... HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 257
of it:-“This is perhaps the oldest stone building of aprivate nature now ...
Book 10 p. 279
(Score 0.54)
![THE OLD THEATRE ROYAI,. 341 North Bridge.]
happy reminiscences and bright associations in the
minds of thousands; and it was one of the very
few theatres that, escaping the ravages of fire,
attain to a good old age.
Prior to the reign of George 111. there was not
a single theatre in Scotland countenanced by the
law of the land. One which was erected in Glasgow
in 1752, and on which a military guard
mounted nightly, was
demolished about two
years after, by a mob
when returning from
one of Whitefields
sermons ; but when
the New Town' of
Edinburgh was projected,
a clause was introduced
into the Act
empowering t h e
Crown to grant royal
letters patent for the
establishment of a
theatre in Edinburgh.
Mr. David ROSS,
manager of a small
one then existing,
amid many difficulties,
in the Canongate,
and latterly of Covent
Garden Theatre -a
respectable man, who
had managed two
houses in Londonobtained
the patent,
and the foundationstone
of the new
theatre was laid on the
16th of March, 1768.
prologue, which was written by Janies Boswell,
who, in the following lines, referred to the new
theatre as the first one licensed in Scotland :-
" Whilst in all points with other lands she vied,
The stage alone to Scotland was denied :
Mistaken zeal, in times of darkness bred,
O'er the best minds its gloomy vapours spread ;
Taste and religion were opposed in strife.
.---.*---
GEORGE DRUXMOND, LORD PROVOST.
(From f :e E i i , ~ a v . n ~ by Mac&enzie, ofter ih2 Original in the Rwal
In$mra*y.)
. .
In the stone was laid a silver plate, inscribed thus:-
'' The first stone of this new theatre was laid on the 16th
day of March, in the year of our Lord 1768, by David Ross,
patentee and first proprietor of a licensed stage in Scotland.
May this theatre tend to promote every moral and every
virtuous principle, and may the representations be such
*' To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live on each scene and be what they behold."
But Mr. ROSS'S first legitimate performances as
a licensed manager took place in the old theatre,
which opened unusually late in the season, owing
to a dreadful riot' that happened in January, and
the repairs incident to which occupied ten months,
during which there were no representations whatever.
Ross opened then, with the patented company
on the 9th of December, 1767, with the
tragedy of the RnrZ of Essex. He spoke the
And 'twas a sin to view
this glass of life !
When the muse ventured,
the ungracious task,
To play elusion with unlicensed
mask,
Mirth was restrained ty
statutory awe,
And tragic greatness feared
the scourge of law ;
Illustrious heroes errant
vapants seemed,
And gentlest nymphs were
sturdy begsnrs
deemed."
By the proposals
for building this new
theatre, according to
the S o t s Mugazine for
1768, Mr. Ross had
to raise Lz,.joo by
twenty-five shares, at
LIOO per share, for
which the subscribers
were to receive 3 per
cent., and free access
to all performances
and every part of the
house, except behind
the scenes. "The
house is to be IOO feet
in length by 50 broad.
To furnish new scenes, wardrobe,- and necessary
decorations will, it is computed, cost A1,500
more: and the whole building, &c., is to be insured
for A4,000, and mortgaged as security to pay the
interest. As it would be impossible to procure
good performers should the tickets continue at the
low prices now paid, it is proposed to make the
boxes qs., the pit 3s., the first gallery zs., and the
upper IS. For these prices, says Mr. ROSS, this
stage shall vie with those of London and Dublin.
There shall be five capital men-actors, one good
man-singer, one second ditto ; three capital womenactresses,
two capital women-singers, one capital
man-dancer, and one woman ditto; the rest as
good as can be had : the orchestra shall be conducted
with a good first fiddler, as a leader, a harpsichord,
and the rest of the band persons of merit."](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p161.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 341")
... OLD THEATRE ROYAI,. 341 North Bridge.]
happy reminiscences and bright associations in the
minds of thousands; ...
Book 2 p. 341
(Score 0.54)
... HIGH STREET. 24 I.
Not far from this, on the west side of the Old Stamp Office Close, stood a large, ...
Book 10 p. 262
(Score 0.54)
... ESIA S TICA L ANTIQUITIES. 417
of Gillie Grange, by which a part of it is still known, and that of The ...
Book 10 p. 457
(Score 0.53)
... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
He particularly manifested his satisfaction during the following year, when the ...
Book 10 p. 225
(Score 0.53)
... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Mackenzie, and who sat for nearly half a century on the Bench under the title of ...
Book 10 p. 284
(Score 0.53)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
trifle in question has been honoured with public approbation for many years past, and ...
Book 9 p. 133
(Score 0.53)
... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGN.
is on the west side of the square, No. 25, and there the lively and curious boy grew ...
Book 10 p. 381
(Score 0.52)
... STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. ‘39
of carved wood work, exhibiting traces of gilding. An ...
