,
though he was chancellor before, and at the same
time discharged university meetings.?
During the summer of 1656 some new buildings
were in progress on the south side of the old
college, as the town council records state that
for the better carrying on thereof, ?there is a
necessitie to break down and demolishe the hous
neirest the Potterrow Port, which now the Court du
Guaird possesseth ; thairfoir ordaines the thesaurer
with John Milne to visite the place, and doe therin
what they find expedient, as weil for demolishing
the said hous as for provyding for the Court du
Guaird utenvayis.?
During the year 1665 some very unpleasant relations
ensued between the university and its civic
patrons, and these originated in a frivolous cause.
It had been the ancient practice of the regents of
all European seminaries to chastise with a birch
rod such of the students as were unruly or committed
a breach of the laws of the college within
its bound. Some punishment of this nature had
been administered to the son of the then Provost,
Sir Andrew Ramsay, Knight, and great offence was
taken thereat.
In imitation of his colleagues and predecessors,
the regent, on this occasion, had used his own
entire discretion as to the mode and amount of
punishment he should inflict ; but the Lord Provost
was highly exasperated, and determining to wreak
his vengeance on the whole university, assumed the
entire executive authority into his own hands.
?? Having proceeded to the college, and exhibited
some very unnecessary symbols of his power within
the city-the halberts, we presume-on the tenth
of November he repaired to the Council Chamber
and procured the following Act- to be passed :-
Th CoumiZ agrees fhut fhe Provosf of Edinburgh,
present and to come, 6e &ways Rector and Governor
uf fhe roZZege in a21 time coming.? The only important
effects which this disagreeable business
produced were, that it was the cause of corporal
punishment being banished from the university,
and that no rector has since been elected,? adds
Bower, writing in 1817. ?The Senatw Arademiclls
have repeatedly made efforts to revive the election
of the ofice of rector, and have as often failed
of success.?
A short time before his death Cromwell made a
grant to the college of &zoo per annum, a sum
which in those days would greatly have added to
the prosperity of the institution ; but he happened
to die in the September of the same year in which
the grant was dated, and as all his Acts were
rescinded at the? Restoration, his intentions towards
the university came to nothing. The expense of
passing the document at the Exchequer cost about
L476 16s. Scots; hence it is extremely doubtful if
the smallest benefit ever came of it in any way.
The year 1680 saw the students of the university
engaged in a serious riot, which created a profound
sensation at the time.
?i After the Restoration, the students,? says
Amot, ? appear to have been pretty much tainted
with the fanatic principles of the Covenanters,?
and they resolved, while the Duke of Albany and
York was at Holyrood, to manifest their zeal by a
solemn procession and burning of the pope in effigy
on Christmas Day, and to that end posted up the
following :-
??I?HESE are to give notice to all Noblemen, Gentlemen,
Citizens, and others, that We, the Students of the Royal College
of Edinburgh (to show our detestation and abhorrence of
the Romish religion, and our zeal and fervency for the Protestant),
do resolve to bum the effigies of Anfi-ch&f, the
Pqe of Rome at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, the 25th of
December instant, at Twelve in the forenoon (being the
festival of Our Saviour?s nativity). And as we hate tumnlts
as we do superstition, we do hereby (under pain of death) discharge
all robbers, thieves, and bawds to come within 40
paces of our company, and such as shall be found disobedient
to these our commands, Sibi Caveant.
? By our Special command, ROBERT BROWN, Secretary
to all our Theatricals and Extra L i t d Divertisements.?
?AN ADVERTISEMENT.
This announcement filled the magistrates with
alarm, as such an exhibition was seriously calculated
to affront the duke and duchess, and, moreover,
to excite a dangerous sedition. According to a
history of, this affair, published for Richard Janeway,
in Queen?s Head Alley, Paternoster Row, 1681,
the students bound themselves by a solemn oath
to support each other, under penalty of a fine, and
they employed a carver, ?who erected then a
wooden Holiness, with clothes, tiiple crown, keys,
and other necessary habiliments,? and by Christmas
Eve all was in readiness for the display, to prevent
which the Lord Provost used every means
at his command.
He sent for Andrew Cant, the principal, and
the regents, whom he enjoined to deter the
students ? with menaces that if they would not, he
would make it a bloody Christmas to them.? He
then went to Holyrood, and had an interview with
the duke and the Lord Chancellor, who threatened
to march the Scottish troops into the town. Meanwhile,
the principal strove to exact oaths and
promises from the students that they would re

... A STUDENTS? RIOT. I1 placed in the city charter room; and this order occurs often afterwards, or is ...

Book 5 p. 11
(Score 0.59)

The Luckenbooths
James VI., but no memories of him now remain,
save the alley called Byres? Close, and his tomb
in the west mall of the Greyfriars? churchyard, the
inscription on which, though nearly obliterated,
tells us that he was treasurer, bailie, and dean
of guild of Edinburgh, and died in 1629, in his
sixtieth year
The fourth floor of the tall Byres? Lodging was
occupied in succession by the Lords Coupar and
Lindores, by Sir James Johnston of Westerhall, and
finally by Lord Coalstoun, father of Christian Brown,
Countess of the Earl of Dalhousie, a general who
distinguished himself at Waterloo and elsewhere.
Before removing to a more spacious mansion on
the Castle Hill, Lord Coalstoun lived here in I 757,
and during that time an amusing accident occurred
to him, which has been the origin of more than one
excellent caricature.
?It was at that time the custom,? says the
gossipy author of ? Traditions of Edinburgh,?
U for advocates, and no less than judges, to dress
themselves in gown, wig, and cravat, at their own
houses, and to walk in a sort of state, with their
cocked hats in their hands, to the Parliament
House. They usually breakfasted early, and
when dressed would occasionally lean over their
parlour windows for a few minutes, before St.
Giles?s bell sounded a quarter to nine, enjoying the
morning air, and perhaps discussing the news of
the day, or the convivialities of the preceding
evening, with a neighbouring advocate on the
opposite side of the alley. It so happened that
one morning, while Lord Coalstoun was preparing
to enjoy his matutinal treat, two girls who lived on the
second floor above were amusing themselves with
a kitten, which they had swung over the window
by a cord tied round its middle, and hoisted for
some time up and down, till the creature was
getting desperate with its exertions. In this crisis
his lordship popped his head out of the window,
directly below that from which the kitten swung,
little suspecting, good easy man, what a danger
impended, wlien down came the exasperated
animal in full career upon his senatorial wig.
No sooner did the girls perceive what sort of
landing-place their kitten had found, than in theix
terror and surprise, they began to draw it up ; but
this measure was now too late, for along with the
animal up also came the judge?s wig, fixed full in
its determined claws ! His lordship?s surprise on
finding his wig lifted off his head was much
increased when, an looking up, he perceived it
dangling its way upwards, without any means
v i d k to him, by which its motions might be
accounted for. The astonishment, the dread, the
!we of the senator below-the half mirth, half
error of the girls above, together with the fierce
elentless energy on the part of puss between,
ormed altogether a scene to which language could
lot easily do justice. It was a joke soon explained
md pardoned, but the perpetrators did afterwards
;et many injunctions from their parents, never again
.o fish over the window, with such a bait, for
ionest men?s wigs.?
At the east end of the Luckenbooths, and facing
:he line of the High Street, commanding not only
t view of that stately and stirring thoroughfare,
xit also the picturesque vista of the Canongate
md far beyond it, Aberlady Bay, Gosford House,
md the hills of East Lothian, towered ? Creech?s
Land ?-as the tenement was named, according to
:he old Scottish custom-long the peculiar haunt
3f the Ziferati during the last century. In the first
Rat had been the shop of Allan Ramsay, where in
17 25 he established the first circulating library ever
known in Scotland; and for the Mercury?s Head,
which had been the sign of his first shop opposite
Niddry?s Wynd, he now substituted the heads of
Drummond of Hawthornden and Ben Jonson.
Of this establishment Wodrow writes :-? Profaneness
is come to a great height ! all the villainous,
profane, and obscene books of plays printed at
London by Curle and others, are got down from
London by Allan Ramsay, and let out for an easy
price to young boys, servant women of the better
sort, and gentlemen, and rice and obscenity dreadfully
propagated.?
It was the library thus stigmatised by sour old
Wodrow, that, according to his own statement, Sir
Walter Scott read with such avidity in his younger
years. The collection latterly contained upwards
of 30,000 volumes, as is stated by a note in ? Kay?s
Portraits.?
In 1748, says Kincaid, a very remarkable and
lawless attempt was made by the united London
booksellers and stationers to curb the increase of
literature in Edinburgh ! They had conceived an
idea, which they wished passed into law : ?That
authors or their assignees had a perpetual exclusive
right to their works; and if these could not be
known, the right was in the person who first published
the book, whatever manner of way they
became possessed of it.?
The first step was taken in 1748-twenty-three
years after Ramsay started his library-when an
action appeared before the Court of Session against
certain booksellers in Edinburgh and Glasgow,
which was decreed against the plaintiffs.* Ten
Falconer?s ?Decisions,? voL i

... Luckenbooths James VI., but no memories of him now remain, save the alley called Byres? Close, and his ...

