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THE OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.]
impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed
the scene of many an act of stern discipline, when
drunkards were compelled to ride the wooden
horse, with muskets tied to their feet, and ? a drinking
cup,? as Nicoll names it, on their head. ?? The
chronicles of this place of petty durance, could
they now be recovered, would furnish many an
amusing scrap of antiquated scandal, interspersed
at rare intervals with the graver deeds of such
disciplinarians as the Protector, or the famous sack
of the Porteous mob. There such fair offenders as
the witty 2nd eccentric Miss Mackenzie, daughter
of Lord Royston, found at times a night?s lodging,
when she and her maid sallied out aspreux chma-
Ciers in search of adventures. Occasionally even
grave jidge or learned lawyer, surprised out of
his official decorum by the temptation of a jovial
club, was astonished, oh awaking, tu find himself
within its impartial walls, among such strange bedfellows
as the chances of the night had offered
to its vigilant guardians.?? A slated building of
one storey in height, it consisted of four apartments.
In the western end was the captain?s room;
there was also a ? Burghers? room,? for special prisoners
; in the centre was a common hall ; and at
the east end was an apartment devoted to the
use of the Tron-men, or city sweeps. Under
the captain?s room was the black-hole, in which
coals and refractory prisoners were kept. In I 785
this unsightly edifice was razed to the ground,
an3 the soldiers of the Guard, after occupying the
new Assembly Rooms, had their head-quarters
finally assigned them on the ground floor of the
old Tolbooth.
It is impossible to quit our memorials of the
latter without a special reference to the famous
old City Guard, with which it was inseparably
connected.
In the alarm caused by the defeat at Flodden,
all male inhabitants of the? city were required to
be in arms and readiness, while twenty-four men
were selected as a permanent or standing watch,
and in them originated the City Guard, which,
however, was not completely constituted until
1648, when the Town Council appointed a body
of sixty men to be raised, whereof the captain
was, says Amot, ?to have the monthly pay of
LII 2s. 3d. sterling, two lieutenants of E2 each,
two sergeants of AI 5s., three corporals of AI,
and the private men 15s. each per month.?
No regular fund being provided to defray this
expense, after a time the old method of ?watching
and warding,? every fourth citizen to be on duty in
arms each night, was resumed; but those, he adds,
on whom this service was incumbent, became so re-
,
-
laxed in discipline, that the Privy Council informed
the magistrates that if they did not provide an
efficient guard to preserve order in the city, the
regular troops of the Scottish army would be
quartered in it
Upon this threat forty armed men were raised as.
a guard in 1679, and in consequence of an event
which occurred in 1682, this number was increased
to 108 men. The event referred to was a riot,
caused by an attempt to carry off a number of
lads who had been placed in the Tolbooth for
trivial offences, to serve the Prince of Orange as.
soldiers. As they were being marched to Leith,
under escort, a crowd led by women attacked the
latter. By order of Major Keith, commanding, the
soldiers fired upon the people ; seven men and two
women were shot, and twenty-two fell wounded.
One of the women being with child, it was cut from
her and baptised in the street. The excitement of
this affair caused the augmentation of the guard, for
whose maintenance a regular tax was levied, while
Patrick Grahame, a younger son of Inchbraikiethe
same officer whom Macaulay so persistently
confounds with Claverhouse-was appointed captain,
with the concurrence of the Duke of York
and Albany. Their pay was 6d. daily, the drummers?
IS., and the sergeants? IS. 6d. In 1685
Patnck Grahame, ? captain of His Majesty?s
company of Foot, within the town of Edinburgh
(the City Guard), was empowered to import 300
ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour, with
wrappings and other necessaries, for the clothing
of the corps, this being in regard that the manufactories
are not able to furnish His Majesty?s
(Scottish) forces with cloth and other necessaries.?
After the time of the Revolution the number of
the corps was very fluctuating, and for a period,
after 1750, it consisted usually of only seventy-five
men, a force most unequal to the duty to be done.
?The Lord Provost is commander of this useful
corps,? wrote Amot, in 1779. ? The men are properly
disciplined, and fire remarkably well. Within
these two years some disorderly soldiers in one of
the marching regiments, having conceived an umbrage
at tha Town Guard, attacked them. They
were double in number to the party of the Town
Guard, who, in the scuffle, severely wounded some
of their assailants, and made the whole prisoners.?
By day they were armed with muskets and bayonets ;
at night with Lochaber axes. They were mostly
Highlanders, all old soldiers, many of whom had
served in the Scots brigades in Holland. In the
city they took precedence of all troops of the line.
At a monthly inspection of the corps in 1789 the
Lord Provost found a soldier in the ranks who had ... OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.] impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed the scene of many an act ...

Book 1  p. 135
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26 OLD AND. NEW. EDINBURGH. [Cauongate.
date over a doorway in it, this street had been in
progress in 1768.
At the head of the street, with its front windows
overlooking the Canongate, is the house on the
first floor of which was the residence of Mrs. Telfer
of Scotstown, the sister of Tobias Smollett, who was
her guest in 1766, on his second and last visit to
his native country, and where, though in feeble
health, he mixed with the best society of the
capital,. the men and manners of which he so
graphically portrays in his last novel, ? Humphrey
Clinker,? a work in which fact and fiction are
curiously biended, and in which he mentions that
he owed an introduction into the literary circles to
Dr. Carlyle, the well-known incumbent of Inveresk.
Mrs. Telfer, though then a widow with moderate
means, moved in good society. She has been
described as a tall, sharp-visaged lady, with a hooked
nose and a great partiality for whist. Her brother
had then returned from that protracted Continental
tour, the experiences of which are given in his
(? Travels through France and Italy,? in twovolumes.
The novelist has been described as a tall and handsome
man, somewhat prone to satirical innuendo,
but with a genuine vein of humour, polished
manners, and great urbanity. On the latter Dr.
Carlyle particularly dwefls, and refers to an occasion
when Smollett supped in a tavern with
himself, Hepburn of Keith, Home the author of ?? Douglas,? Commissioner Cardonel, and others.
The beautiful ? Miss R-n,? with whom Jerry
Milford is described as dancing at the hunters?
ball, was the grand-daughter of Susannah Countess
of Eglinton, whose daughter Lady Susan became
the wife of Renton of Lamerton in the Merse.
The wife of the novelist, Anne Lascelles, the Narcissa
of ? Roderick Random,? was a pretty Creole lady, of
a somewhat dark complexion, whom he left at his
death nearly destitute in a foreign land, and for
whom a benefit was procured at the old Theatre
Royal in March, 1784, A sister of Miss Renton?s
was parried to Smollett?s eldest nephew, Telfer, who
inherited the family estate and assumed the name
of Smollett She afterwards. became the Wife of
Sharpe of Hoddam, and, ? strange to say, the lady
whose bright eyes had flamed upon poor Smollett?s
soul in the middle of the last century was living so
lately as 1836.?
The house in which Smollett resided with his
sister in 1766 was also the residence, prior to 1788,
of James Earl of Hopetoun, who in early life had
served in the Scots Guards and fought at Minden,
and of whom it was said that he ? maintained the
dignity 2nd noble bearing of a Scottish baron
with the humility of a Christian, esteeming the
7
religious character of his family to be its highest
distinction. He was an indulgent landlord, a
munificent benefactor to the poor, and a friend to
all.?
No. I St. John Street was the house of Sir-
Charles Preston, Bart., of Valleyfield, renowned for
his gallant defeqce of Fort St. John against the
American general Montgomery, when major of the
Cameronians. No. 3 was occupied by Lord
Blantyre ; No. 5 by George Earl of Dalhousie, who.
was Commissioner to the General Assembly from
1777 to 1782 ; No. 8 was the house of Andrew
Carmichael the last Earl of Hyndford.
In No. 10 resided James Ballantyne, the friend,
partner, and confidant of Sir Walter Scott-when
the Great Unknown-and it was the scene of those
assemblies of select and favoured guests to whom
? the hospitable printer read snatches of the forthcoming
novel, and whetted, while he seemed to
gratify, their curiosity by many a shrewd wink and
mysterious hint of confidential insight into the
literary riddle of the age.? No. 10 must have been
the scene of many a secret council connected with
the publication of the Waverley Novels. Scott
himself, Lockhart who so graphically describesthese
scenes, Erskine, Terry, Sir Tlrilliam Allan,.
George Hogarth, W.S. (Mrs. Ballantyne?s brother),
and others, were frequent guests here. In this.
house Mrs. Ballantyne died in 1829, and Ballantyne?sbrother
John died there on the 16thof June, 1821.
The house is now a Day Home for Destitute
Children.
In No. 13 dwelt Lord Monboddo and his beautiful
daughter, who died prematurely of consumption
at Braid on the 17th of June, 1790, and whom
Burns-her father?s frequent guest there-describes
so glowingly in his ?( Address to Edinburgh : ?-
?? Fair Burnet strikes the adoring eye,
Heaven?s beauties on my fancy shine ;
And own his work indeed divine ! ?
I see the sire of Love on high,
The fair girl?s early death he touchingly commemorates
in a special ode. She was the ornament
of the elegant society in which she moved; she
was her old father?s pride and the comfort of his
domestic life. Dr. Gregory, whom she is said to.
have refused, also lived in St. John Street, as did
Lady Suttie, Sinclair of Barrock, Sir David Rae, and
Lord Eskgrove, one of the judges who tried the
Reformers of 1793, a man of high ability and integrity.
He removed thither from the old Assembly
Close, and lived in St. John Street till his
death in 1804.
Among the residents there in 1784 were Sir
John Dalrymple and Sir John Stewart of Allanbank, ... OLD AND. NEW. EDINBURGH. [Cauongate. date over a doorway in it, this street had been in progress in 1768. At ...

Book 3  p. 26
(Score 0.58)

University.] THE NEW BUILDING COMPLETED. 2 3
Elder being Lord Provost of the city, William
Robertson, Principal of the University, and Robert
Adam, the architect. ? May the undertaking prosper
and be crowned with success.?
The proceedings of the day were closed by a
princely banquet in the Assembly Rooms.
The building was now begun, and, portion by
portion, the old edifices engrafted on those of the
Kirk-of-Field gave place to the stately quadrangular
university of the present day; and, as nearly as
can be ascertained, on the spot occupied by the
Senate Hall stood that fatal tenement in which
King Henry was lodged on his return from Glas
gow, and which was partly blown up on the night
of his assassination, between the 9th and 10th of
February, 1567. In the repaired portion some
of the professors resided, and it was averred to
be ghost haunted, and the abode of mysterious
sounds.
The foundation stone of the old university-if
it ever had one-was not discovered during the
erection of the present edifice. The magistrates,
with more zeal for the celebrity of the city than
consideration for their financial resources, having
wished that-subscriptions apart-they should bear
the chief cost of the erection, it remained for more
than twenty years after the foundation-stone
was laid a monument of combined vanity, rashness,
and poverty, Government, as usual in most
Scottish matters, especially in those days, withholding
all aid. Yet, in 1790, when Profess01
William Cullen, first physician to His Majesty in
Scotland, and holder of the chair of medicine from
1773, died, it was proposed (( to erect a . statue to
him in the new university,? the walls of which
were barely above the ground.
Within the area of the latter masses of the old
buildings still remained, and in the following year,
1761, these gave accommodation to 1,255 students.
In that year we learn from the Scots Magazine that
the six noble pillars which adorn the front, each
22 feet 4 inches high, and in diameter 3 feet 3 inches,
were erected. These were brought from Craigleith
quarry, each drawn by sixteen horses.
Kincaid records that the total sum subscribed
by the end of February, 1794, amounted to only
If;32,000. Hence the work languished, and at
times was abandoned for want of funds; and
about that time we read of a meeting of Scottish
officers held at Calcutta, who subscribed a sum
towards its completion, the Governor-General, Lord
Cornwallis, heading the list with a contribution ol
3,000 sicca rupees.
But many parts of the edifice remained an open
aid unfinished ruin, in which crows and other
.
birds built their nests ; and a strange dwarf, known
as Geordie More (who died so lately as 1828), built
unto himself a species of booth or hut at the
college gate unchallenged.
In an old (( Guide to Edinburgh,? published in
181 I, we read thus of the building :-? It cannot
said to be yet half finished, notwithstanding the
prodigious sums expended upon it ; if we advert to
the expenses which will unavoidably atttend the
completing of its ichnography or inside accommodations,
and, without the interference of the Legislature,
it will perhaps be exhibited to posterity as a
melancholy proof of the poverty of the nation.?
This state of matters led to the complete curtailment
of Adam?s grand designs, and modifications
of them were ultimately accomplished by Mr. W.
H. Playfair, after Parliament, in 1815, granted an
annual sum of LIO,OOO for ten years to finish
the work, which, however, was not completely done
till 1834; and since then, the idea of the great
central dome, which was always a part of the
original design, seems now to have been entirely
abandoned.
The university, as we find it now, presents its
main front to South Bridge Street, and forms an
entire side respectively to West College Street, to
South College Street, and to Chambers Street
on the north. It is a regular parallelogram,
356 feet long by 225 wide, extending in length
east and west, and having in its centre a stately
quadrangular court. The main front has some
exquisite, if simple, details, and is of stupendous
proportions. In style, within and without, it is
partly Palladian and partly Grecian, but is so
pent up by the pressure of adjacent streetson
three sides, at least-that it can never be seen
to advantage, It has been said that were the
university ? situated in a large park, particularly
upon a rising ground, it would appear almost
sublime, and without a parallel among the modern
edifices of Scotland ; but situated as it is, it makes
upon the mind of a stranger, in its exterior views
at least, impressions chiefly of bewilderment and
confusion.?
It is four storeys in height, and is entered by
three grand and lofty arched porticoes from the
east ; at the sides of these are the great Craigleith
columns above referred to, each formed of a single
stone.
On the summit is a vast entablature, bearing
the following inscription, cut in Roman letters :-
?Academia Jacobi VI., Scotorum Regis anno post
Christum natum b1,DLXXXII. instituta ; annoque
M,DCC,LXXXIX., renovari coepta ; regnante Georgio III.
Principe munificentissimo ; Urbis Edinensis Pmfecto ... THE NEW BUILDING COMPLETED. 2 3 Elder being Lord Provost of the city, William Robertson, Principal ...

