KING’S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. I45
1680. It contains some interesting local allusions, and among others, the following, to
the mansion of his noble relatives, which would appear at that time to have been at
Leith :-
Kind widow Caddel sent for me
But oh, alas 1 that might not be,
To dine, aa she did oft, forsooth ;
Her h.o. use was ov’r near the Tolbooth. I slipt my page, and stour‘d to Leith,
To try my credit at the wine,
But foul a dribble fyl’d my teeth,
He catch’d me at the Coffee-sign.
I staw down through the Nether-Wynd,
My Lady Semple’s house was near ;
To enter there was my design,
Where Poverty durst ne’er appear.
I din‘d there, but I baid not lang,
My Lady fain would shelter me ;
But oh, alas I I needs must gang,
And leave that comely company.
Her lad convoy’d me with her key,
Out through the garden to the fiela,
But I the Links could graithly see,
My Governour was at my heels.1
There is a tradition in the family, that
Lady Sempill having been a Catholic, the
mansion was at that period a favourite place
of resort for the Romish priests then visiting
Scotland in disguise, and that there existed
a concealed passage,-apparently alluded to
in the poem,-by which they could escape on
any sudden surprise. One other incident in
connection with the Scottish muse deserves
notice here :-Dr Austin, the author of the celebrated song, “ For lack of gold she has left
me,” having (( given his woes an airing in song,” on his desertion by an inconstant beauty,
for the Duke of Athol, married the Honourable Anne Sempill in 1754, by whom he
had a numerous family. His house is still standing in the north-west corner of Brown
Bquare.
To the east of Sempill’s Close, there stood till recently an ancient and curious land,
possessing all the characteristics of those already alluded to as the earliest houses remaining
in Edinburgh. It consisted only of two stories, and its internal arrangements were of
the simplest description. The entire main floor appeared to have formed originally a
*
Wataon’a Collectiou of Scots Poema, part i. p. 14, The full title of the Poem previously alluded to is, “A Picktooth
for the Pope ; or, The Pack-man’s Paternoster, set downe in s Dialogue betwixt s Pack-man and P Priest” The
work ia now very scarce. A polemical work by the same author, entitled ” Sucrilege sacredly handled,” London, 1619,
contains in the preface the following quaint allusion to his name-“ A sacred and high aubject tpmeth to require a
sacred pen-man too : True. And though I be not of the tribe of Levi, yet I. hope of the tents of &‘em, how Sineplc
aoever.”
VIGNETTE-Lord Sempill’s House, Sempill’s Close, Castle Hill.
T .