Book 1 p. 154
(Score 0.59)

388 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
remarkable for brilliancy and power ; and he was looked upon by all as one destined
to be eminently useful to the people as well as ornamental to the church.
His successful career, however, was of short duration. It is probable that the
malady to which he fell a victim had been insinuating its unhappy influence for
years, though it appears that not even his most intimate friends ever suspected
its approach.
On a sacramental occasion, in 1803, as had been his wont, he went over to
Fife, to assist his father in dispensing the Lord’s Supper. Every one present
remarked that they never observed him more animated and effective. Powerful,
and even sublime, his language appeared more like the ‘‘ outpourings ” of
inspiration, than the words of mortal man ; and his aged father is said to have
shed tears of joy while listening to him. This, the brightest, was his last display
in the pulpit. In the evening, mental derangement became so manifest
that it was necessary to confine him ever since within the precincts of an
asylum.’
No. CCCII.
FRANCIS JEFFREY, ESQ.,
ADVOCATE,
ONE OF THE SENATORS OF THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE.
THIS distinguished individual, son of Mr. George Jeffrey, a Depute-Clerk of
Session, was born in Windmill Street, or Charles Street, near George Square,
on the 23d of October 1773. His early years were marked by vivacity and
quickness of apprehension j and his progress at the High School was rapid and
decided. After studying for several years, from 1788, at the University of
Glasgow, he repaired to Queen’s College, Oxford, and there passed the greater
portion of 1792-3. Towards the close of the latter year, he returned to Scotland,
and attended for a short time the University of his native city, Here he
became a member of the Speculative Society j’ and, entering keenly and warmly
into the spirit of the association, acquired that facility in debate for which he
was subsequently remarkable.
. MR.J EFFRwEaYs a dmitted a member of the faculty of advocates in 1794,
but for several years his practice was limited. Talent alone is not always the
certain or most rapid pass to success at the Scottish bar j and he found ample
. leisure for the indulgence of his taste for literature. Along with the Rev. Sydney
It waa creditable to the Relief Congregation at Dalkeith that they expended upwards of eleven
hundred pounds in contributing annually towards the maintenance of their once greatly esteemed
pastor. He was then
removed to Montroae.
a Amongst the more distinguished members at that time were the late Francis Horner, afterwards
M.P. for St. Mawes ; and Henry, afterwards Lord Brougham and Vaux.
During the first four years of his illness he was confined at Musselburgh.

... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. remarkable for brilliancy and power ; and he was looked upon by all as one destined to ...

Book 9 p. 518
(Score 0.59)

kith.] THE OLD SMACKS AND FERRY-BOATS. e11
smacks in their southward voyage merely touching
at Berwick for their cargoes of salmon.
In ISOZ the merchants of Leith established a
line for themselves, ?? The Edinburgh and Leith
Shipping Company,? which commenced with six
armed smacks, the crews of which were protected
from the impress.
On the 23rd of October, 1804, one of these
smacks, the Brifunnia, Captain Brown, and another
named the Sprz$fO, Captain Taylor, off Cromer,
fell in with a large French privateer, which bore
down on them both, firing heavily, particularly with
musketry; but the Leith smacks? men stood to
their guns, engaged her briskly, and so damaged her
sails and rigging that she sheered off and dropped
astern. The smacks had many shots through their
canvas, but none of their men were killed.
On the 9th January, 1805, another, the SwaZZm,
Captain White, was attacked off Flamborough
Head by a heavy French privateer, carrying fourteen
guns, and very full of men. Passing through a
fleet of Newcastle colliers, she came within pistolshot
of the Swallow, and poured in a broadside,
accompanied by volleys of musketry.
Captain White replied with his carronades and
small arms. The round shot of the former told so
well that the privateer was fairly beaten off, while
neither the smack nor her crew sustained much
injury. ?In these two actions,? says the Scots
Magazine, ? both seamen and passengers showed a
becoming spirit.? But such encounters were of
very common occurrence in those days.
In 1809 the new company had ten of these
smacks ; eventually, there were no fewer than four
companies trading between Leith and London ;
but in 182 I one was formed under the name of the
London and Edinburgh Steam Packet Company,
With three large steamers-the City of Eninbuqh,
theJnmes Watt, and the Solo.
So great was their success that in 1831 the London,
Leith, Edinburgh, and Glasgow Shipping
Company superseded their fine smacks by the
introduction of powerful steamers, with beautiful
cabin accommodation, the WiZliam, Addaide, and
Victoria. In 1836 the London and Edinburgh
Steam Packet Company became merged in the
General Steam Navigation Company, sailing from
Granton to London. The old smacks were retained
by only two of the companies ; but having
been found expensive to build and to maintain,
from the number of men required to handle their
unwieldy canvas-particularly their great boom
main-sail-they were in 1844 superseded by clipper
schooners ; so these once celebrated craft, the old
Leith smacks, have entirely disappeared from the
harbour with which they were so long and exclusively
identified.
Before quitting the subject of passenger traffic,
we may glance at the ancient ferries of Leith.
By an Act of James I., in 1425, it was ordained
that all femes where horses were conveyed, should
?have for jlk boate a treene brig,? or wooden gangway,
under the pain of ?? 40 shillings of ilk boate ;?
and again, by an Act of James III., 1467, the
ferries at Leith, Kinghorn, and Queensferry are
ordained to have ?brigges of buuds,? under penalty
of the ? tinsel ? or forfeitursof their boats. In 1475
the charge for a passenger was twopence, and for
a horse sixpence; at Queensferry one penny for
a man, and twopence for a horse. (Scots Acts,
Glendoick.)
Nicoll records that in 1650 the ferrymen at Leith
and Burntisland (taking advantage probably of the
confusion of affairs) became so exorbitant in their
charges that complaints were made to the Deputy
Governor of Leith, who ordered that the fare for a
man and horse should be only one shilling sterling,
and for a single person one groat, ?quhairas it
wqs tripled of beioir.?
In July, 1633, a boat at the ferry between
Burntisland and Leith foundered in a fair summer?s
day, according to Spalding, and with it perished
thirty-five domestic servants of Charles I., with his
silver plate and household stuff, ?but it foretokened
great troubles to fall out betwixt the king
and his subjects, as after does appear.? Balfour
states that there was a great stoi-m, that the king
crossed ?in grate jeopardy of his lyffe,? and that
only eight servants perished.
In the early part of the present century the ferry
traffic between Leith, Kinghorn, and Burntisland
was carried on by means of stout sloops of forty oc
fifty tons, without topmasts, and manned generally
by only four men, and always known as ?the
Kinghorn Boats,? although Pettycur was adopted
as the more modern harbour.
Generally there were two crossings between
Leith and Fife every tide, though subsequently,
as traffic increased, the number of runs was increased
by having a boat anchored outside the
harbour when there was not sufficient water for it
to enter. Small pinnaces were used for the voyage
in dead calms. The old ferrymen were strong,
rough, and quaint fellows, and Leith still abounds
with anecdotes of their brusque ways and jovial
humour.
A recent writer mentions that if a passenger
had a dog whose acquaintance he was disposed
to ignore, in order to escape paying its fare, he
would be sure to be accosted by a blue-bonneted

... THE OLD SMACKS AND FERRY-BOATS. e11 smacks in their southward voyage merely touching at Berwick for their ...

