... vii
. CHAPTER XXXI.
PAGE ALLEYS OF THE HIGH STREET (continued).
Blackfriars Wynd-The Grant of ...
Book 2 p. 389
(Score 0.21)
![Greyfriars Church.] SCOTT?S FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. ? 383
son, buried respectively I 7 67 and I 8 I 7, Alexander
Monro $rimus, the great anatomist, and Alexander
Monro secwidm, who in 1756 was admitted joint
Professor of Anatomy and Surgery with his distinguished
father.
In the same ground, in 1799, were laid Professor
Joseph Black, the great chemist ; Dr. Hugh Blair, in
1800 ; Henry Mackenzie, ? the Man of Feeling,? in
1831 ; Alexander Tytler, another distinguished
Zittivatear; John Kay, the caricaturist, in 1826 ;
and Dr. McCrie, the well-known biographer of John
Knox.
The monument to Dr. Hugh Hair was erected
in 1817, and is placed on the south side of the
church, in the same compartment with that of Professor
MacLaurin. Thus, one of the most eminent
philosophers and one of the most distinguished
preachers that Scotland has produced are commemorated
side by side.
On the eastern gable of the Old Greyfriars
Church, a grim, repellent, and remarkable monument
catches the eye. In the centre is sculptured
a skeleton, festooned around with surgical implements,
but the inscription is nearly obliterated by
time and the fire of the church, yet it is always an
object of much curiosity.
It marks the grave of James Borthwick, whose
portrait is the oldest now hanging in the Hall of
the Royal College of Surgeons, the incorporation
of which he entered in 1645 ; he was a cadet of
the House of Crookston, and nearly related to
Lord Borthwick, who defended his castle of that
name against Oliver Cromwell after the battle
of Dunbar. He acquired the estate of Stow, in
which he was succeeded by his son James, who
erected this hideously grotesque memorial to his
memory.
Another monument of a different kind, in the
form of a brass plate inserted into a stone, on the
western wall of the church, bore some fine elegiac
verses to the memory of Francisca, daughter of
?< Alexander Swinton, advocate ; who died . . . . .
aged 7 years.?
But these verses were quite obliterated by 1816.
They ran thus :-
? The sweetest children, like these transient flowers,
Which please the fancy for a few short hours,-
Lovely at morning, see them burst in birth,
At evening withered-scattered on the earth,
Their stay, their place, shall never more be known,
Save traits enpven on those hearts alone
That fostered these frail buds while here beneath ;
Yes, these shall triumph o?er the powers of death,
Shall spring eternal in the parent?s mind
Till hence transplanted to a realm refined.?
Northward of the two churches stands the tomb
and grave of Duncan Ban Maclntyre, commonly
known in the Highlands as Donnachan ban nun
Oran, who died in the year 1812, and who, though
he fought at Falkirk, outlived all the bards and
nearly all the warriors associated in the Highland
heart with the last chivalrous struggle for the House
of Stuart.
A handsome monument marks the place where
his ashes lie. Though little known in the Lowlands,
Duncan is deemed one of the-sweetest of
the Gaelic poets, and was so humble in his wants
that he had no higher ambition than to become a
soldier in the old City Guard.
The burial-place of Sir Walter Scott?s family lies
on the west side of the ground. ? Our family,? he
wrote, ?heretofore (Dec., 1819) buried close by the
entrance to Heriot?s Hospital, on the southern or
left-hand. side as you pass from the churchyard.?
Here the father, Walter Scott, W.S., and several of
his children who died in the old house in the College
Wynd, are interred. Mrs. Scott, her sisters,
and her brother, Dr. Rutherford, are interred in
the burial-ground attached to St. John?s Church, at
the west end of Princes Street. Sir Walter purchased
a piece of ground there, ?moved by its
extreme seclusion, privacy, and security; for,? as
he wrote to brother Thomas, who was paymaster
of the 70th Foot, conveying an account of their
mother?s death, ?when poor Jack (their brother)
was buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where my
father and Anne (their sister) lie, I thought their
graves more encroached upon than I liked to
witness.?
The Greyfriars Churchyard is, curiously enough,
noted as being the scene of Scott?s first love affair
with a handsome young woman. Lockhart tells us
that their acquaintance began in that place of
dreary associations, ? when the rain was beginning
to fall one Sunday, as the congregation were dispersing.
Scott happened to offer his umbrella, and
the tender being accepted, so escorted her to her
residence, which proved to be at no great distance
from his own. I have neither the power nor the
wish,? adds his biographer, ?? to give in detail the
sequel to this story. It is sufficient to szy that
after he had through several long years nodrished
the dream of an ultimate union with this lady-
Margaret, daughter of Sir John and Lady Jane
Stewart Belshes of Invermay-his hopes terminated
in her being married to the late Sir William Forbes,
Bart., of Pitsligo.?
In December, 1879, there were interred in the
Greyfriars Churchyard, under the direction of the
city authorities, the great quantity of human bones](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p203.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 383")
... Church.] SCOTT?S FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. ? 383
son, buried respectively I 7 67 and I 8 I 7, Alexander
Monro ...
Book 4 p. 383
(Score 0.21)
![The Water of Leith.] MAJOR-GENERAL MITCHELL. 79
1849. Horatio Macculloch, R.S.A., a most distinguished
landscape painter, lived for many years
in No. 7, Danube Street, where the best of his
works were executed. With Sir Daniel Macnee,
P.R.S.A., he first obtained employment from Lizars,
the engraver, as colourists of Selby?s ?? Ornithology.?
In 1829 he first exhibited; and from thence onwards,
to his death in 1867, he contributed to the
yearly exhibitions, and won himself much fame in
Scotland.
In No. 16, Carlton Street, adjoining, lived for
many years his chief friend, Kenneth Macleay,
R.S.A., who was born at Oban in 1802, and after
being educated at the Trustees? School, was one of
the thirteen founders of the Royal Scottish Academy,
and at his death was the last survivor of
them. He was chiefly famous for his beautiful
miniatures on ivory, and latterly was well known
for his occasional sketches and delineations of
Highland life, many of which were painted at the
express desire of Her Majesty. He died at No. 3,
Malta Terrace, in 1878, in his seventy-sixth year.
He was an enthusiastic Celt, and fond of wearing
the Highland dress on Academy receptions, and
on every possible occasion.
Among others connected with art who made
Stockbridge their residence was George Kemp, the
luckless architect of Sir Walter Scott?s monument,
who had a humble flat in No. 28, Bedford Street ;
James Stewart, the well-known engraver of Sir
Wlliam Allan?s finest works, who lived in No. 4
of that gloomy little street called Hermitage Place ;
and Comely Bank, close by, was not without its
famous people too, for there, for some years after
his marriage, dwelt Thomas Carlyle, and, in No. I I,
James Browne, LL.D., author of the ?History 01
the Highland Clans,? and editor of the CaZea?onian
Mermv and of The Edinburgh Week& JournaZ,
and Macvey Napier?s collaborateur in the ?? Encyclopzdia
Britannica.? Some differences having
arisen between him and Mr. Charles Maclaren,
the editor of the Scotsman, regarding a fine-art
criticism, the altercation ran so high that a hostile
meeting took place at seven o?clock in the morning
of the 12th of November, 1829, somewhere neaI
Ravelston, but, fortunately, without any calamitous
sequel. He took a great lead in Liberal politics,
and in No. 11 entertained Daniel O?Connell more
than once. He died at Woodbine Cottage, Trinity,
an the 8th of April, 1841, aged fifty years. John
Ewbank, R.S.A., the marine and landscape painter,
livedat No. 5, Comely Bank; while No. 13 was thc
residence of Mrs. Johnstone, who while there
wrote many of her best novels-among them, ? Clan
Albyn : a National Tale ?-and contributed man]
able articles to johnstone?s Magazine, a now forgotten
monthly.
From a passage in a memoir of himself prefixed
to ? The Mountain Bard,? we find that the Ettrick
Shepherd, about 1813, was living in Deanhaugh
Street while at work on the ?Queen?s Wake,?
which he produced in that year; and that, in his
lodgings there, he was wont to read passages of
his poems to Mr. Gray, of the High School, whose
criticisms would seem to have led to a quarrel
between them.
Sir James Young Simpson, Bart., in his boyhood
and as a student lived with his brother, David
Simpson, a respectable master baker, in the shop,
No. I, Raeburn Place, at the corner of Dean Street.
When he first began to practise as a physician, it
was in a first flat of No. 2, Deanhaugh Street ; and
as his fame began to spread, and he was elected
Professor of Midwifery in the University in 1840,
in succession to Dr. Hamilton, he was living in
No. I, Dean Terrace.
