died, in the old house, of the plague. His widow
survived him, and the street was named Lady
Gray?s Close till the advent of Lady Stair, in whose
time the house had a terraced garden that descended
towards the North Loch.
Lady Eleanor Campbell, widow of the great
marshal and diplomatist, John Earl of Stair, was
by paternal descent related to one of the most
celebrated historical figures of the seventeenth
century, being the grand-daughter of the Lord High
Chancellor Loudon, whose talents and influence on
the Covenanting side procured him the enmity of
Charles I.
In her girlhood she had the misfortune to be
united to James Viscount Primrose, of Castlefield,
who died in 1706, a man of dissipated habits and
intolerable temper, who treated her so barbarously
that there were times when she had every reason to
feel that her life was in peril. One morning she
was dressing herself before her mirror, near an open
window, when she saw the viscount suddenly appear
in the room behind her with a drawn rapier in his
hand. He had softly opened the door, and in the
mirror she could see that his face, set white and
savage, indicated that he had nothing less than
murder in his mind, She threw herself out ol
window into the street, and, half-dressed as she
was, fled, with great good sense, to Lord Primrose?s
mother, who had been Mary Scott of Thirlstane,
and received protection ; but no attempt was made
to bring about a. reconciliation, and, though they
had four children, she never lived with him again,
and soon after he went abroad.
During his absence there came to Edinburgh a
certain foreign conjuror, who, among other occuli
powers, professed to be able to inform those preseni
of the movements of the absent, however far the)
might be apart; and the young viscountess wa:
prompted by curiosity to go with a lady friend tc
the abode of the wise man in the Canongate, wear
ing over their heads, by way of disguise, the tartar
plaid then worn by women of the lower classes
After describing the individual in whose move
ments she was interested, and expressing a desirt
to know what he was then about, the conjuror lec
her before a large mirror, in which a number o
colours and forms rapidly assumed the appearanct
of a church with a marriage party before the altar
and in the shadowy bridegroom shk instant11
recognised her absent husband ! She gazed upor
the delineation as if turned to stone, while thc
ceremonial of the marriage seemed to proceed, anc
the clergyman to be on the point of bidding thc
bride and bridegroom join hands, when suddenly i
gentleman in whose face she recognised a brothel
)f her own, came forward, and paused. His face
tssumed an expression of wrath ; drawing his sword
ie rushed upon the bridegroom, who also drew to
iefend himself ; the whole phantasmagoria then
iecame tumultuous and indistinct, and faded comiletely
away. When the viscountess reached home
;he wrote a minute narrative of the event, noting
;he day and hour. This narrative she sealed up in
?resence of a witness and deposited it in a cabinet
Soon after this her brother returned from his travels
tbroad-which brother we are not told, and she
lad three : Hugh the Master of Loudon, Colonel
rohn Campbell of Shankeston, and James, who was
Colonel of the Scots Greys, and was killed at
Fontenoy. She asked him if he heard aught of
:he viscount in his wanderings. He answered,
iniously, ?I wish I may never again hear the
name of that detestable personage mentioned !?
On being questioned he confessed to ?( having met
nis lordship under very strange circumstances.?
While spending some time at Rotterdam he made
the acquaintance of a wealthy merchant who had
% very beautiful daughter, an only child, who, he
informed him, was on the eve of her marriage with
5 Scottish gentleman, and he was invited to the
wedding as a countryman of the bridegroom. He
went accordingly, and though a little too late for
the commencement of the ceremony, was yet in
time to save an innocent girl from becoming the victim
of his own brother-in-law, Viscount Primrose !
Though the deserted wife had proved her willingness
to believe in the magic mirror, by having
committed to writing what she had seen, yet she
was so astonished by her brother?s, tidings, that she
nearly fainted; but something more was to be
learned still. She asked her brother on what day
the circumstance took place, and having been
informed, she gave him her key, and desired him
to bring to her the sealed paper. On its being
opened, it was then found, that at the very moment
when she had seen the roughly-interrupted nuptial
ceremony it had actually been in progress.
Primrose died, as we have said, in the year before
the Union. His widow was still young and beautiful,
but made a resolution never again, after her past
experience, to become a wife ; but the great Earl
Stair, who had been now resident some twenty
years in Edinburgh, and whose public and private
character was irreproachable, earnestly sued for
her hand, yet she firmly announced her intention
of remaining unwedded ; and in his love and desperation
the Earl bethought him of an expedient
indicative of the roughness and indelicacy of the
age. By dint of powerfully bribing her household
he got himself introduced over-night into a small
