... , MEMORIALS UP- EDINBURGH.
Balcarras, Lord, 208
Baldredus, Deacon of Lothian, 377
.Balfour, Sir James, ...
Book 10 p. 499
(Score 0.85)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [Newton.
gift ratified by Bishop Richard and Pope Gregory.
There are many places in ...
Book 6 p. 364
(Score 0.85)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. me Mound.
distinguished trustees of whom it has been composed
since its formation ; ...
Book 3 p. 86
(Score 0.85)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [G-ge Sqmm
over the head with sufficient strength to cut him
down. When this was seen, ...
Book 4 p. 342
(Score 0.85)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
Close was seized, and a battery erected on the
summit thereof to assail ...
Book 2 p. 278
(Score 0.84)
... seems peculiarly applicable to the Edinburgh
of Jsmes V., and still more to that of
James 11.
?He ...
Book 1 p. 7
(Score 0.84)
![Restalrig.] LHL LA31 UP THE LOGANS. I35 -_7n T I?-
,
sible eyrie, Fast Castle, there to await the orders
of Elizabeth or the other conspirators as to the disposal
of his person.
Logan?s connection with this astounding treason
remained unknown till nine years after his death,
when the correspondence between him and the
Earl of Gowrie was discovered in possession of
Sprott, a notary at Eyemouth, who had stolen
them from a man named John Bain, to whom
they had been entrusted. Sprott was executed,
and Logan?s bones were brought into court to
havea sentence passed upon them, when it was
ordained ?that the memorie?and dignitie of the
said umqle Robert Logan be extiiict and abolisheit,?
his arms riven and deleted from all books
of arms and all his goods escheated.
The poor remains of the daring old conspirator,
were then retaken to the church of St. Mary at
Leith and re-interred j and during the alterations
in that edifice, in 1847, a coffin covered with the
richest purple velvet was found in a place where
no interment had taken place for years, and the
bones in it were supposed by antiquaries to be
those of the turbulent Logan, the last laird of
Restalrig.
His lands, in part, with the patronage of South
Leith, were afterwards bestowed upon James
Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino ; but the name still
lingered in Restalrig, as in 1613 we find that
John Logan a portioner there, was fined LI,OOO
for hearing mass at the Netherbow with James of
Jerusalem.
Logan was forfeited in 1609, but his lands had
been lost to him before his death, as Nether Gogar
was purchased from him in I 596, by Andrew Logan
of Coatfield, Restalrig in 1604 by Balmerino, who
was interred, in 1612, in thevaulted mausoleum beside
the church ; ?and the English army,? says
Scotstarvit, ? on their coming to Scotland, in 1650,
expecting to have found treasures in that place,
hearing that lead coffins were there, raised up his
body and threw it on the streets, because they
could get no advantage or money, when they expected
so much.?
In 1633 Charles I. passed through, or near,
Restalrig, on his way to the Lang Gate, prior to
entering the city by the West Port.
William Nisbet of Dirleton was entailed in the
lands of Restalrig in 1725, and after the attainder
and execution of her husband, Arthur Lord Balmerino,
in I 746, his widow-Elizzbeth, daughter
of a Captain Chalmers-constantly resided in the
village, and there she died on the 5th January, 1767.
Other persons of good position dwelt in the
village in those days; among them we may note
?
Sir James Campbell of Aberuehill, many years a
Commissioner of the Customs, who died there 13th
May, 1754, and was buried in the churchyard ; and
in 1764, Lady Katharine Gordon, eldest daughter
of the Earl of Aboyne, whose demise there is
recorded in the first volume of the Edinburgh
Adverhjer.
Lord Alemoor, whose town house was in Niddry?s
Wynd, was resident at Hawkhill, where he died in
1776 ; and five years before that period the village
was the scene of great festal rejoicings, when
Patrick Macdowal of Freugh, fifth Earl of Dumfries,
was married to Miss Peggy Crawford, daughter of
Ronald Crawford, Esq., of Restalng.?