In St. Bernard?s Crescent, for many years while
in the employment of the Messrs. Chambers, lived
Leitch Ritchie, author of ?? Schinderhannes, the
Robber of the Rhine,?? a famous romance in its
day ; also of ?? Travelling Sketches on the Rhine,
in Belgium, and Holland,? and many other works.
He was born in 1801, and died on the 16th of
January, 1865.
His neighbour and friend here was Andrew
Crichton, LL.D., author of a ?? History of Scandinavia
I? and other works, and twenty-one years
editor of the Edinburgh Advertiser.
In the same quarter there spent many years of
his life Major-General John Mitchell, a gallant old
Peninsular officer, who was an able writer on military
matters and biography. In 1803 he began life
as an ensign in the 57th Foot, and served in
all the campaigns in Spain and Portugal, France
and Flanders. Under the nomdepZuume of ?Sabretache,?
he wrote some very smart things, his
earliest productions appearing in Fraser?s Magazine
and the United Serzlice JournaZ. He was the
author of a ? Life of Wallenstein? (London,
1837), which, like his ?Fall of Napoleon,? was
well received by the public ; and Sir Robert Peel
acknowledged the importance of the information
he derived from the latter work, after the appearance
of which, Augustus, King of Hanover, presented
the author with a diamond brooch. He
was the author of many other works, including
?Biographies of Eminent Soldiers.? He was a
handsome man, with great buoyancy of spirit and
conversational powers ; thus ? Old Sabretache,? as
he was often called, was welcome everywhere. A](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p090.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 79")
... Water of Leith.] MAJOR-GENERAL MITCHELL. 79
1849. Horatio Macculloch, R.S.A., a most distinguished
landscape ...
Book 5 p. 79
(Score 0.21)
![The Cowpate.] TAM 0? THE COWGATE. 259
derived from Dickson by the stars, according to
Nisbet in his ?Heraldry.? A John Dickison of
Winkston, who was provost of Peebles, was assassinated
in the High Street of that town, on the
1st of July, 1572, and James Tweedie, burgess of
Peebles, and four other persons, were tried for the
crime and acquitted. This is supposed to be the
John Dickison who built the house, and had placed
upon it these remarkable devices as a bold proof of
his adherence to the ancient faith ? The hand.
some antique form of this house, the strange
armorial device of the original proprietor, the tradition
of the Catholic chapel, the singular figures
over ?the double dormer window, and Dickison?s
own tragic fate, in the midst of a frightful civil war,
when neither party gave quarter to the other, all
combine to throw a wild and extraordinary interest
over it, and make us greatly regret its removal.?
(? Ancient Arch. of Edin.?)
The peculiar pediment, as well as the sculptured
lintel of the front door, were removed to Coates?
House, and are. now built into different parts of the
northern Wing of that quaint and venerable ch2teau
in the New Town.
In the middle of the last century, and prior to
1829, a court of old buildings existed in the Cowgate,
on the ground now occupied by the southern
piers of George IV. Bridge, which were used as
the Excise Office, but, even in this form, were
somewhat degraded from their original character,
for there resided Thomas Hamilton of Priestfield,
Earl of Melrose in 1619, and first Earl of Haddington
in 1627, Secretary of State in 16~2, King?s
Advocate, and Lord President of the Court of
Session in 15 92.
He rented the house in question from Macgill of
Rankeillor, and from the popularity of his character
and the circumstance of his residence, he
was endowed by his royal master, King James,
whose chief favourite he was, with? the sobriquet of
Tarn d the Cowgate, under which title he is better
remembered than by his talents as a statesman or
his Earldom of Haddington.
He was famous for his penetration as a judge,
his industry as a collector of decisionsAswing
up a set of these from 1592 to i6q-and his
talent for creating a vast fortune. It is related of
him, in one of many anecdotes concerning him,
communicated by Sir Walter Scott to the industrious
author of the ?? Traditions of Edinburgh,?,
that, after a long day?s hard labour in the public
service, he was one evening seated with a friend
over a bottle of wine near a window of his house
in the Cowgate, for his ease attired in a robc de
chrnbre and slippers, when a sudden disturbance
was heard in the street. This turned out to be a
bicker, one of those street disturbances peculiar to
the boys of Edinburgh, till the formation of the
present police, and referred to in the Burgh Records
so far back as 1529, anent ?gret bikkyrringis
betwix bairns;? and again in 1535, when they
wefe to be repressed, under pain-of scourging and
banishment.
On this occasion the strife with sticks and stones
was between the youths of the High School and
those of the College, who, notwithstanding a bitter
resistance, were driving their antagonists before
them.
The old Earl, who in his yduth had been a High
School boy, and from his after education in Paris,
had no sympathy for the young collegians, rushed
into the street, rallied the fugitives, and took such
an active share in the combat that, finally, the High
School boys-gaining fresh courage upon discovering
that their leader was Tam 0? the Cowgate, the
great judge and statesman-turned the scale of
victory upon the enemy, despite superior age and
strength. The Earl, still clad in his robe and slippers,
assumed the command, exciting the lads to the
charge by word and action. Nor did the hubbub
cease till the students, unable by a flank movement
to escape up the Candlemaker Row, were driven
headlong through the Grassmarket, and out at the
West Port, the gate of which he locked, compelling
the vanquished to spend the night in the fields
beyond the walls. He then returned to finish his
flask?of wine. And a rare jest the whole episode
must have been for King James, when he heard of
it at St. James?s or Windsor.
When, in 1617, the latter revisited Scotland,. he
found his old friend very rich, and was informed
that it was a current belief that he had discovered
the Philosopher?s Stone. James was amused with
the idea of so valuable a talisman having fallen
into the hands of a Judge of the Cburt of Session,
and was not long in letting the latter know of the
story. The Earl immediately invited the king,
and all who were present, to dine with him, adding
that he would reveal to them the mystery of the
Philosopher?s Stone.
The next day saw his mansion in the Cowgate
thronged by the king and his Scottish and English
courtiers After dinner, James reminded him of
the Philosopheis Stone, and then the wily Earl
addressed all present in a short speech, concluding
with the information that his whole secret of success
and wealth, lay in two simple and familiar
maxims :-cc Never put off till tomorrow what can
be done today; nor ever trust to the hand of
another that which your own can execute.?
?
__](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p079.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 259")
... Cowpate.] TAM 0? THE COWGATE. 259
derived from Dickson by the stars, according to
Nisbet in his ?Heraldry.? A ...
Book 4 p. 259
(Score 0.21)
... 68 OLD. AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Andrew Square.
Natural Phenomena,? and many other scientific
and geographical ...
Book 3 p. 167
(Score 0.21)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
embankment, 3,480 feet in length, The engineers
fixed upon this site because ...
Book 6 p. 286
(Score 0.21)
![The High Street.] THE HIGH STREET.
six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cowgate
nothing was to be seen but frightful heaps of
calcined and blackened ruins, with gaping windows
and piles of smoking rubbish.
In the Par!iament Square four double tenements
of from seven to eleven storeys also perished, and
the incessant cmsh of falling walls made the old
vicinity re-echo. Among other places of interest
destroyed here was the shop of Kay, the cancaturist,
always a great attraction to idlers.
During the whole of Thursday the authorities
were occupied in the perplexing task of .examining
the ruined edifices in the Parliament Square. These
being of enormous height and dreadfully shattered,
threatened, by their fall, destruction to everything
in their vicinity. One eleven-storeyed edifice presented
such a very striking, terrible, and dangerous
appearance, that it was proposed to batter it down
with cannon. On the next day the ruins were inspected
by Admiral Sir David Milne, and Captain
(afterwardssir Francis) Head of theRoyal Engineers,
an officer distinguished alike in war and In literature,
who gave in a professional report on the subject,
and to him the task of demolition was assigned.
?
In the meantime offers of assistance from Captain
Hope of H.M.S. BnX, then in Leith Roads,
were accepted, and his seamen, forty in number,
threw a line over the lofty southern gable above
Heron?s Court, but brought down only a small
portion Next day Captain Hope returned to the
attack, with iron cables, chains, and ropes, while
some sappers daringly undermined the eastern wall.
These were sprung, and, as had been predicted by
Captain Head, the enormous mass fell almost
perpendicularly to the grognd.
At the Tron Church, on the last night of every
year, there gathers a vast crowd, who watch with
patience and good-humour the hands of the illuminated
clock till they indicate one minute past
twelve, and then the New Year is welcomed in
with ringing cheers, joy, and hilarity. A general
shaking of hands and congratdlations ensue, and
one and all wish each other ?? A happy New Year,
and mony 0? them.? A busy hum pervades the older
parts of the city; bands of music and bagpipes
strike up in many a street and wynd; and, furnished
with egg-flip, whiskey, &c., thousands hasten off in
all directions to ?first foot? friends and relations,
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HIGH STREET,
A Place for Brawling-First Paved and Lighted-The Meal and Flesh MarketsState of the Streets-Municipal Regulations 16th Century-
Tuleies-The Lairds of Ainh and Wemyss-The Tweedies of Drummelzier-A Mont- Quarrel-The Slaughter of Lord Tarthorwald-
-A Brawl in 1705-Attacking a Sedan Chair-Habits in Lhe Seventeenth Century-Abduction of Women and Girls-Sumptuary Law6
against Women.