Book 10 p. 150
(Score 0.52)
... HIGH STREET. 229
Advocate’s Close, which bounds the ancient tenement we have been describing on the
east, ...
Book 10 p. 249
(Score 0.52)
... UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 185
dropped whole and complete into the midst of the pent-up city.
west ...
Book 10 p. 203
(Score 0.51)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
few particular points both of learning and of practice, but on the whole, his ...
Book 9 p. 589
(Score 0.51)
![MUSCHAT?S CAIRN. 311 Arthur?r Seat.]
terrible schemes occupied Nichol. Muschat, his
brother, and his sister-in-law, together with Burnbank,
? in the Christian city of Edinburgh, during a
course of many months, without any one, to appearance,
ever feeling the slightest compunction towards
the poor weman, though it is admitted she
loved her husband, and no real fault on her side
has ever been insinuated.?
At length it would seem that Nicol, infatuated
and lured by evil fate, at the suggestion of ?? the
devil, that cunning adversary ?-as his confession
has it-borrowed a knife, scarcely knowing for
what purpose, and, inviting his unsuspecting wife to
walk with him as far as
Duddingston one night,
cut her throat near
the line of trees that
marked the Duke?s
Walk. He then rushed
in a demented state to
tell his brother what
he had done, and thereafter
sank into a mood
of mind that made all
seem blank to him.
Next morning the unfortunate
victim was
found ?with her throat
cut to the bone,? and
many other wounds received
in her dying
struggle.
In the favourite old
Edinburgh religious
by a cairn near the east gate and close to the north
wall. ?The original cairn is said to have been
several paces farther west than the present one,
the stones of which were taken dut of the old wall
whenit was pulled down to give place to the new
gate that was constructed previous to the late royal
visit ?-that of George IV.
In 1820 the pathway round Salisbury Craigs was
formed, and named the ? Radical Road ? from ?the
, circumstance of the destitute and discontented
west-country weavers being employed on its construction
under a committee of gentlemen. At
that time it was proposed to ?sow the rocks with
wall-flowers and other
>I? AlAKGAKET?S WELI..
tract, which narrates
the murderous story, in telling where he went
before doing the deed, he says that he passed
?? through the Tidies,? at the end of a lane which
was near the Meadows. The entrance to the Park,
near the Gibbet Fall, was long known as ?the
Tirliea,? implying a sort of stile.
Nicol Muschat was tried, and confessed all. He
was hanged, on the 6th of the ensuing January in
the Grassmarket, while his associate Burnbank was
declared infamous, and banished ; and the people,
to mark their horror of the event, in the old
Scottish fashion raised a cairn on the spot where
the murder was perpetrated, and it has ever since
been a well-remembered locality.
The first cairn was removed during the formation
of a new footpath through the park, suggested by
Lord Adam Gordon, who was resident at Holyrood
House in 1789, when Commander of the
Forces in Scotland; but from a passage in the
WeekOJournal we find that it was restored in 1823
odoriferous and flowering
plants.? It was also
suggested ? to plant
the cliffs above the
walk with the rarest
heaths from the Cape
of Good Hope and
other foreign parts.?
( Weekfiyuumal, XXIV.)
The papers of this
time teem with bitter
complaints against the
Earl of Haddington,
who, as a keeper of
the Royal Park, by an
abuse of his prercgative,
was quarrying away
the craigs, and selling
the stone to pave the
streets of London; and
the immense gaps in
their south-western face still remain as proofs of
his selfish and unpatriotic rapacity.
As a last remnant of the worship of Baal, or
Fire, we may mention the yearly custom that still
exists of a May-day observance, in the young of the
female sex particularly, ascending Arthur?s Seat on
Beltane morning at sunrise. ?? On a fine May morning,?
says the ? Book of Days,? ? the appearance
of so many gay groups perambulating the hill sides
and the intermediate valleys, searching for dew, and
rousing the echoes with their harmless mirth, has
an indescribably cheerful effect.? Many old citizens
adhered to this custom with wonderful tenacity,
and among the last octogenarians who did so we
may mention Dr. Andrew Duncan of Adam Square,
the founder of the Morningside Asylum, who paid
his last annual visit to the hill top on hlayday, 1S26~
in his eighty-second year, two years before his death ;
and James Burnet, the last captain of the old Town
Guard, a man who weighed nindeen stone, ascended](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p130.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 310")
... CAIRN. 311 Arthur?r Seat.]
terrible schemes occupied Nichol. Muschat, his
brother, and his ...
Book 4 p. 310
(Score 0.5)
![Arthur?r Seat.] MUSCHAT?S CAIRN. 311
terrible schemes occupied Nichol. Muschat, his
brother, and his sister-in-law, together with Burnbank,
? in the Christian city of Edinburgh, during a
course of many months, without any one, to appearance,
ever feeling the slightest compunction towards
the poor weman, though it is admitted she
loved her husband, and no real fault on her side
has ever been insinuated.?