Book 6 p. 211
(Score 0.59)

EIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 3i5
He had just sat down to dinner, when feeling himself unwell, he rose hurriedly,
and had only time to get the length of another room, where he expired.‘
The figure to the left, displaying a sum of money in a bag,’and exclaiming,
“ Cabbage, Willie-mair cabbage,” is intended for the then City Chamberlain,
MR. THOMAS HENDERSON. He was formerly a Russia merchantthat
is, a dealer in coarse linens and yarns-and had his shop on the south side
of the High Street. He first appeared in the Council in 1796; and, after
having filled’ the various civic offices of Bailie, Dean of Guild, and Treasurer,
was appointed City Chamberlain, on the death of Dr. Thomas Hay, in 1810.
Thereafter, in accordance with a resolution of the Council, he gave up his business
as a Russia merchant, devoting his whole attention to the duties of his office,
His salary as Chamberlain was then augmented from 2600 to 2800.
Mr. Henderson died on the 22d December 1822, in the sixty-second year
of his age, much regretted by all who knew him.
The figure behind the sippost, tendering advice to the Laird to “ Keep the
halter tight fear she turn,” will easily be recognised by many of our Edinburgh
readers as the well-known city officer, ARCHIE CAMPBELL, of whom a
portrait and memoir has yet to be given.
No. CCXCVI.
JOHN STEELE.
THE sturdy beggar, of whom this is a likeness at the advanced age of one
hundred and nine years, resided, as intimated on the Print, in the parish of
Little Dunkeld, Perthshire. He was a man of uncommon strength, and was
usually designated Steele Dhu, or Black Steele. He lived in a manner at free
quarters-helping himself without scruple to whatever he required-few of his
neighbours daring to come into angry collision with him. He was originally,
we believe, a sort of blacksmith or tinker, and used to frequent fairs and
markets, vending fire-irons and other articles of his own manufacture.
His children, like himself, were remarkable for their strength. He had two
daughters, each of whom, it is said, could cany a load of turf from the hill
sufficient for the back of a horse.
It may be mentioned that, while holding the office of Chief Magistrate, Mr. Mackenzie had the
honour of entertaining at dinner, at his house in Gayfield Square, tkst the Russian Prince, Michael,
and on a subsequent occasion, Prince Leopold ; both of these distinguished persouages having visited
this country during the years 1818-19.
Mr. Mackenzie had a sister married to the present Mr. Balliigall, who, it is believed, has been
factor on the Balbirnie estate upwards of seventy years.

... SKETCHES. 3i5 He had just sat down to dinner, when feeling himself unwell, he rose hurriedly, and ...

Book 9 p. 500
(Score 0.59)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 377
trable to all such assaults. It did not fail, however, to excite the notice of his
opponents north of the Tweed ; and we have seen by the ‘‘ Patent of Knighthood”
how the artist improved upon the suggestion.
Notwithstanding his temporary unpopularity, Sir James was subsequently
at the head of the Magistracy in 1794-5, and again in 1798-9. During the
latter warlike period his conduct was truly meritorious. Scottish commerce
had suffered considerably from the attacks of French and Dutch privateers,
even on our very coasts, which had been left in a shamefully unguarded
condition. By the representations of Sir James, and his judicious applications
to Government, proper convoys were obtained for the merchantmen, and due
protection afforded to our bays. He zealously forwarded the plan of arming
the seamen of Leith and the fishermen of Newhaven, by which a strong body
of men were organised in defence of the harbour and shipping.
So highly were the services of Sir James appreciated, that at the annual
Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland (of which he was preses), held at
Edinburgh in 1799, the thanks of the Convention were presented to him in a
gold box, “for his constant attention to the trade of the country, and in
testimony of the Convention’s sense of his good services in procuring the
appointment of convoys, and in communicating with the outports on the
subject .”
In private life he was
very much respected : of mild, gentlemanly manners, but firm in what he judged
to be right. His habits were economical, but not parsimonious ; and the party
entertainments given at his house were always in a style of magnificence. In
person, he was tall and extremely attenuated.’
At one period Sir James resided in St. Andrew Square, the first house
north from Rose Street; and latterly at the west end of Queen Street, not
far from the Hopetoun Rooms. He acquired the estate of Larbert, in
Stirlingshire, which, with his title of Baronet, descended to his son, Sir Gilbert
Stirling, then a Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards. He left another son,
George, who on the 25th December 1820 married Anne Henrietta, daughter
of William Gray of Oxgang, Esq. He had also two daughters, Janet and Joan,
the former of whom was married to Admiral Sir Thomas Livingstone of Westquarter,
near Falkirk.
Sir James Stirling died on the 17th February 1805.
1 It is related of Sir James, that on being pointed out to a countq woman while walking, attired
in his velvet robes, in a procession, she exclaimed-‘‘ Is that the Lord Provost I I thocht it was the
corpse rinnin’ awa’ wi’ the mort-cloth.”
30

... SKETCHES. 377 trable to all such assaults. It did not fail, however, to excite the notice of ...

Book 8 p. 526
(Score 0.59)

162 OLD AED NEW EDINBURGH. [Hanover Street.
in yhich David Hume died the Bible Society oi
Edinburgh was many years afterwards constituted,
and held its first sitting.
In the early part of the present century, No. 19
was the house of Miss Murray of Kincairnie, in
Perthshire, a family now extinct.
In 1826 we find Sir Walter Scott, when ruin
had come upon? him, located in No. 6, Mrs.
Brown?s lodgings, in a third-rate house of St.
David Street, whither he came after Lady Scott?s
death at Abbotsford, on the 15th of May in thatto
him-most nielancholy year of debt and sorrow,
and set himself calmly down to the stupendous
task of reducing, by his own unaided exertions, the
enormous monetary responsibilities he had taken
upon himself.
Lockhqt tells us that a week before Captain
Basil Hall?s visit at No. 6, Sir Walter had suf
ficiently mastered himself to resume his literary
tasks, and was working with determined resolution
at his ?Life of Napoleon,? while bestowing
an occasional day to the ?Chronicles of the
Canongate ?? whenever he got before the press with
his historical MS., or felt the want of the only
repose Be ever cared for-simply a change oi
labour.
No. 27,
now a shop, was the house of Neilson of Millbank,
and in No. 33, now altered and sub-divided, dwell
Lord Meadowbank, prior to I 7gqknown when at the
bar as Allan Maconochie. He left several children,
one of whom, Alexander, also won a seat on the
bench as Lord Meadowbank, in 18x9. No. 39, at
the corner of George Street, w2s the house ol
Majoribanks of Marjoribanks and that ilk.
No. 54, now a shop, was the residence of Si1
John Graham Dalyell when at the bar, to which
he was admitted in 1797. He was the second son
of Sir Robert Dalyell, Bart., of Binns, in Linlithgowshire,
and in early life distinguished himself by the
publication of various works illustrative of the
history and poetry of his native country, particularly
?Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century,??
?? Bannatyne Memorials,? ?? Annals of the Religious
Houses in Scotland,? Szc. He was vice-president
of the Antiquarian Society, and though heir-presumptive
to the baronetcy in his family, received
in 1837 the honour of knighthood, by letters patent
under the Great Seal, for his attainments in literature.
A few doors farther down the street is now the
humble and unpretentious-looking office of that
most useful institution, the Edinburgh Association
for Improving the Condition of the Poor, and
maintained, like every other charitable institution
in the city, by private contributions.
Hanover Street was built about 1786.
In South Hanover Street, No. 14-f old the
City of Glasgow Bank-is now the new hall of the
Merchant Company, containing many portraits of
old merchant burgesses on its walls, and some
views of the city in ancient times which are not
without interest. Elsewhere we have given the
history of this body, whose new hall was inaugurated
on July 9, 1879, and found to be well adapted
for the purposes of the company.
The large hall, formerly the bank telling-room,
cleared of all the desks and other fixtures, now
shows a grand apartment in the style of the Italian
Renaissance, lighted by a cupola rising from eight
Corinthian ? pillars, with corresponding pilasters
abutting from the wall, which is covered by
portraits. The space available here is forty-seven
feet by thirty-two, exclusive of a large recess.
Other parts of the building afford ample accommodation
for carrying on the business of the ancient
company and for the several trusts connected
therewith. The old manageis room is now used
by the board of management, and those on the
ground floor have been fitted up for clerks. The
premises were procured for ~17,000.
All the business of the Merchant Company is
now conducted under one roof, instead of being
carried on partly in .the Old Town and partly in
the New, with the safes for the security of papers
of the various trusts located, thirdly, in Queen
Street.
By the year 1795 a great part of Frederick
Street was completed, and Castle Street was
beginning to be formed. The first named thoroughfare
had many aristocratic residents, particularly
widowed ladies-some of them homely yet stately
old matrons of the Scottish school, about whom
Lord Cockburn, &c., has written so gracefully and
so graphically-to wit, Mrs. Hunter of Haigsfield
in No. I, now a steamboat-office; Mrs. Steele of
Gadgirth, No. 13; Mrs. Gardner of Mount Charles,
No. 20 ; Mrs. Stewart of Isle, No. 43 ; Mrs. Bruce
of Powfoulis, No. 52 ; and Lady Campbell of
Ardkinglas in No. 58, widow of Sir Alexander, last
of the male line of Ardkinglas, who died in 1810,-
and whose estates went to the next-heir of entail,
Colonel James Callender, of the 69th Regiment,
who thereupon assumed the name of Campbell,
and published two volumes of ?Memoirs? in 1832,
but which, for cogent reasons, were suppressed by
his son-in-law, the late Sir James Graham of
Netherby. His wife, Lady Elizabeth Callender,
died at Craigforth in 1797.
In Numbers 34 and 42 respectively resided
Ronald McDonald of Staffa, and Cunningham of
Baberton, and in the common stair, No. 35, there

... OLD AED NEW EDINBURGH. [Hanover Street. in yhich David Hume died the Bible Society oi Edinburgh was many ...