BEFORE narrating the wondrous history of the many
quaint and ancient closes and wynds which diverged
of old, and some of which still diverge, from the
stately High Street, we shall treat of that venerable
thoroughfare itself-its gradual progress, changes,
and some of the stirring scenes that have been witnessed
from its windows.
Till so late as the era of building the Royal
Exchange Edinburgh had been without increase
or much alteration since King James VI. rode
forth for England in 1603. ?The extended wall
erected in the memorable year 1513 still formed
the boundary of the city, with the exception of the
enclosure of the Highriggs. The ancient gates remained
kept under the care of jealous warders,
and nightly closed at an early hour ; even as when
the dreaded iiiroads of the Southron summoned
the Burgher Watch to guard their walls. At the
foot of the High Street, the lofty tower and spire
of the Nether Bow Port terminated the vista, surmounting
the old Temple Bar of Edinburgh, interposed
between the city and the ancient burgh of
Canongate.?
On this upward-sloping thoroughfare first rose
the rude huts of the Caledonians, by the side of
the wooded way that led to the Dun upon the rock
-when Pagan rites were celebrated at sunrise on
the bare scalp of Arthur?s Seat-and destined
to become in future years ?the King?s High
Street,? as it was exclusively named in writs and
charters, in so far as it extended from the Nether
Bow to the edifice named Creech?s Land, at the
east end of the Luckenbooths. ?Here,? says a
writer, ? was the battle-ground of Scotland for
centuries, whereon private and party feuds, the
jealousies of nobles and burghers, and not a few of
the contests between the Crown and the people,
were settled at the sword.?
As a place for brawling it was proverbial ; and
thus it was that Colonel Munro, in ?His Expedition
with the Worthy Scots Regiment called
Mackeyes,? levied in 1626, for service in Denmark](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p203.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 191")
... High Street.] THE HIGH STREET.
six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cowgate
nothing was to be seen ...
Book 1 p. 191
(Score 0.21)
... --It OLD AND? NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street,
Baron of the Exchequer Court in 1748, and grandson
of James of ...
Book 2 p. 214
(Score 0.21)
![Lasswade.] CLERK OF ELDIN. 359
nishing supplies for local consumption and to
other quarters, Lasswade sends about 30,000 tons
of coal to Edinburgh every year.
Auchindinny is a small village situated on the
right bank of the Esk at the boundary with Penicuick,
and is about five-and-a-half miles distant
from Lasswade. It is inhabited by lace and paper
makers.
Scott, in his ballad ? The Gray Brother,? groups
all the localities we have noted with wonderful
effect :-
? I Sweet are the paths, oh passing sweet I
By Esk?s fair streams that run,
Impervious to the sun.
O?er airy steep, through copsewood deep,
? There the rapt poet?s step may rove,
And yield the muse the day ;
There Beauty, led by timid Love,
May shuq the tell-tale ray.
? From that fair dome, where suit is paid
By blast of bugle free,
To Auchindinny?s hazel shade,
And haunted Woodhouselee.
Who knows not Melville?s beechy grove,
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
And Roslin?s rocky glen,
And classic Hawthornden I
?Yet never path from day to day,
The pilgrim?s footsteps range,
To Burndale?s ruined grange.?
Save but? the solitary way,
South of Lasswade Bridge, on the road to Polton
-an estate which, in the early part of the eighteenth
century, gave the title of Lord Polton to a senator
of the College of Justice, Sir William Calderwood,
called to the bench in I 71 I in succession to Lord
Anstruther-is a house into which a number 01
antique stones were built some years ago. One
of these, a lintel, bears the following date and
legend :-
? 1557. A. A. NOSCE TEIPSVM.
Lasswade has always been a favourite summe1
resort of the citizens of Edinburgh. Sir Walter
Scott spent some of the happiest summers of his
life here, and amid the woodland scenery is supposed
to have found materials for his description
of Gandercleugh, in the Tales of my Land.
lord.?
His house was a delightful retreat, embowered
among wood, and close to the Esk. There he
continued all his favourite studies, and commenced
that work which Erst established his name i-2 litera.
ture, ? The Minstrelsy of the Scottish %order,?
which he published at Edinburgh in 1802, and
_ _ _
dedicated to his friend and chief, Henry Duke of
Buccleuch.
In prosecuting the collection of this work, Sir
Walter made various excursions-? raids ? he used
to call them-from Lasswade into the most remote
recesses of the Border glens, assisted by one or
two other enthusiasts in ballad lore, pre-eminent
among whom was the friend, whose ?untimely fate
he lamented so long, and whose memory he embalmed
in verse-Dr. John Leyden.
De Quincey, the ? English opium-eater,? spent
the last seventeen years of his life in a humble
cottage near Midfield House, on the road from
Lasswade to Hawthornden, and there he prepared
the collected edition. of his works. He died in
Edinburgh on the 8th December, 1859.
On high ground above the village stands Eldin
House (overlooking Eldindean), the residence of
John Clerk, inventor of what was termed in its day,
before the introduction of ironclads and steam rams,
the modern British system of naval tactics. He
was the sixth son of Sir George Clerk of Penicuick,
oneof the Barons of Exchequer in Scotland, and
inherited the estate of Eldin in early life from his
father. Although the longest sail he ever enjoyed
was no farther than to the Isle of Arran, in the Firth
of Clyde, he had from his boyhood a passion for
nautical affairs, and devoted much of his time to
the theory and practice ot naval tactics.
After. communicating to some of his friends the
new suggested system of breaking an enemy?s line
of battle, he visited London in 1780, and conferred
with several eminent men connected with the navy,
among others, Mr. Richard Atkinson, the friend of
the future Lord Kodney, and Sir Charles Douglas,
Rodney?s ?? Captain of the Fleet ? in the mernorable
action of 12th April, 1782, when the latter
was victorious over the Comte de Grasse between
Dominica and Les Saintes, in the West Indies.
Since that time his principle was said to have
been adopted by all our admirals ; and Howe, St.
Vincent, Duncan, and even Nelson, owe to the
Laird of Eldin?s manmuvre their most signal
victories.
In 1782 he had fifty copies of his ?Essay on
Naval Tactics ? printed, for distribution among his
private friends. It was reprinted in 1790, and
second, third, and fourth parts were added in the
seven subsequent years, and eventually, in 1804,
the whole work was re-published anew, with a
preface explaining the origin of his discoveries.
? Although Lord Rodney, as appears by a fragmentary
life of Clerk written by Professor Playfair,
in the ? Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,?
never concealed in conversation his obliga](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p178.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 359")
... CLERK OF ELDIN. 359
nishing supplies for local consumption and to
other quarters, Lasswade sends about ...
Book 6 p. 359
(Score 0.21)
![High Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - -
his own friends and servants into two armed parties,
set forth on slaughter intent.
He directed his brothers John and Robert
Tweedie, Porteous of Hawkshaw, Crichton of
Quarter, and others, to Conn?s Close, which was
directly opposite to the smith?s booth; while he,
accompanied by John and Adam Tweedie, sons of
the Gudeman of Dura, passed to the Kirk (of Field)
Wynd, a little to the westward of the booth, to cut
off the victim if he hewed a way to escape ; but as
he was seen standing at the booth door with his
back to them, they shot him down with their
pistols in cold blood, and left him lying dead on
the spot.
For this the Tweedies were imprisoned in the
Castle; but they contrived to compromise the
matter with the king, making many fair promises ;
yet when he was resident at St. James?s, in 1611,
he heard that the feud and the fighting in Upper
Tweeddale were as bitter as ever.
On the 19th of January, 1594, a sharp tulzie, or
combat, ensued in the High Street between the
Earl of Montrose, Sir James Sandilands, and others.
10 explain the cause of this we must refer to
Calderwood, who tells us that on the 13th of
February, in the preceding year, John Graham of
Halyards, a Lord of Session (a kinsman of Montrose),
was passing down Leith Wynd, attended by
three or four score of armed men for his protection,
when Sir Janies Sandilands, accompanied by his
friend Ludovic Duke of Lennox, with an armed
I company, met him. As they had recently been
in dispute before the Court about Some temple
lands, Graham thought he was about to be attacked,
and prepared to make resistance. The
duke told him to proceed on his journey, and that
no one would molest him; but the advice was
barely given when some stray shots were fired by
the party of the judge, who was at once attacked,
and fell wounded. He was borne bleeding into
an adjacent house, whither a French boy, page to
Sir Alexander Stewart, a friend of Sandilands, followed,
and plunged a dagger into him, thus ending
a lawsuit according to the taste of the age.