At length it would seem that Nicol, infatuated
and lured by evil fate, at the suggestion of ?? the
devil, that cunning adversary ?-as his confession
has it-borrowed a knife, scarcely knowing for
what purpose, and, inviting his unsuspecting wife to
walk with him as far as
Duddingston one night,
cut her throat near
the line of trees that
marked the Duke?s
Walk. He then rushed
in a demented state to
tell his brother what
he had done, and thereafter
sank into a mood
of mind that made all
seem blank to him.
Next morning the unfortunate
victim was
found ?with her throat
cut to the bone,? and
many other wounds received
in her dying
struggle.
In the favourite old
Edinburgh religious
by a cairn near the east gate and close to the north
wall. ?The original cairn is said to have been
several paces farther west than the present one,
the stones of which were taken dut of the old wall
whenit was pulled down to give place to the new
gate that was constructed previous to the late royal
visit ?-that of George IV.
In 1820 the pathway round Salisbury Craigs was
formed, and named the ? Radical Road ? from ?the
, circumstance of the destitute and discontented
west-country weavers being employed on its construction
under a committee of gentlemen. At
that time it was proposed to ?sow the rocks with
wall-flowers and other
>I? AlAKGAKET?S WELI..
tract, which narrates
the murderous story, in telling where he went
before doing the deed, he says that he passed
?? through the Tidies,? at the end of a lane which
was near the Meadows. The entrance to the Park,
near the Gibbet Fall, was long known as ?the
Tirliea,? implying a sort of stile.
Nicol Muschat was tried, and confessed all. He
was hanged, on the 6th of the ensuing January in
the Grassmarket, while his associate Burnbank was
declared infamous, and banished ; and the people,
to mark their horror of the event, in the old
Scottish fashion raised a cairn on the spot where
the murder was perpetrated, and it has ever since
been a well-remembered locality.
The first cairn was removed during the formation
of a new footpath through the park, suggested by
Lord Adam Gordon, who was resident at Holyrood
House in 1789, when Commander of the
Forces in Scotland; but from a passage in the
WeekOJournal we find that it was restored in 1823
odoriferous and flowering
plants.? It was also
suggested ? to plant
the cliffs above the
walk with the rarest
heaths from the Cape
of Good Hope and
other foreign parts.?
( Weekfiyuumal, XXIV.)
The papers of this
time teem with bitter
complaints against the
Earl of Haddington,
who, as a keeper of
the Royal Park, by an
abuse of his prercgative,
was quarrying away
the craigs, and selling
the stone to pave the
streets of London; and
the immense gaps in
their south-western face still remain as proofs of
his selfish and unpatriotic rapacity.
As a last remnant of the worship of Baal, or
Fire, we may mention the yearly custom that still
exists of a May-day observance, in the young of the
female sex particularly, ascending Arthur?s Seat on
Beltane morning at sunrise. ?? On a fine May morning,?
says the ? Book of Days,? ? the appearance
of so many gay groups perambulating the hill sides
and the intermediate valleys, searching for dew, and
rousing the echoes with their harmless mirth, has
an indescribably cheerful effect.? Many old citizens
adhered to this custom with wonderful tenacity,
and among the last octogenarians who did so we
may mention Dr. Andrew Duncan of Adam Square,
the founder of the Morningside Asylum, who paid
his last annual visit to the hill top on hlayday, 1S26~
in his eighty-second year, two years before his death ;
and James Burnet, the last captain of the old Town
Guard, a man who weighed nindeen stone, ascended](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p131.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 311")
... Seat.] MUSCHAT?S CAIRN. 311
terrible schemes occupied Nichol. Muschat, his
brother, and his ...
Book 4 p. 311
(Score 0.5)
... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
believe, was the place whither the Reformer withdrew for private study and devotion, ...
Book 10 p. 280
(Score 0.5)
... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
broad flight of steps conducted to the main floor of the building. By this mode of ...
Book 10 p. 346
(Score 0.5)
... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
sions, or swept away to make room for the formal streets and squares of the New ...
Book 10 p. 385
(Score 0.5)
![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.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p187.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 175")
... Square.] THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. I75
His neighbour and brother senator Lord Dundrennan
occupied No. 35 ; ...
Book 3 p. 175
(Score 0.49)
... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
TL ANCIENT MAPS AND VIEWS OF EDINBURGH.
1544.-The frequent reference to maps of ...
Book 10 p. 463
(Score 0.49)
... UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 207
pedestal. Its panegyric we suspect had proved too fulsome even for the ...
Book 10 p. 226
(Score 0.49)
... but by a sort of fatuity, often evinced
by persons similarly situated, he gave clues to his
own ...
Book 1 p. 115
(Score 0.48)
... CANONGA TE AND ABBEY SANCTUAR Y. 305
the street, which tradition points out as the residence of Bishop ...
Book 10 p. 333
(Score 0.48)
... 24 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
anticipated, on the loftiest and least accessible part of the rock on which it is ...
Book 10 p. 135
(Score 0.48)
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