Book 5  p. 23
(Score 0.58)

APPENDIX. 435
of Auchinleck ; but a passage in Father Hay’s MS. History of the Holpodhonse F d y , seem to confirm the
tradition beyond the possibility of doubt. Recording the children of Bishop Bothwell, who died 1593, he tells
us-‘ He had also a daughter named Anna, who fell with child to a sone of the Earle of Mar.’ Colonel
Alexander’s portrait, which belonged to his mother is exceedingly handsome, with much vivacity of corntenance,
dark blue eyes, a peaked beard, and moustaches :-
‘ Ay me ! I fell-and yet no queetion make
What I should do again for auch a sake.”’
Father Hay has thus recorded the seduction of Anna Bothwell, in hia Diplomatuna CoZZectiO (MS. Advoc.
Lib. vide Liber Cart. Sancte h c i s , p. xxxviii.) :-‘‘ Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, became Abbot of Holyrudehouse
after Robert Steward, base son to King Jam= the Fift by Euphem Elphinstone ; who was created
Earle of Orkney and Lord Shetland by King Jamea the Sixth, 1581. This Adam was a younger brother to Sir
Richard Bothwell, Provost of Edinburgh in Queen Maries time, and a second sone to Sir Francis Bothwell, lord
of the Session in King James the Fifta time, and was begotten upon Anna Livingstone, daughter to the Lord
Livingstone. He married Margaret Murray, and begote upon her John, Francis, WiUiam, and George Bothwells,
and a daughter Anna, who by her nurse’s deceit, fell with child to a sone of the Earle of Mar.”
Both the face and figure of Colonel Sir Alexander Erskine are very peculiar, as represented in his portrait.
He is dressed in armour, with a rich scarf across his right shoulder, and a broad vandyke collar round his
neck The head is unusually small for the body; and the features of the face, though handsome, are sharp, and
the face tapering nearly to a point at the chin. The effect of this is considerably heightened by ths length of
his moustaches, and hb peaked beard, or rather imperial, as the tuft below the under lip, which leaves the
contour of the chin exposed, is generally termed. The whole combines to convey a singularly sly and catclike
expression, which-unless we were deceived when examining it by our knowledge of the leading incidents of
his history-seem very characteristic of the “ dear deceiver.”
The orignal portrait, by Jamieson, beam the date and age of Colonel Erskine-1628, aged 29. Two stanzas
of the ballad, somewhat varied, occur in Brome’s Play of the Northern Lass, printed in 1632-not 1606 as
‘erroneously stated before. From this we may infer, not only that the ballad must have been written very
shortly after the event that gave rise to itpossibly by Anna Bothwell herself-but also that the seducer must
himself have been very young, so that the nurse is probably not unfairly blamed by Father Hay as an active
agent in poor Anna’s mongs.
I.
VIII. ARMORIAL BEARINGS.
BLYTH’BC LosE.-The armorial bearings in Blyth’s Close, with the +initialsA . A., and the date 1557 (page
148), may possibly mark the house of Alexander Achison, burgess of Edinburgh, the ancestor of the Viscounts *
Gosford of Ireland, and of Sir Archibald Achiaon, the host of Dean Swift at Market Hill, who, with hb particularly
lean lady, became the frequent butt of the witty Dean’s humour, both in prose and verse. The old burgeea
acquired the estate of Glosford in East Lothian by a charter of Queen Mary, dated 1561. Nisbet says, “The
name of Aitchison carries, argent, an eagle with two heads displayed, sable j on a chief, vert, two mullek,
or.”
QOSFORD’S CLose.-Since the printing of the text (page MO), we have discovered the ancient lintel
formerly in Qosford’s Close bearing a representation of the Crucihion, and have succeeded in getting it removed
to the Antiquarian Museum. It has three-shields on it, boldly cut, and in good preservation. On the centre ... 435 of Auchinleck ; but a passage in Father Hay’s MS. History of the Holpodhonse F d y , seem to ...

Book 10  p. 474
(Score 0.58)

The Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267
dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In
the dexter canton, a saltire argent, under the imperial
crown, surmounted by a thistle j and in base
a castle argent, masoned sable, within a border,
charged with instruments used by the society. To
the surgeons. were added the apothecaries.
James IV., one of the greatest patrons of art and
science in his time, dabbled a little in surgery and
chemistry, and had an assistant, John the Leeche,
whom he brought from the Continent. Pitscottie
tells us that James was ?ane singular guid chirurgione,?
and in his daily expense book, singular
entries occur in 1491, of payments made to people
to let him bleed them and pull their teeth :-
?Item, to ane fallow, because the King pullit
furtht his twtht, xviii shillings.
?Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for tua teith
drawin furtht of his hed be the King, xvci sh.?
The barbers were frequently refractory, and
brought the surgeons into the Court of Session t e
adjust rights, real or imagined. But after the union
of the latter with the apothecaries, they gave up
the barber craft, and were formed into one corporation
by an Act of Council, on the 25th February,
1657, as already mentioned in the account of
the old Royal College of Surgeons.
The first admitted after the change, was Christopher
Irving, recorded as ?? ane free chmgone,?
without the usual words ?and barber,? after his
name. He was physician to James VII., and from
him the Irvings of Castle Irving, in .Ireland, are
descended.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SOCIETY.
The Candlemaker Row--The ? Cunzie Nook?-Tbe of Charles 1.-The Candlemakers? Hall--The Afhk of Dr. Symons-The Society, IS+
Brown Square-Proposed Statue to George III., x~-Di&nguished Inhabitants-Si IsIay Campbell-Lard Glenlec-Haigof Beimerside
--Si John Lerlie-Miss Jeannie Elliot-Argyle Square-Origin of it-Dr. Hugh Bkit-The Sutties of that Ilk-Trades Maiden Hospital-
-Mint0 House and the Elliots-New Medical School-Baptist Church-Chambers Strect-Idustrial Museum of Sdence and Art-Its
Great Hall and adjoining Halls-Aim of the Architect-Contents and Models briefly glanced at-New Watt Institution and School of
ArtsPhrenoloEical Museum-New Free Tron Church-New Tiainiing College of the Church of Scotland-The Dental Hospita-The
.
Theatre ofvari.&s.
THE Candlemaker Row is simply the first portion
of the old way that led from the Grassmarket and
Cowgate-head, where Sir John Inglis resided in
1784, to the lands of Bnsto, and thence on to
Powburn ; and it was down this way that a portion
of the routed Flemings, with Guy of Namur at their
head, fled towards the Castle rock, after their
defeat on the Burghmuir in 1335.
In Charles I.?s time a close line of street with a
great open space behind occupied the whole of the
east side, from the Greyfriars Port to the Cowgatehead.
The west side was the boundary wall of the
churchyard, save at the foot, where two or three
houses appear in 1647, one of which, as the Cunzie
Nook, is no doubt that referred to by Wilson as
a curious little timber-fronted tenement, surmounted
with antique crow-steps ; an open gallery
projects in front, and rude little; shot-windows admit
the light to the decayed and gloomy chambers
therein.? This, we presume, to be the Cunzie Nook,
a place where the Mint had no doubt been estab
Cshed at some early period, possibly during some
of the strange proceedings in the Regency of Mary
of Guise, when the Lords of the Congregation
?past to Holyroodhous, and tuik and intromettit
With the ernis of the Cunzehous.?
On the west side, near the present entrance to
the churchyard of the Greyfriars, stands the hall of
the ancient Corporation of the Candlemakers, which
gave its name to the Row, with the arms of the
craft boldly cut over the doorway, on a large oblong
panel, and, beneath, their appropriate motto,
. Omnia man;jesfa Zuce.
Internally, the hall is subdivided into many residences,
smaller accommodation sufficing for the
fraternity in this age of gas, so that it exists little
more than in name. In 1847 the number of its
members amounted to only fhw, who met periodically
for various purposes, connected with the corporation
and its funds.
Edgar?s plan shows, in the eighteenth century, the
close row of houses that existed along the whole of
the west side, from the Bristo Port to the foot, and
nearly till Forrest Road was opened up in a linewith
the central Meadow Walk.
Humble though this locality may seem now, Sir
James Dunbar, Bart., of Dum, rented No. ZI in
1810, latterly a carting office. In those days the
street was a place ?of considerable bustle; the
Hawick dilligence started twice weekly from
Paterson?s Inn, a well-known hostel in its time, ... Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267 dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In the dexter canton, a saltire ...

Book 4  p. 267
(Score 0.58)

ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 385
2%h, 1387, between “ Adam Forster, Lord of Nether Leberton, Androw Yichtson, Provest
of the Burgh of Edynburgh, and Communitie of that Ilk, on the ta half, and Johne Johne
of Stone, and Johne Slcayer, masounys, on the toyer half,” and requires that ‘‘ the forsaidys
Johne Johne, and Johne, sall make and voute f p e Chapells on the south syde of the
Paryce Kyrke of Edynburgh, fra the west gavyl, lyand and rynan doun est, on to the grete
pyler of the stepyl, voutyt on the same maner by the masounys, as the vout abovye Sanct
Stevinys auter, standand on the north syde of the parys auter of the Abbay of Haly-rude
Houss. Alsua yat ylk man sal mak in ylk Chapel of the four, a wyndow with thre lychtys
in fourm masoune lyke, the qwhilk patroune yai hef sene; and the fyfte Chapel voutyt
with a durre, in a10 gude maner als the durre, standand in the west gavyl of ye forsaid
kyrk. Alsua ye forsayde five Chapellys sall be thekyt abovyn with stane, and water
thycht; ye buttras, ye lintels f p y t up als hech as ye lave of yat werk askys.”’ The
whole of these five chapels remained, with their beautiful groined roofs, and clustered
columns, until the restoration of the ancient edifice in 1829, when the two west ones were
demolished, apparently for no better reason than because they interfered with the architect’s
design for a uniform west front. The third chapel, which now forms the west
lobby of the Old Church, as this subdivision of the building is styled, retained till the
same date the beautiful vaulted entrance erected in 1387; it was an open porch,
with a richly-groined ceiling, and over it a small chamber, lighted by an elegant oriel
window, the corbel of which was an angel holding the city arms. A fac-simile of this has
been transferred to the west side of the aisleY2th ough without either the beautiful porch
which it surmounted, or the picturesque turret-stair which stood on its west side, and
formed the approach to the Priest’s Chamber as well as to the roof of the church. The
demolition of this portion of the ancient edifice led to the discovery of a large accumulation
of charters and ancient records of the city, which had been placed at some early period
in the chamber over the porch, and had lain there undisturbed probably for more than two
centuries. It had contained also a series of pictorial decorations of an unusual character
a0 the adornments of any part of a church, but which appear to have been painted on the
panelling of the chamber about the period of the Revolution, when it formed an appendage
to the Council Chambers. The only fragments of these that have been preserved are now
in the collection of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., and consist of a trumpeter, a soldier bearing a
banner, and a female figure holding a cornucopia. The costume of the figures, which are
above half-life size, is of the reign of Willitlm 111. The paintings are really works of
some merit, so far as can be judged from these detached fragments, which were literally
rescued from the ruins of the ancient vestry, and are insufficient to show what had been the
subject of the whole desigu. The txo eastern chapels are now included in the Old ChrcA,
and though greatly defaced by modern partitions and galleries, retain some of the original
groining, constructed five centuries ago, in imitation of St Stephen’s Chapel in the Abbey
of Holpood.
1 Maitland, p. 270.
The carved stones of the original window are now in the possession of A. E. Ellis, Eaq., and cannot but excite the
surprise of every one who sees them, as the most of them are nearly as fresh and sharp aa when firat executed.
Among other interesting fragments rescued by Mr Ellii at the same period, there is a very fine stoup for holy water,
formed in shape of a shallow bason, with a large star covering it, and leaving the interatices for the water. It had projected
from the wall on a richly-flowered corbel, which has been rudely broken in its removal.
3 c ... ANTIQUITIES. 385 2%h, 1387, between “ Adam Forster, Lord of Nether Leberton, Androw Yichtson, ...