Book 3 p. 162
(Score 0.59)

AND THE VALE OF THE ESK. I33
of the seventeenth century. Over a gateway near the middle, leading into
an inner court, you see armorial bearings carved in the stone, and decipher the
motto, Hos gZoria red& konores. . . . Not, however, till you have moved from
immediately in front of the mansion, so as to survey it in flank and depthwise
to the back, are you aware of its full picturesqueness. If you move to the
right, you find yourself on a path edging a deep, precipitous, thickly-wooded
dell, with the Esk below, and you see, on glancing back, that the more modem
portion of the mansion overhangs this dell behind, the windows of the chief
rooms looking down into the dell, and athwart its woody labyrinth, with a
steepness almost dizzying. . . . For a new surprise, you must return, repass
the front and doorway, and descend on the other or left flank of the bouse,
where there is a massive block of very ancient masonry to which the rest is
an evident addition. The block or tower rests also on the sandstone rock
springing up from the dell behind ; and it is part of the established procedure
of a visit that you should grope your way through a dark excavation pointed
out to you in the rock itself, just beneath the masonry which it supports
Descending a few steps, an{ stooping along this mine-like gallery, you come
to a hideous circular shaft, once a well, sunk deep down through the rock,
with an embrasure atop opening out dangerously on the clear chasm of the
dell ; and thence, by similar communications, you reach two chambers, also
cut out of the rock. One is a mere dark cavern, in which several men could
hide or sleep ; the other admits more light, and has the peculiarity that its
sides all round, about ten or twelve feet in the longest direction and four or
five feet in the other, are scooped out into a number of square holes or recesses,
separated from each other, vertically and horizontally, by partitions an inch or
two thick, much after the fashion of a bottle-rack for some Troglodyte or
Cyclops. When these caverns were made, and for at purpose or in what
freak, no mortal can tell. fi. . .
'Were there no special traditions of a historical kind about Hawthornden
House, were it simply the picturesque edifice we have described, overhanging
the beautiful glen of the Esk, part of it bringing back the seventeenth
century by its look, and part recalling a remoter and- more savage Scottish
eld, it would be worth visiting, and would probably attract visitors. This,
however, is not the case. Hawthornden House has been for three centuries
in the possession of a family of Drummonds, a branch of the wider Scottish
race of that name, and it is interesting as having been the 'residence of one
man of this family who took for himself a place in British Literature, and is
known pre-eminently as the Drummond of Hawthornden. He it was indeed

... THE VALE OF THE ESK. I33 of the seventeenth century. Over a gateway near the middle, leading into an inner ...

Book 11 p. 192
(Score 0.59)

Calton HilL] THE NATIONAL MONUMENT. 109
~
Grand Master of Scotland, the various loQges
proceeded in procession from the Parliament Square,
accompanied by the commissioners for the King,
and a brilliant concourse. The foundation-stone
of the edifice (which was to be 228 feet long, by
IOZ broad) weighed six tons, and amid salutes of
cannon from the Castle, Salisbury Craigs, Leith
Majesty, the patron of the undertaking. The celebrated
Parthenon of Athens being model of the edifice.?
The Scots Greys and 3rd Dragoons formed
the escorts. Notwithstanding the enthusiasm displayed
when the undertaking was originated, and
though a vast amount of money was subscribed, the
former subsided, and the western peristyle alone
THE NATICNAL MORUMEST, CALTON HILL.
Fort, and the royal squadron in the roads, the
inscription plates were deposited therein, One is
inscribed thus, and somewhat fulsomely :-
?? To the glory of God, in honour of the King, for
the good of the people, this monument, the tribute
of a gratefur country to her gallant and illustrious
sms, as a memorial of the past and incentive to the
future heroism of the men of Scotland, was founded
on the 27th day of August in the year of our Lord
1822, and in the third year of the glorious reign of
George IV., under his immediate auspices, and in
commemoration of his most gracious and welcome
visit to his ancient capital, and the palace of his
royal ancestors; John Duke of Atholl, James Duke
of Montrose, Archibald Earl of Rosebery, John
Earl of Hopetoun, Robert Viscount Melville, and
Thomas Lord Lynedoch, officiating as commissioners,
by the special appointment of his august
was partially erected. In consequence of this
*emarkable end to an entefprise that was begun
mder the most favourable auspices, the national
monument is often referred to as ?Scotland?s
pride and poverty.? The pillars are of gigantic
proportions, formed of beautiful Craigleith stone ;
each block weighed from ten to fifteen tons, and
each column as it stands, with the base and frieze,
cost upwards of LI,OOO. As a ruin it gives a
classic aspect to the whole city. According to the
original idea, part of the edifice was to be used as
a Scottish Valhalla
On the face of the hill overlooking Waterloo
Place is the monument of one of Scotland?s gredtest
philosophers. It is simply inscribed :-
DUGALD STEWART.
BORN NOVEMBER 22ND, 1753;
DIED JUKE KITH, 1828.

... HilL] THE NATIONAL MONUMENT. 109 ~ Grand Master of Scotland, the various loQges proceeded in procession ...

Book 3 p. 109
(Score 0.58)

84 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith.
he was again in his native city, when he re-entered
.the Academy, then under the charge of Sir
William Allan, and won the friendship of that
eminent landscape painter the Rev. John Thomson,
minister of Duddingstone, whose daughter he
married. After remaining five years on the Continent,
studying the works of all the great masters
in Venice, Bologna, Florence, and Rome, he settled
in London in 1838, &here his leading pictures began
to attract considerable attention. Among them
brance,? as the inscription recods it, ?of his unfailing
sympathy as a friend, and able guidance as
a master.?
His brother, James Eckford Lauder, R.S.A., died
in his fifty-seventh year, on the 29th of February,
1869-so little time intervened between their deaths.
In an old house, now removed, at the north end
of Silvermills, there lived long an eminent collector
of Scottish antiquities, also an artist-W. B. Johnstone,
soine of whose works are in the Scottish
THE EDINBURGH ACADEMY.
were the U Trial of Effie Deans ? and the ? Bride
of Lammermuir,? ?? Christ walking on the Waters,?
and ? Christ teaching Humility,? which now hangs
in the Scottish National Gallery. His pictures are
all characterised by careful drawing and harmonious
colouring. He was made a member of the Royal
Scottish Academy in 1830.
Returning to Edinburgh in 1850,he was appointed
principal teacher in the Trustees? Academy, where
he continued to exercise considerable influence on
the rising school of Scottish art, till he was struck
with paralysis, and died on the zIst April, 1869,
at Wardie. A handsome monument was erected
over his grave in Wamston Cemetery by his students
of the School of Design, ? in grateful remem-
Gallery, where also hangs a portrait of him, painted
by John Phillip, R.A.
At the north-west corner of Clarence Street, in
the common stair entering from Hamilton Place,
near where stands a huge Board School, there long
resided another eminent antiquary, who was also a
member of the Scottish Academy-the well-known
James Drurnmond, whose ? Porteous Mob ? and
other works, evincing great clearness of drawing,
brilliancy of colour, and studiously correct historical
and artistic detail, hang in the National Gallery.
Immediately north of Silvermills, in what was
~ formerly called Canonmills Park, stands the
Edinburgh Deaf and Dumb Institution, a large
square edifice, built a little way back from Hender

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith. he was again in his native city, when he re-entered .the Academy, ...

