THE LA WNALARKET. 161
note in their day, the moat eminent of whom was the celebrated lawyer, Sir John Lauder,
better known by his judicial title of Lord Fountainhall. This interesting locality is
thus described by the latest biographer of David Hume :-“ Entering one of the doors
opposite the main entrance, the stranger ia sometimes led by a friend, wishing to afford
him an agreeable surprise, down flight after flight of the steps of a stone staircase, and
when he imagines he is descending so far into the bowels of the earth, he emerges on
the edge of a cheerful, crowded thoroughfare, connecting together the Old and New Town ;
the latter of which lies spread before him,-a contrast to the gloom from which he
has emerged. When he looks up to the building containing the upright street through
which he has descended, he sees that vast pile of tall houses standing at t,he head of the
Mound, which creates astonishment in every visitor of Edinburgh. This vast fabric is
built on the declivity of a hill, and thus one entering on the level of the Lawnmarket,
is at the height of several stories from the ground on the side next the New Town. I
have ascertained,” he adds, “ that by ascending the western of the two stairs facing the
entry of James’s Court, to the height of three stories, we arrive at the door of David
Hume’s house, which, of the two doors on that landing-place, is the one towards the left.”
During Hume’s absence in France, this dwelling was occupied by Dr Blair, and on his
leaving it finally for the house he had built for himself in St Andrew Square, at the corner
of St David Street, James Boswell became its tenant. Thither, in August 1773, he
conducted Dr Johnson, from the White Horse Inn, Boyd‘s Close, Canongate, then one of
the chief inns in Edinburgh, where he had found him in a violent passion at the waiter,
for having sweetened his lemonade without the ceremony of a pair of sugar-tongs. The
doctor, in his indignation, threw the lemonade out of the window, and seemed inclined to
send the waiter after it.2
We have often conversed with a gentleman whose mother had been present at a teaparty
in Jamea’s Court, on the occasion of the doctor’s arrival in town, and the impression
produced on her by the society of the illustrious lexicographer was summed up in the very
laconic sentence in which Mrs Boswell had then expressed her opinion of him, that he
was “ a great brute ! ” Margaret, Duchess of Douglas, was one of the party, ‘‘ with all
her diamonds,”-a lady somewhat noted among those of her own rank for her illiteracy,
-but the doctor reserved his attentions during the whole evening almost exclusively for
the Duchess.’ The character thus assigned to him is fully borne out in the lively letters
of Captain Topham, who visited Edinburgh in the following year. He describes the reception
of the doctor, by all classes, as having been of the most flattering kind, and he adds, ‘‘ From all I have been able to learn, he repaid all their attention to him with ill-breeding ;
Burton’s Life of Hume,. vol. ii. p. 136. The western portion of this vast fabric w ad~e stroyed by fire in 1858. On
ita site haa been erected, in the old Scottish style, an equally lofty structure for the Savings Bank and Free Church
offices. ’ Boswell’a Johnson, by Croker, vol. ii. p. 259.
The opinion of Lord Auchmleck about “the Auld Dominie is well known, and the doctor‘s hostess, Xra Boawell,
though assiduous in her attentions to her guest, seems to have coincided in opinion with the wit, who, on hearing him
styled by eome of his admirers a constellation of learning, said, ‘‘ Then he must be the h a Mujor.” Boswell tell4
with his usual naivet4, that his wife exclaimed to him on one occasion, with natural asperity,--“I have seen manya bear
led by a man, but I never before saw a man led by a bear ! ”-Boswell’s Johnson, note, Nov. 27, 1773.
‘‘ An old lady,” BB Dr Johnson describes her, “who tak broaa Scotch with a paralytic voice, and in scarce understood
by her own countrgmen.”-Boswell’s Johnson, by Croker, vol. i p. 209.
X