Book 10  p. 423
(Score 0.57)

Canongate.] , THE MOROCCO LAND. 7
per month. A number of the ailing were hutted
in the King?s Park, a few were kept at home, and
aid for all was invoked from the pulpits. The
Session of the Canongate ordained, on the 27th of
June, that, ?to avoid contention in this fearful
time,? all those who died in the park should be
buried therein ; for it would seem that those who
perished by the plague were buried in places apart
from churchyards, lest the infection might burst
forth anew if ever the graves were reopened.?
Maitland records. that such was the terror prevailing
at this period that the prisoners in the
Tolbooth were all set at liberty, and all who were
not free men were compelled,
under severe penalties, to quit
the city, until at length, ? by the
unparalleled ravages committed by
the plague, it was spoiled of its
inhabitants to such a degree that
there were scarcely sixty men left . capable of assisting in the defence
of the town in case of an
attack,?
At this crisis a large armed
vessel of peculiar rig and aspect
entered the Firth of Forth, and
came to anchor in Leith Roads.
By experienced seamen she was
at once pronounced to be an
Algenne rover, and dismay spread
over all the city. This soon
reached a culminating point when
a strong band landed from her,
and, entering the Canongate by
Moors. After some conference with his men he
intimated his possession of an elixir of wondrous
potency, and demanded that the Provost?s daughter
should be entrusted to his skill, engaging that if he
did not cure her immediately to embark with his
men, and free the city without ransom. After considerable
parley the Provost proposed that the
leader should enter the city and take up an abode
in his house.?
This was rejected, together with higher offers of
ransom, till Sir John Smith yielded to the exhortations
of his friends, and the proposal of the Moor
was accepted, and the fair sufferer was borne to a
house at the head of the Canongate,
wherein the corsair had taken
up his residence, and from thence
she went forth quickly restored
and in health.
The most singular part of this
story is its denouement, from
which it would appear that the
corsair and physician proved to
be no other than the condemned
fugitive Andrew Gray, who had
risen high in the favour and service
of the Emperor of Morocco.
?He had returned to Scotland,?
says Wilson, ?? bent on revenging
his own early wrongs on the magis-.
trates of Edinburgh, when, to his
surprise, he found in the destined
object of his special vengeance
relation of his own. He married
the Provost?s daughter, and settled EFFIGY OF THE MOOR, MOROCCO LAND.
the.Water Gate, advanced to the
Netherbow Port and required admittance. The
magistrates parleyed with their leader, who demanded
an exorbitant ransom, and scoffed at the
risk to be run in a plague-stricken city.
The Provost at this time was Sir John Smith, of
Groat Hall, a small mansion-house near Craigleith,
and he, together with his brother-in-law, Sir William
Gray, Bart., of Pittendrum, a staunch Cavalier,
and one of ?the wealthiest among the citizens, to
whom we have referred in our account of Lady
Stair?s Close, agreed to ransom the city for a
large sum, while at the same time his eldest son
was demanded by the pirates as a hostage. ? It
seems, however,? says Wilson, ?that the Provost?s
only child was a daughter, who then lay stricken
of the plague, of which her cousin, Egidia Gray,
had recently died. This information seemed to
work an immediate change on the leader of the
-
?Dom. Ann.,? Vol. 11.
down a wealthy citizen in the burgh
of Canongate. The house to which his fair patient.
was borne, and whither he afterwards brought
her as his bride, is still adorned with an effigy
of his royal patron, the Emperor of Morocco,
and the tenement has ever since borne the name
of the Morocco Land. . . . . We have had
the curiosity to obtain a sight of the title-deeds
of the property, which prove to be of recent
date. The earliest, a disposition of 1731, so far
confirms the tale that the proprietor at that date is
John Gray, merchant, a descendant, it may be, of
the Algerine rover and the Provost?s daughter.
The figure of the Moor has ever been a subject of
pcapular admiration and wonder, and a variety of
legends are told to account for its existence. Most
of them, though differing in almost every other
point, seem to agree in connecting it with the last
visitation of the plague.??
Near this tenement, a little to the eastward, was
the mansion of John Oliphant of Newland, second ... , THE MOROCCO LAND. 7 per month. A number of the ailing were hutted in the King?s Park, a few were ...

Book 3  p. 7
(Score 0.57)

High Street.] CARRUBBER?S CLOSE. 239
the name of ? the Hanoverian usurpers ? from all
their devotions. But the humble chapels with
which these old Scottish Episcopalians contented
themselves in Carrubber?s Close, Skinner?s Close,
and elsewhere, present a wonderful contrast? to their
St. Paul?s and St. Mary?s in the Edinburgh of
to-day.
In this close was the house of Robert Ainslie?s
master, during Burns?s visit to Edinburgh, Mr.
Samuel Mitchelson, a great musical amateur ; and
here it was that occurred the famous ?Haggis
Scene,?described by Smollett in ?Humphrey Clinker.?
At the table of Mitchelson the poet was a frequent
guest, while on another floor of the old Clam Shell
Land, as it was named, dwelt another friend of
Burns?s, the elder Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo,
prior to his removal to the New Town. On the
second floor of an ancient stone land at the head
.of the close dwelt Captain Matthew Henderson,
a well-known antiquary, a gentleman of agreeable
and dignified manners, who was a hero of Minden,
and .a member of the Crochallan Club, and dined
constactly at Fortune?s tavern.
He died in 1789, and Bums wrote a powerful
elegy on him as ? a gentleman who held the patent
for his honours immediately from Almighty God.?
? I loved the man much, and have not flattered his
memory,? said Burns in a note to the elegy, which
contains sixteen verses. The old captain was one
whom all men liked. ? In our travelling party,?
says Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglas in his
(suppressed) Memoirs, ? was Matthew Henderson,
then (I 759) and afterwards well known and much
esteemed in the town of Edinburgh, at that time
an officer in the 25th Regiment of Foot, and, like
myself, on his way to join the army; and I may say
with truth, that in the course of a long life I have
never known a more estimable character than
Matthew Henderson.?
This close was the scene of the unsuccessful
speculation of another poet, for here Allan Ramsay
made a bold attempt to establish his theatre,
which was roughly closed by the magistrates in
1737, after it had been barely opened, for which
he took a poet?s vengeance in rhyme in the
GenlZmn?s Magazine. The edifice, which stood
at the foot of the close, was quizzically named
st. Andrew?s Chapel, and in 1773 was the arena
for the debates of a famous speculative club named
the Pantheon.
Five years subsequently Hind Dr. Moyes, the
clever lecturer on natural philosophy, held forth
therein to audiences both fashionable and select,
on optics, the property?of light, and so forth. It
was afterwards occupied by Mr. John Barclay,
founder of the Bereans, whose chief tenet was, that
the knowledge of the existence of God is derived
from revelation and not from Scripture.
From him and his followers Ramsay?s luckless
theatre passed to the Rev. Mr. Tait and other
founders of the Rowites, during whose occupancy
the pulpit was frequently filled by the celebrated
Edward Irving. The Relief and Secession congregations
have also had it in succession; the
Catholics have used it as a schoolroom ; and till
its demolition to make way for Jeffrey Street, it
has been the arena of a strange oZZapodda of per
sonages and purposes.
In Carrubber?s Close stood the ancient Tailor?s
Hall, the meeting-place of a corporation whose
charter, granted to them by the Town Council, is
dated 20th October, 1531, and with their original
one, was further confirmed by charters from James V.
and JamesVI. Theyhad analtar in St. Giles?sChurch
dedicated to their patron St. Ann, and the date of
their seal of cause is 1500. They had also an
altar dedicated to St. Ann in the Abbey church,
erected in 1554 by permission of Robert Commendator
of Holyrood.
The fine old hall in the Cowgate has long
since been abandoned by the Corporation, which
still exists; and in their other place of meeting
in Carrubber?s Close an autograph letter of
King James VI., which hung framed and glazed
over the old fireplace, was long one of its chief
features.
It was dated in 1594, and ran thus; but afew
lines will suffice for a specimen :-
?Dekin and remanent Maisters and Brethren of the
Tailyer Craft within oure burgh of Edinburgh, we g e t
zow weilL
?Forsaemeikle as, respecting the gude service of AZexander
MilZer, in making and working the abulzements of our
awn person, minding to continue him in oure service, as ain
maist fit and meit persone. We laitlie recommendit him into
zow be oure letter of requiest, desiring you to receive and
admit him gratis to the libertie and fredom of the said craft,
as a thing maist requisite for him, having the a i r of our
awin wark, notwithstanding that he was not prenteis
amongk zow, according to your ancient liberties and priviliges
had in the contraie. M?illing zow at this our requiest to
dispense him thereanent, &c, JAMES R.?
The king?s request was no doubt granted, and
the Alexander Miller to whom it referred died in
1616, a reputable burgess, whose tomb in the
Greyfriars? churchyard was inscribed thus by
his heirs :-
?AZexundro Milka, Jorobi Mug. Brit. FY&, &c.,
Regis Sarion; adfiltrni vifre, frinrario, hmedes. F. C. *it
annb 57, obiit Principis et Civium iauta decoratus, Anno
1616. Maii 2.?? ... Street.] CARRUBBER?S CLOSE. 239 the name of ? the Hanoverian usurpers ? from all their devotions. But the ...

Book 2  p. 239
(Score 0.57)

310 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH [The West Bow.
by Victoria Terrace, replaced in one part by a
flight of stairs, in another by the Free Church 01
St John, and sloping away eastward into Victoria
Street, it is impossible to realise what the old Wed
Bow, which served as a connecting link between
the High and the Low Town, the Lawnmarket and
the Grassmarket, really was. The pencil of the
artist alone may reproduce its features.
At its lower end were the houses that belonged
to the Knights of the Temple, whereon, to mark
them as beyond the reach of corporation enactments,
the iron cross of St. John was placed sc
lately as the eighteenth century, by the Bailie oj
Lord Torphichen, as proprietor of the !ands of St.
John of Jerusalem ; and there flows, as of old, the
Bowfoot Well, built by Robert Mylne in 1681, jus1
where it is shown in Edgar?s map of the city when
the Bow was then, as it had been centuries before,
the principal entrance to the city from the west.
One of the chief relics in the West Bow wa:
an enormous rustyiron hook, on which hung an
ancient gate of the city wall, the upper Bow Port
built in 1450. It stood in the wall of a house a1
the first angle on the east side, about four feet-from
the ground. When Maitland wrote his history ir
1753, two of these hooks were visible; but by tht
time that Chambers wrote his ? Traditions,? ir
1824, the lower one had been buried by the leve
of the street having been raised.
Among those slain at the Battle of Pinkey, ir
1547, we find the name of John Hamilton (of tht
house of Innerwick), a merchant in the West Bow
This John Hamilton was a gallant gentleman
whose eldest son was ancestor of the Earls 0,
Haddington, and whose second son was a seculai
priest, Rector of the University of Paris, and one
of the Council of the League that offered thc
crown of France to the King of Spain in 1591.
Qpposite St John?s Free. Church and the
General Assembly Hall there stood, till the spring
of I 878 that wonderfully picturesque old tenement,
with a description of which we commenced? the
story of the houses on the south side of the Lawn.
market; and lower down the Bow was another,
demolished about the same time.
The latter was a stone land, without any timbe1
additions, having a dark grey front of polished
ashlar, supposed to have been built in the days
of Charles I. String-courses of moulded stone
decorated it, and on the bed-corbel of its crowstepped
gable was a shield with the lettersI. O.,I. B.,
with a merchant?s mark between them, doubtless
the initials of the first proprietor and of his wife.
From its gloomy history and better architecture,
the next tenement, which stood a little way back
-for every house in the Bow was built without the
slightest reference to the site of its neighbouris
more worthy of note, as the alleged abode of the
temble wizard, and bearing the name of Major
Weir?s Land-but in reality the dwelling of the
major stood behind it.
The city motto appeared on a CU~~OLIS dormer
window over the staircase, and above the elaborately
moulded entrance door, which was only five
feet six inches in height by three feet six i l l
breadth, were the legend and date,
SOLI. DEO. HONOR. ET
CLORIA. D.W. 1604.
In the centre were the arms of David Williamson,
a wealthy citizen, to whom the house belonged.
This legend, so common over the old doorways of
the city, was the fashionable grace before dinner
at the tables of the Scottish noblesse during the
reigns of Mary and James VI., and like others
noted here, was deemed to act as a charm, and to
bar the entrance of evil. But the turnpike stair
within, says Chambers, ?was said to possess a
strange peculiarity-namely, that people who ascended
it felt as if going down, and not up a stair.?
A passage, low-browed, dark, and heavily vaulted,
led, until February, 1878, through this tall tenement
into a narrow court eastward thereof, a
gloomy, dark, and most desolate-looking place,
and there abode of old with his sister, Grizel, the
notorious wizard whose memory is so inseparably
woven up with the superstitions of old Edinburgh.
Major Thomas Weir of Kirktown was a native
of Lanarkshire, where the people believed that his
mother had taught him the art of sorcery, before he
joined (as Lieutenant) the Scottish army, sent by
the Covenanters in 1641 for the protection of the
Ulster colonists, and with which he probably
served at the storming of Carrickfergus and the
battle of Benburb; and from this force he had
been appointed, when Major in the Earl of Lanark?s
Regiment, and Captain-Lieutenant of Home?s
Regiment, to the command of that ancient
gendarmerie, the Guard of Edinburgh, in which
capacity he attended the execution of the great
Montrose in 1650.
He wasa grim-featured man, with a large nose,
and always wore a black cloak of ample dimensions.
He usually carried a staff, the supposed magical
powers of which made it a terror to the community.
He pretended to be a religious man, but was in
reality a detestable hypocrite ; and the frightful
story of his secret life is said to have furnished
Lord Byron with the plot of his tragedy Manfreed;
md his evil reputation, which does not rest on
ibscure allusions in legendary superstition, has left, ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH [The West Bow. by Victoria Terrace, replaced in one part by a flight of stairs, in ...