Book 5 p. 84
(Score 0.58)

Rase Street.] HUG0 ARNOT. ?59
announced that Bailie Creech, of literary celebrity,
was about to lead Miss Burns of Rose Street ?? to
the hymeneal altar.? In hiswrath, Creech threatened
an action against the editor, whose contradiction
made matters worse :-? In a former number we
noticed the intended marriage between Bailie
Creech of Edinburgh and the beautiful Miss Bums
of the same place. We have now the authority of
that gentleman to say that the proposed marriage
is not to take place, matters having been otherwise
arranged, to the mutual satisfaction of both parties
and their respective friends.? After a few years of
unenviable notoriety, says the editor of *? Kay,?
Miss Burns fell into a decline, and died in 1792 at
Roslin, where a stone in the churchyard records
her name and the date of her demise.
In the same year of this squabble we find a
ball advertised in connection with the now unfashionable
locality of Rose Street, thus :-? Mr.
Sealey (teacher of dancing) begs to acquaint his
friends and the public that his ball is iixed for the
20th of March next, and that in order to accommodate
his scholars in the New Town, he proposes
opening a school in Rose Street, Young?s Land,
opposite to the Physicians? Hall, the 24th of that
month, where he intends to teach on Tuesdays
and Fridays from nine in the morning, and the
remainder of the week at his school in Foulis?s
Close, as formerly.? In 1796 we find among
its residents Sir Samuel Egerton Leigh, Knight, of
South Carolina, whose lady ? was safely delivered
of a son on Wednesday morning (16th March) at
her lodgings in Rose Street.?
Sir Samuel was the second son of Sir Egerton
high, His Majesty?s AttorneyGenerd for South
Carolina, and he died at Edinburgh in the ensuing
January. He had a sister, married to the youngest
brother of Sir Thomas Burnet of Leya
This son, born at Edinburgh in 1796, succeeded
in ISIS to the baronetcy, on the death of his uncle,
Sir Egerton, who married Theodosia (relict of
Captain John Donellan), daughter of Sir Edward,
and sister of Sir Theodosius Edward Boughton,
for the murder of whom by poison the captain was
executed at Warwick in 1781,
It was in Dr. John Brown?s Chapel in Rose
Street, that Robert Pollok, the well-known author
of ?The Course of Time,? who was a licentiate of
the United Secession Church, preached his only
sermon, and soon after ordination he was attacked
by that pulmonary disease of which he died in
1827.
In 1810 No. 82 was ?Mrs. Bruce?s fashionable
boarding-school,? and many persons of the greatest
respectability occupied the common stairs, particularly
to the westward ; and in Thistle Street were
many residents of very good position.
Thus No. z was the house, in 1784, of Sir
John Gordon, Bart. ; and Sir Alexander Don, Bart.,
of Newton Don, lived in No. 4, when Lady Don
Dowager resided in No. 53, George Street (he had
been one of the d h u s in France who were seized
when passing through it during the short peace of
1802), and a Mrs. Colonel Ross occupied No. 17,
Under the name of Hill Street this thoroughfare
is continued westward, between Fredenck Street
and Castle Street, all the houses being ?selfcontained.?
The Right Hon. Charles Hope of
Granton, Lord Justice Clerk, had his chambers in
No. 6 (now writers? offices) in ~808 ; Buchanan of
Auchintorlie lived in No. I I, and Clark of Comrie
in No. 9, now also legal offices. In one of the houses
here resided, and was married in 1822, as mentioned
in Bkrckwoad?s Magazine for that year, Charles
Edward Stuart, styled latterly Count d?Albany
(whose son, the Carlist colonel, married a daughter
of the Earl of Errol), and who, with his brother, John
Sobieski Stuarf attracted much attention in the city
and Scotland generally, between that period and
1847, and of whom various accounts have been
given. They gave themselves out as the grandsons
of Charles Edward Stuart, but were said to be
the sons of a Captain Thomas Allan, R.N., and
grandsons of Admiral John Carter Allan, who died
in 1800.
Seven broad and handsome streets, running south
and north, intersect the great parallelogram of the
New Town. It was at the corner of one of those
streets-but which we are not told-that Robert
Burns first saw, in 1787, Mrs. Graham, so celebrated
for her wonderful beauty, and whose husband
commanded in the Castle of Stirling.
From the summit of the ridge, where each of
these streets cross George Street, are commanded
superb views : on one side the old town, and on
the other the northern New Town, and away to the
hills of Fife and Kinross.
According to ? Peter Williamson?s Directory,?
Hugo Arnot, the historian, had taken up his abode
in the Meuse Lane of South St. Andrew Street
in 1784. His own name was Pollock, but he
changed it to Arnot on succeeding to the estate of
Balcormo, in Fifeshire. In his fifteenth year hC
became afflicted with asthma, and through life was
reduced to the attenuation of a skeleton. Admitted
an advocate in 1772, he ever took a deep interest
in all local matters, and published various essays
thereon, and his exertions in promoting the
improvements then in progress in Edinburgh were
which is now the New Town dispensary. c

... Street.] HUG0 ARNOT. ?59 announced that Bailie Creech, of literary celebrity, was about to lead Miss Burns ...

Book 3 p. 159
(Score 0.58)

Bristo Streei.1 THE DARIEN SCHEME. 323
C H A P T E R XXXVIIP.
BRISTO AND THE POTTERROW.
Bristo Street-The Darien House-The Earl of Roaebery-Old Charity Workhouse-A Strike in 176441d GeorgeInn-U. P. Church-
Dr. Peddie -Sir Walter Scott?s First School-The General?s Entry and the Dalrymplcs of Stair-Burns and Clarinda-Crichton Street-
Alison Rutherford of Famielee-The Eastern Portsburgh-The Dukeof Lennox Men-The Plague-The Covenanters? GunFoundry-
A Witch-A Contumacious Barber-Tailors? Hall-Story of Jean Brown-Duke of Douglas?s How-Thomas Cpmpbcll the Poet
-Earl of Murray?s House-Charles Street and Field.
THOSE who see Forrest Road now-a broad and
handsome thoroughfare-can form no conception of
the features of its locality for more than a hundred
years before 1850.
A great archway, in a modern addition to the
city wall, led from the Bristo Port by a winding
pathway, a hundred yards long, and bordered by
trees to a wicket, or klinket.gate, in the city wall,
opposite the centre walk of the meadows. On
its west side rose the enormous mass of the dd
Charity Workhouse, with a strong box at its gate,
inscribed, 44 He that giveth unto the poor lendeth
unto the Lord,? and having an orifice, wherein the
charitable passer might drop a coin. On its
east side were the ancient offices of the Darien
Company, the Correction House, and Bedlam, to
which another pathway diverged south-eastward
from before the Workhouse gate. On the east
and south rose the mass of the embattled city
wall, black with smoke and years, and tufted with
grass.
A group of mansions of vast antiquity, their dark
chimneys studded by glistening oyster-shells, were
on the west side of the Bristo Port, the name ofwhich
is still retained by two or three houses of modern
construction.
In 1647 the whole of the area referred to here
was an open grass park of oblong form, about 250
paces long by 200 broad, according to Gordon?s map.
Till lately the west side of Bristo Street, from the
Port to Teviot Row, was entirely composed of the
dead angle of the city wall, Immediately within
this, facing the south, stood the office of the Darien
Company, a two-storeyed and substantial edifice,
built of polished freestone, with the high-pitched
roof that came into fashion with William of Orange ;
but till the last it was a melancholy and desolate
memorial of that unfortunate enterprise.? A row
of eight arched niches were along its upper storey,
but never held busts in them, though intended for
such.
This edifice was built in 1698, as an ornamental
tablet above the main entrance bore, together with
a sundial, and within, a broad flight of handsome
stairs, guarded by balustrades, led to the first floor.
Here, then, was transacted the business of that
grand national project, the Darien Expedition,
formed for establishing a settlement on the isthmus
of that name, and fitting out?ships to trade with
Africa and the Indies. By this the highest an.
ticipations were raised; the then large sum of
~400,000 was subscribed, and an armed expedition
sailed from Scotland for the new settlement.
Apart from people of all ranks who were subscribers
to this scheme, we may mention that the
Faculty of Advocates, the Merchant Company of
Edinburgh, with Sir Robert Christie the Provost,
the Cities of Edinburgh and Perth, joined it as
communities ; but meanwhile, the furious denunciations
of the English Parliament proved a
thorough discouragement to the project in London,
and nearly the whole of the stockholders there
silently withdrew from it. Under the same influence
the merchants of Hamburg were induced
to withdraw their support and co-operation, leaving
Scotland to work out her own plans by, herself.
She proceeded to do so with a courage to be
admired.? (? Dom. Ann.,? Vol. 111.) The house
described was built, and schemes for trade With
Greenland, Archangel, and the Gold Coast, were
considered, and, under the glow of a new and
great national object, all the old feuds and antipathies
of Covenanter and Cavalier were forgotten,
till pressure from without crushed the whole enterprise.
When intelligence reached Edinburgh that the
company had planted the Scottish flag on Darien,
formed Fort St. Andred and successfully repulsed
the Spaniards, who were urged to the attack by
William of Orange, thanksgivings were offered up
in St. Giles?s and all the other churches; the city
was illuminated ; but the mob further testified their
joy by seizing all the ports, setting fire to the
Tolbooth door, and liberating all the prisoners
incarcerated there for issuing seditious prints against
the king and the English Court
No less vehement was the fury of the populace
on the destruction of this national enterprise, than
their joy at its first brief success. The Tolbooth
was again forced, the windows of all adherents of
King Williiam were broken, and such rage was
exhibited, that his commissioner and the officers

... Streei.1 THE DARIEN SCHEME. 323 C H A P T E R XXXVIIP. BRISTO AND THE POTTERROW. Bristo Street-The Darien ...

