THE HIGH STREET. 243
bouring buildings with a majestic and imposing effect, of which the north front of James’a
Court-the only private building that resembles it-conveys only a very partial idea.
Within the Fishmarket Close was the mansion of George Heriot, the royal goldsmith of
James VI. ; where more recently resided the elder Lord President Dundas, father of
Lord Melville, a thorough &on wivant of the old claret-drinking school of lawyers.’ There
also, for successive generations, dwelt another dignitary of the College of Justice, the
grim executioner of the law’s last sentence-happily a less indispensable legal functionary
than in former days. The last occupant of the hangman’s house annually drew “ the
dempster’s fee” at the Royal Bank, and eked out his slender professional income by
cobbling such shoes as his least superstitious neighbours cared to trust in his hands,
doubtless, with many a sorrowful reflection on the wisdom of our forefathers, and ‘‘ the
good old times ” that are gone The house has been recently rebuilt, but, as might
be expected, it is still haunted by numerous restless ghosts, and will run considerable
risk of remaining tenantless should its official occupant, in these hard times, find his
occupation gone.4
Borthwick’s Close, which stands to the east, is expressly mentioned in Nisbet’s
Heraldry as having belonged to the Lords Borthwick, and in the boundaries of a house
in the adjoining close, the property about the middle of the east side is described as the
Lord Napier’s ; but the whole alley is now entirely modernised, and destitute of attractions
either for the artist or antiquary. On the ground, however, that intervenes between this
and the Assembly Close, one of the new Heriot schools has been built, and occupies a site
of peculiar interest. There stood, until its demolition by the Great Fire of 1824, the old
Assembly Rooms of Edinburgh, whither the directors of fashion removed their ‘‘ General
Assembly,” about the year 1720,” from the scene of its earlier revels in the West Bow.
There it was that Goldsmith witnessed for the first time the formalities of an old Scottish
ball, during his residence in Edinburgh in 17’53. The light-hearted young Irishman has
left an amusing account of the astonishment with which, ‘‘ on entering the dancing-hall,
he sees one end of the room taken up with the ladies, who sit dismally in a group by themselves
; on the other end stand their pensive partners that are to be, but no more intercourse
between the sexes than between two countries at war. The ladies, indeed, may
ogle, and the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid upon any closer commerce I ” Only
three years after the scene witnessed by the poet, these grave and decorous revels were
removed to more commodious rooms in Bell’s Wynd, where they continued to be held till
the erection of the new hall in George Street. Much older associations, however, pertain
to this interesting locality, for, on the site occupied by the d d Assembly Rooms, there
formerly stood the town mansion of Lord Durie, President of the Court of Session in 1642,
and the hero of the merry ballad of “ Christie’s Will.” The Earl of Traquair, it appears,
had a lawsuit pending in the Court of Session, to which the President’s opposition was
1 Dr Steven’s Memoirs of Gorge Heriot, p. 6. ’ T& ‘‘ Convivial habits of the Scottish Bar.”-Note to “Guy Mannering.? ’ Pidc Chambers’s Traditions, vol. ii. p, 184, for aome curioua notices of the Edinburgh hangmen. ’ The office of this functionary ia now abolished, and the house ia occupied by privata families,
5 Nbbet’s Heraldry, vol. ii Appendix, p. 106.
a In a mine dated 1723, it is atyled-“That big hall, or great room, now known by the name of the h m b l y
House, being part of that new great atone tenemeut of land lately built,” &c.--BurgA Chu&r h.