Book 2  p. 310
(Score 0.57)

230 OLD AND NEW EDINBUXGH. [High Street.
?; two such animals in the whole island of Great
Britain.?
Between the back and front tenements occupied
of old by Andro Hart is a house, once a famous
tavern, which formed the meeting-place of the Cape
Club, one of the most noted of those wherein the
leading men of ? Auld Reekie? were wont to seek
relaxation-one celebrated in Fergusson?s poem on
the city, and where a system of ? high jinks ? was
kept up with an ardour that never abated.
In this tavern, then, the IsZe of Man Arms, kept
by James Mann, in Craig?s Close, the ? Cape
Club? was nightly inaugurated, each member receiving
on his election some grotesque name and
character, which he was expected to retain and
maintain for the future. From its minutes, which
are preserved in the Antiquarian Museum, the club
appears to have been formally constituted in 1764,
though it had existed long before. Its insignia
were a cape, or crown, worn by the Soverezgn of the
Cape on State occasions, when certain other members
wore badges, or jewels of office, and two
maces in the form of huge steel pokers, engraven
with mottoes, and still preserved in Edinburgh,
formed the sword and sceptre of the King in Cape
Hall, when the jovial fraternity met for high jinks,
and Tom Lancashire the comedian, Robert Fergusson
the poet, David Herd, Alexander Runciman,
Jacob More, Walter Ross the antiquary,
Gavin Wilson the poetical shoemaker, the Laird
of Cardrona a ban zivani of the last century, Sir
Henry Raeburn, and, strange to say, the notorious
Deacon Brodie, met round the ?flowing bowl.?
Tom Lancashire-on whom Fergusson wrote a
witty epitaph-was the first sovereign of the club
after 1764, as Sir Cape, while the title of Sir Poker
belonged to its oldest member, James Aitken.
David Herd, the ingenious collector of Scottish
ballad poetry, succeeded Lancashire (who was a
celebrated comedian in his day), under the sobriquet
of Sir Scrape, having as secretary Jacob More,
who attained fame as a landscape painter in Rome ;
and doubtless his pencil and that of Runciman, produced
many of the illustrations and caricatures
with which the old MS. books of the club abound.
When a knight of the Cape was inaugurated he
was led forward by his sponsors, and kneeling
before the sovereign, had to grasp the poker, and
take an oath of fidelity, the knights standing by
uncovered :-
.
? I devoutly swear by this light.
With all my might,
Both day and night,
To be a tme and faithful knight,
So help me Poker !?
The knights presented his Majesty with a contribution
of IOO guineas to assist in raising troops in
1778. The entrance-fee to this amusing club was
originally half-a-crown, and eventually it rose to a
guinea ; but so economical were the mevbers, that
among the last entries in their minutes was one to
the effect that the suppers should be at ?the old
price ? of 44d. a head. Lancashire the comedian,
leaving the stage, seems to have eked out a meagre
subsistence by opening in the Canongate a tavern,
where he was kindly patronised by the knights of
the Cape, and they subsequently paid him visits at
? Comedy Hut, New Edinburgh,? a place of entertainment
which he opened somewhere beyond the
bank of the North Loch ; and soon after this convivial
club-one of the many wherein grave citizens
and learned counsellors cast aside their powdered
wigs, and betook them to what may now seem madcap
revelry in very contrast to the rigid decorum
of everyday life-passed completely away j but a
foot-note to Wilson?s ? Memorials ? informs us that
? Provincial Cape Clubs, deriving their authority
and diplomas from the parent body, were successively
formed in Glasgow, Manchester, and London,
and in Charleston, South Carolina, each of
which was formally established in virtue of a royal
commission granted by the Sovereign of the Cape.
The American off-shoot of this old Edinburgh fra
ternity is said to be still flourishing in the Southern
States.?
In the ?Life of Lord Kames,? by Lord Woodhouselee,
we have an account of the Poker Club,
which held its meetings near this spot, at ?? our old
landlord of the Diversorium, Tom Nicholson?s, near
the cross. The dinner was on the table at two
o?clock ; we drank the best claret and sherry ; and
the reckoning was punctually called at six o?clock.
After the first fifteen, who were chosen by nomination,
the members were elected by ballot, and two
black balls excluded a candidate.?
A political question-on the expediency of establishing
a Scottish militia (while Charles Edward and
Cardinal York were living in Rome)-divided the
Scottish public mind greatly between 1760 and
1762, and gave rise to the club in the latter yean
and it subsisted in vigour and celebrity till 1784,
and continued its weekly meetings with great replarity,
long after the object of its institution had
ceased to engage attention; and it can scarcely be
doubted that its influence was considerable in fostering
talent and promoting elegant literature in
Edinburgh, though the few publications of a literary
nature that had been published under the auspices
of the club were, like most of that nature, ephemeral,
and are now utterly forgotten. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBUXGH. [High Street. ?; two such animals in the whole island of Great Britain.? Between the ...

Book 2  p. 230
(Score 0.57)

222 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Thus, so far from misapplying their funds, they might at once produce E beautiful summerhouse,
or termination of a vista, and discharge an imperious debt they owe to their countrymen
and t o posterity-the preservation and transmission of those specimens of Scottish workmanship
of remote ages. Such a building, composed chiefly of antique carved stones, may be seen near
St. Bernard‘s Well, in the policy, or pleasure-grounds of the gentleman last-mentioned ;l and
Portobello Tower, built by Mr. Cunningham, consists principally of the sculptured and ornamented
stones found in the houses which were pulled down to make way far the South Bridge.”’
The suggestions of the I antiquary were not attended to by the Managers.
The Hospital, which was opened in 1802, is capable of containing sixty-six
pensioners, but the Governors have never been able to make provision for more
than forty-two persons.8 The internal management is committed to the charge
of a House-Governor, or Chaplain, and a Governess, who act under the immediate
direction of the Treasurer-the whole being under the control of the Board of
General Governors.
In the Council Room of the Hospital is a capital painting of the founder,
by Sir- James Foulis of Woodhall, Bart., in which the venerable proprietor of
Spylaw is represented as seated on a rudely formed chair, or summer-seat, in the
garden, with his hands resting on his staff. His countenance has all the mildness
of expression observable in the Etching by Kay.‘
The School endowed by Mr. Gillespie stands entirely detached from the
Hospital. The number of children taught average one hundred and fifty. The
first teacher was Mr. John Robertson, who held the situation at the opening
of the school in 1803 ; and was aided by an assistant.
1 “ Mr. Walter Ross, a gentleman of much taste and suavity of manners, whose memory is cherished
by all who knew him, and know how to estimate probity, honour, and rare accomplishments,
of which Mr. Ross possessed an eminent share indeed. The delight which he took iu works of art
and antiquities led him to collect some curious fragments of old buildings about Edinburgh, some
of which he has preserved by fixing them in and about the tower, under which his remains lie buried:
In the middle of the field in which this turret is built, a huge block of freestone stands erect ; it is
partly cut out in the form of a human figure, and, if report speaks truly, it was intended by the then
magistrates of Edinburgh to form the effigy of Oliver Cromuell : but the Restoration put an end to
the design ; and the fine equestrian statue of Charles II., to be seen in the Parliament Square, was, by
the prudent magistrates, ordered in its stead. In consequence, the above shapeless mass lay upwards
of a century and a half neglected and unknown, till Mr. Ross, having obtained possession of this
precious piece of antiquity, placed it upright with its face fronting the city; in which position it
remains a standing joke against the unsteady loyalty of the times.”-Camphell‘s Journdy from
Edinburgh. Among other curiosities collected by Mr. RQSS, were four heads, in alto relieve, which
formerly were placed over the arches of the Cross of Edinburgh : also the baptismal fonts belonging
to St. Ninian’s Chapel, which stood near the Register House.
a Many of the carved stones of Wrytes House are preserved at Woodhouselee.
a In a late article in the Scottish Pilot newspaper, this circumstance WBS earnestly recommended
to the notice of the public, with the view of promoting the funds of the Institution. “The cost of
the establishment,” says the statement, “for the maintenance of each Inmate, is from &12 to 215 per
annum-the rate varying according to the price of provisions and other contingencies. If the latter
sum ia assumed to be necessary, and BS the Governors can dispose of money bearing interest at five
per cent. a-sum of S7000, or thereby, would sufiice for the required object-the support of twentyfour
additional inmates-that being the number of vacancies in the Institution.” ‘ At the time Kay executed the Print he resided in one of the flats above the shop of the tobacconists,
from wbom, it is said, he received five pounds to suppress it. It is more probable that the five
pounds were given for the miniature. The one appean to be a copy of the other. ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Thus, so far from misapplying their funds, they might at once produce E beautiful ...

Book 9  p. 295
(Score 0.57)

The Water of Leith.] THE LAUDERS. 83
massive little mansion of Groat Hall, with a thatched
roof, whilom the property of Sir John Smith, Provost
of the city in 1643, whose daughter figured
as the heroine of the strange story connected with
the legend of the Morocco Land in the Canongate,
and whose sister (Giles Smith) was wife of Sir
William Gray of Pittendrum.
St. Cuthbert?s Poorhouse, a great quadrangular
edifice, stands in the eastern vicinity of Craigleith
Quarry. It was built in 1866-7, at a cost of
jG40,000, and has amenities of situation and
elegance of structure very rarely associated with
a residence for the poor.
Eastward of Stockbridge, and almost forming an
integral part of it, lies the now nearly absorbed and
half extinct, but ancient, village of Silvermills, a secluded
hamlet once, clustering by the ancient milllade,
and which of old lay within the Earony of
Broughton. It was chiefly occupied by tanners,
whose branch of trade is still carried on there by
the lade, which runs under Clarence Street: through
the village, and passes on to Canonmills. Some of
the houses still show designs of thistles and roses
on gablets, With the crowsteps of the sixteenth
century.
A little to the west of St. Stephen?s Church, a
narrow lane leads downward to the village, passing
through what was apparently the main street, and
emerges at Henderson Row, so called from the
Lord Provost of that name. According to
Chambers, a walk on a summer day from the old
city to the village, a hundred years ago, was considered
a very delightful one, and much ?adopted
by idlers, the roads being then through corn-fields
and pleasant nursery-grounds.
No notice, says Chambers, has ever been taken
of Silvermills in any of the books regarding Edicburgh,
nor has any attempt ever been made to
account for its somewhat piquant name. ?I
shall endeavour to do so,? he adds. ?In 1607
silver was found in considerable abundance at
Hilderstone, in Linlithgowshire, on the property of
the gentleman who figures as Tarn 0? the Cowgate.
Thirty-eight barrels of ore were sent to the mint in
the Tower of London to be tried, and were found
to give twenty-four ounces of silver for every
hundredweight. Expert persons were placed upon
the mine, and mills were erected upon the Water
of Leith for the melting and fining the ore. The
sagacious owner gave the mine the name of Go8s
BZessing. By-and-bye the king heard of it, and,
thinking it improper that any such fountain of
wealth should belong to a private person, purchased
? God?s Blessing? for L~,OOO, that it might
be worked upon a larger scale for the benefit of
the public But somehow, from the time it left
the hands of the original owner, ? God?s Blessing?
ceased to be anything like so fertile as it had been,
and in time the king withdrew from the enterprise,
a great loser. The Silvermills I conceive to have
been a part of the abandoned plant.?
This derivation seems extremely probable, but
Wilson thinks the name may have originated in
some of the alchemical projects of James IV., or
his son, James V.
city,? says the Edinburgh Week& Magazine for
January, 1774, ?we are informed of a very singular
accident. On the nights of the zznd, 23rd, and
24th inst., the Canonmills dam, by reason of the
intenseness of the frost, was so gorged with ice and
snow, that at last the water, finding no vent, stagnated
to such a degree that it overfIowed the
lower floors of the houses in Silvermills, which
obliged many of the inhabitants to remove to the
risi,ng grounds adjacent. One family in particular,
not perceiving their danger till they observed the
cradle with a child in it afloat, and all the furniture
swimming, found it necessary to make their
escape out of the back windows, and were carried
on horseback to dry land.?
St. Stephen?s Established Church, at the foot
of St. Vincent Street, towers in a huge mass over
Silvermills, and was built in 1826-8, after designs
by W. H. Playfair, It is a massive octagonal
structure in mixed Roman style, with a grand, yet
simple, entrance porch, and a square tower 165 feet
high. It contains above 1,600 sittings. The parish
was disjoined from the conterminous parishes in
1828 by the Presbytery of Edinburgh and the Teind
Court. Itwas opened on Sunday, the 20th December,
1828, when the well-known Dr, Brunton preached
to the Lord Provost and magistrates in their official
robes, and the Rev. Henry Grey officiated in the
afternoon.
In an old mansion, immediately behind where
this church now stands, were born Robert Scott
Lauder, R.S. A., and his brother, James Eckford
Lauder, RSA., two artists of considerable note in
their time. The former was born in 1803, and for
some years, after attaining a name, resided in.No. 7,
Carlton Street. A love of art was early manifested
by him, and acquaintance with his young neighbour,
David Roberts, fostered it. The latter instructed
him in the mode of mixing colours, and urged him
to follow art as a profession ; thus, in his youth he
entered the Trustees? Academy, then under the
care of Mr. Andrew Wilson.
After this he went to London, and worked with
great assiduity in the British Museum. In 1826
?From Silvermills, a little northward of this . ... Water of Leith.] THE LAUDERS. 83 massive little mansion of Groat Hall, with a thatched roof, whilom the ...

