The Lawnmarket.
ninety-nine, Portraits of Anderson and his daughter,
in Vandyke costumes, the former with a book
in his hand, and the latter with a pill the size of a
walnut between her fingers, are still preserved in
$he house. It was in 1635 that the Doctor first
tablature, bearing the date 1690, is the main enT
trance to this court, the principal house of which,
forming ,its northern side, has a very handsome
doorway, peaked in the centre, like an ogee arch,
with ornate mouldings that mark the handiwork of
ASSEMBLY HALL (From M Engrayingpu6ZisJiedin 1845.)
made known the virtues of his pills, which is really
a good form of aloetic medicine.
In Mylne?s Court, on the north side of the Lawnmarket,
we find the first attempt to substitute an
open square of some space for the narrow closes
which so long contained the town residences of
the Scottish noblesse. Under a Roman Doric enthe
builder, Robed Mylne, who erected the more
modem portions of Holyrood Palace-the seventh
royal master-mason, whose uncle?s tomb, on the
east side of the Greyfriars churchyard, bears that
he-
?? Sixth master-mason to a royal race,
Of seven successive kings, sleeps in this placc?
The edifice that forms the west side of Mylne?s
Court belongs to an earlier period, and had once
been the side of the close. The most northerly
portion, which presents a very irregular but most
picturesque fapade, with dormer windows above
the line of the roof, was long the town mansion
of the Lairds of Comiston. Over the entrance is
a very common Edinburgh legend, BZissif. be . God
in. al. his. Gz&%s, and the date, 1580. Bartholomew
Somerville, a merchant and burgess, was one of
the earliest inhabitants of this edifice, and his
name appears conspicuously
among
those to whose liberality
Edinburgh was
indebted for the establishment
of her
University on a last??
ing basis. Here also
resided Sir John Harper
of Cambusnethitn.
. In 1710, Lord
Fountainhall reports
a case connected
with this court, in
which Bailie Michael
Allan, a proprietor
there, endeavoured to
prevent the entrance
of ? I heavy carriages,?
which damaged his
cellar under the pend
thereto.
The last person of
rank resident here
was Lady Isabella
Douglas, who had a
house on the west
side of it in 1761.
Robert, the son of
still more illustrious Dr. Johnson, when, in 1773,
he was on his way to the Western Isles.
James?s Court occupies the site of some now
forgotten closes, in one of which dwelt Sir John
Lauder, afterwards Lord Fountainhall, author of the
famous ?Decisions? and other works. ? At the
+d of the Earl of Argyle, in 1681, for an alleged
illegal construction of the Test, Lauder acted as
counsel for that unfortunate nobleman, together
with Sir George Lockhart and six other advocates.
These having all signed an opinion that his explanrt.
THE ORATORY OF MARY OF GUISE.
Mylne, the builder, who was born in 1734, settled
in London as an architect, and his plan for constructing
a bridge at Blackfriars was preferred to
those of twenty other candidates,* and on its completion
he was appointed surveyor of St Paul?s
Cathedral, with a salary of A300 per annum.
Eastward of Mylne?s Court is James?s Court,
a more modern erection of the same kind,
associated, in various ways, with some of the most
eminent men in the Scottish capital ; ,for here
resided David Hume, after his removal from Jack?s
Land in the Canongate, in 1762; in the same
house afterwards dwelt Boswell, and here he welcomed
Paoli, the Corsican chief, in 1771, and the
- -_ * ?Old and New London,? vol. i, pp. 205-5
13
tion of the Test contained
nothing treasonable,
were summoned
before the
Privy Council, and
after being examined
on oath, were dismissed
with a warning
and censure by
the Duke of Albany.
Though it is so long
ago as September,
1722, since Lord
Fountainhall died, a
tradition of his residence
hascome down
to the present time.
?The mother of the
lateMr. Gilbert Innes
of Stow,? says Chambers,
?was a daughter
of his lordship?s son,
Sir Andrew Lauder,
and she used to describe
to her children
the visits she used
to pay to her venerable
grandfather?s -
house, situated, as
she said, where James?s Coui-t now stands. She
and her sister always went with their maid on the
Saturday afternoons, and were shown into a room
where the aged judge was sitting- room covered
with gilt leather, and containing many huge presses
and cabinets, one of which was ornamented with a
death?s head at the top, After amusing themselves
for an hour or two with his lordship they used each
to get a shilling from him, and retire. . . . It
is curious to think that the mother of a gentleman
living in 1839 (for only then did Mrs. Innes of
Stow leave this earthly scene) should have been
familiar with a lawyer who entered at the bar soon
after the Restoration (1668)? and acted as counsel
for the unfortunate Earl of Argyle in 1681-a being