Hence it was that when, in the following year,
John Earl of Montrose-a noble then about fifty
years old, who had been chancellor of the jury that
condemned the Regent Morton, and moreover was
Lord High Chancellor of the kingdom-met Sir
James Sandilands in the High Street, he deemed
it his duty to avenge the death of the Laird of
Halyards. On the first amval of the earl in Edinburgh
Sir James had been strongly recommended
by his friends to quit it, as his enemies were too
strong for him ; but instead of doing so he desired
the aid and assistance of all his kinsmen and
friends, who joined him forthwith, and the two
parties meeting on the 19th of January, near the
Salt Tron, a general attack with swords and hack
buts begun. One account states that John, Master
of Montrose (and father of the great Marquis), first
began the fray; another that it was begun by Sir
James Sandilands, who was cut down and severely
wounded by more than one musket-shot, and
would have been slain outright but for the valour
of a friend named Captain Lockhart. The Lord
Chancellor was in great peril, for the combat was
waged furiously about him, and, according to the
? Historie of King James the Sext,? he was driven
back fighting ?to the College of Justice ( i e . , the
Tolbooth). The magistrates of the town with
fencible weapons separatit the parties for that time ;
and the greatest skaith Sir James gat on his party,
for he himself was left for dead, and a cousingerman
of his, callit Crawford of Kerse, was slain,
and many hurt.? On the side of the earl only one
was killed, but many were wounded.
On the 17th of June, 1605, there was fought in
the High Street a combat between the Lairds of
Edzell and Pittarrow, with many followers on both
sides. It lasted, says Balfour in his AnnaZes, from
nine at night till two next morning, with loss and
many injuries. The Privy Council committed the
leaders to prison.
The next tulzie of which we read arose from the
following circumstance :-
Captain James Stewart (at one time Earl of
Arran) having been slain in 1596 by Sir James
Douglas of Parkhead, a natural son of the Regent
Morton, who cut off his .head at a place called
Catslack, and carried it on a spear, ?leaving his
body to be devoured by dogs and swine;? this
act was not allowed to pass unrevenged by the
house of Ochiltree, to which the captain-who had
been commander of the Royal Guard-belonged.
But as at that time a man of rank in Scotland
could not be treated as a malefactor for slaughter
committed in pursuance of a feud, the offence was
expiated by an assythement. The king strove
vainly to effect a reconciliation ; but for years the
Imds Ochiltree and Douglas (the latter of whom
was created Lord Torthorwald in 1590 by James
VI.) were at open variance.
It chanced that on the 14th of July, 1608, that
Lord Torthonvald was walking in the High Street
a little below the Cross, between six and seven in
the morning, alone and unattended, when he suddenly
met William Stewart, a nephew of the man
he had slain. Unable to restrain the sudden rage
that filled him, Stewart drew his sword, and ere](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p015.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 195")
... Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - -
his own friends and servants into two armed parties,
set forth ...
Book 2 p. 195
(Score 0.21)
![Inverleith.] MRS. ROCHEID OF INVERLEITH. s 95
to the estate of?his maternal grandmother, took
the name of Rocheid. His son, James Rocheid
.of Inverleith, was an eminent agriculturist, on
whose property the villas of Inverleith Row were
built.
He died in 1824 in the house of Inverleith.
He was a man of inordinate vanity and family
pride, and it used to be one of the sights of Stockbridge
to see his portly figure, in a grand old family
carriage covered with heraldic blazons, passing
through, to or from the city; and a well-known
anecdote of how his innate pomposity was humbled,
is well known there still.
On one occasion, when riding in the vicinity, he
took his horse along the footpath, and while doing
so, met a plain-looking old gentleman, who firmly
declined to make way for him; on this Rocheid
ordered him imperiously to stand aside. The
pedestrian declined,saying that the otherhad no right
whatever to ride upon the footpath. ?DO you
know whom you are speaking to ?? demanded the
horseman in a high tone. ? I do not,? was the
quiet response. ?Then know that I am John
Rocheid, Esquire of Inverleith, and a trustee upon
this road !
? I am George, Duke of Montagu,? replied the
other, upon which the haughty Mr. Rocheid took
to the main road, after making a very awkward
apology to the duke, who was then on a visit to
his daughter the Duchess of Buccleuch at Dalkeith.
He had a predilection for molesting pedestrians,
and was in the custom of driving his carriage along
a strictly private footpath that led from Broughton
Toll towards Leith, to the great exasperation of
those at whose expense it had been constructed.
It is of his mother that Lord Cockburn gives
us such an amusing sketch in the ?? Memorials of
his own Time,?-thus: ICLacly Don and Mrs.
Rocheid of Inverleith, .two dames of high and
aristocratic breed. They had both shone at first
as hooped beauties in the minuets, and then as
ladies of ceremonies at our stately assemblies ; and
each carried her peculiar qualities and air to the
very edge of the grave, Lady Don?s dignity softened
by gentle sweetness, Mrs. Rocheid?s made more
formidable by cold and severe soleinnity. Except
Mrs. Siddons, in some of her displays of magnificent
royalty, nobody could sit down like the Lady
of Inverleith. She would sail like a ship from
Tarshish, gorgeous in velvet or rustling silk,
done up in all the accompaniment of fans, earrings,
and finger-rings, falling-sleeves, scent-bottle,
embroidered bag, hoop and train, all superb, yet all
in purest taste ; managing all this seemingly heavy
rigging with as much ease as a full-blown swan
Who are you, fellow ? ?
does its plumage. She would take possession of
the centre of a large sofa, and at the same moment,
without the slightest visible exertion, cover the
whole of it with her bravery, the graceful folds
seeming to lay themselves over it, like summer
waves. The descent from her carriage too, where
she sat like a nautilus in its shell, was a display
which no one in these days could accomplish or
even fancy. The mulberry-coloured coach, but
apparently not too large for what it carried, though
she alone was in it-the handsome, jolly coachman
and his splendid hammer-cloth loaded with lacethe
two respectful livened footmen, one on each
side of the richly carpeted step, these were lost
sight of amidst the slow majesty with which the
lady came down and touched the earth. She presided
in this imperial style over her son?s excellent
dinners, with great sense and spirit to the very last
day almost of a prolonged life.?
This stateliness was not unmixed with a certain
motherly kindness and racy homeliness, peculiar to
great Scottish dames of the old school.
In InverleithTerrace, oneof thestreetsbuilt on this
property, Professor Edmonstone Aytounwas resident
about 1850 ; and in No. 5 there resided, prior to his
departure to London, in 1864, John Faed, the eminent
artist, a native of Kirkcudbright, who, so early
as his twelfth year, used to paint little miniatures,
and after whose exhibition in Edinburgh, in 1841,
his pictures began to find a ready sale.
In Warriston Crescent, adjoining, there lived for
many years the witty and eccentric W. R. Jamieson,
W.S., author of a luckless tragedy entitled
?Timoleon,? produced by Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham,
at the old Theatre Royal, and two novels, almost
forgotten now, ? The Curse of Gold,?? and ? Milverton,
or the Surgeon?s Daughter.? He died in obscurity
in London.
Inverleith Row, which extends north-westwards
nearly three-quarters of a mile from Tanfield Hall,
to a place called Golden Acre, is bordered by a
row of handsome villas and other good residences.
In No. 52, here, there lived long, and died on
6th of November, 1879, a very interesting old
officer, General William Crokat, whose name was
associated with the exile and death of Napoleon
in St. Helena. ?So long ago as 1807,? said a
London paper, with particular reference to this
event, ? William Crokat was gazetted as ensign in
the 20th Regiment of Foot, and the first thought
which suggests itself is, that from that date we are
divided by a far wider interval than was Sir Walter
Scott from the insurrection of Prince Charlie, when
in 1814, he gave to his first novel the title of
?Waverley, or ?Tis Sixty Years Since.? There is](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p106.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 95")
... MRS. ROCHEID OF INVERLEITH. s 95
to the estate of?his maternal grandmother, took
the name of ...
Book 5 p. 95
(Score 0.21)
![Great Stuart Street.] LORD JERVISWOODE. 209
memories. He was the second son of George
Baillie of Jerviswoode; and a descendant of that
memorable Baillie of Jerviswoode, who, according
to Hume, was a man of merit and learning, a
cadet of the Lamington family, and called "The
Scottish Sidney," but was executed as a traitor on
the'scaffold at Edinburgh, in 1683, having identified
himself with the interests of Monmouth and Argyle.