Book 5  p. 83
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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.? ... MONTEITH. . 3?5 Duddingston.] incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite subjects were to be found in ...

Book 4  p. 315
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250 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate.
CHAPTER XXXII.
C0WGATE 
The South Side of the Street--The High School Wynd-? Claudero?-Robertson?s Close-House of the Bishops of Dnnkeld-Tomb of Gavin
Douglas-Kuk-of-Field and College Wynd-House of the Earls of Queensberq-Robcrt Monteith-Oliver Goldsmith-Dr. Joseph Black
-House in which Sir Walter Swtt was born-St. Petu?s Pad-House of Andro Symmi, the Printer, 1@7-The Horse Wynd-
Galloway House-Guthrie Stract-Tailors? Hall-French Ambassador?s Chapel and John Dickison?s House-Tam 0? the Cowgate and Jam-
VI.-The Hammermen?s Land and Hall-Magdalenc Chapel-John Craig-A Glance at the Ancient Corporations-The Hammumen-
Their Charter--Seal and Pmgress-The Cardin-First Strike in the Trade-Skinners and Furriers-Websters-Hat and Bonnetm
a L e r s - F l e s h e r s - C w ~ o p e r s T a i l o r s C o n d k - m n L .
PROCEEDING westward from the point we have
left, the mutilated range of buildings on the south
side, between George Heriot?s School (the site of
the old Cowgate Port) and the foot of what was
the High School Wynd, show fragments of what
were, in their day, exceedingly picturesque old
timber-fronted tenements, of a very early date, but
which were far inferior in magnificence to the Mint
which stood opposite to them This Wynd was
originally a narrow and rather lonely road or path,
that led towards the Dominican monastery, and
westward to the house of the Kirk-of-Field. A
finely-carved lintel, which surmounted the doorway
of an antique range of tenements, is described
by Wilson, as having been replaced over the
entrance of a modem building erected on the same
site in 1801. The inscription, he shows, cut in
very unusual character, having in the centre a
shield charged with a barrel, the device of its more
recent occupant, a brewer, substituted for the
armorial bearings of his predecessors :-
AL. MY. TRIST . I - S. IN. YE. LORD.
?? We have found,? he adds, U on examining ancient
charters and title-deeds refemng to property in the
Cowgate, much greater difficulty in assigning the
exact tenements referred to, from the absence of
such marked and easily recognisable features as
serve for a guide in the High Street and Canongate.
All such evidence, however, tends to prove that
the chief occupants of this ancient thoroughfare
were eminent for rank and station, and their dwellings
appear to have been chiefly in the front street,
showing that, with patrician exclusiveness, traders
were forbid to open their booths within its dignified
precincts.?
Latterly the High School Wynd was chiefly remarkable
for the residence, in an old tenement at
its foot, of an obscure local poet, whose real name
was Tames Wilson, but whose num de plume was
Claudero,? and who by his poetic effusions upon
local subjects continued to eke out a precarious
subsistence, frequently by furnishing sharp lampoons
on his less gifted fellow-citizens. He latterly added
to his income by keeping a little school, and by
performing (? AaCf-merk marriages, an occupation
which, no doubt, afforded him additional satisfaction,
as he was thereby taking their legitimate
duties out of the hands of his old enemies the
clergy,? for Claudero, who was a cripple, is said to
have been rendered so, in youth, by a merciless
beating he received from ? the pastoral staff ? of
the minister of his native parish, Cumbernauld, in
Dumbartonshire. A satirist by profession, Claudero
made himself a source of terror by his pungent
wit, for in the Edinburgh of the eighteenth century
there lived a number of wealthy old men who had
realised large fortunes in questionable manners
abroad, and whose characters, as they laboured
under strange suspicions of the slave trade-even
buccaneering perhaps-? were wonderfully suscep
tible of Claudero?s satire ; and these, the wag,? we
are told, ? used to bleed profusely and frequently,
by working upon their fears of public notice.?
In 1766 appeared his ?Miscellanies in Prose
and Verse, by Claudero, son of Nimrod the mighty
Hunter,? dedicated to the renowned Peter Williamson,
?from the other world.? In this volume are
?The Echo of the Royal Porch of Holyrood,?
demolished in 1753 ; ?The last Speech and Dying
Words of the Cross,I) executed, &c., ?for the
horrid crime of being an encumbrance to the
street ;? ? Scotland?s Tears over the Horrid Treatment
of her Kings? Sepulchres ; ? ? A Sermon on
the Condemnation of the Netherbow ; ? and other
kindred subjects. With all his eccentricity, Claudero
seems to have felt genuine disgust at the wanton
destruction of many beautiful and historical
edifices and monuments in Edinburgh, under the
reckless fiat of a magistracy of the most tasteless
age in British history-the epoch of George
111. In the year 1755 he was wandering about
London, but returned to Edinburgh, where he
lived for thirty years consecutively, and died in
The wynd led straight up the slope to the old
High School, which with its tower and spire stood
on the east side of it Robertson?s Close adjoined
it on the west-in 1647, a long and straight street,
with lofty houses on both sides, and spacious
1789- ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate. CHAPTER XXXII. C0WGATE The South Side of the Street--The High School ...

Book 4  p. 250
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280 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord Provosts.
burgh of great numbers of? His Majesty?s subjects
and strangers, there should be three weekly market
days for the sale of bread, when it should be
lawful for dealers, both buyers and landward, to
dispose of bread for ready money; three market
days for t k sale of meat under the same circumstances,
were also established-Sunday, Monday,
and Thursday.
In I 5 28 the Lord Maxwell became again provost
of Edinburgh, and when, some years after, his
exiled predecessor, Douglas of Kilspindie, became
weary of wandering in a foreign land he sought in
vain the clemency of James V., who, in memory of
all he had undergone at the hands of the Douglases,
had registered a vow niver to forgive them.
The aged warrior-who had at one time won the
affection of the king, who, in admiration of his
stature, strength, and renown in arms, had named
him ?? Greysteel,? after a champion in the romance
of ?? Sir Edgar and Sir Guion ?-threw himself in
lames?s way near the gates of Stirling Castle, to seek
pardon, and ran afoot by the side of his horse, encumbered
as he was by heavy armour, worn under
his clothes for fear of assassination. But James
rode in, and the old knight, sinking by the gate in
exhaustion, begged a cup of water. Even this was
refused by the attendants, whom the king rebuked
for their discourtesy ; but old Kilspindie turned
sadly away, and died in France of a broken heart.
In the year 1532 the provost and Council furnished
James V. with a guard of 300 men, armed
on all ?pointts for wayr,? to serve against his
? enimies of Ingland,? in all time coming.
In 1565, when Mary was in the midst of her
most bitter troubles, Sir Simon Preston of Craigiiiillar
and that ilk was provost, and it was in his
house, the Black Turnpike, she was placed a
prisoner, after the violated treaty of Carberry Hill ;
and four years after he was succeeded in office by
the celebrated Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange.
In 1573 Lord Lindsay was provost, the same
terrible and relentless noble who plotted against
Kizzio, led the confederate lords, conducted Mary
to Lachleven, who crushed her tender arm with
his steel glove, and compelled her under terror of
death to sign her zbdication, and who lived to
share in the first Cowrie conspiracy.
In 1578 the provost was George Douglas of
Parkhead, who was also Governor of the Castle ; a
riot having taken place in the latter, and a number
of citizens being slain by the soldiers, the Lords of
the Secret Council desired the magistrates to remove
him from office and select another. They
craved delay, on which the Council deposed
Douglas, and sent a precept commanding the city to
choose a new provost within three hours, under pain
of treason. In obedience to this threat Archibald
Stewart was made interim provost till the usual
time of election, Michaelmas ; previous to which,
the young king, James VI., wrote to the magistrates
desiring them to make choice of certain
persons whom be named to hold their offices for
the ensuing year. On receiving this peremptory
command the Council called a public meeting of
the citizens, at which it was resolved to allow no
interference with their civic privileges. A deputation
consisting of a bailie, the treasurer, a councillor,
and two deacons, waited on His Majestyat Stirling
and laid the resolutions before him, but received no
answer. Upon the day of election another letter was
read from James, commanding the Council to elect
as magistrates the persons therein named for the
ensuing year ; but notwithstanding this arbitrary
command, the Council, to their honour, boldly u p
held their privileges, and made their own choice of
magistrates.
Alexander Home, of North Berwick, was provost
from 1593 to 1596. He was a younger son of
Patrick Home of Polwarth, and his younger sister
was prioress of the famous convent at North Berwick,
where strange to say she retained her station
and the conventual lands till the day of her death.
In 1598 a Lord President of the College of
Justice was provost, Alexander Lord Fyvie, afterwards
Lord Chancellor, and Earl of Dunfermline
in 1606. Though the time was drawing near for
a connection with England, a contemporary writer
in 1598 tells us that ?in general, the Scots would
not be attired after the English fashion in anysort;
but the men, especially at court, followed the
French fashion.?
Sir William Nisbet, of Dean, was provost twice
in 1616 and 1622, the head of a proud old race,
whose baronial dwelling was long a feature on the
wooded ridge above Deanhaugh. His coat of
arms, beautifully carved, was above one of the doors
of the latter, his helmet surmcunted by the crest of
the city, and encircled by the motto,
? HIC MIHI PARTrVS HONOS.?
It was in the dark and troublesome time of
1646-7, when Sir Archibald Tod was provost, that
James Cordon, the minister of Rothiemay, made his
celebrated bird?s-eye view of Edinburgh-to which
reference has been made so frequently in these
pages, and of which we have engraved the greater
Part.
James Cordon, one of the eleven sons of the
Laird of Straloch, was born in 1615. He was
M.A. of Aberdeen, and in April, 1647, he submitted ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord Provosts. burgh of great numbers of? His Majesty?s subjects and strangers, there ...