From Peter Williamson?s Directory it appears
that Restalrig was the residence, in 1784, of Alexander
Lockhart, the famous Lord Covington. In
the same year a man named James Tytler, who had
ascended in a balloon from the adjacent Comely
Gardens, had a narrow escape in this quarter. He
was a poor man, who supported himself and his
family by the use of his pen, and he conceived the
idea of going up in a balloon on the Montgolfier
principle ; but finding that he could not carry a firestove
with him, in his desperation and disappointment
he sprang into his car with no other sustaining
power than a common crate used for packing
earthenware; thus his balloon came suddenly
down in the road near Restalrig. For a wonder
Tytler was uninjured; and though he did not
reach a greater altitude than three hundred feet,
nor traverse a greater distance than half a mile, yet
his name must ever be mentioned as that of the
first Briton who ascended with a balloon, and who
was the first man who so ascended in Britain.?
It is impossible to forget that the pretty village,
latterly famous chiefly as a place for tea-gardens
and strawbemy-parties, was, in the middle of the
last century, the scene of some of the privations
of the college life of the fine old Rector Adam of
the High School, author of ?Roman Antiquities,?
and other classical works. In 1758 he lodged
there in the house of a Mr. Watson, and afterwards
with a gardener. The latter, says Adam, in some
of his MS. memoranda (quoted by Dr. Steven),
was a Seceder, a very industrious man, who had
family worship punctually morning and evening,
in which I cordially joined, and alternately said
prayers. After breakfast I went to town to attend
my classes and my private pupils. For dinner I
had three small coarse loaves called baps, which I
got for a penny-farthing. As I was now always
dressed in my best clothes, I was ashamed to buy
these from a baker in the street. I therefore went
down to a baker?s in the middle of a close. I put](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p146.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 135")
... LHL LA31 UP THE LOGANS. I35 -_7n T I?-
,
sible eyrie, Fast Castle, there to await the orders
of ...
Book 5 p. 135
(Score 0.84)
... of rank, another plot to storm it, at a time
when its garrison was the nsth, or old regiment of
Edinburgh, ...
Book 1 p. 68
(Score 0.83)
... .BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
No. CXXI.
DR, ANDREW HUNTER,
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY, AND MINISTER ...
Book 8 p. 417
(Score 0.83)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ Restalrig.
them in my pocket and went up some public staircase
to eat them, without beer ...
Book 5 p. 136
(Score 0.82)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Founhbridge.
vulcanised rubber-the largest pieces of the material
ever manufactured, ...
Book 4 p. 220
(Score 0.82)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Beechwood.
Henry Dundas, appointed Lord Advocate. After
being Member for Peebles, he ...
Book 5 p. 104
(Score 0.82)
![University.] THE NEW BUILDING COMPLETED. 2 3
Elder being Lord Provost of the city, William
Robertson, Principal of the University, and Robert
Adam, the architect. ? May the undertaking prosper
and be crowned with success.?
The proceedings of the day were closed by a
princely banquet in the Assembly Rooms.
The building was now begun, and, portion by
portion, the old edifices engrafted on those of the
Kirk-of-Field gave place to the stately quadrangular
university of the present day; and, as nearly as
can be ascertained, on the spot occupied by the
Senate Hall stood that fatal tenement in which
King Henry was lodged on his return from Glas
gow, and which was partly blown up on the night
of his assassination, between the 9th and 10th of
February, 1567. In the repaired portion some
of the professors resided, and it was averred to
be ghost haunted, and the abode of mysterious
sounds.