* Lord Jerviswoode was possessed of more than
average intellectual gifts, i and still more with
charms of person and manners that were not confined
to the female side of his house. One sister,
the Marchioness of Breadalbane, and another, Lady
Polwarth, were both celebrated for their beauty,
wit, and accomplishments. On the death of their
cousin, in the year 1859, his eldest brother became
tenth. Earl of Haddington, and then Charles, by
royal warrant, was raised to the rank of an earl's
brother. ' '
Prior to this he had a long and brilliant course
in law, and in spotless honour is said to have been
'' second to none." He was called to the Bar in
1830, and after being Advocate Depute, Sheriff of
Stirling, and Solicitor-General, was Lord Advocate
in 1858, and M.P. for West Lothim in the following
year, and a Lord of Session. In 1862 he
became a Lord of Justiciary. He took a great
interest in the fine arts, and was a trustee of the
Scottish Board of Manufactures; but finding his
health failing, he quitted the bench in July, 1874.
* He died in his seventy-fifth year, on the 23rd of
July, 1879, at his residence, Dryburgh House, in
Roxburghshire, near the ruins of the beautiful
abbey in which Scott and his race lie interred. For
the last five years of his life little had been heard of
him in the busy world, while his delicate health
and shy nature denied him the power of taking part
in public matters.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE WESTERN NEW TOWN-HAYMARKET-DALRY-FOUNTAINBRIDGE.
Maitland Street and Shandwick Place--The Albert Institute-Last Residmn of Sir Wa!ter Scott in Edinburgh-Lieutenult-General Dun&
-Melville Street-Patrick F. Tytler-Manor Plan-%. Mary's Cathedral-The Foundation Lid-Ita Sic and Aspcct-Opened for
Service-The Copestone and Cross placed on the Spire-Haymarket Station-Wmter Garden-Donaldron's H o s p i t a l d t l c Terrpoh
Its Chur&es-C&tle Barns-The U. P. Theological Hdl-Union Canal-First Boat Launched-Ddry-The Chieslics-The Caledonian
Distille~-Fountainbridge-Earl Grey Street-Professor G. J. Bell-The . Slaughter-houses-Bain Whyt of Binfield-North British
India. Rubber WorkScottish Vulcanite Company-Their Manufactures, &,.-Adam Ritchie.
THE Western New Town comprises a grand series
of crescents, streets, and squares, extending from
the line of East and West Maitland Streets and
Athole Crescent northward to the New Queensferry
Road, displaying in its extent-and architecture,
while including the singulax-ly ' picturesque
ravine of the Water of Leith, a' brilliance' and
beauty well entitling it to be deemed, par excellence,
" Z?w West End," and was built respectively about
1822, 1850, and 1866.
. Lynedoch Place, so named from the hero of
Barossa, opposite Randolph Crescent, was erected
in 1823, but prior to that a continuation of the line
of Princes Street had been made westward towards
the lands of Coates. This was finally effected by
the erection of East and West Maitland Streets,
Shandwick Place, and Coates and Athole Crescents.
In the latter are some rows of stately old trees,
which only vigorous and prolonged remonstrance
prevented fiom being wantonly cut down, in accordance
with the bad taste which at one time
prevailed in Edinburgh, where a species of war
was waged against all.groWing timber.
75
The Episcopal chapel of St Thomas is now
compacted with the remaining houses at the east
end of Rutland Street, but presents an ornamental
front in 'the Norman style immediately east of
Maitland Street, and shows there a richly-carved
porch, with some minutely beautiful arcade work.
Maitland Street and Shandwick Place, once a
double line of frontdoor houses for people of good
style, are almost entirely lines of shops or other
new buildings. In the first years of the present
century, Lockhart of Castlehill, Hepburn of Clerkington,
Napier of Dunmore, Tait of Glencross,
and Scott of Cauldhouse, had their residences in
the former; and No. 23, now a shop, was the
abode, about the year 1818, of J. Gibson Lockhaqt,
the son-in-law and biographer of Sir Walter
Scott He died at Abbotsford in 1854 .
In Shandwick Place is now the Albert Institute
of the Fine Arts; erected in 1876, when property
to the value of £25,ooo was acquired for the
purpose. The objects of this institute are the
advancement of the cause of art generally, but
more especially contemporary Scottish art; to](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p029.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 209")
... Stuart Street.] LORD JERVISWOODE. 209
memories. He was the second son of George
Baillie of Jerviswoode; and ...
Book 4 p. 209
(Score 0.21)
![Ceorge Street.] MRS. MURRAY OF HENDERLAND. f 43
teen, Mr. Bartlett, six, Mr. Hay, four-in all, fortyeight
shares.? From that time he grew in wealth
and fame with the establishment, which is now
merged in the Joint-stock Union Bank of Scotland.
Si John Hay died in 1830, in his seventy-fifth
year.
No. 86 was the house of his nephew, Sir
William Forbes, Bart., who succeeded to the title
on the death of the eminent banker in 1806, and
who married the sole daughter and heiress of Sir
John Stuart of Fettercairn, whose arms were thus
quartered with his ovn.
In May, 1810, Lord Jeffrey-then at the bar as a
practising advocate-took up his dwelling in No.
92, and it was while there resident that, in consequence
of some generous and friendly criticism in
the Rdinburgh Reviaer, pleasant relations were
established between him and Professor Wilson,
which, says the daughter of the latter, ?led to a
still closer intimacy, and which, though unhappily
interrupted by subsequent events, was renewed in
after years, when the bitterness of old controversies
had yielded to the hallowing influences of time.?
Lord Jeffrey resided here for seventeen years.
In the second storey of No. 108 Sir Walter Scott
dwelt in 1797, when actively engaged in his German
translations and forming the Edinburgh Volunteer
Light Horse, of which he was in that year, to
his great gratification, made quartermaster. Two
doors farther on was the house of the Countess of
Balcarres, the venerable dowager of Earl Alexander,
who died in 1768. She was Anne, daughter of
Sir Robert Dalrymple of Castleton.
No. 116, now formed into shops, was long the
residence of Archibald Colquhoun of Killermont,
Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1807. He was
Archibald Campbell of Clathick, but assumed the
name of Colquhoun on succeeding to the estate of
Killermont. He came to the bar in the same
year, 1768, or about the same time as his friends
Lord Craig and the Hon. Henry Erskine. He
succeeded Lord Frederick Campbell as Lord
Clerk Register in 1816. His mind and talents
were said to have been of a very superior order ;
he was a sound lawyer, an eloquent pleader, and
his independent fortune and proud reserve induced
him to avoid general business, while in his Parliamentary
duties as member for Dumbarton he was
unremitting and efficient.
The Edinburgh Association of Science and Arts
now occupies the former residence of the Butters
of Pitlochry, No. ?17. It is an institution formed
in 1869, and its title is sufficiently explanatory of
its objects.
An interesting lady of the old school abode long
He died in 1820.
in No. I 22-Mrs. Murray of Henderland. She was
resident there from the early part of the present
century. The late Dr. Robert Chambers tells us
he was introduced to her by Dr. Chalmers, and found
her memories of the past went back to the first
years of the reign of George 111. Her husband,
Alexander Murray, had been, he states, Lord
North?s Solicitor-General for Scotland. His name
appears in 1775 on the list, between those of
Henry Dundas and Islay Campbell of Succoth.
?? I found the venerable lady seated at a window
of her drawing-room in George Street, with her
daughter, Miss Murray, taking the care of her
which her extreme age required, and with some
help from this lady we had a conversation of about
an hour.? She was born before the Porteous Mob,
and well remembering the ?45, was now close on
her hundredth year.
She spoke with affection and reverence of her
mother?s brother, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield ;
?and when I adverted,? says Chambers, ? to the
long pamphlet written against him by Athenian
Stuart, at the conclusion of the Douglas cause, she
said that, to her knowledge, he neyer read it, such
being his practice in respect to ail attacks made
upon him, lest they should disturb his equanimity
in judgment. As the old lady was on intimate terms
with Boswell, and had seen Johnson on his visit to
Edinburgh-as she was the sister-in-law of Allan
Ramsay, the painter, and had lived in the most
cultivated society of Scotland all her life-there
were ample materials for conversation with her ;
but her small strength made this shorter and slower
than I could have wished. When we came upon
the poet Ramsay, she seemed to have caught new
vigour from the subject ; she spoke with animation
of the child-parties she had attended in his house
on the Castle Hill during a course of ten years
befoie his death-an event which happened in 1757.
