kiv PREFA CE.
some of those curious associations with which the picturesque haunts of Old Edinburgh
abound. My own researches have satisfied me that the clues to many such still lie
buried among the dusty parchments of old charter chests; but their recovery must,
after all, depend as much on a lucky chance 18 on any very diligent inquiry. It has
often.chanced that, after wading through whole bundles of such dull MSS.-those of
the sixteentli century frequently measuring singly several yards in length-in vain
search for a fact, or date, or other corroborative evidence, I have stumbled on it quite
unexpectedly while engaged in an altogether different inquiry. Should, however, the
archsological spirit which is exercising so strong an influence in France, Germany,
and England, as well as in other pmts of Europe, revive in Scotland also, where
so large a field for its enlightened operations remains nearly unoccupied, much
that is valuable may yet be secured which is now overlooked or thrown aside a8
useless.
Antiquarian research has been brought into discredit, far less by the unimaginative
spirit of the age than by the indiscriminating pursuits of its own cultivators, whose sole
object has too frequently been to amass ( ( a fouth 0' auld nick-nackets." Viewed,
however, in its just light, as the handmaid of history, and the synthetic, more
frequently than the analytic, investigator of the remains of earlier ages, it becomes B
science, bearing the same relation to the labours of the historian, as chemistry or
mineralogy do to the investigations of the geologist and the spe~ulations of the
cosmogonist. In this spirit, and not for the mere gratification of an aimless curiosity,
I have attempted, however ineffectually, to embody these MEMORIALOSF EDINBURGIHN
THE OLDEN TIME. D. W.
EDINBURGCHhh,r istnzas 1847.
NOTE .BY THE PUBLISHER.
This edition of the MWORIALSO F EDINBURGiHs an exact reprint of the original work, with the
exception thak, where buildings have been removed, or other alterations made, the fact is stated
either in a foot-note or otherwise.
MEMORIALS O F EDINBURGH. -
PART I.
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS.
TO THE FRONTISPIECE OF ABAKUK mssm's BOOKE OF THE OLD YOXUYENTY OF SCOTLAXU.
'Twixt Was, and Ia, how varioua are the Ods !
What one man doth, another doth vndoe :
One conaecrates Religious Workes to Gods,
Another leoues sad Wrackes and Huines now.
Thy Bqoke doth shew that such and such thinga were,
But, would to God that it could say, They are.
When I pererre the South, North, East, and Weat,
And mark, alace, each Monument amia ;
Then I conferre Tyrnes present with the past :
I reade what was, but cannot Bee what is : '
I prayse thy Booke with wonder, but am sorie,
To reade olde Ruines in a recent stork.
Poetical Recreatk~ncsof Mr Akxandet Cmig,
of Rase-Craig. Scoto Brdan. 1623.