Book 4  p. 280
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 307
Blackwall, where the Circassian was conducted into a private room, whilst some necessav
arrangements were made ; and about ten o’clock the travellers, attended by the three English
gentlemen, went on board a boat provided for the occasion, and suitably fitted up for privacy and
comfort, by Mr. Barber, of the house of Messrs. Mathias, P. Lucas, and Co., the lightermen to his
Excellency, The distressing situation of the Circassian on taking leave of the Ambassador, and
the native sensibility of the males on taking leave of their old friends and relatives, unavoidably
delayed the arrival of the party at the waterside considerably beyond the time agreed upon,
which occasioned a loss of the 6rst hour‘s ebb tide ; and although this detention added considerably
to the labours of the boatmen, who were all chosen men in the employ of Messrs. Lucas and
Co.l(their foreman acting as captain of the boat’s crew), and whose occupations did not generally
lead them to this sort of duty ; yet with such alacrity did they proceed, stimulated, no doubt,
by the honour of conveying a female of such distinguished notoriety, that they reached the vessel
in Gravesend Roads about three o’clock, where they were received on board with every mark of
attention by Captain Milh and his ship’s crew.”
A vast crowd had assembled at Gravesend, in the hope of obtaining a sight
of the ‘‘ Fair Circassian ;” and although orders had been issued by Government
to the various officers of customs, not to interfere with the luggage of the party,
every official contrivance was resorted to by some of them in order to obtain a
glimpse of the stranger.
“ Such was the anxiety of the Ambassador respecting his Dill Awm,” continues the account
from wpich we have quoted so largely, “that although he had given ample directions that everything
possible should be provided for her private use, beyond the supplies of the ship, and which
he could not doubt would be strictly attended to ; yet after she had proceeded on her way to the
ship, he despatched the Persian medical student, Mirza Jiafer Tabeeb, to attend her on board,
that nothing might be wanted as far as his professional knowledge could suggest, that could in
a remote degree contribute to her comfort and the preservation of her health.
“On her passage to the ship, she was attired in English costume, wearing a black velvet
pelisse, and buff sandals, with an Anglo-Cashmere shawl placed over her head, which nearly
covered her figure ; and on leaving the Ambassador’s house it veiled her face, with the exception
of her beautiful jet eyes, which lost none of their lustre, although she was evidently labouring
under a depression of spirits, bordering on dejection, but from which she appeared to have
considerably recovered in the course of the day.
“When she arrives at Constantinople she will have to perform a tedious journey of about
fifteen hundred miles overland to Tehran, the present capital of Persia, where the principal
residence of the Ambassador is situated. The mode of conveyance from Constantinople, for
females of her rank, is in a TmMr awm, which, in the Persian language, signifies a moving
throne or seat. It may be compared to an English sedan chair, only considerably more spacious ;
two poles are similarly fastened to each side, which project fore and aft ; but instead of being
supported by men, two mules are substituted, one in front, and the other on the principle of a
propelling power, and a strap or cord being fastened behind from one pole to the other, which
rests on a kind of saddle placed on the back of the mule, the T t ~ hatw~an is supported by the
mules at a proper distance from the ground, to preserve a due equilibrium ; and in this way they
travel at an easy rate in perfect safety through a dangerous tract of countrg.”
After the departure of his Dill Awm, the Ambassador remained in England
about a month, a portion of which he spent at Cheltenham for his health. In
the prosecution of his design of visiting Scotland and Ireland, his Excellency
arrived at Dumbreck’a Hotel, Edinburgh, on Saturday the 30th of October,
and shortly afterwards took up his residence at the Royal HoteL He was
waited upon by the Lord Provost (Manderston), and about three o’clock, accompanied
by his lordship, Bailie Manners, and an interpreter. The Ambassador
proceeded in his carriage to the Parliament House, and viewed with much
interest the Courts of law, the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, and the ... SKETCHES. 307 Blackwall, where the Circassian was conducted into a private room, whilst some ...

Book 9  p. 408
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Holyrood.1 THE HOUSEHOLD TROOPS. . 75
? blew gowns, each having got thirty-five shillings in
a purse, came up from the abbey to the great
church, praying all along for His Majesty. Sermon
being ended, His Grace entertained all the nobles
and gentlemen with a magnificent feast and open
table. After dinner the Lord Provost and Council
went to the Cross, where was a green arbour
loaded with oranges and lemons, wine running
liberally for divers hours at eight conduits, to the
great solace of the indigent commons there. Having
drunk all the royal healths, which were seconded
by great guns from the castle, sound of trumpets
and drums, volleys from the Trained Bands, and
joyful acclamations from the people, they plenti-
? fully entertained the multitude. After which, my
Lord Commissioner, Provost, and Bailies went to
the castle, where they were entertained with all
sorts of wine and sweatmeats ; and returning, the
Provost countenancing all neighbours that had put
up bonfires by appearing at their fires, which
jovialness continhed, with ringing of bells and
shooting of great guns, till 12 o?clock at night.? .
In October, 1679, the Duke of Albany and
York, with his family, including the future queens,
Mary and Anne, took up his residence at Hdyrood,
where the gaiety and brilliance of his court
gave great satisfaction. The princesses were easy
and affable, and the duke left little undone to win
the love of the people, but the time was an unpropitious
one, for they were at issue with him on
matters of fxith ; yet it is clearly admitted by
Fountainhall that his birthday was observed more
cordially than that of the king. The duke golfed
frequently at Leith. ? I remember in my youth,?
wrote Mr. William Tytler, ? to have conversed with
an old man named Andrew Dickson, a golf-club
maker, who said that when a boy he used to carry
the duke?s golf-clubs, and run before him to announce
where the balls fell.?
The sixteen companies of the Trained Bands
attended the duke?s amval in the city, and sixty
selected men from each company were ordered ? to
attend their royal highnesses, apparelled in the
best manner,?? and the latter were banqueted in
the Parliament House, at the cost of A5231 13s.
sterling. The brilliance of the little court wa:
long remembered after the royal race were in
hopeless exile. One of the most celebrated
beauties of its circle was the wife of Preston oi
Denbrae, who survived till the middle of the lasl
century. In the Cupar burial register this entr)
occurs concerning her :-? Buried a I st December,
1757, Lady Denbrae, aged 107 years.?
The duke and duchess are said to have beer
early warned of the haughty punctilio of thf
Scottish noblesse by a speech of General Dalzell
of Binns, whom the former had invited to
line at the palace, when Nary d?Este, as a
laughter of the ducal-prince of Modena, declined
to take her place at table with a subject.
r?Madam,?? said the grim veteran, ?I have
lined at a table, where your father must have stood
at my back !? In this instance it is supposed
:hat he alluded to the table of the Emperor of
Zermany, whom the Duke of Modena, if summoned,
must have attended as an officer of the
lousehold.
The same commander having ordered a guardsman
who had been found asleep on his post at the
?alace to be shot, he was forgiven by order of
;he duke.
In August, 1681, one of the grandest funerals
:ver seen in Scotland left Holyrood-that of the
High ChanceIlor, the Duke of Rothes, who died
:here on the 26th July. The account of the pro-
:ession fills six quarto pages of Amot?s ?? History,?
md enumerates among the troops present the
Scots Foot Guards, a train of Artillery, the Scots
Fusiliers, and Horse Guards of the Scottish army.
1$ April, 1705, John, the great Duke of Argyle,
took up his residence at the palace as Commissioner
to the Parliament, on which occasion he was
received by a double salvo from the castle batteries,
by the great guns in the Artillery Park, ? and from
111 the men-of-war, both Dutch and Scottish, then
lying in the road of Leith.?
the Life and Horse Guards, Horse Grenadier
Guards, and the two battalions of the Foot Guards,
ceased to do duty at Holyrood, being all removed
permanently to London, though a detachment of
the last named corps garrisoned the Bass Rock
till the middle of the last century.
A strange gladiatorial exhibition is recorded as
taking place on a stage at the back of the palace on
the 23rd of June, 1726, when one of those public
combats then so popular at the Bear Garden in
London, ensued between a powerful young Inshman
named Andrew Bryan (who had sent a drum
through the city defying all men) and a veteran of
Killiecrankie, named Donald Bane, then in his
sixty-second year.
They fought with various weapons, in presence
of many noblemen, gentlemen, and military officers,
for several hours, and Bryan was totally vanquished,
after receiving some severe wounds from
his unscathed antagonist.
The annual ball of the Honourable Company
of Hunters at Holyrood, begins to be regularly
chronicled in the Edinburgh papers about this
In 1711 the Scottish Household troops, viz., - ... THE HOUSEHOLD TROOPS. . 75 ? blew gowns, each having got thirty-five shillings in a purse, came up ...

Book 3  p. 75
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140 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Giles's Church.
establishment, and Maitland gives us a roll of the
forty chaplaincies and altarages therein.
An Act of Council dated twelve years before
this event commemorates the gratitude ,of the
citizens to one who had brought from France a
relic of St. Giles, and, modernised, it runs thus :-
*' Be it kenned to all men by these present letters,
we, the provost, bailies, counselle and communitie
of the burgh of Edynburgh, to be bound
and obliged to William Prestoune of Gourton, son
and heir to somewhile iVilliam Prestoune of Gourton,
and to the friends and sirname
of them, that for so much
that William Prestoune the
father, whom God assoile, made
diligent labour, by a high and
mighty prince, the King of
France (Charles VII.), and
many other lords of France, for
getting the arm-bone of St. Gile,
the which bone he freely left to
our mother kirk of St. Gile of
Edinburgh, without making any
condition. We, considering the
great labour and costs that he
made for getting thereof, promise
that within six or seven years,
in all the possible and goodly
haste we may, that we shall
build an aisle forth from our
Ladye aisle, where the said William
lies, the said aisle to be
begun within a year, in which
aisle there shall be brass for his
lair in bost (it., for his grave in
embossed) work, and above the
brass a writ, specifying the
bringing of that Rylik by him
into Scotland, with his arms, and
his arms to be put in hewn
church of his name in the Scottish quarter of
Bruges, and on the 1st of September is yearly
borne through the streets, preceded by all thedrums
in the garrison.
To this hour the arms of Preston still remain in
the roof of the aisle, as executed by the engagement
in the charter quoted; and the Prestons
continued annually to exercise their right of bearing
the arm of the patron saint of the city until
the eventful year 1558, when the clergy issued
forth for the last time in solemn procession on
the day of his feast, the 1st
SEAL OF ST. G1LES.t (A ffw Henry Lain&.
work, in three other parts of the aisle, with book
and chalice and all other furniture belonging
thereto. Also, that we shall assign the chaplain
of whilome Sir William of Prestoune, to sing at the
altar from that time forth. . . . . Item, that
as often as the said Rylik is borne in the year,
that the sirname and nearest of blood of the said
William shall bear the said Rylik, before all
others, &c. In witness of which things we have
set to our common seal at Edinburgh the 11th
day of the month of January, in the year of our
Lord 1454"*
The other arm of St. Giles is preserved in the
Frag. : " Scotomomastica."
September, bearing with them
a statue of St. Giles-"a marmouset
idol," Knox calls itborrowed
from the Grey Friars,
because the great image of the
saint, which was as large as life,
had been stolen from its place,
and after being '' drouned " in
the North Loch as an encourager
of idolatry, was burned
as a heretic by some earnest
Reformers. Only two years
before this event the Dean of
Guild had paid 6s. for painting
the image, and Izd. for
polishing the silver arm containing
the relic. To give dignity
to this last procession the
queen regent attended it in
person; but the moment she
left it the spirit of the mob
broke forth. Some pressed close.
to the image, as if to join in
its support, while endeavouring
to shake it down; but this.
proved impossible, so firmly was
it secured to its supporters; and
the struggle, rivalry, and triumph
of the mob were delightful -to Knox, who described
the event with the inevitable glee in which
he indulged on such occasions.
Only four years after all this the saint's silverwork,
ring and jewels, and all the rich vestments,
wherewith his image and his arm-bone were wont
to be decorated on high festivals, were sold by
the authority of the magistrates, and the proceeds
employed in the repair of the church.
f Under a canopy supported by spiral columns a full-length figure of.
St. Giles with the nimbus, holding the crozier in his right hand, and ih
his left a Look and a branch. A kid, the usual attendant on St. Giles,
is playfully leaping up to his hand. On the pedestal is a shield bearing
the castle triple-towered, S. COMMUNE CAPTI BTI EGIDII DEEDINBURGH.
(Apfindrd to a chartrr by the Provost [ Waite, FodesJ d Chuptrr
of St. Gdes of fke man= andgkk in favmrof the magisfrates and'
conzmndy of Edindrryh, A.D. 1496.") ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Giles's Church. establishment, and Maitland gives us a roll of the forty ...

