and burned, and ?? that ilk mail in Edinburgh have
his lumes (vents) full of watter in the nycht, under
pain of deid !? (I? Qiurnal.?) This gives us a graphic
idea of the city in the sixteenth century, and of the
High Street in particular, ?with the majority of the
buildings on either side covered with thatch, encumbered
by piles of heather and other fuel
accumulated before each door for the use of the
inhabitants, and from amid these, we may add
the stately ecclesiastical edifices, and the substantial
mansions of the nobility, towering with all the
more imposing effect, in contrast to their homely
neighbourhood.?
Concerning these heather stacks we have the
following episode in ?Moyse?s Memoirs :?--?On the
2nd December, 1584, a b.kxteis boy called Robert
Henderson (no doubt by the instigation of Satan)
desperately put some powder and a candle to his
father?s heather-stack, standing in a close opposite
the Tron, and burnt the same with his.father?s
house, to the imminent hazard of burning the whole
Sown, for which, being apprehended most marvellously,
after his escaping out of town, he wus n~xt
day burnt pick at the cross of Edinburgh as an
example.?
There was still extant in 1850 a small fragment
.of Forrester?s Wynd, a beaded doorway in a ruined
wall, with the legend above it-
?? O.F. OUR INHERITANCE, 1623.?
?In all the old houses in Edinburgh,? says
Amot, ?it is remarkable that the superstition of
the time had guarded each with certain cabalistic
characters or talismans engraved upon its front.
These were generally composed of some texts of
Scripture, of the name of God, or perhaps an
emblematical representation of the crucifixion.?
Forrester?s Wynd probably took its name from
Sir Adam Forrester of Corstorphine, who was twice
chief magistrate of the city in the 14th century.
After the ?Jenny Geddes? riot in St. Giles?s,
Guthrie, in his ?Memoirs,? tells us of a mob, consisting
of some hundreds of women, whose place
.of rendezvous in 1637 was Forrester?s Wynd, and
who attacked Sydeserf, Bishop of Galloway, when
.on his way to the Privy Council, accompanied by
Francis Stewart, son of the Earl of Bothwell,
.?with such violence, that probably he had been
torn in pieces, if it had not been that the said
Francis, with the help of two pretty men that
attended him, rescued him out of their barbarous
hands, aud hurled him in at the door, holding back
the pursuers until those that were within shut the
door. Thereafter, the Provost and Bailies being
assembled in their council, those women beleaguered
them, and threatened to burn the house about their
ears, unless they did presently nominate two commissioners
for the town,? Src. Their cries were :
?? God defend all thdse who will defend God?s cause!
God confound the service-book and all maintainers
thereof !?
From advertisements, it wonld appear that a
character who made some noise in his time, Peter
Williamson, ?I from the other world,? as he called
himself, had a printer?s shop at the head of this
wynd in 1772. The victim of a system of kidnapping
encouraged by the magistrates of Aberdeen,
he had been c?arried off in his boyhood to America,
and after almost unheard-of perils and adventures,
related in his autobiography, published in 1758, he
returned to Scotland, and obtained some small
damages from the then magistrates of his native
city, and settled in Edinburgh as a printer and
publisher, In 1776 he started The Scots Spy, published
every Friday, of which copies are now
extremely rare. He had the merit of establishing
the first penny post in Edinburgh, and also published
a ?? Directory,? from his new shop in the
Luckenbooths, in 1784. He would appear for
these services to have received a small pension
from Government when it assumed his institution
of the penny post.
The other venerable alley referred to, Beith?s
Wynd, when greatly dilapidated by time, was nearly
destroyed by two fires, which occurred in 1786 and
1788. The former, on the 12th Decernher, broke
out near Henderson?s stairs, and raged with great
violence for man), hours, but by the assistance of
the Town Guard and others it was suppressed, yet
not before many families were burnt out. The
Parliament House and the Advocates? Library
were both in imminent peril, and the danger appeared
so great, that the Court of Session did not
sit tha? day, and preparations were made for the
speedy removal of all records. At the head of
Beith?s Wynd, in 1745, dwelt Andrew Maclure, a
writing-niaster, one of that corps of civic volunteers
who marched to oppose the Highlanders, but
which mysteriously melted away ere it left the West
Port. It was noted of the gallant Andrew, that
having made up his mind to die, he had affixed
a sheet of paper to his breast, whereon was written,
in large text-hand, ?This is the body of Andrew
Maclure j let it be decently interred,? a notice that
was long a source of joke among the Jacobite
wits.
