THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BO W. 251
so near their ancient burgh. The port was accordingly shut up, and the sluices of the
North Loch closed, so as to flood a small mound that had afforded a footpath to the
port for the freetraders of this obnoxious village. The battle was stoutly maintained for
a time, but the magistrates finding the law somewhat rigid in its investigation of their
right over the city ports, and the election most probably being satisfactorily settled meanwhile,
they opened the port of their own accord, and allowed the sluices of the North
Loch again to run.
twenb years, a very handsome and substantial old stone land, with large and neatly moulded
windows, and abounding with curious irregular projections, adapting it to its straitened
site. Over the main entrance was a finely carved lintel, having the Williamson arms
boldly cut in high relief, with the initials I - W - accompanied by a singular device of the
moss of passion springing from the centre of a saltier, and the inscription and date in
large Roman letters, FEIR - GOD * IN * LUIF * 1595.
The ancient timber-fronted land which faces the street at the head of this close is
one possessing peculiar claims to our interest, as the
scene of Allan Ramsay’s earlier labours, where, “ at
the sign of the Mercury, opposite to Niddry’s Wynd,”
he prosecuted his latter business as author, editor,
and bookseller. From thence issued his poems
printed in single sheets, or half sheets, as they were
written, in which Fhape they ‘are reported to have
found a ready sale; the citizens being in the habit
of sending their children with a penny for ‘‘ Allan
Ramsay’s last piece.”’ Encouraged by the favourable
reception of his poetic labours, he at length
published proposals for a re-issue of his works in a
collected form, and, accordingly, in 1721, they
appeared .in one handsome quarto volume, with a
portrait of the author from the pencil of his friend
Smibert. Ramsay continued to carry on business
at the sign of the Mercury till the year 1725, so
that nearly all his original publications issued from
this ancient fabric. In that year he removed to the famous land in the Luckenbooths,
which has been already minutely described. The accompanying vignette represents
the former building as it existed previous to 1845, when a portion of the timber front
was removed, and the picturesque character of the old land somewhat marred by modern
alterations.
Immediately to the east of Ramsay’s old shop, a plain and narrow pend gives access
to Carrubber’s Close, the retreat of the faithful remnant of the Jacobites of 1688. Here,
about half way down the close, on the east side, St Paul’s Chapel still stands, a plain and
unpretending edifice, erected immediately after the Revolution. Thither the persecuted
In Kinloch’s Close, immediately adjoining this wpd, there stood, till within the last-
-
l Scottish Biographical Dictionary, Aficle Ramsay.
VIGNETT6Ah.U Ramaay’s shop, opposite Niddry’s Wynd.
252 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Bishop and his stanch non-jurant followers repaired on the downfall of the national
establishment of Episcopacy, and there they continued to worship within its narrow
bounds amid frequent interruptions, particularly after the rising of 1745, resolutely
persisting for nearly a century in excluding the name of the ‘( Eanoverian usurpers ”
from their devotions. The chapel is fitill occupied by a congregation of Scottish Episcopalians,
but the homely worshippers of modern times form a striking contrast to the
stately squires and dames who once were wont to frequent the unpretending fane that
sufficed to accommodate the whole disestablished Episcopacy of the capital.
Immediately below the chapel, a huge escalop shell, expanding over the porch of the
main entrance to an old tenement, marks the clam-shell land. Here was the house of
Ainslie’s master, during Burns’s visit to Edinburgh, at whose table the poet was a
frequent guest, while on another floor of the same land, the elder Sir William Forbes of
Pitsligo, another of the poet’s early friends, resided, until his removal to one of the first
erections in the New Town. The whoIe locality, indeed, is in some degree associated
with the poet’s friends and favourite haunts in the capita1 ; for on the second floor of the
ancient stone land which faces the High Street, at the head of the close, was the abode
of Captain Mathew Henderson, &‘a gentleman who held the patent for his honours .
immediately from Almighty God,” on whom the poet wrote the exquisite elegy preserved
among his works, to the very characteristic motto from Hamlet, “ Should the poor be
flattered ? ”
This old close was the scene of the only unsuccessful speculation of another poet,
whose prudent self-control enabled him through life to avoid the sorrows that so often
beset the poet’s path, and to find in the Muse the handmaid of wealth. Allan Ramsay
was strongly attached to the drama, and in his desire for its encouragement, he built a
play-house at the foot of Carrubber’s Close, about the year 1736, which involved him in
very considerable expense. It was closed immediately after by the act for licensing the
stage, which was passed in the following year, and the poet’s sole resource was in writing
a rhyming complaint to the Court of Session, which appeared soon after in the Gentleman’s
Magazine. The abortive play-house has since served many singular and diverse purposes.
It is the same building, we believe, which bore the name of St Andrew’s Chapel,
bestowed on it soon after the failure of the poet’s dramatic speculation. In 1773 it
formed the arena for the debates of the Pantheon, a famous speculative club. In 1788,
Dr Moyea, the ingenious lecturer on Natural Philosophy, discoursed there to select and
fashionable audiences Qn optics, the property of light, and other branches of science, in
regard to which his most popular qualification was, that he had been blind almost from
his birth. Since then the pulpit of St Andrew’a Chapel has been filled by Mr John
Barclay, the founder of the sect of modern Bereans; by the Rev. Mr Tait, and other
founders of the Rowites, during whose occupancy the celebrated Edward Trving frequently
officiated. The chapel has also been engaged by Relief and Secession congregations, by
the Roman Catholics as a preaching station and schoolroom, and more recently as a hall
for lectures and debates of all kinds ;-a8 strange and varied a medley of actors as even the
fertile fancy of the poet could have foreshadowed for his projected play-house.‘
l It: was latterly called Whitefield Chapel, used for meetings of the Carrubber’s Close Mdiasion. It haa now been
demolished in the conatruction of Jeffrey Street.