He was ? charming,? she said ; he entered so heartily
into the plays of the children. He, in particular,
gained their hearts by making houses for their
dolls. How pleasant it was to learn that our great
pastoral poet was a man who, in his private capacity,
loved to sweeten the daily life of his fellow-creatures,
and particularly of the young ! At a warning from
Miss Murray I had to tear myself away from this
delightful and never-to-be-forgotten interview.?
From this we may suppose that the worthy publisher
never saw the venerable occupant of No. 123
again.
No. 123, on the opposite side, was the residence
of the well-known Sir John Watson Gordon,
President of the Royal Scottish Academy, who
died June Ist, 1863, and to whom reference has](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p155.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 143")
... Street.] MRS. MURRAY OF HENDERLAND. f 43
teen, Mr. Bartlett, six, Mr. Hay, four-in all, ...
Book 3 p. 143
(Score 0.21)
![High Street.] EDINBURGH IN 1598 AND 1618. I99
is bought by courtiers, gentlemen, and the best
sort of citizens. They drink pure,aines, not with
sugar, as we English, yet at feasts they put comfits
in the wine, after the French manner; but they
had not our vintner?s fraud to mix their wines.
*? I did not see nor hear that they have any public
inns, with signs hanging out ; but the better sort of
? citizens brew ale (which will distemper a stranger?s
body), and then some citizens will entertain passengers
upon acquaintance or entreaty (i.e., introductioh).
Their bedsteads were then like cupboards
in the wall (i.e., box beds), to be opened and shut
at pleasure, so we climbed up to our beds. They
used but one sheet, open at the sides and top, but
close at the feet. When passengers go to bed, their
custom is to present them a sleeping cup of wine
at parting. The country people and merchants
used to drink largely, the gentlemen somewhat
more sparingly; yet the very courtiers, by nightmeetings
and entertaining any strangers, used to
drink healths, not without excess ; and to speak the
truth without offence, the excess of drinking was
far greater among the Scots than the English.
*? Myself being at the Court was invited by some
gentlemen to supper, and being forewarned to fear
this excess, would not promise to sup with them
but upon*condition that my inviter would be my
protection from large drinking. . . . The husbandmen
in Scotland, the servants, and almost all
the country, did wear coarse cloth made at home,
of grey or sky colour, and flat blew caps, very
broad. The merchants in cities were attired in
English or French cloth, of pale colour, or mingled
black and blew. The gentlemen did wear English
cloth or silk, or light stuffs, little or nothing adorned
with silk lace, much less with silver or gold ; and
all followed the French fashion, especially at
Court.
?Gentlewomen married did wear close upper
bodies, after the German manner, with large whalebone
sleeves, after the French manner; short
cloaks like the Germans, French hoods, and large
falling bands about their necks. The unmarried of
all sorts (?) did go bareheaded, and wear short
cloaks, with close linen sleeves on their arms, like
the virgins of Germany. The inferior sort of
citizen?s wives and the women of the country did
wear cloaks ,made of a coarse stuff, of two or three
colours, in checker work, vulgarly called jZodun
(i.e., tartan plaiding).
?To conclude, they would not at this time be
attired after the English fashion in any sort; but
the men, especially at Court, followed the French
fashion ; and the women, both in Court and city,
as well -in cloaks as naked heads and close
sleeves on the arms, and all other garments, follow
the fashion of the women in Germany.?
On the 20th of June, 1610, the Lord Provost of
Edinburgh exhibited to his Council two gowns, one
black, the other red, trimmed with sable, the gift
of King James, as patterns of the robes to be worn
by him and the bailies of the city; and in 1667
Charles 11. gave Sir Alexander Ramsay, Provost in
that year, a letter, stating that the chief magistrate
of Edinburgh should have the same precedence in
Scotland as the Mayor of London has in England,
and that no other provost should have the title of
?I Lord Provost ?-a privilege which has, however,
since been modified.
l h e attention of King James, who never forgot
the interests of his native city, was drawn in 1618
to two abuses in its police. Notwithstanding the
warning given by the fire of 1584, it was still cus
tomary for ?baxters and browsters? (i.e., bakers
and brewers) to keep great stacks of heather, whins,
and peatq in the very heart of the High Street and
other thoroughfares, to the great hazard of all adjacent
buildings, and many who were disposed to
erect houses within the walls were deterred from
doing so by the risks to be run ; while, moreover,
candle-makers and butchers were allowed to pursue
their avocations within the city, to the disgust and
annoeance of civil and honest neighbours, and of
the nobility and country people,? who came in
about their private affairs, and thus a royal procla-
.mation was issued against these abuses. The idea
of a cleaning department.of police never occurred
to the good folks of those days ; hence, in the following
year, the plan adopted was that each inhabitant
should keep clean that part of each street
before his own bounds.
In 1618 Edinburgh was visited by Taylor the
Water Poet, and his description of it is as truthful
as it is amusing :-? So, leaving the castle, as it is
both defensive against any opposition and magnifick
for lodging and receipt, I descended lower to
the city, wherein I observed the fairest and goodliest
street mine eyes ever beheld, for I did
never see or hear of a street of that length (which
is half a mile English from the castle to a fair port,
which they call the Nether Bow); and from that
port the street which they call the Kenny-gate
(Canongate) is one quarter of a mile more, down
to the king?s palace, called Holyrood House ; the
buildings on each side of the way being all of
squared stone, five, six, and seven storeys high, and
many bye-lanes and closes on each side of the way,
wherein are gentlemen?s houses, much fairer than
the buildings in the High Street, fur in the High
Street the merchants and tradesmen. do dwell, but](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p019.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 199")
... Street.] EDINBURGH IN 1598 AND 1618. I99
is bought by courtiers, gentlemen, and the best
sort of citizens. ...
Book 2 p. 199
(Score 0.21)
... AND NEW EDINBUKGH. [Heriot?s Hospital. 366
with the idea of founding an institution in his native
city, ...
Book 4 p. 366
(Score 0.21)
... Giles.
elasticity which the nation displayed in its endless ? naceus,? in the Harleian Collection in the ...
Book 1 p. 142
(Score 0.21)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Melville Street
pr0mot.e the pleasant intercourse of. those who
practise art either ...
Book 4 p. 210
(Score 0.21)
![York Place.] DR. ABERCROMBIE. 187
imagined, but can scarcely be described,? says the
CaZedonian Mercury of the 18th March. ?? From
eighty to a hundred persons, ladies as well as
gentlemen, were precipitated in one mass into an
apartment below, filled with china and articles of
vertu. The cries and shrieks, intermingled with
exclamations? and ejaculations of distress, were
heartrending ; but what added to the unutterable
agony of that awful moment, the density of the
cloud of dust, impervious to the rays of light, produced
total darkness, diffusing a choking atmosphere,
which nearly stifled the terrified multitude,
and in this state of suspense they remained several
minutes.? Among the mass of people who went
down with the floor were Lord Moncrieff, Sir
James Riddell of Ardnam~rchan, and Sir Archi-
. bald Campbell of Succoth. Many persons were
most severely injured, and Mr. Smith, banker, of
Moray Place, on whom the hearth-stone fell, was
killed.
. York Place, the continuation of this thoroughfare
to Queen Street, is nearly all unchanged since
it was built, and is broad and stately, with spacious
and lofty houses, which were inhabited by Sir
Henry Raeburn, Francis Homer, Dr. John Abercrombie,
Dr. John Coldstream, Alexander Geddes,
A.R.A., and other distinguished men.
No. 10 was the abode of Lord Craig, the successor
on the bench of Lord Hailes in 1792, and
whose well-known attainments, and especially his
connection with the Mirror and bunger, gave his
name an honourable place among local notorieties.
He was the cousin-german of the celebrated Mrs.
McLehose, the Clarinda of Robert Burns, and to
her he bequeathed an annuity, at his death, which
occurred in 1813. His house was afterwards occupied
by the gallant Admiral Sir David Milne, who,
when a lieutenant,. took possession of the P i p e
frigate, after her surrender to the Blanche, in the
West Indies ; captured L z Seine,, in I 798, and Lu
Vengeance, of 38 guns, in I 800, and who commanded
the hprepable, in the attack on Algiers, when he
was Rear-Admiral, and had 150 of his crew killed
and wounded, as Brenton records in his ?Naval
History.? He died a Knight Grand Cross of the
Bath, and left a son, Sir Alexander Milne, also
K.C.B., and Admiral, more than once commander
of fleets, and who first went to sea with his father
in the flag-ship hander, in 1817. Sir David died
on board of a Granton steamer, when returning
home, in 1845, and was buried at Inveresk.