Book 1  p. 140
(Score 0.56)

Charlotte Square.] THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. I75
His neighbour and brother senator Lord Dundrennan
occupied No. 35 ; and in 1811 William
Robertson, Lord Robertson, a senator of 1805,
occupied No. 42. He was the eldest son of Dr.
Robertson the historian, and in 1779 was chosen
Procurator of the Church of Scotland, after ,a close
contest, in which he was opposed by the Hon.
Henry Erskine. His personal appearance is
described in ? Peter?s Letters to his Kinsfolk.?
He retired from the bench in 1826, in consequence
of deafness, and died in November, 1835.
On the western side of the Square, and terminating
with fine effect the long vista of George
Street from the east, is St. George?s Church, the
foundation of which was laid on the 14th of May,
1811. It was built from a design furnished by
Robert Reid, king?s architect The celebrated
Adam likewise furnished a plan for this church,
which was relinquished in consequence of the
expense it would have involved. The whole building,
with the exception of the dome, which is a
noble one, and seen to advantage from any point,
is heavy in appearance, meagre in detail, and
hideous in conception, and its ultimate expense
greatly exceeded the estimates and the sum for
which the more elegant design of Adam could have
been carried out. It cost A33,ooo, is calculated
to accommodate only 1,600 persons, and was opened
for public worship in 1814. It was intended in
its upper part to be a large miniature or reduced
copy of St. Paul?s in London, and is in a kind of
Grzco-Italian style, with a lofty but meagre Ionic
portico and surmounting an Attic Corinthian colonnade
; it rests on a square ground plan measuring
IIZ feet each way, and culminates in the dome,
surmounted by a lantern, cupola, and cross, the
last at the height of 160 feet from the ground.
The original design included two minarets, which
have not as yet been added.
It is chiefly celebrated as the scene of the ministrations
of Andrew Thomson, D.D., an eminent
divine who was fixed upon as its pastor in 1814.
He died suddenly on the 9th of February, 1831,
greatly beloved and lamented by the citizens in
general and his congregation in particular, and now
he lies in a piece of ground connected with the
churchyard of St. Cuthbert.
In Charlotte Place, behind the church, are the
atelier of Sir John Steel the eminent sculptor, and
a music-room called St. Cecilia?s Hall, with an
orchestra space for 250 performers and seats for
500 hearers.
In the centre of the Square is the memorial to
the Prince Consort, which was inaugurated with
much state by the Queen in person, attended by
the magistrates and archer guard, &c., in August,
1876. It cost A16,500, and is mainly from
the studio of Steel It is a quasi-pyramidal structure,
about thirty-two feet high, with a colossal
equestrian statue of the Prince as its central and
upper figure ; it is erected on an oblong Peterhead
granite pedestal, fully seventeen feet high, and
exhibiting emblematic bas-reliefs in the panels,
with four groups of statues on square blocks, projecting
from the corners of the basement; the
prince is shown in the uniform of a field marshal.
Of all the many statues that have been erected
to his memory, this in Charlotte Square is perhaps
one of the best and most pleasing.
With this chapter we close the history of what
may be regarded as thejt-st New Town, which was
designed in 1767, laid out, as we have seen, in a
parallelogram the sides of which measure 3,900
feet by 1,090.
The year 1755 was the period when Edinburgh
seemed really to wake from the sleep and torpor
that followed the Union, and a few imprdvements
began in the Old Town. After that period, says
Kincaid, writing in 1794, ? it is moderate to say
that not less than ~3,000,000 sterling has been
expended in building and public improvements.?
Thirty-five years ago,? says the Edinburgh
Adverther for 1823, ? there were scarcely a dozen
sliops in the New Town; now, in Princes Street,
with the exception of hotels and the Albyn Club
Room, they reach to Hanover Street.?
In the present day the whole .area we have described
is mainly occupied by shops, with the exception
of Charlotte Square and a small portion of
Queen Street. ... Square.] THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. I75 His neighbour and brother senator Lord Dundrennan occupied No. 35 ; ...

Book 3  p. 175
(Score 0.56)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 383
Dictionary of Decision8 of the Court of Session,
vols. iii and iv. 1778. Folio.
Plan and Outlines of a Course of Lectures on'Universa1
History, Ancient and Modern, illustrated
with Maps of Ancient and Modern Geography,
and a Chronological Table. 1782. Afterwards
much enlarged, and published under the title of
Elements of Qeneral History.
Nos. 17, 37, 59, 79, of the Mirror, first publishad in
1779 and 1780; also Nos. 7, 19. 24, 44, 63, 70, 79,
of the Lounger, tirst published in 1785 aud 1786.
Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. John Grego~y,
pretixed to an edition of his works, published at
Edinburgh in 1787.
History of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, making
the First Part of the First Volume of the Transactions
of the Royal Society, printed in 1787.
Biographical Account of Lord President Dundas,
printed in the Second Volume of the Transactions
of the Royal Society.
Account of some extraordinary Structures on the
tops of Hills in the Highlands, with Remarks on
the Progress of the Arts among the Ancient Inhabitanta
of Scotland. Printed in the Second
Volume of the Tnrnsnctions of the Royal Society.
Essay on the Principles of Translation, 8vo. Pablished
by Cadell, London Second edition, with
additions, 1797. 8vo.
Critical Examination of Yr. Whitaker's Course of
Hmnibal over the Alps.
New edition of Derham's Physic+Theology, with
large Notes and an Account of the Life and
Writings of the Author. Published, January
1789.
Ireland ProUting by Example, or the Question whether
Scotland haa Gained or Lpst by a Union, ilnally
discussed, 1799.
Remnrks on the Writings and Qenius of Allan
Rameay. Prefixed to a new edition of his works,
in 2 vols. 8v0, edited by the lata George Chalmers,
Eaq. 1800. 8vo.
An Essay on Military Law, and the Practice of C o d -
Martial. Edinburgh, 1800. 8vo.
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Henry Home,
Lord games. 1807. 2 vols. 4h. Republished
in three vols. 8vo.
Historical and Critical Essay on the Life and Character
of Petmch Crown 8vo.
Published, 1798.
WILLIAM ROBERTSON (LORDR OBERTSONth),e figure next to Lord
Woodhouselee, was the eldest son of Dr. Robertson, the eminent Historian
and Principal of the University of Edinburgh. He was born in December
1754; and became a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1775. In 1779
he was chosen Procurator of the Church of Scotland, after a keen contest, in
which he was opposed by the Hon. Henry Erskine, whose professional eminence
is so well known.
In 1805, after thirty years' successful practice at the bar, Lord Robertson
was promoted to the bench, on the death of David Ross (Lord Ankerville),
where he was distinguished not more for his legal talents than for his sagacity
and good sense. His appearance is thus described by the author of Peter's
Letters to his Kinsfolk :-
" In his [the Lord Justice Clerk's] Division of the Civil Court, one of his most respected
aqsessors is Lord Robertmn, son to the great historian ; nor could I see, without a very peculiar
interest, the son of such a man occupying and adorning such a situation, in the midst of a people
in whose minds his name must be associated with so niany feelings of gratitude and admiration.
" The son of such a man as the Historian of Scotland is well entitled to share in these
honourable feelings of hereditary attachment among the people of Scotland ; and he does share
in them. Even to me, I must confess, it afforded a very genuine delight, to be allowed to
contemplate the features of the father, aq reflected and preserved in the living features of his son.
A more careless observer would not, perhaps, be able to trace any very striking resemblance between
the face of Lord Robertson and the common portraits of the Historian ; but I could easily do so.
In those of the prints which represent him at an early period of hie life, the physiognomy of
Robertson is not seen to its best advantage. There is, indeed, an air of calmness and tastefuluess
even in them which cannot be overlooked or mistaken ; but it ie in those later portraits,
which give the features after they had been divested of their fulness and smoothnesa of outline,
and filled with the deeper lines of age and comparative extenuation, that one traces, with most
ease and satisfaction, the image of genius, and the impress of reflection. And it is to these lnst
portraits that I could perceive the strongest likeness in the general aspect of the Judge, but most
of all in his grey and overhanging eye-brows, and eyes, eloquent equally of sagacity of intellect
and gentleness of temper." ... SKETCHES. 383 Dictionary of Decision8 of the Court of Session, vols. iii and iv. 1778. Folio. Plan ...

Book 9  p. 512
(Score 0.55)

natural death-all the rest having lost their lives
in defence of their country.
If we turn to Holyrood, what visions and memories
must arise of Knoq standing grim and stem
before his queen, in his black Geneva cloak, with
his hands planted on the horn handle of his long
walking-cane, daringly rebuking her love of music
and dancing-unbending, unyieldmg, and unmelted,
by her exalted rank, her beauty, or her bitter
tears j and of that terrible night in the Tower of
James V., when sickly Ruthven, looking pale as
a spectre under the open visor of his helmet, drew
back with gauntleted hand the ancient arras as
the assassins stole up the secret stair,-and then
Rizzio, clinging wildly to the queen?s skirt, and
dying beneath her eyes of many a mortal wound,
with Darnley?s dagger planted in his body; of
Charles Edward, in the prime of his youth and
comeliness, already seeing the crown of the Stuarts
upon his exiled father?s head, surrounded by exultant
Jacobite ladies, with white cockades on their
bosoms, and dancing in the long gallery of the
kings to the sound of the same pipes that blew
the onset at Falkirk and Culloden !
A very few years later, and Boswell, ?and Dr.
Johnson in his brown suit with steel buttons,
might have been seen coming arm-in-arm from
the White Horse Hostel in Boyd?s Close-the
burly lexicographer, as his obsequious follower
tells us, grumbling and stumbling in the dark, as
they proceeded on their way to the abode of the
latter in James?s Court; but his visit to Scotland
compelled the pedant, who trembled at the Cock
Lane ghost and yet laughed at the idea of an
earthquake in Lisbon, to have, as Macaulay says,
a salutary suspicion of his own deficiencies, which
skems on that occasion to have crossed his mind
for the first time.?
In yonder house, in Dunbar?s Close, the Ironsides
of Cromwell had their guard-house ; and on
the adjacent bartizan, that commanded a view of
all the fields and farms to the north, in the autumn
evenings of 1650~ the Protector often sat with
Mathew Tiomlinson, Monk, and Ireton, each
smoking their yards of clay and drinking Scottish
. ale, or claret, and expounding, it might be, texts of
Scripture, while their batteries at the Lang-gate
? and Heriot?s Hospital threw shot and shell at the
Castle, then feebly defended by the treacherous
Dundas, from whom the Protector?s gold won what,
he himself admitted, steel and shot might never
have done, the fortress never before being so strong
as it was then, with all its stores and garrison. And
in, that wynd, to which, in perishing, he gave his
name, we shall see the sturdy craftsman Halkerston
fighting to the death, with his two-handed sword,
against the English invaders. Turn which way we
hay in Edinburgh, that stirring past attends us,
and every old stone is a record of the days, the
years, and the people, who have passed away.
In a cellar not far distant the Treaty of Union
was partly signed, in haste and fear and trembling,
while the street without rang with the yells and
opprobrious cries of the infuriated mob ; and after
that event, by the general desertion of the nobility,
came what has been emphatically called the Dark
Age of Edinburgh-that dull and heartless period
when grass was seen to grow around the market-,
cross, when a strange and unnatural stillness-the
stillness of village life-seemed to settle over every
one and everything, when the author of ? Douglas ?
was put under ban for daring to write that tragedy,
and when men made their last will and testament
before setting out by the stage for London, and
when such advertisements appeared as that which
we find in the EdinbuTh Coirranf for 7th March,
1761 -?A young lady who is about to set out fqr
London in a postchaise will be glad of a companion.
Enquire at the publisher of this paper ; ?
-when Edinburgh was so secluded and had such
little intercourse with London, that on one occasion
the mail brought but a single letter (for the British
Linen Company), and the dullness of local life
received a fillip only when Admiral de Fourbin
was off the coast of Fife, or the presence of Thurot
the corsair, or of Paul Jones, brought back some
of the old Scottish spirit of the past.
The stately oaks of the Burghmuir, under which
Guy of Namuis Flemish lances fled in ruin and
defeat before the Scots of Douglas and Dalhousie,
have long since passed away, and handsome
modem villas cover all the land to the base of
the bordering hills; but the old battle stone, in
which our kings planted their standards, and which
marked the Campus Martius of the Scottish hosts,
still lingers there on the south; and the once
lonely Figgatemuir on the east, where the monks
of Holyrood grazed their flocks and herds, and
where Wallace mustered his warriors prior to the
storming of Dunbar, is now a pleasant little watering
place, which somewhat vainly boasts itself
?? the Scottish Brighton.?
The remarkable appearance and construction of
old Edinburgh-towering skyward, storey upon
storey, with all its black and bulky chimneys, crowstepped
gables, and outside stairs-arise from the
circumstance of its having been twice walled, and
the necessity for residing within these barriers, for
protection in times of foreign or domestic war.
Thus, what Victor Hug0 says of the Paris of Philip
? ... death-all the rest having lost their lives in defence of their country. If we turn to Holyrood, what ...