Book 4 p. 323
(Score 0.58)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 249
gentleman of our acquaintance relates that he one day happened -to pounce upon
him at his seat of Tarlogie. Lord Ankerville had then reached his seventy-fifth
year. Being alone, he had just sat down to dinner ; and not having expected a
strauger, he apologised for his uncropped beard. Our friend was, of course,
welcomed to the board, and experienced the genuine hospitality of a Highland
mansion. After having done ample justice to the table, and when his lordship
had secured a full allowance of claret under his belt, he went to his toilette, and,
to the astonishment of his guest, appeared at supper cleanly and closely shaved,
to whom he remarked, that his hand was now more steady than it would have
been in the morning.
Lord Ankerville died at his seat of Tarlogie on the 16th August 1805, in the
seventy-eighth year of his age. His residence in Edinburgh was in St. Andrew
Square.
No. CI.
FRANCIS HOME, M.D.,
PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA IN THE UNIVERSITY OB EDINBURGH!
AND ONE OF THE KING’S PFIYSICIANS FOR SCOTLAND.
DR. HOME was born on the 17th November 1719. He was the third son of
Mr. Home of Eccles, an advocate, and author of fieveral works, professional and
historical. He placed his son under the charge of Mr. Cruickshanks of Dunse,
then esteemed one of the best classical scholars and teachers, and who had the
faculty of inspiring his scholars with a taste for classical learning. Mr. Home
having chosen medicine as a profession, served an apprenticeship with Mr.
Rattray, then the most eminent surgeon in Edinburgh. He afterwards studied
under the medical Professors of the University of Edinburgh of the period ;
and applied with so much zeal and assiduity as frequently to obtain the approbation
of his teachers. He contracted friendships with many of his fellow students,
which lasted through life ; and he was among the few who founded the Royal
Medical Society, which has continued to the present day, and has contributed
greatly to the celebrity of the Edinburgh school of medicine. After finishing
his studies Mr. Home obtained a commission of surgeon in a regiment of
dragoons, and joined it on the same day with his friend the late Sir William
Erekine. He served in Flanders with that regiment during the whole of the
“ seven-years’ war.” Amidst the din of arms, and the desultory life of soldiers,
Mr. Home did not spend his time in idleness. He discharged his duty so faithfully
that he often received the approbation of his superior officers, and especially
of Sir John Pringle, the head of the medical department of that army ; and he
laid up a store of medical facts, many of which he afterwards published. At the
end of several campaigns, instead of partaking of the relaxation and dissipation
. of winter quarters, Mr. Home, as often as he could obtain leave of absence, went
2 K

... SKETCHES. 249 gentleman of our acquaintance relates that he one day happened -to pounce upon him at ...

Book 8 p. 349
(Score 0.58)

150 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
and, even in his latter years, when retiring from a hard-fought field in Dunn’s
Hotel, or any other convivial place of resort, he would allow no escort.
His remains
were interred in the Greyfriars’ Churchyard, where a stone records the following
tribute to his memory :-
Mr. Grant died at his house, in Erown’s Square, in 1784.
SACRED,
To the Memory of
ISAAGCR ANT,E sq., of Hilton,
Writer to His Majesty’s Signet,
who died the 27th December 1794,
aged seventy years ;
universally esteemed and much regretted
by all who knew him.
In him the poor lost a friend, the rich a
cheerful, facetious companion, and
the world an honest man.
This Stone was erected at the reqliest
of his eldest aon, ISAAGCR ANT,
Feb. 2, Anno Domini 1798.
The third, or rather the first figure in the background, represents another
old bachelor, ARCHIBALD MACARTHUR STEWART, Esq., of Ascog-a
gentleman somewhat eccentric in several particulars. He generally wore white
clothes, of the description exhibited in the Print, and had a peculiar manner of
throwing his legs over each other in walking, which was owing probably to his
great corpulency.
Mr. Stewart was the only son of Mr. Macarthur of Milton, and succeeded to
the estate of Ascog, under a deed of entail executed by John Murray of Blackbarony,
of the lands of Ascog, and others, dated 28th May 1763. His relationship
to the entailer is not mentioned in the deed; and he is called to the
succession upon the failure of heirs of the entailer, and of his sister Mary and
her heirs. Mr. Murray left a large personal estate, which was invested by his
successor, Mr. Macarthur, in the purchase of land in Argyleshire.
Not less wealthy than Mr. Grant, and, like him, a bachelor not of the most
continent habits, he is said to have been exceedingly parsimonious in his
domestic arrangements. Kay relates that, when he lived at the Castle Hill, he
kept no housekeeper or servant, but generally employed some neighbour’s wife
or daughter to perform the ordinary drudgery of the house. He had a great
attachment to swine, and kept a litter of pigs in his bedroom. On removing
to other premises, some time after the death of his mother, with whom he resided,
it is told, as illustrative of his singular notions, that he would not allow the
furniture to be disturbed, but locked up the house, under the impression that
the old lady might occasionally come back and take up her abode there !
Mr. Stewart was proprietor of part of the lands of Coates, near Edinburgh,
and lived for some years in the old turreted house at the west end of Melville
Street, He latterly resided in Lord Wemyss’ house, Lauriston, where he died

... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. and, even in his latter years, when retiring from a hard-fought field in ...

Book 9 p. 200
(Score 0.58)

THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 97 The Mound]
one persons ;61,ooo each, a sum which more than
sufficed to purchase the site of the college-the
old Guise Palace, with its adjacent closes-and to
erect the edifice, while others were built at
Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Plans by W. H. Playfair, architect, were prepared
and adopted, after a public competition had
been resorted to, and the new buildings were at
once proceeded with. The foundation stone was
iaid on the 4th of June, 1846, by Dr. Chalmers,
~ The stairs on the south side of the quadrangle
lead to the Free Assembly Hall, on the exact site
of the Guise Palace. It was erected from designs
by David Bryce, at a cost of A7,000, which was
collected by ladies alone belonging to the Free
Church throughout Scotland.
The structure was four years in completion, and
was opened on the 6th of November, 1850,under the
sanction of the Commission of the Free General
Assembly, by their moderator, Dr. N. Paterson,
LIBRARY OF THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. (Fwm o P/wtozm#h by G. W. Wi&on and Co.)
exactly one year previous to the day which saw his
remains consigned to the tomb. The ultimate cost
was ;646,506 8s. Iod., including the price of the
ground, Ero,ooo.
The buildings are in the English collegiate style,
combining the common Tudor with somd of the later
Gothic They form an open quadrangle (entered
by a handsome groined archway), 165 feet from
east to west and 177 from south to north, including
on the east the Free High Church. The edifice
has two square towers (having each four crocketed
pinnacles), IZI feet in height, buttressed at the
corners from base to summit. There is a third
tower, 95 feet in height. The college contains
seven great class-rooms, a senate hall, a students'
hall, and a library, the latter adorned with a
statue of Dr, Chalmers as Principal, by Steel
61
who delivered a sermon and also a special address
to the professors and students. Subsequently, this
inaugural sermon and the introductory lectures
delivered on the same occasion to their several
classes by Professors Cunningham, Buchanan,
Bannerman, Duncan, Black, Macdougal, Fraser,
and Fleming, were published in a volume, as a
record of that event.
The constitution of this college is the same as
that of the Free Church colleges elsewhere. The
Acts of Assembly provide for vesting college
property and funds, for the election of professors,
and for the general management and superintendence
of college business. The college buildings
are vested in trustees appointed by the Church.
A select committee is also appointed bp the
j General Assembly, consisting of " eleven ministers

... FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 97 The Mound] one persons ;61,ooo each, a sum which more than sufficed to purchase the ...