Doctor John Abercrombie, Physician to Her
Majesty, lived in No. 19, and died there in 1844,
aged 64. He was a distinguished consulting
physician, and moral writer, born at Aberdeen, in
1781; F,RC.S. in 1823; and was author of
? Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers,?
which has gone through many editions, ?The Philosophy
of the Moral Feelings,? &c. His bust is
in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Concerning his death, the following curious story
has found its way into print. A Mrs. M., a native
of the West Indies, was at Blair Logie at the time
of the demise of Dr. Abercrombie, with whom she
had been very intimate. He died suddenly, without
any previous indisposition, just as he was about to
enter his carriage in York Place, at eleven o?clock
on a Thursday morning. On the night between
Thursday and Friday Mrs. M. dreamt that she saw
the whole family of Dr. Abercrombie dressed entirely
in white,dancing a solemn hneral dance, upon which
she awoke, wondering that she should have dreamt
anything so absurd, as it?was contrary to their
custom to dance on any occasion. Immediately
afterwards her maid came to tell her that she had
seen Dr. Abercrombie reclining against a wall
?with his jaw fallen, and a livid countenance,
mournfully shaking his head as he looked at her.?
She passed the day in great uneasiness, and wrote
to inquire for the Doctor, relating what had h i p
pened, and expressing her conviction that he was
dead, and her letter was seen by several persons
in Edinburgh on the day of its amval.
No. 22 was the house of Lord Newton, known
as the wearer of ? Covington?s gown,? in memory
of the patriotism and humanity displayed by the
latter in defending the ?Jacobite prisoners on their
trial at Carlisle in 1747. His judicial talents and
social eccentricities formed the subject of many
anecdotes. He participated largely in the bacchanalian
propensities so prevalent among the legal
men of his time, and was frequently known to put
?? three lang craigs ? (i.e. long-necked bottles of
claret) ? under his belt ? after dinner, and thereafter
dictate to his clerk a paper of more than skty pages.
The MS. would then be sent to press, and the
proofs be corrected next morning at the bar of the
Inner House.
He would often spend the whole night in con,
vivial indulgence at the Crochallan Club, perhaps
be driven home to York Place about seven in the
morning, sleep for two hours, and be seated on the
bench at the usual hour. The French traveller
Simond relates his surprise ?on stepping one
morning into the Parliament House to find in the
dignified capacity and exhibiting all the dignified
bearing of a judge, the very gentleman with whom
he had just spent a night of debauch and parted
from only one hour before, when both were excessively
intoxicated.?
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p199.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 187")
... Place.] DR. ABERCROMBIE. 187
imagined, but can scarcely be described,? says the
CaZedonian Mercury of the ...
Book 3 p. 187
(Score 0.21)
... Edinburgh Castle, tome and tower,
God grant thou sinke for sinne,
An that even for the black dinner
Earle ...
Book 1 p. 31
(Score 0.21)
... had been paying his addresses to a girl
possessed of great attractions, daughter of Richard
Lawson of ...
Book 1 p. 42
(Score 0.21)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. ? [Leith.
preachers, who though profound unbelievers in any
kind of consecration, ?? ...
Book 5 p. 174
(Score 0.21)
![THE GREAT WINCOW. ?59 Parliament Hoox.]
obelisks, with the motto Bominus cusfodif infroifurn
msfrunz. The destruction of all this was utterly
unwarrantable.
The tapestries with which the hall was hung
were all removed about the end of the last century,
and now its pictnres, statues, and decorations of
Scotland?s elder and latter days replace them.
Of the statues of the distinguished Scottish
statesmen and lawyers, the most noticeable are a
colossal one of Henry first Viscount Melville in
his robes as a peer, by Chantrey ; on his left is Lord
Cockburn, by Brodie ; Duncan Forbes of Culloden,
in his judicial costume as President of the Court,
by Roubiliac (a fine example) ; the Lord President
Boyle, and Lord Jeffrey, by Steel ; the Lord President
Blair (son of the author of ?The Grave?),
by Chantrey.. .
On the opposite or eastern side of the hall
(which stands north and south) is the statue
of Robert Dundas of Arniston, Lord Chief Baron
of the Scottish Exchequer, also by Chautrey;
portraits, many of them of considerable antiquity,
some by Jameson, a Scottish painter who studied
under Rubens at Antwerp. But the most remarkable
among the modern portraits are those of
Lord Broiigham, by Sir Daniel Macnee, P.R.S.A. ;
Lord Colonsay, formerly President of the Court,
and the Lord Justice-clerk Hope, both by the
same artist. Thete are also two very tine pQrtraits
of Lord Abercrombie and Professor Bell, by Sir
Henry Raeburn.
Light is given to this interestihg hall by fouI
windows on the side, and the great window on the
south. It is of stained glass, and trulymagnificent.
It was erected in 1868 at a cost of Az,ooo, and
was the work of two German artists, having been
designed by Wilhelm von Kaulbach, and executed
by the Chevalier Ainmiller of Munich. It repre.
sents the inauguration of the College of Justice, 01:
the Supreme Court of Scotland, by King Tames V.,
in 1532. The opening of the court is supposed by
the artist to have been the. occasion of a grand
state ceremonial, and the moment chosen for
representation is that in which the young king,
surrounded by his nobles and great officers
of state, is depicted in the ,act of presenting
the charter of institution and of confirniation by
Pope Clement VII. to Alexander Mylne, Abbot
of Cambuskenneth, the first Lord President, wha
kneels before him to receive it, surrounded by the
other judges in their robes, while the then Lord
Chancellor of Scotland, Gavin Dunbar, ArchbishoF
of Glasgow, and afterwards of St. Andrews, with
upraised hand invokes a.blessing on the act.
In 1870 the four side windows on the west of the
la11 were filled in with stained glass Qf a heraldic
:haracter, under the superintendence of the late
Sir George Harvey, president of the Royal Scottish
kcadeniy. Each window is twenty feet high
~y nine wide, divided by a central mullion, the
:racery between being occupied by the armorial
learings and crests of the various Lord Justice-
Zlerks, the great legal writers of the Faculty of
Advocates, those of the Deans of Faculty, and the
Lords Advocate.
This old hall has been the scene of many a
;reat event and many a strange debate, and most
Df the proceedings that took place here belong
to the history of the country j for with the exception
of the Castle and the ancient portion of Holyrood,
no edifice in the city is so rich in historic
memories.
Beneath the old roof consecrated to these, says
one of its latest chroniclers, ? the first ?great movements
of the Civil War took place, and the successive
steps in that eventful crisis were debated
with a zeal commensurate to the important results
involved in them. Here Montrose united with
Rothes, Lindsay, Loudon, and others of the
covenanting leaders, in maturing the bold measures
that formed the basis of our national liberties ; and
within the same hall, only a few years later, he sat
with the calmness of despair, to receive from the
lips of his old compatriot, Loudon, the barbarous
sentence, which was executed with such savage
rigour.?
After his victory at Dunbar, some of Cromwell?s
troopers in their falling bands, buff coats, and steel
morions, spent their time alternately in preaching to
the people in the Parliament Hall and guarding a
number of Scottish prisoners of war who were confined
in ? the laigh Parliament House ? below it
On the 17th of May, 1654, some of these contrived
to cut a hole in the floor of the great hall, and all
effected their escape save two; but when peace
was established between Croniwell and the Scots,
and the Courts of Law resumed their sittings,
the hall was restored to somewhat of its legitimate
uses, and there, in 1655, the leaders of the Commonwealth,
including General Monk, were feasted
with a lavish hospitality.
In 1660, under the auspices of the same republican
general, came to pass ? the - glorious
Restoration,? when the magistrates had a banquet
Ft the cross, and gave _~;I,OOO sterling to the king;
and his brother, the Duke of Albany and York, who
came as Koyal Commissioner, was feasted in the
same hall with his Princess Mary d?Este and his
daughter, the future Queen Anne, surrounded by all
the high-born and beautiful in Scotland. But dark](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p171.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 159")
... GREAT WINCOW. ?59 Parliament Hoox.]
obelisks, with the motto Bominus cusfodif infroifurn
msfrunz. The ...
Book 1 p. 159
(Score 0.21)
![High Street.] STRICHEN?S CLOSE. 255
pike stairs compelled the use of taverns more than
now. There the high-class advocate received his
clients, and the physician his patients-each practitioner
having his peculiar how$ There, too,
gentlemen met in the evening for supper and conversation
without much expense, a reckoning of a
shilling being deemed a high one, so different then
were the value of money and the price of viands. In
1720 an Edinburgh dealer advertises his liquors at
the following prices :-? Neat claret wine at I Id.,
strong at 15d.; white wine at ~ z d . ; Rhenish at
16d.; old hock at zod., all per bottle; cherrysack
at 28d. per pint; English ale at 4d. per
bottle.?
