L UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 209
so thick that they only got out a small cabinet with great difEculty. But albeit, his
papers were lying on the floor, or hung about the walls of his closet in pocks, yet they
durst not stay to gather them up, or take them, though they were desired to do it, so
that that cabinet, and Alexander Christie, his servant’s lettron, which stood near the
door of his lodging, with some few other things, was all that was got saved, and the rest,
even to his Lordship’s wearing cloths, were burnt.” A very lively and graphic account
of this conflagration or “ epitome of dissolution,” as it is there styled, is furnished
in a letter written at the time of its occurrence by the celebrated Duncan Forbes of
Culloden, to his brother Colonel Forbes, wherein Lord Crossrig fi@res in a special
manner. It is dated “ Edinburgh, 6th February 1700,” and thus describes the event :- ‘‘ Upon Saturday’s night, by ten a clock, a fyre burst out in Mr John Buchan’s closet
window, towards the Meal1 Mercate. It continued whill eleven a clock of the day, with
the greatest frayor and vehemency that ever I saw fyre do, notwithstanding that I saw
mer are burnt, by the easiest computation, betwixt 3 and 400 familys ;
all the pryde of Eden’ is sunk ; from the Cowgate to the High Street all is burnt, and
hardly one stone left upon another. The Commissioner, President of the Padt, Rest of
the Session, the Bank, most of the Lords, Lawyers, and Clerks, were all burnt, and
many good and great familys. It is said just now, by S’ John Cochran, and Jordanhill,
that ther is more rent burnt in this fyre than the whole city of Glasgow will amount
to. The Parliament House very hardly escapt ; all Registers confounded; Clerks
Chambers, and processes, in such a confusion, that the Lords and Officers of State are
just now mett at Rosse’s Taverne, in order to adjourneing of the Sessione by reason of
the dissorder. Few people axe lost, if any att a11 ; but ther was neither heart nor hand
left amongst them for saveing from the fyre, nor a drop of water in the cisternes ; twenty
thousand hands flitting ther trash they know not wher, and hardly twenty at work.
These babells, of ten and fourteen story high, are down to the ground, and ther fall’s
very terrible. Many rueful spectacles, such as Corserig naked, with a child under his
oxter, happing for his lyEe ; the Fish Mercate, and all from the Cow Gate to Pett Street’s
Close, burnt; The Exchange, waults, and coal cellars under the Parliament Close, are
still burneing.” ’
Among other renters of the numerous lodgings into which the lofty old lands were
divided, the Faculty of Advocates are named as occupying one in (( the Exchange Stairs ”
for their library, at the yearly rent of two hundred and forty pounds Scots. Within this
the nucleus of the valuable library now possessed by them had been formed, on the
scheme suggested by its founder, Sir George Mackenzie, “ that noble wit 6f Scotland,”
as Dryden terms him, whose name, while it wins the respect o‘f the learned, is still
coupled among the Scottish peasantry with that of “ the bluidy Clavers’,” and mentioned
only with execrations, for the share he took, as Lord Advocate, in the persecution of the
Covenanters, during the reign of Charles IL Under his direction and influence the fines
, London burne.
Act. Parl. vol. x. p. 284. ’ Culloden Papers, p. 27. In a pasquinade in Wodrow’s Collectionq purporting fa be “A Letter from the
, Ghost of Sir WiUiam Anstruther of that ilk, once senatour of the Colledge of Justice,’’ to his former colleagues,
and dated, ‘‘ EZysian Pielda, 27 January 1711,” the Lord Crossrig and E. Lauderdale are the only Lords of Seasion he
meets with “in the agreeable aboads,” a compliment to the former somewhat marred by the known character of his
aasociata.
2 D
210 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
of recusant members were set apart for the formation of a library, and a few years afterwards
their collection was greatly auapented by a gift of rare and costly books from
William, first Duke of Queensberry.
The Great Fire which we have described scattered and nearly destroyed the accumulation
of twenty years, and had it not been for the strenuous exertions of the keeper, Mr
John Stevenson, advocate, not one of the books would have been saved. The result,
however, was the removal of the library to safer and more permanent quarters below the
Parliament House, where it has ever since continued, though with extensive additions,
corresponding both in dimensions and style to its increasing importance. These lower
. apartments, dark and gloomy as they now look, when contrasted with the magnificent
libraries that have been erected above, are associated with names of no mean note in
. Scottish literature. There Thomas Ruddiman and David Hume successively presided in
the office of keeper, which post was also filled by Dr Irvine, the biographer of Buchanan,
and author of the “ Lives of Scottish Poets ; ” and within the same hall Dr Johnson was
received by some of the most eminent men of the last century, during his visit to Edin-
The creditors, who were baulked of their expected returns in the very midst of their
exertions, appear, from the documents already referred to, to have proceeded immediately
after the fire to dispose of the sites. In the accounts consequent on these latter transactions,
new characters appear, and among the rest Robert Mylne, the royal Master Mason,
who is due, “ for the area of the houses in the Parliament Closs,” a sum thus imposingly
.rendered in Scots money, %00,600, 00s. Od. No time appears to have been lost in rebuilding
the houses unexpectedly demolished. The Royal Exchange, which bore its name
cut in bold relief over the doorway, had on it the date 1700, and the adjacent buildings
towered again to an altitude of twelve stories towards the south, maintaining their preeminence
as the loftiest lands in Edinburgh. On the east side an open piazza, decorated
with pilasters and a Doric entablature, formed a covered walk for pedestriana, and the
whole produced a stately and imposing effect. The aristocratic denizens of the former
buildings returned again to the accommodation provided for them in the Parliament
Close, and with them, too, came the renters of ZaigA stories and garrets, to complete
the motley population of the Zands, as they were then subdivided in the Old Town
of Edinburgh. An amusing illustration of this is furnished in the trial, to which we
have already frequently referred, of William Maclauchlane, for his share in the Porteous
mob. He was footman to the Countess of Wemyss, who resided in a fashionable
flat in the .Parliament Close, and on the forenoon of the eventful 7th of September
1736, he was despatched on an errand to Craigiehall, from whence he did not return
till the evening. The libel of his Majesty’s Advocate sets forth, that having delivered
his message, “ the pannel went from my Lady Wemyss’ house to John Lamb’s alehouse
in the Bame stair,” from whence he issued shortly after in a jovial state, attracting everybody’s
notice by his showy livery during the stirring scenes of that busy night, in which
he mingled, perfectly oblivious of all that was being enacted around him, and running a
very narrow risk of being made the scapegoat of the imbecile magistracy, who only wanted
a decent pretext for sacrificing a score of blackguards to the manes of Porteous, and the
wrath of Queen Caroline.
’ burgh in 1773.
