THE LA WNMARKET. 171
The son and namesake of the first William Little was Provost of Edinburgh in 1591,
and helped to complete the work which his generous relatives had so well begun. On the
election of a librarian, in the year 1647, we find the Magistrates showing a grateful sense
of their obligations to these noble benefactors of the town, by appointing a descendant of
theirs to the office. ‘4 Many favoured Mr Thomas Speir, son of an honest family, laureat
at the Lambas preceeding, especially in regard of his grandfather, William Little, Provost,
a most especial friend to the Colledge, and his great grand-uncle, Mr Clement Little,
commissary of Edinburgh, who gave the first being to the library.”’
The house, although occupied towards the close of last century as the Sheriff-clerk’s
chambers, remained an entailed property in the possession of Clement Little’s descendants,
until its demolition, and the principal carved stones are now preeerved in the garden at
Inch House. According to the traditions of last century, as Creech informs us in his ‘‘ Fugitive Pieces,’’ this interesting old mansion formed the residence of Cromwell during
part of the time he resided in Edinburgh,’ possibly while engaged in the siege of the
Castle. This close, which bears, in the earliest titles of property within it, the name of its
old residenter, Clement Little, appears in Edgar’s map of 1742, as Lord Cullen’n Close, so
that here also resided that eminent lawyer and judge, Sir Francis Grant of Cullen, who, in
1689, almost singly swayed the whole Scottish nation, when vacillating between the feudal
vassallage due to the old line of kings, and their sense of violated rights by its latest
representative; and to whose influence was mainly owing the happy consistency of the
Scottish Parliament in their declaration that King James had, by his own act, forfeited
his throne, and left it vacant. He was raised to the bench in 1709, yet, though thus acute
on other people’s matters, Lord Cullen was so utterly regardless about his own, that his
more shrewd and calculating spouse was accustomed to have all questions relating to his
own property represented to him in the form of a case; ” and having obtained his
opinion as a lawyer, she took the advice for her direction, without troubling him with
further information as to whom it concerned. His friend, Wodrow, has recorded in his
history the closing scene of his life,-a scene which we may associate with the ancient
alley that bore his name :-{‘ Brother,” said he to one who informed him of his mortal
illness, “you have brought me the best news ever I heard I ” And the historian adds, in
figurative depiction,
The transition is great from this single-minded and upright judge to the next
occupant who gave his name to the close, which it still retains, that of William, or, as he
was more generally called, Deacon Brodie. This notorious character, who was executed
at the Old Tolbooth on the 1st of October 1788, resided in the same elegant mansion
as had previously been the abode of such very different persons,-a suitable enough
dwelling for one who stood high in repute as a wealthy and substantial citizen, until the
daring robbery of the Excise Office in Chessel’s Court, Canongate, brought to light a longcontinued
system of housebreaking, scarcely ever surpassed in reckless audacity.’
The principal apartment in the house was lofty and elegant in its proportions. A
large arched window gave light to it from the west, and a painting on the panelling,
That day when he died was without a cloud I ”
l Craufurd‘s Hiat., p. 159.
a For a particular account of this worthy, see Kay’~P ortraits, vol. i. p. 256,
’ Edinburgh Fugitive Piecen, p. 64.