In those days it was not deemed derogatory for
ladies of rank and position to join oyster parties in
some of those ancient taverns; and while there
was this freedom of manner on one hand, we are
told there was much of gloom and moroseness on
the other; a dread of the Deity with a fear of hell,
and of the power of the devil, were the predominant
feelings of religious people in the age subsequent
to the Revolution; while it was thought, so says
the author of ? I Domestic Annals ? (quoting Miss
Mure?s invaluable Memoirs), a mark of atheistic
tendencies to doubt witchcraft, or the reality of
apparitions and the occasional vaticinative character
of dreams.
A country gentleman, writing in 1729, remarks
on ?? the increase in the expense of housekeeping
which he had seen going on during the past twenty
years. While deeming it indisputable that Edinburgh
was now much less populous.than before the
Union, yet I am informed,? says he, ? that there is
a greater consumption since than before the Union
of all -provisions, especially fleshes and wheat.
bread. The butcher owns that he now kills thret
of every species for one he killed before the Union.
. . . . Tea in the morning and tea in tht
evening had now become established. There
were more livery servants, and better dressed.
and more horses than formerly.?
Lord Strichen did not die in the house in thf
close wherein he had dwelt so long, but at Stricher
in Aberdeenshire, on the 15th January, 1775, ir
his seventy-sixth year, leaving behind him the repu
tation of an upright judge. ? Lord Strichen was i
man not only honest, but highly generous; for
after his succession to the family estates, he paic
a large sum of debts contracted by his prede
cessor, which he was not under any obligation tc
pay.?
One of the last residents of note in Strichen?!
Close was Mr. John Grieve, a merchant in thc
Royal Exchange, who held the office of Lorc
?rovost in 1782-3, and again in 1786-7, and who
ras first a Town Councillor in 1765. When a
nagistrate he was publicly horsewhipped by some
r Edinburgh bucks ? of the day, for placing some
emales of doubtful repute in the City Guard
Xouse, under the care of the terrible Corporal
ihon Dhu--an assault for which they were arrested
.nd severely fined.
The house he 6ccupied had an entrance from
itrichen?s Close ; but was in reality one that beonged
to the Regent hlorton, having an entrance
rom the next street, named the Blackfriars Wynd.
3e afterwards removed to a house in Princes
street, where he became one of the projectors of
he Earthen Mound, which was long-as a mistake
n the picturesque-justly stigmatised as the RIud
Brig,? the east side of which was commenced a
ittle to the eastward of the line of Hanover Street,
ipposite to the door of Provost Grieve?s house,
ong ago turned into a shop.
John Dhu, the personage refTrred to, was a wellmown
soldier of the C;ty Guard, mentioned by Sir
Walter Scott as one of the fiercest-looking men he
lad ever seen. ?That such an image of military
violence should have been necessary at the close of
:he eighteenth century to protect the peace of a
British city,? says the editor of ?( Kay?s Portraits,?
?presents us with a strange contrast of what we
lately were and what we have now become. On
me occasion, about the time of the French Revolution,
when the Town Guard had been signalising
the King?s birthday by firing in the Parliament
Square, being unusually pressed and insulted by
the populace, this undaunted warrior turned upon
one peculiarly outrageous member of the democracy,
and, by one blow of his battle-axe, laid him
lifeless on the causeway.?
The old tenement, which occupied the ground
between Strichen?s Close and the Blackfriars Wynd
(prior to its destruction in the fire of zznd February,
18zj), and was at the head of the latter,
was known as ?Lady Lovat?s Land.? It was
seven storeys in height. There lived Primrose
Campbell of Mamore, widow of Simon Lord
Lovat, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1747,
and there, 240 years before her time, dwelt Walter
Chepman of Ewirland, who, with Miller, in 1507,
under the munificent auspices of James IV., introduced
the first printing press into Scotland, and on
the basement of whose edifice a house of the Revolution
period had been engrafted.
Though his abode was here in the High Street,
his printing-house was in the Cowgate, from whence,
in 1508, ?The Knightly Tale of Golagras and
Gawane ? was issued ; and this latter is supposed
He died in 1803.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p075.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 255")
... Street.] STRICHEN?S CLOSE. 255
pike stairs compelled the use of taverns more than
now. There the high-class ...
Book 2 p. 255
(Score 0.21)
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![High Street.] THE MAXWELLS OF MONREITH. 275
Theresa, and other royal and imperial personages,
which had been presented as friendly memorials to
the ambassador, have all been dispersed by the
salesman?s hammer, and Hyndford?s Close, on my
trying to get into it lately in 186P, was inaccessible
(literally) from filth.? Another writer, in 1856, says
in his report to the magistrates, ?that, with proper
drainage, causeway, and cleanliness, it might be
made quite respectable.?
Prior to the Carmichaels of Hyndford it had
been, for a time, the residence of the Earls of
Stirling, the first of whom ruined himself in tEx
colonisation of Nova Scotia, for which place he
set sail with fourteen ships filled with emigrants
and cattle in 1630. Here then, in this now
humble but once most picturesque locality-for
the house was singularly so, with its overhanging
timber gables, its small court and garden sloping
to the south-lived John third Earl of Hyndford,
the living representative of a long line of warlike
ancestors, including Sir John Carmichael of that
ilk, who broke a spear with the Duke of Clarence
at the battle of Bauge-en-Anjou, when the Scots
routed the English, the Duke was slain, and Carmichael
had added to his paternal arms a dexter
hand and arm, holding a broken spear,
In 1732 he was Lieutenant-Colonel of a company
in the Scots Foot Guards, and was twice
Commissioner to the General Assembly before
1740, and was Lord of Police in Scotland. In the
following year, when Frederick the Great invaded
Silesia, he was sent as plenipotentiary extraordinary
to adjust the differences that occasioned the
war, and at the conclusion of the Treaty of Breslau
had the Order of the Thistle conferred upon him
by George II., receiving at the same time a grant
from Frederick, dated at Berlin, 30th September,
1742, for adding the eagle of Silesia to his paternal
arms of Xyndford, with the motto Ex bene merifo.
He was six years an ambassador at the Russian
Court, and it wasbyhis able negociations that 30,000
Muscovite troops contributed to accelerate the
peace which was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle.
These stimng events over, the year 1752 saw
him leave his old abode in that narrow close off
the High Street, to undertake a mission of the
greatest importance to the Court of Vienna. On
the death of Andrew Earl of Hyndford and Viscount
Inglisberry, in r817, the title became extinct,
but is claimed by a baronet of the name 01
Carmichael.
The entry and stair on the west side of Hyndford?s
Close was always a favourite residence, in
consequence of the ready access to it from the
High Street.
In the beginning of the reign of George 111. here
lived Lady Maxwell of Monreith, d e Magdalene
Blair of that ilk, and there she educated and
reared her three beautiful daughters-Catharine,
Jane, and Eglantine (or Eglintoun, so named after
the stately Countess Susanna who !ived in the Old
Stamp Office Close), the first of whom became the
wife of Fordyce of Aytoune, the second in 1767,
Duchess of Gordon, and the third, Lady Wallace
of Craigie.
Their house had a dark passage, and in going
to the dining-room the kitchen door was passed,
according to an architectural custom, common in
old Scottish and French houses; and such was
the thrift and so cramped the accommodation
in those times, that in this passage the laces
and fineries of the three young beauties were
hung to dry, while coarser garments were displayed
from a window pole, in the fashion
common to this day in the same localities for the
convenience of the poor. ? So easy and familiar
were the manners of the great, fabled to be so
stiff and decorous,? says the author of ?Traditions
of Edinburgh,? who must vouch for the story,
? that Mis,s Eglantine, afterwards Lady Wallace,
used to be sent across the street to the Fountain
Well for water to make tea. Lady Maxwell?s
daughters were the wildest romps imaginable. An
old gentleman who was their relation, told me that
the first time he saw these beautiful girls was in
the High Street, where Miss Jane, afterwards
Duchess of Gordon, was riding upon a sow, which
Miss Eglantine thumped lustily behind with a
stick. It must be understood that in the middle
of the eighteenth century vagrant swine went as
commonly about the streets of Edinburgh a?s dogs
do in our own day, and were more generally followed
as pets by the children of the last generation.
It may, however, be remarked, that the sows upon
which the Duchess of Gordon and her witty sister
rode when children, were not the common va,mnts
of the High Street, but belonged to Peter Ramsay,
of the inn in St. Mary?s Wynd, and were among
the last that were permitted to roam abroad. The
romps used to watch the animals as they were let
loose in the forenoon in the stable yard (where they
lived among the horse litter) and got upon their
backs the moment they issued from the close.?
Their eldest brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell,
of the 74th Highlanders, commanded the
grenadier companies of the army under Cornwallis
in the war against Tippoo, and died in India in
1800.
In the same stair with Lady Maxwell lived Anne
Dalrymple, Countess of James firth Earl of Bal](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p095.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 275")