The foundation stone of the old university-if
it ever had one-was not discovered during the
erection of the present edifice. The magistrates,
with more zeal for the celebrity of the city than
consideration for their financial resources, having
wished that-subscriptions apart-they should bear
the chief cost of the erection, it remained for more
than twenty years after the foundation-stone
was laid a monument of combined vanity, rashness,
and poverty, Government, as usual in most
Scottish matters, especially in those days, withholding
all aid. Yet, in 1790, when Profess01
William Cullen, first physician to His Majesty in
Scotland, and holder of the chair of medicine from
1773, died, it was proposed (( to erect a . statue to
him in the new university,? the walls of which
were barely above the ground.
Within the area of the latter masses of the old
buildings still remained, and in the following year,
1761, these gave accommodation to 1,255 students.
In that year we learn from the Scots Magazine that
the six noble pillars which adorn the front, each
22 feet 4 inches high, and in diameter 3 feet 3 inches,
were erected. These were brought from Craigleith
quarry, each drawn by sixteen horses.
Kincaid records that the total sum subscribed
by the end of February, 1794, amounted to only
If;32,000. Hence the work languished, and at
times was abandoned for want of funds; and
about that time we read of a meeting of Scottish
officers held at Calcutta, who subscribed a sum
towards its completion, the Governor-General, Lord
Cornwallis, heading the list with a contribution ol
3,000 sicca rupees.
But many parts of the edifice remained an open
aid unfinished ruin, in which crows and other
.
birds built their nests ; and a strange dwarf, known
as Geordie More (who died so lately as 1828), built
unto himself a species of booth or hut at the
college gate unchallenged.
In an old (( Guide to Edinburgh,? published in
181 I, we read thus of the building :-? It cannot
said to be yet half finished, notwithstanding the
prodigious sums expended upon it ; if we advert to
the expenses which will unavoidably atttend the
completing of its ichnography or inside accommodations,
and, without the interference of the Legislature,
it will perhaps be exhibited to posterity as a
melancholy proof of the poverty of the nation.?
This state of matters led to the complete curtailment
of Adam?s grand designs, and modifications
of them were ultimately accomplished by Mr. W.
H. Playfair, after Parliament, in 1815, granted an
annual sum of LIO,OOO for ten years to finish
the work, which, however, was not completely done
till 1834; and since then, the idea of the great
central dome, which was always a part of the
original design, seems now to have been entirely
abandoned.
The university, as we find it now, presents its
main front to South Bridge Street, and forms an
entire side respectively to West College Street, to
South College Street, and to Chambers Street
on the north. It is a regular parallelogram,
356 feet long by 225 wide, extending in length
east and west, and having in its centre a stately
quadrangular court. The main front has some
exquisite, if simple, details, and is of stupendous
proportions. In style, within and without, it is
partly Palladian and partly Grecian, but is so
pent up by the pressure of adjacent streetson
three sides, at least-that it can never be seen
to advantage, It has been said that were the
university ? situated in a large park, particularly
upon a rising ground, it would appear almost
sublime, and without a parallel among the modern
edifices of Scotland ; but situated as it is, it makes
upon the mind of a stranger, in its exterior views
at least, impressions chiefly of bewilderment and
confusion.?
It is four storeys in height, and is entered by
three grand and lofty arched porticoes from the
east ; at the sides of these are the great Craigleith
columns above referred to, each formed of a single
stone.
On the summit is a vast entablature, bearing
the following inscription, cut in Roman letters :-
?Academia Jacobi VI., Scotorum Regis anno post
Christum natum b1,DLXXXII. instituta ; annoque
M,DCC,LXXXIX., renovari coepta ; regnante Georgio III.
Principe munificentissimo ; Urbis Edinensis Pmfecto](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p034.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 23")
... THE NEW BUILDING COMPLETED. 2 3
Elder being Lord Provost of the city, William
Robertson, Principal ...
Book 5 p. 23
(Score 0.82)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Sciennes.
of hermit, or chaplain, resided ; and the charter of
foundation mentions ...
Book 5 p. 52
(Score 0.82)
... INDEX TO THE PORTRAITS. ETC .
No . Pap.
