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.