Book 1  p. 6
(Score 0.55)

198 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Northumberland Street.
A noted antiquary, he was Correspondant du
Comitk Imp2riaZ des Travaux Historipes, et aes
SaWs Savants. de France, &c. He was well
known in Edinburgh for his somewhat coarse wit,
and as a collector of rare books, whose library in
Great King Street was reported to be the most
valuable private one in the city, where he was
called-but more especially among legal men-
?Alphabet Turnbull,? from the number of his
initials. He removed to London about 1853, and
became seriously embroiled with the authorities
concerning certain historical documents in the
State Paper Office, when he had his chambers
in 3 Stone Buildings, Lincoln?s Inn Fields.
He died at London on the 22nd of April, 1863,
in his fifty-second year ; and a story went abroad
that a box of MS. papers was mysteriously buried
with him.
CHAPTER XXVII.
NORTHERN NEW TOWN (cmclttded).
Admiral Fairfax-Bishop Terrot-Brigadier Hope-Sir T. M. Brisbane--Lord Meadowbank-Ewbank the R.S.A-Death of Professor Wilson-
Moray Place and its Distrk-Lord President Hope-The Last Abode of Jeffrey-Baron Hume and Lord Monuieff-Forres Street-
Thomas Chalmers. D.D.-St. Colme Street-CaDtain Basil Hall-Ainslie Place-Dugald Stewart-Dean Ramsay-Great Stoart Street-
Professor Aytoun-Miss Graham of Duntroon-Lord Jervkwoode
IN the narrow and somewhat sombre thoroughfare
named Northumberlanc! Street have dwelt some
people who were of note in their time.
In 1810 Lady Emily Dundas, and Admiral Sir
William George Fairfax, resided in Nos. 46 and
53 respectively. The admiral had distinguished
himself at the battle of Camperdown as flag-captain
of the Vmemble, under Admiral Duncan; and in
consideration of his acknowledged bravery and
merit on that occasion-being sent home with the
admiral?s despatches-he was made knight-banneret,
with an augmentation to his coataf-arms in
chief, a representation of 1I.M.S. Venerable en.
gaging the Dutch admiral?s ship Yryheid; and to
do justice to the memory of ?? departed worth,? at
his death his son was made a baronet of Great
Britain in 1836. He had a daughter named Mary,
who became the wife of Samuel Greig, captain and
commissioner in the imperial Russian navy.
No. 19 in the same street was for some years the
residence of the Right Rev. Charles Hughes
Terrot, D.D., elected in 1857 Primus of the Scottish
Episcopal Church, and whose quaint little
figure, with shovel-hat and knee-breeches, was long
familiar in the streets of Edinburgh. He wss born
at Cuddalore in the East Indies in 1790. For
some reasons, though he had not distinguished
himself in the Cambridge Tripos list of University
honours, his own College (Trinity College) paid
him the highest compliment in their power, by
electing him a Fellow on the first occasion aftex
he had taken his degree of B.A. in mathematical
honours, and subsequently proceeded to M.A.
and D.D. He did not remain long at college,
as he soon married and went to Scotland, where
he continued all his life attached to the Scottish
Episcopal Church, as successively incumbent of
Haddington, of St. Peter?s, and finally St. Paul?s,
York Place, Edinburgh. In 1841 he was made
bishop of Edinburgh, on the death of Bishop
Walker. He was author of several works on
theology, During the latter years of his life,
from extreme age and infirmity, he had been
entirely laid aside from his pastoral and episcopal
labours ; but during the period of his health and
vigour few men were more esteemed in his pastoral
relations as their minister, or by his brethren of
the Episcopal Church for his acuteness and clever
judgment in their discussions in church affairs.
The leading features of Dr. Terrot?s intellectual
character were accuracy and precision rather than
very extensive learning or great research. It
was very striking sometimes after a subject had
been discussed in a desultory and commonplace
manner, to hear him coming down ?upon the ,
question with a clear and cutting remark which
put the whole matter in a new and distinct point
of view.
He was long a Fellow and Vice-President of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, to which he communicated
some very able and acute papers, especially
on logical and mathematical subjects. So also in
his moral and social relations, he was remarkable for
his manly, fair, and honourable bearing. He had
what might essentially be called a pure and honest
mind. He wasdevotedly attached to his own Church,
and few knew better how to argue in favour of its
polity and forms of service, never varying much in
externals ; but few men were more ready to concede
to others the liberality of judgment which he
. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Northumberland Street. A noted antiquary, he was Correspondant du Comitk Imp2riaZ des ...

Book 4  p. 198
(Score 0.52)

APPENDIX. 431
TmoBa.--The Corporation of Tailors, a more ancient fraternity, claiming, indeed, as their founder the firat
stitcher’of fig-leaf aprons, or, according to the old Geneva Bible, of h&, in the plains of Mesopotamia,-
appear to have had an altar in St Giles’s Church, dedicated to their patron saint, St Ann, at the date of their
Seal of Cause, AD. 1500. In 1554, Robert, Commendator of Abbey of HoIyrood, granta to ye Tailzour crawft
within our aaid Brwcht of the cannogait of our said Abbay,” Letters of Incorporation, which specially provide
for ‘‘ augmentation of diuine seruice at ane altar biggit within our said Abbay, quhair Sanct An, thah patrone
now stands.” So that tJ& saint appears to have been the adopted patronesa of the Craft in general
Though the fine old hall in the Cowgate hae long been abandoned by this Corporation, they s t i l l exist arr e
body, and had a place of meeting in Carrubber’s Close., one of the chief olpamenta of which was an autograph
letter of James VI., addressed to the Tdom of Edinburgh, which hung framed and glazed over the old fireplace.
St ~ ~ d a l e n eC’hsa pel, and the modem Mary‘a Chapel in Bell’a Wynd, form the chief halle of the
remaining Corporations of Edinburgh, that have long survived all the pnrpo~esf or which they were originally
chartered and incorporated.
FmEMA8ONs.-Probab1y in no city in the world have the brotherhood of the mystic tie more zealously
revived their ancient secret fraternisation than they did in Edinbuqh during the eighteenth century- The
hereditary office of grand-master which bad been granted by Jamea II. William St Clair of R.oalin, and to
hia heirs and succe~~oimn the barony of Roalin, was then about to expire with the last of that old line. In
. 1736, William St Clair of Ro&, the last h d i t q grand-maater, intimated to 8 &apter of the Canongate
Kilwinning Lodge hb intention of resigning Bi office into the Ban& of the Bcottish brotherhood, in order that
the office he inherited might be perpetuated by free election. Ths oonueqww wm the aseembly in Edinburgh,
on the ensuing St Anhew% Day, of a representative assembly, consistingaof deputies elected l ~ ayll the
Scottish lodges, and thus was constituted Ths Grand Lodge of S c ~ t h d The Scottish lodges took precedence
according to seniority : the Kilwinniug Lodge standing foremost, and next in order the ancient Edinburgh
Lodge of St Mary, the Canongate Kilwjnning Lodge, and after it the Lodge of Perth and Scone, the more
ancient seat of the Scottish government. Their lodge halls are to be found in various quarters of the town.
Among the antiquities of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., is a hely carved oak door of a small press or ambry, having e
figure of the Virgin carved in low relief on the panel, which belonged to one of the lodgea In the hall of St
David’s Lodge in Hyndfoni’s Clme, a still more venerable antique used to be 8hoq-n original portrait of
King Solomon, painted for the first Grand Lodge, at the founding of the order, while the Temple of Jerusalem
was in pmgreaa ! We understand, however, that some of the brethren entertain doubta of ita being quite JO dd,
though one venerable octagenarian answered our inquiries by an ancient legend of the burgh, which beam that
certain of the Town Guard of Edinburgh were present in Jerusalem at the Crucifixion, and carried off thk
veritable portrait from the Temple during the commotions that ensued ; all which the reader will receive and
believe as a genuine old Edinburgh tradition I
The most characteristic feature, however, of the Masonic fraterniv of Edinburgh, was the Roman Eagle
Lodge. There was at the period of Robert Bum’s h t viait to Edinburgh about a dozen different maeonic
lodges assembling in Edinburgh, wherein noblemen, judges, grave profasora, and learned divines, lawye- and
scholars of all sorts, mixed with the brotherhood in decorone fraternisation and equality. It was, perhaps, from
an idea of creating within the masonic republio a scholarly aristocracy, that should preserve for their own
exclusive enjoyment one lodge of the fraternity, without infringing on the equality of rights in the order, that
the Roman Eagk Mga was founded, at whose meetings no language but Latin waa allowed to be spoken. It
waa eatablished, we believe, h t h e year 1780, by the celebrated and eccentric Dr Brown, author of EIsmcnta
&“kim~, and founder of what ia termed the Brunonian System in medicine. It affords no very flattering
picture of Edinburgh society at that period, to learn that this classic fraternity owed ita dissozution to the
excessea of ita memberg wherein they far surpassed their brethren-not altogether famous an ptterns of temperance,
The Roman Eagle Hall, in B d e ’ s Close, still bears the name of the learned brotherhood.
’
.
.
‘ ... 431 TmoBa.--The Corporation of Tailors, a more ancient fraternity, claiming, indeed, as their founder ...

Book 10  p. 470
(Score 0.52)

Leith.] THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0
marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing
the date 1688 has the two legends, ?Feir the
Lord,? and ?The feir of the Lord is the beginning
of a1 wisdome.?
This part of the town-about the foot of St.
Andrew?s Street-is said to have borne anciently
the name of St. Leonard?s. There the Street
diverges into two alleys : one narrow and gloomy,
which bears the imposing title of Parliament Court ;
and the other called Sheephead Wynd, in which
there remains a very ancient edifice, the ground
floor of which is formed of arches constructed like
those of the old house described in the Kirkgate,
and bearing the date 1579, with the initials D. W.,
M. W. Though small and greatly dilapidated, it
is ornamented with string-courses and mouldings ;
and it was not without some traces of old importance
and grandeur amid its decay and degradation,
until it was entirely altered in 1859.
This house is said to have received the local
name of the Gun Stone, from the circumstance of
a stone cannon ball of considerable size having
been fired into it during some invasion by an
English ship of war. Local tradition avers that
for many years this bullet formed an ornament on
the summit of the square projecting staircase of
the house.
Near Cable?s Wynd, which adjoins this alley, and
between it and King Street, at a spot called
Meeting-house Green, are the relics of a building
formerly used as a place of worship, and although
it does not date farther back than the Revolution
.of 1688, it is oddly enough called ?John Knox?s
Church.?
The records of South Leith parish bear that in
1692, ?? the magistrates of Edinburgh, and members
of the Presbytery there, with a confused company
of the people, entered the church by breaking open
the locks of the doors and putting on new ones,
and so caused guard the church doors with halberts,
rang the bells, and possessed Mr. Wishart of
the church, against which all irregular proceedings
public protests were taken.?
Previous to this he would seem to have officiated
in a kind of chapel-of-ease established near Cable?s
Wynd, by permission of James VII. in 1687.
Soon after the forcible induction recorded, he
came to the church with a guard of halberdiers,
accompanied by the magistrates of Leith, and took
possession of the Session House, compelling the
? prelatick Session ? to hold their meeting in the
adjacent Kantore. More unseemly matters followed,
for in December of the year 1692, when a
meeting was held in South Leith Church to hear
any objections that might be niade against the legal
induction of the Rev. Mr. Wishart, an adherent of
Mr. Kay, ?? one of the prelatick incumbents,? protested
loudly against the whole proceedings.
Upon this, ?Mr. Livingstone, a brewer at the
Craigend (or Calton), rose up, and, in presence of
the Presbytery, did most violently fall upon the
commissioner, and buffeted him and nipped his
cheeks, and had many base expressions to him.?
Others now fell on the luckless commissioner,
who was ultimately thrust into the Tolbooth of
Leith by a magistrate, for daring to do that which
the Presbytery had suggested. Mr. Kay?s session
were next driven out of the Kantore, on the door
of which another lock was placed.
It has been supposed that the ousted episcopal
incumbent formed his adherents into a small congregation,
as he remained long iu Leith, and died
at his house in the Yardheads there so lately as
November, 1719, in the seventieth year of his age.
His successor, tile Rev. Robert Forbes, was minister
of an episcopal chapel in Leith, according to an
anonymous writer, ?? very shortly after Mr: Kay?s
death, and records a baptism as having been performed
? in my room in ye Yardheads.? ?
The history of the Meeting-house near Cable?s
Wynd is rather obscure, but it seems to have been
generally used as a place of worship. The last
occasion was during a visit of John Wesley, the
great founder of Methodism. He was announced
to preach in it; but so grcat a concourse of people
assembled, that the edifice was incapable of accommodating
them, so he addressed the multitude
on the Meeting-house Green. LI house near it,
says The Srofsinan in 1879, is pointed out as ?the
Manse.?
The Tolbooth TVynd is about five hundred an&
fifty feet in length, from where the old signal-tower
stood, at the foot of the Kirkgate, to the site of a
now removed building called Old Babylon, which
stood upon the Shore.
The second old thoroughfare of Leith was undoubtedly
the picturesque Tolbooth Wynd, as the
principal approach to the harbour, after it superseded
the more ancient Burgess Close.
It was down this street that, in the age when
Leith was noted for its dark superstitions and eccentric
inhabitants, the denizens therein, regularly
on stormy nights or those preceding a storm,
heard with horror, at midnight, the thundering
noise of ?the twelve o?clock coach,? a great oatafalque-
looking vehicle, driven by a tall, gaunt figure
without a head, drawn by black horses, also headless,
and supposed to be occupied by a mysterious
female.
Near the eastern end of the wynd there stood
, ... THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0 marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing the date 1688 has the two ...

Book 6  p. 227
(Score 0.52)

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