Dalzel. Andrew. A.M., F.R.S., Professor
of Greek in the University ...
Book 8 p. 605
(Score 0.82)
... probable that the Earl may often have been
a guest in that old mansion, and King James himself
in later ...
Book 2 p. 220
(Score 0.81)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
’ No. XXXIII.
LORD ROCKVILLE.
DR. ADAM SMITH, AND
COMNISSIONER BROWN.
THE first of ...
Book 8 p. 103
(Score 0.8)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Dr. Duncan resided in Adam Square, and died on the 5th July 1828, in the
eighty-fourth ...
Book 9 p. 76
(Score 0.8)
... INDEX TO THE NAMES, ETC.
G
GALLOWAYE,a rl of, 463
Gardenstone, Lord, 8, 71, 137
Garrick, Mr,, 205
Garrow, ...
Book 9 p. 687
(Score 0.8)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
copy. The Poem was divided into three parts ; the first, “ A Description of ...
Book 9 p. 424
(Score 0.8)
... SKETCHES. 19
While Mackay was a subaltern, he travelled through France and Italy, and
other parts of ...
Book 9 p. 25
(Score 0.8)
... SKETCHES. 89
an ingenious artist, but who, from a feeling of modesty, prevailed 04 the limner
to ...
Book 8 p. 126
(Score 0.8)
![High Street.] THE EARL OF ROSSLYN. 273
worn-out with the fatigues of a long and active.
career, he retired from public life.
When visiting his native capital for the last time,
after an absence of nearly fifty years, with an
emotion which did him honour, he caused himself
to be camed in a sedan chair to Elphinstone Court,
in that now obscure part of the city, that he might
again see the house in which his father dwelt, and
where his own early years as a boy and as a bamster
had been spent. He expressed particular anxiety
to know ?if a set of holes in the paved court before
his father?s door, which he had used for some youthful
sportwere still in existence; and finding them still
there intact, it is related that as all the past came
upon him, the veteran statesman burst into tears.
North in forming the celebrated Coalition Ministry,
in which he held the appointment of first Commissioner
for keeping the Great Seal. On its
dissolution, he joined the Opposition under Fox ;
but, amid the alarm of the expected French invasion,
he gave in his adhesion to the Administration
of Pitt, and on succeeding Lord Thurlow as Lord
High Chancellor, in April, 1801, was created Earl
of Xosslyn in Midlothian, and then, when nearly
and was interred in St. Paul?s Cathedral at London.
Shortly after the death of his father, Lord
Chesterhall, which occurred in 1756, he sold the
old mansion in Elphinstone Court to John Camp
bell, a senator under the title of Lord Stonefield,
who succeeded Lord Gardenstone as a justiciary
judge, and who retained his seat upon the bench
till his death in June, 1801. It is somewhat remarkable
that his two immediate predecessors
occupied the same seat for a period of ninety
years ; Lord Royston having been appointed a
judge in 1710, and Lord Tinwald in 1744. By
his wife, Lady Grace Stuart, daughter of John
third Earl of Bute, he had several sons, all of whom
pre-deceased him. The second of these w+s the
The memory of the early friendships he formed
with the ? select society ?? of Edinburgh, including
Darid Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith, and Blair,
he cherished with unceasing fondness. ?? His
ambition was great,? says Sir Egerton Bridges,
?and his desire of oflice unlimited. He could
argue with great ingenuity on either side, so that
it was difficult to anticipate his future by his past
opinions.? He died of an apoplectic fit in 1805~
THE EARL OF SELKIRK?S HOUSE, HYNDFORD?S CLOSE (south W-#).
(From fke Engraviwin Sir Wa&rScotfs ?Rrd?axntki,? byfirmission of Messn. A. and C. Black.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p093.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 273")
... Street.] THE EARL OF ROSSLYN. 273
worn-out with the fatigues of a long and active.
career, he retired from ...
Book 2 p. 273
(Score 0.79)
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