The Luckenbooths
James VI., but no memories of him now remain,
save the alley called Byres? Close, and his tomb
in the west mall of the Greyfriars? churchyard, the
inscription on which, though nearly obliterated,
tells us that he was treasurer, bailie, and dean
of guild of Edinburgh, and died in 1629, in his
sixtieth year
The fourth floor of the tall Byres? Lodging was
occupied in succession by the Lords Coupar and
Lindores, by Sir James Johnston of Westerhall, and
finally by Lord Coalstoun, father of Christian Brown,
Countess of the Earl of Dalhousie, a general who
distinguished himself at Waterloo and elsewhere.
Before removing to a more spacious mansion on
the Castle Hill, Lord Coalstoun lived here in I 757,
and during that time an amusing accident occurred
to him, which has been the origin of more than one
excellent caricature.
?It was at that time the custom,? says the
gossipy author of ? Traditions of Edinburgh,?
U for advocates, and no less than judges, to dress
themselves in gown, wig, and cravat, at their own
houses, and to walk in a sort of state, with their
cocked hats in their hands, to the Parliament
House. They usually breakfasted early, and
when dressed would occasionally lean over their
parlour windows for a few minutes, before St.
Giles?s bell sounded a quarter to nine, enjoying the
morning air, and perhaps discussing the news of
the day, or the convivialities of the preceding
evening, with a neighbouring advocate on the
opposite side of the alley. It so happened that
one morning, while Lord Coalstoun was preparing
to enjoy his matutinal treat, two girls who lived on the
second floor above were amusing themselves with
a kitten, which they had swung over the window
by a cord tied round its middle, and hoisted for
some time up and down, till the creature was
getting desperate with its exertions. In this crisis
his lordship popped his head out of the window,
directly below that from which the kitten swung,
little suspecting, good easy man, what a danger
impended, wlien down came the exasperated
animal in full career upon his senatorial wig.
No sooner did the girls perceive what sort of
landing-place their kitten had found, than in theix
terror and surprise, they began to draw it up ; but
this measure was now too late, for along with the
animal up also came the judge?s wig, fixed full in
its determined claws ! His lordship?s surprise on
finding his wig lifted off his head was much
increased when, an looking up, he perceived it
dangling its way upwards, without any means
v i d k to him, by which its motions might be
accounted for. The astonishment, the dread, the
!we of the senator below-the half mirth, half
error of the girls above, together with the fierce
elentless energy on the part of puss between,
ormed altogether a scene to which language could
lot easily do justice. It was a joke soon explained
md pardoned, but the perpetrators did afterwards
;et many injunctions from their parents, never again
.o fish over the window, with such a bait, for
ionest men?s wigs.?
At the east end of the Luckenbooths, and facing
:he line of the High Street, commanding not only
t view of that stately and stirring thoroughfare,
xit also the picturesque vista of the Canongate
md far beyond it, Aberlady Bay, Gosford House,
md the hills of East Lothian, towered ? Creech?s
Land ?-as the tenement was named, according to
:he old Scottish custom-long the peculiar haunt
3f the Ziferati during the last century. In the first
Rat had been the shop of Allan Ramsay, where in
17 25 he established the first circulating library ever
known in Scotland; and for the Mercury?s Head,
which had been the sign of his first shop opposite
Niddry?s Wynd, he now substituted the heads of
Drummond of Hawthornden and Ben Jonson.
Of this establishment Wodrow writes :-? Profaneness
is come to a great height ! all the villainous,
profane, and obscene books of plays printed at
London by Curle and others, are got down from
London by Allan Ramsay, and let out for an easy
price to young boys, servant women of the better
sort, and gentlemen, and rice and obscenity dreadfully
propagated.?
It was the library thus stigmatised by sour old
Wodrow, that, according to his own statement, Sir
Walter Scott read with such avidity in his younger
years. The collection latterly contained upwards
of 30,000 volumes, as is stated by a note in ? Kay?s
Portraits.?
In 1748, says Kincaid, a very remarkable and
lawless attempt was made by the united London
booksellers and stationers to curb the increase of
literature in Edinburgh ! They had conceived an
idea, which they wished passed into law : ?That
authors or their assignees had a perpetual exclusive
right to their works; and if these could not be
known, the right was in the person who first published
the book, whatever manner of way they
became possessed of it.?
The first step was taken in 1748-twenty-three
years after Ramsay started his library-when an
action appeared before the Court of Session against
certain booksellers in Edinburgh and Glasgow,
which was decreed against the plaintiffs.* Ten
Falconer?s ?Decisions,? voL i
