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
ALLAN RAMSAY?S SHOP. ?5 5 The Luckenbcoths.]
years after, a second plan was concerted in England,
by a cozenage trial, which might be adduced as a
precedent. The court thought proper to take the
opinion of the twelve judges in England, who
permitted the matter to drop without giving any j
but a third attempt was made to restrain a certain
Scdtsman from trading as a bookseller ih London,
For twelve years this man was harassed by successive
injunctions in Chancery, for printing books
which were not protected by the 8th of Queen
Anne, cap. 19, and the Court of Queen?s Bench
decided against the Scotsman (Miller v. Taylor),
and then the London trade applied once more to the
Court of Session to have it made law in Scotland.
This prosecution was brought by Hinton, a bookseller,
against the well-known Alexander Donaldson,
then in London, to restrain him from publishing
?Stackhouse?s History of the Bible.? He was subjected
to great annoyance, yet he supported himself
against nearly the entire trade in London, and
obtained a decree which was of the greatest importance
to the booksellers in Scotland.
Ramsay?s shop became the rendezvous of. all
the wits of the day. Gay, the poet, who was quite
installed in the household of the Duchess of
Queensberry-the witty daughter of the Earl of
Clarendon and Rochester-accompanied his fair
patroness to Edinburgh,. and resided for some time
in Queensberry House in the Canongate. He was
a frequent lounger at the shop of Ramsay, and is
said to have derived great amusement from the
anecdotes the latter gave of the leading citizens,
as they assembled at the cross, where from his
windows they could be seen daily with powdered
wigs, ruffles, and rapiers. The late William Tytler,
of Woodhouselee, who had frequently seen Gay
there, described him as ? a pleasant little man in
a tye-wig ;? and, according to the Scofs? Magazine
for 1802, he recollected overhearing him request
Ramsay to explain many Scottish words and
national customs, that he might relate them to
Pope, who was already a great admirer of ? The
Gentle Shepherd.?
How picturesque is the grouping in the following
paragraph, by one who has passed away, of
the crowd then visible from the shop of Allan
Ramsay ;-? Gentlemen and ladies paraded along
in the stately attire of the period; tradesmen
chatted in groups, often bareheaded, at their shop
doors ; caddies whisked about bearing messages or
attending to the affairs of strangers ; children filled
the kennel with their noisy sports. Add to this
the corduroyed men from Gilmerton bawling coals
or yellow sand, and spending as much breath in a
minute as would have served poor asthmatic Hugo
Arnot for a month ; fishwomen crying their caller
haddies from Newhaven ; whimsicals and idiots,
each with his or her crowd of tormentors ; sootymen
with their bags ; Town Guardsmen with their
antique Lochaber axes ; barbers with their hairdressing
materials, and so forth.? Added to these
might be the blue-bonneted shepherd in his grey
plaid; the wandering piper; the kilted drover,
armed to the teeth, as was then the fashion ; and
the passing sedan, with liveried bearers.
Johnson, in his ? Lives,? makes no reference to
the Scottish visit of Gay, who died in 1732, but
merely says that for his monetary hardships he received
a recompense ? in the affectionate attention
of the Duke and Duchess of Queensbeny, into
whose house he was taken, and with whom he
passed the remaining part of his life.?
Ramsay gave up his shop and library in 1752,
transferring them to his successor, who opened an
establishment below with an entrance direct from
the street. This was Mr. James MacEwan, from
whom the business passed into the hands of Mr.
Alexander Kincaid, an eminent publisher in his.
time, who took a great lead in civic affairs, and
died in office as Lord Provost of Edinburgh on
the zIst of January, 1777. Escorted by the
trained bands, and every community in the city,
and preceded by ? the City Guard in funeral order,
the officers? scarfs covered with crape, the drums
with black cloth, beating a dead march,? his
funeral, as it issued into the High Street, was one
of the finest pageants witnessed in Edinburgh
since the Union. During his time the old bookseller?s
shop acquired an additional interest from
being the daily lounge of Smollett, who was residing
with his sister in the Canongate in 1776. Thus it
is that he tells us, in ? Humphry Clinker,? that
the people of business in Edinburgh, and
even the genteel company, may be seen standing
in crowds every day, from one to two in the afternoon,
in the open street, at a place where formerly
stood a market cross, a curious piece of Gothic
architecture, still to be seen in Lord Somerville?s
garden in this neighbourhood.?
The attractions of the old shop increased when
it passed with the business into the hands of the
celebrated William Creech, son of the minister of
Newbattle. Educated at the grammar school of
Dalkeith and the University of Edinburgh, he had
many mental endowments, an inexhaustible fund
of amusing anecdote, and great conversational
powers, which through life caused him to be
courted by the most eminent men of the time;
and his smiling face, his well-powdered head, accurate
black suit, with satin breeches, were long