With this wynd, our account of the alleys in
connection with the Lawnmarket ends. We have
elsewhere referred to the once well-known Club
formed by the dwellers in the latter, chiefly woc!!en
He died in January, 1799.
The Tolhwth] THE SIGNET ANI) ADVOCATES? LIBRARIES. 123
THE genius of Scott has shed a strange halo around
the memory of the grim and massive Tolbooth
prison, so much so that the creations of his imagination,
such as Jeanie and Effie Deans, take the
place of real persons of flesh? and blood, and suchtraders.
They have been described as being ?a
dramdrinking, news-mongering, facetious set of
citizens, who met every morn about seven o?clock,
and after proceeding to the post-office to ascertain
the news (when the mail arrived), generally adjourned
to a public-house and refreshed themselves
with a libation of brandy.? Unfounded articles of
intelligence that were spread abroad in those days
were usually named ? Lawnmarket Gazettes,? in
allusion to their roguish or waggish originators.
At all periods the Lawnmarket was a residence
for nien of note, and the frequent residence of
English and other foreign ambassadors; and so
long as Edinburgh continued to be the seat of the
Parliament, its vicinity to the House made it a
favourite and convenient resort for the members
of the Estates.
On the ground between Robert Gourlay?s house
and Beith?s Wynd we now find some of those portions
of the new city which have been engrafted on
the old. In Melbourne Place, at the north end of
George IV. Bridge, are situated many important
offices, such as, amongst others, those of the Royal
Medical Society, and the Chamber of Commerce
and Manufactures, built in an undefined style of
architecture, new to Edinburgh. Opposite, with
its back to the bridge, where a part of the line of
Liberton?s Wynd exists, is built the County Hall,
presenting fronts to the Lawnmarket and to St.
Giles?s. The last of these possesses no common
beauty, as it has a very lofty portico of finely-flutcd
columns, overshadowing a flight of steps leading to
the main entrance, which is modelled after the
choragic monument of Thrasyllus, while the ground
plan and style of ornament is an imitation of the
Temple of Erechtheius at Athens. It was erected
in 1817, and contains several spacious and lofty
court-rooms, with apartments for the Sheriff and
other functionaries employed in the business of the
county. The hall contains a fine statue of Lord
Chief Baron Dundas, by Chantrey.
is the power of genius, that with the name of the
Heart of Midlothian we couple the fierce fury of
the Porteous mob. ?Antique in form, gloomy and
haggard in aspect, its black stanchioned windows,
opening through its dingy walls like the apertures
~
Adjoining it and stretching eastward is the library
of the Writers to the Signet. It is of Grecian architecture,
and possesses two long pillared halls of
beautiful proportions, the upper having Corinthian
columns, and a dome wherein are painted the
Muses. It is 132 feet long by about 40 broad,
and was used by George IV. as a drawing-room,
on the day of the royal banquet in the Parliament ,
House. Formed by funds drawn solely from contributions
by Writers to H.M. Signet, it is under
a body of curators. The library contains more
than 60,000 volumes, and is remarkably rich in
British and Irish history.
Southward of it and lying psxallel with it, nearer
the Cowgate, is the Advocates? Library, two long
halls, with oriel windows on the north side. This
library, one of the five in the United Kingdom entitled
to a copy of every work printed in it, was
founded by Sir George Mackenzie, Dean of Faculty
in 168z, and contains some zoo,ooo volumes,
forming the most valuable cpllection of the kind
in Scotland. The volumes of Scottish poetry alone
exceed 400. Among some thousand MSS. are those
of Wodrow, Sir James Balfour, Sir Robert Sibbald,
and others. In one of the lower compartments
may be seen Greenshield?s statue of Sir Walter
Scott, and the original volume of Waverley; two
volumes of original letters written by Mary Queen
of Scots and Charles I.; the Confession of Faith
signed by James VI. and the Scottish nobles in
1589-90; a valuable cabinet from the old Scottish
mint in the Cowgate; the pennon borne by
Sir William Keith at Flodden; and many other
objects of the deepest interest. The office of
librarian has been held by many distinguished
men of letters; among them were Thomas Ruddiman,
in 1702; David Hume, his successor, in,
1752 ; Adani Ferguson ; and David Irving, LL.D.
A somewhat minor edifice in the vicinity forms
the library of the Solicitors before the Supreme
Court
