230 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
the Council-room of the Hospital; so that here was the fashionable lounge of the dilettanti
of the seventeenth century, and the resort of rank and beauty, careful to preserve unbroken
the links of the old line of family portraiture ; though a modern fine lady would be seized
with a nervous fit at the very prospect of descending the slippery abyss.
Following our course eastward we arrive at Roxburgh Close, which is believed to
derive its name from having been the residence of the Earls of Roxburgh. It has, however,
suffered a very different fate from the adjoining close. Few of its ancient features have
escaped alteration, and only one doorway remains-now built up-f the mansion reputed
to have been that in which the ancestors of the noble earls lived in state, We have
engraved a fac-simile of the quaint and pious legend that adorns the old lintel. If this
account be true (for which, however, there is only the authority of tradition), the date
carries us back to the year
1586, in which their ancestor,
Sir Walter Ker, of Cessford,
died, one of the leaders in the
affray already alluded to, in
,which Sir Walter Scott of
Buccleugh was slain on the
High Street of Edinburgh.
Warriston’s Close is another of the ancient alleys of the Old Town which still remains
nearly in its pristine state,’ exhibiting the substantial relics of former grandeur, like the
faded gentility of a reduced dowager. Handsome and lofty polished ashlar fronts
are decorated with richly moulded and sculptured doorways, surmounted by architraves
adorned with inscriptions and armorial bearings, still ornamental, though broken and
defaced. Timber projections of an early date jut out here and there, and give variety to
the irregular architecture, while far up, and almost beyond the point of sight that the
straitened thoroughfare admits of, dormer windows of an ornate character rise into the roof,
and the gables are finished with crow-steps, and, in one case at least, with armorial bearings.
. . . . QUE * ERIT ILLE * MIHI - SEMPER DEUS 1583
The front of this building, facing the High Street, is of polished ashlar work, surmounted
with handsome though dilapidated dormer windows, and is further adorned with a curious
monogram ; but like most other similar ingenious devices, it is undecipherable without
the key. We have failed to trace the builders or occupants at this early period; but
the third floor of the old land was occupied in the following century by James Murray,
.
Over the first doorway on the west side is the inscription and date :
of his finest works were possessed by the late Andrew Bell, engraver, the originator of the Encyclopaedia Britannicg
who married his granddaughter. Pinkerton remarks of him :-“ For some years after the Revolution he WBB the only
painter in Scotland, and had a very great run of business. This brought him into a hasty and incorrect manner.”
This is very observable in the portrait of Heriot, copied in 1698, from the original by Paul Vansomer,-now lost. The
head is well painted, but the drapery and background are 80 slovenly and harshly executed, that they appear more like
the work of an inexperienced pupil. Scougal died at Prestonpana about the year 1730, aged 85, having witneased a
series of aa remarkable political changes as ever occurred during a single lifetime. He is named George in the
Weekly MaguzinC (vol. xv. p. 66) and elsewhere, but this appears to be an error, aa several of his descendants were
named after him, John.
Since the First Edition of these “Memorials ” appeared, Warriston’s and other closes in this part of the city have
been w much altered as now to present little of their characteristics &4 memorials of the past.
