I 66 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
the plough, to his friend Richmond, a writer’s apprentice, and accepted the offer of a share
of his room and bed, in the house of Mrs Carfrae, Baxter’s Close, Lawnmarket.’
In the first stair to the left, on entering the close, and on the first floor of the house,
is the poet’s lodging. The tradition of his residence there has passed through very few
hands ; the predecessor of the present tenant (a respectable widow, who has occupied the
house for many years) learned it from Mrs Carfrae, and the poet’# room is pointed out,
with its window looking into Lady Stair’s Close. The land is an ancient and very
substantial building, with large and neatly moulded windows, retaining the marks of
having been finished with stone mullions; in one tier in particular the windows are
placed one above another, only separated at each story by a narrow lintel, so as to
present the singular appearance of one long and narrow window from top to bottom
of the lofty land. From this ancient dwelling, Burns issued to dine or sup with the
magnates of the land, and, “when the company arose in the gilded and illuminated
rooms, some of the fair guests-perhaps
Her Grace,
Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies,
And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass,
took the hesitating arm of the bard, went smiling to her coach, waved a graceful
good-night with her jewelled hand, and, departing to her mansion, left him in the middle
of the street, to grope his way through the dingy alleys .of the gude town,’ to his obscure
lodging, with his share of a deal table, a sanded floor, and a chaff bed, at eighteenpence
a week.” a The poet’s lodging, however, is no such dingy apartment as this description
implies ; it is a large and well-proportioned room, neatly panelled with wood, according
to a fashion by no means very antiquated then ; and if he was as well boarded as lodged,
the hardy ploughman would find. hia independence exposed to no insurmountable temptation,
for all the grandeur of the old Scottish Duchesses, most of whose carriages were
only sedan chairs, unless when they preferred the more economical conveyance of a gude
pair of pattens I ”
Over the doorway of the old house immediately opposite to that of Burns’, in
Baxter’s Close, there is a curious and evidently a very ancient lintel,-a relic of some
more stately mansion of the olden time, It bears a shield, now much defaced, surmounted
by a crown, and above this a cross, with the figure of a man leaning over it, wearing a
mitre. The initials, A. S. and E. I., are placed on either side; and above the whole, in
antique Gothic letters, is the inscription, BLISSIT BE * THE * LORD IN -
HIS * GIFTIS FOR * NOV AND EVIR. We are inclined, from the appearance
of this stone, to assign to it an earlier date than that of any other inscription in
Edinburgh. The house into which it is built is evidently a much later erection, and
no clue is furnished from its titles as to any previous building having occupied the site.
It passed by inheritance, in the year 1746, into the possession of Martha White, only
child of a wealthy burgess, whose gold won for her, some years later, the honours of
Countess of Elgin and Kincardine, Governess to her Royal Highness Princess
Charlotte of Wales, and the parentage of sundry honourable Lady Marthas, Lord
Thomases, and the like.
Allan Cunningham’s Burns, vol. i. p. 115. Ibid, vol. i p. 131.
THE LA WNMARKET. 167
. An ancient land in Johnston’s Close, on the south side of the Lawnmarket, immediately
behind the West Bow, exhibits an unusually picturesque character in its gloomy
interior, abounding with plain arched recesses and corbelled projections, scattered throughout
in the most irregular and lawless fashion, and with narrow windows thrust into the
oddest corners, or up even above the very cornice of the ceiling, in order to catch every
wandering ray of borrowed light, amid the jostling of its pent-up neighbourhood. A view
of the largest apartment is given in the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley Novels, under
the name of ‘‘ Hall of the Knights of St John, St John’s Close, Canongate.” We have
failed in every attempt to obtain any clue to the early history of the building, which
tradition has associated with this ancient order of soldier-priests.
In the first and smaller court of Riddle’s Close, immediately to the east of this, there
is a lofty land with a projecting turret stair, bearing the date 1726, although a portion
of the building to the south belongs to a much earlier period. This lofty tenement
derives an interest from the fact of its having been the first residence of David Hume, as
an independent householder in Edinburgh,-adding another link to the associations with
which the Lawnmarket abounds in connection with the great philosopher. He removed
thither from Ninewells in 1751, from whence he writes, shortly after, to Adam Smith,
‘‘ Direct to me in Riddal’s Land, Lawnmarket.” He thus facetiously describes to the great
political economist, his own first attempts at domestic economy +‘ I have now at lastbeing
turned of- forty, to my own honour, to that of learning, and to that of the present age,
-arrived at the dignity of being a householder. About seven months ago I got a house
of my own, and completed a regular family, consisting of a head-viz., myself, and two
iuferior members-” maid and a cat. BIy sister has since joined me, and keeps me company.
With frugality, I can reach, I find, cleanliness, warmth, light, plenty, and contentment.
What would you have more ? Independence ? I have it in a supreme degree.
Honour? That is not altogether wanting. Grace? That will come in time. A wife?
That is none of the indispensable requisites of life. Books ? That is one of them, and I
have more thau I can use,” &c.’ The titles of this property include “ an express servitude
upon the tenement of land called Major Weir’s Land, sometime belonging to James
Riddle of Caister, in the county of Norfolk, in England ; that the same shall not be built
higher than it is at present, lest it may anywise hurt or prejudice the said subject.”
From a comparison of dates, no doubt can exist that Hume commenced his History of
England in Riddle’s Land, though the bulk of it was written after his removal to Jack’s
Land, Canongate.
An interesting mansion, of a much earlier date, but of equally lofty character, occupies
the opposite side of this narrow court. Entering the doorway under a corbelled angle,
whGh adapts the projecting staircase to its narrow site, the visitor ascends a substantial
stone stair to a broad landing on the second floor, Here the stair seems to terminate,
but, on proceeding along the dark passage a little way, he will be surprised to stumble
on another equally substantial, though somewhat narrower, rather puzzling him to conjecture
by what species of substructure it reaches a foundation on terra-firm& Without
ascending this second stair, however, he will reach a large apartment, now occupied as
a bookbinder’s workshop, although retaining the proscenium and other requisites for
Burton’a Life of Hume, vol. i. p. 377.