Book 3 p. 97
(Score 0.58)

124 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
partial to them at all.”-“How, sir,” faltered out the querist--“how should
that be ‘I ”-“ Why,” replied the southron, “ because they are so much read, and
so generally known, that our clergymen can’t borrow from them.” The whole
company, hitherto in a state of considerable embarrassment, were quite delighted
at this ingenious and well-turned compliment.
Dr. Blair died in the 83d year of his age, on the 27th December 1800. He
was buried in the Greyfriars’ Churchyard-the Westminster Abbey of Scotland
-where a tablet to his memory, containing a highly elegant and classical Latin
inscription, is affixed to the southern wall of the church. He married, in 1748,
his cousin, Katherine Bannatyne, daughter of the Reverend James Bannatyne,
one of the ministers of Edinburgh, by whom he had a son and daughter. The
former died in infancy, and the latter when about twenty-one years of age.
Mrs. Blair also died a few years previous to the demise of her husband. Dr.
Blair’s usual place of residence in summer was at Restalrig-in winter in Argyle
Square.‘
No. LVIII.
THE HONOURABLE HENRY ERSKINE,
DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF ADVOCATES.
MR. ERSKINE, in consequence of holding an appointment from the Prince of
Wales, generally presided at the anniversary meeting of his Royal Highness’s
household in Edinburgh on the 12th of August ;’ hence the reason why Kay
has placed the Prince’s coronet at the bottom of the Print. The motto, “ Seria
mixta jocis,” is in allusion to the uncommon humour and vivacity which characterised
his legal pleadings.
The Hon. Henry Erskine was the third son of Henry David, tenth Earl of
Buchan, by Apes, daughter of Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees, and was born
at Edinburgh on the 1st November 1746. His patrimony was trifling, and had
it not been for the exemplary kindness of his eldest brother, who took a paternal
charge both of Henry and his younger brother Thomas, afterwards Lord Erskine,
he would not have been able to defray the expenses attendant upon the course of
study requisite to be followed in order to qualify him for the bar. In the year
1765, Mr. Erskine was admitt,ed a member of the Faculty of Advocates. He
had previously prepared himself for eztempore speaking, by attending the Forum
Near the present Industrial Museum.
On one of these occasions, while a gentleman was singing after dinner, the Prince’s tobacconist
accompanied the song with his fingers upon the waiwcoting of the room, in a very accurate manner.
When the music finished, the chairman said, “He thought the Prince’fl tobacconist would make a
capital King’s Counsel.” On being asked I‘ Why?” Harry replied, “Because I never heard a man
make so much of a pannel.”

... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. partial to them at all.”-“How, sir,” faltered out the querist--“how ...

Book 8 p. 180
(Score 0.58)

70 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith.
of Badajoz is extolled by Napier, and who died
fort major of Edinburgh Castle. On the opposite
side of the path, a modest stone marks the spot
where lies Captain John Grant, the last survivor
of the old Peninsula Gordon Highlanders, who
covered the retreat at Alba de Tormes, and was
the last officer to quit the town.
Near it is the grave of Captain Charles Gray of
the Royal Marines, the genial author of so many
Scottish songs ; and perhaps one of the most interesting
interments of recent years was that of Lieutenant
John Irving, R.N. (son of John Irving, W.S.,
the schoolfellow and intimate friend of Sir Walter
Scott), one of the officers of the ill-fated Franklin
expedition, who died in 1848 or 1849, and whose
remains were sent home by Lieutenant Sohwatka,
of the United States Navy, and laid in the Dean
Cemetery in January, 1881, after a grand naval and
military funeral, in accordance with his rank as
Lieutenant of the Royal Navy."
CHAPTER VII.
VALLEY OF THE WATER OF LEITH (continlced).
The Dean Bridge-Landslips at Stockbridge-Stone Coffins-Floods in the Leith-Population in 174a-St. Bemard's Estate-Ross's Tower
-I' Christopher North" in Anne Street-De Quincey there-%. Bernard's Well-Cave at Randolph Cliff-Veitch's Square-Chuiches in.
the Localit$-Sir Henry Raebm-Old Deanhiugh-House.
ABOUT a hundred yards west by north of Randolph
Crescent this deep valley is spanned by a stately
bridge, built in 1832, after designs by Telford.
This bridge was erected almost solely at the expense
of the Lord Provost Learmonth of Dean,
to form a direct communication with his property,
with a view to the future feuing of the latter.
It was when an excavation was made for its northern
pier that the Roman urn was found of which
an engraving will be seen on page 10 of the first
volume of this work. Over the bridge, the roadway
passes at the great height of 106 feet above the
rocky bed of the stream. The arches are four in
number, and each is ninety-six feet in span. The
total length is 447 feet, the breadth thirty-nine feet
between the parapets, from which a noble view of
the old Leith village, with its waterfall, is had to
the westward, while on the east the eye travels
along the valley to the distant spires of the seaport.
That portion of it adjoining Stockbridge is still
very beautiful and picturesque, but was far more
so in other days, when, instead of the plain back
Views of Moray Place and Ainslie Place, the steep
green bank was crowned by the stately trees of
Drumsheugh Park, and tangled brakes of bramble
and sweet-smelling hawthorn overhung the water
of the stream, which was then pure, and in some
places abounded with trout. Unconfined by stone
walls, 'the long extent of the mill-lade here was
then conveyed in great wooden ducts, raised upon
posts. These ducts were generally leaky, and
being patched and mended from time to time, and
covered with emerald-green moss and garlands of
creepers and water-plants, added to the rural
aspect of the glen. Between the bridge and the
mineral well, a great saugh tree, shown in one of;
Ewbank's views, overhung the lade and footpath,.
imparting fresh beauty to the landscape.
'' At Stockbridge," says the Edinburgh Advertiser
for 1823, '' we cannot but regret that the rage for
building is fast destroying the delightful scenery
between it and the neighbouring village of the:
Water of Leith, which had so long been a prominent
ornament in the envGons of our ancient
city."
At the southern end of the bridge, where
Randolph Cliff starts abruptly up, dangerous landslips
have more than once occurred ; one notably
so in March, 1881, when a mass of rock and earth
fell down, and completely choked up the lade which
drives the Greenland, Stockbridge, and Canonmills,
flour-mills.
At the north-westem end of the bridge is the
Trinity Episcopal Church, built in 1838, from a.
design by John Henderson, in the later English
style, with nave, aisles, and a square tower. To the
north-eastward an elegant suburb extends away
down the slope until it joins Stockbridge, comprising
crescents, terraces, and streets, built between
1850 and 1877.
The following is a detailed explanation of the woodcut on the
previous page :-I, View looking along the West Wall, showing, on the
right, the monument to Buchanan, founder of the Buchanan Institute,
Glasgow, and on the extreme left, the grave of Mr. Ritchie, of Tlu
Smlmruz (the pyramid at further end of walk is Lord Rutherford's
tomb, and Lord Cockbum's is near to it); z, Sir Archibald Alison's
gave (the larger of the Gothic mural tablets in white marble): 3,
Grave of George Combe ; 1, Monument to Alexander Russel, Editor
>f T/u Scoismm; 5, Tomb, on extreme left, of Lord Rutherford, next
to it that of Lord Jeffrey, the Runic Cross in the path is erected to.
Lieut. Irving of the Franklin Expedition; 6, Grave of Prof. W%on
:obelisk under tree), and of Prof. Aytoun (marble pedestal with crose
>U top).

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith. of Badajoz is extolled by Napier, and who died fort major of ...

Book 5 p. 70
(Score 0.58)

Edinburgh Castle.] KIRKALDY?S SURRENDER. 49
fourth, under Sir Henry Lee, were somewhere near
St. Cuthbeds church ; while the fifth, under Sir
Thomas?Sutton, was on the line of Princes Street,
and faced King Davids Tower.
All these guns opened simultaneously on Sunday,
the 17th of May, by salvoes; and the shrieks of
the women in the Castle were distinctly heard
in the camp of the Regent and in the city.
The fire was maintained on both sides with unabated
vigour-nor were the arquebuses idle-till
the 23rd, when Sutton?s guns having breached
sieged depended chiefly for water. This great
battery then covered half of the Esplanade
Holinshed mentions another spring, St. Margaret?s
Well, from which Kirkaldy?s men secretly obtained
water till the besiegers poisoned it ! By this time
the survivors were so exhausted by toil and want
of food as to be scarcely able to bear armour, or
work the remaining guns. On the 28th Kirkaldy
requested a parley by beat of drum, and was
lowered over the ruins by ropes in his armour, to
arrange a capitulation ; but Morton would hear
ANCIENT POSTERN hND TURRET NEAR THE QUEEN?S POST.
Davfd?s Tower, the enormous mass, with all its
guns and men, and with a roar as of thunder, came
crashing over the rocks, and masses of it must have
fallen into the loch zoo feet below. The Gate
Tower with the portcullis and Wallace?s Tower,
were battered down by the 24th. The guns of
the queen?s garrison were nearly silenced, now, and
cries of despair were heard. The great square
Peel and the Constable?s Tower, with the curtain
between, armed with brass cannon-dikes of
great antiquity-came crashing down in succession,
and their d&is choked up the still existing drawwells.
Still the garrison did not quite lose
heart, until the besiegers got passession of the
Spur, within which was the well on which the bea
of nothing now save an unconditional surrender,
so the red flag of defiance was pulled down on the
following day. By the Regent?s order the Scottish
companies occupied the breaches, with orders to
exclude all Englishmen. ?The governor delivered
his sword to Sir William Drury on receiving the
?solemn assurance of being restored to his estatc
and liberty at the intercession of Q-ueen Elizabeth
The remnant of his gamson marched into the city
in armour with banners displayed ; there came
forth, with the Lord Home, twelve knights, zoo
soldiers, and ten boys, with several ladies, including
the Countess of Argyle.? The brave commander
was basely delivered up by Drury to the
I vindictive power of the Regent j and he and his

... Castle.] KIRKALDY?S SURRENDER. 49 fourth, under Sir Henry Lee, were somewhere near St. Cuthbeds church ...

Book 1 p. 49
(Score 0.58)

Xigh Street.] EXCISE OFFICE. 217
not only to inspire his enthusiasm, but improve his
seamanship ; and there was something prophetic
in the poem, as the frigate Azlroru, in which he
served, perished at sea in 1769.
Eastward of Knox?s manse is an old timberfronted
land, bearing the royal arms of Scotland
on its first floor, and entered by a stone turnpike,
the door of which has the legend Beus Benedictat,
and long pointed out as the excise office of early
times. ? The situation,? says Wilson, ? was peculiarly
convenient for guarding the principal gate of
das?s splendid mansion in St. Andrew?s Square,
now occupied by the Royal Bank. This may 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 local habitation ? within the
Scottish capital.?
The interesting locality of the Nether Bow takes
the city, and the direct avenue (Leith Wynd) to
the neighbouring seaport. . . . . . Since
George 11.?~ reign the excise office had as many
rapid vicissitudes as might mark the ?areer of a
profligate spendthrift. In its earlier days, when a
floor of the old land in the Nether Bow sufficed
for its accommodation, it was regarded as foremost
among the detested fruits of the Union. From
thence it removed to more commodious chambers
in the Cowgate, since demolished to make way for
the southern piers of George IV. bridge. Its next
resting place was the large tenement on the south
side of Chessel?s Court in the Canongate, the scene
of the notorious Deacon Brodie?s last robbery.
From thence it was removed to Sir Lawrence Dun-
28
its name from the city gate, known as the Nether
Bow Port, in contradistinction to the Upper Bow
Port, which stood near the west end of the Eigh
Street. This barrier united the city wall from St.
Mary?s Wynd on the south to the steep street known
as Leith Wynd on the north, at a time when, perhaps,
only open fields lay eastward of the gate,
stretching from the township to the abbey of Holyrood.
The last gate was built in the time of Tames
VI. ; what was the character of its predecessor
we have no means of ascertaining; but to repair it,
in 1538, as the city cash had run low, the magistrates
were compelled to mortgage its northern
vault for IOO rnerks Scots; and this was the gate
which the English, under Lord Hertford, blew open

... Street.] EXCISE OFFICE. 217 not only to inspire his enthusiasm, but improve his seamanship ; and there was ...

Book 2 p. 217
(Score 0.57)

270 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
it would be disgraceful to our character as Scotsmen were such an act of exclusion
recorded in the books of this society. Were he the son of a beggardid
his talents entitle him-he has a right to the highest distinction in the land.”’
No. CIX.
JOHN WRIGHT, ESQ.,
ADVOCATE.
THIS Print represents the subject of our sketch at a later period of life than
the former etching ; and, to judge from his attitude, he may be supposed in the
act of addressing the bench.
He spoke so
very slow that his pleadings were far from being effective. On one occasion
he was engaged in conducting a case before Lord Hailes. Mr. -, the
opposing council, who first addressed the bench, spoke so thick, fast, and indistinct,
that his lordship was under the necessity of requesting him to speak slower,
that he might understand him; but the judge found himself in the adverse
predicament with Mr. Wright. “Get on a little faster,” said his lordship,
addressing the advocate, “ for I am tired following you.” “ If it were possible,”
observed Erskine, solta voce, “ to card the two together, something good might
be made of them both,”
Mr. Wright was unquestionably more fitted for a lecturer than an advocate,
and to his success in the former avocation he was chiefly indebted for a livelihood.
He also derived no inconsiderable income from his literaT labours.
For many years he wrote all the Latin theses. One work on mathematics’
MR. WRIGHTn ever attained to great eminence as a pleader.
That the political principles of Mr. Wright were liberal may be inferred from his intimacy
with, and the friendship shown him by, Mr. Erskine ; but it may not be generally known that he
ever published his sentiments on the subject of Reform. We have, however, accidentally fallen in
with a pamphlet which seems to have been published by Mr. Witght in 1784, entitled “ An Essay
on Parliamentary Representation and the Magistracies of our Royal Boroughs ; showing tht the
abuses at present complained of, respecting both, are late deviations from our constitution, as well as
from common sense ; and the necessity of a speedy Reform.” This pamphlet is anonymous ; but
from the following words, in the handwriting of Mr. Wright, being written on the title-page, there
can be no doubt that the production was his own :-“This Essay ccnatuins the mbstaace of the Author’s
idem on Parle’anwntary Representation. Mr. Alison’a opinion of it would oblige his hwn&le servant
-JOHN WRIQHT.” The Essay is well written, and affords a luminous review of the rise and progress
of feudal government, and the various lawa and enactments which have led to the formation of
what is called the British constitution. His observationa extend to almost every branch of national
economy. [The MT. Alism alluded to waa probably an accountant of that name who lived in St.
James’ Square.]
2 Elements of Trigonometry, Plane and Spherical ; with the Principles of Perspective and Projection
of the Sphere.” In 8v0, Edinblwh, 1772.

... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. it would be disgraceful to our character as Scotsmen were such an act of ...

Book 8 p. 377
(Score 0.57)

MODERN DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE. 81
The necessity of doing something to provide better house-accommodation was
fully realised ; the difficulties in carrying out any comprehensive and complete
scheme were perceived ; the prospects of success, and the chances of failure
were put into the scales with deliberate impartiality. The origin and
outcome of this movement mark an epoch in the modem annals of Edinburgh.
Quietly and steadily the workers plodded on, against ignorance, prejudice,
and interested opposition, With undivided zeal they set their minds
to the task of organisation, and there was no example then to guide them.
Public meetings were held at which men of influence, who intelligently
sympathised with the scheme, gave addresses ; appeals were made and
information was diffused through the press. Gradually a capital of &IO,OOO,
and then of ~ Z O , O O O , was accumulated ; land was purchased, and building
commenced. In fifteen years accommodation has been provided for wellnigh
10,000 individuals, and houses have been erected to the value of not less
than A304000-the dividends, which have ranged from seven to fifteen per
cent, contributing towards the comfort of many thousands.
Had nothing more been done, this would have been a great industrial
triumph, and although we claim nothing for it but a successful and welldirected
combination for a specific end, the influence does not terminate with
the financial results ; it is many-sided, and bears the impress of a high moral
and social purpose. As a commercial undertaking-as a means of social
amelioration and industrial advancement-as a practical illustration of what
unity, economy, and perseverance can do, the Edinburgh Co-operative Building
Company must be accepted as a signal success. It may not have solved
any great problem, but it has certainly established the fact that good and
pleasantly situated houses for workmen can be erected so as to meet all
sanitary requirements, and yield a fair return on the capital invested. The
houses may not realise our highest ideal, but they will compare favourably
in every respect with the best of the class ewcted elsewhere; they vary in
size and internal arrangements ; for the most part they are two stories high,
and contain from three to six moderately sized apartments, with every convenience,
the best -ita+ arrangements, and (as at Stockbridge) a plot of ground
twenty feet square in front, and the use of an ample bleaching green. The first
row of houses or street erected was named Reid Terrace. Hugh Miller Place
followed j elsewhere Colville Place-named in recognition of one of the chief
workers. Many other places, terraces, and streets gradually rose up, making
here a goodly town, surrounded (as shown in our illustration) by picturesque
scenery, and containing within itself every healthful and elevating influence.
I.

... DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE. 81 The necessity of doing something to provide better house-accommodation ...

Book 11 p. 130
(Score 0.57)

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