THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 253
Should this old close escape the destruction that already threatens so many of the haunts
of the olden time, it will not be considered by future generations as the least worthy of its
associations, that there, on the west side, and near the foot of the close, were the workshop
and furnace of James Ballantine, the author of the ‘‘ Gaberlunzie’s Wallet,’^and the
“Miller of Deanhaugh,” as well as of some of the liveliest of our modern humorous
Scottish songs-never heard with such effect as when sung by himself. There, it is
probable, many of his literary productions were matured, where also he completed, under
numerous disadvantages, the successful designs for the competition of 1844, which gained
for him the distinguished honour of executing the painted windows of the New House of
Lords. The close has suffered little from modern alteration, and still presents a very
pleasing specimen of the quaint and picturesque irregularity of style which gladdens the
eye of the artist, and sets the reforming citizen a ruminating on the possibility of a new
improvements commission, that shall sweep away such rubbish from every lane and alley
of the ancient capital.
Bishop’s Close, which adjoins this on the east, preserves in its name a memorial of
“ the Bishop’s Land,” one of the most substantial and noted among the private buildings
in the High Street of Edinburgh. It owed this peculiar designation to its having been
the residence of the eminent prelate, John Spottiswood, Archbishop of St Andrews, who,
as appears from the titles, inherited it from his father, the Superintendent of Lothian.
This fact is of some value, as serving to discredit the statement of his unrequited labours
during the latter years of his life. The date on the old building was 1578, at which time
the Superintendent would be in his sixty-ninth year; and the house was sdciently
commodious and magnificent to serve afterwards for the town mansion of the Scottish
primate. The ground floor of the building was formed of a deeply arched piazza, supported
by massive stone piers, and over the main entrance a carved lintel bore the common
inscription, BLISSIT . BE . YE . LOED . FOR . ALL . HIS . GIFTIS . 1578, with a shield impaled
with two coats of arms, and the initials V. N,, H. M. A fine brass balcony projected from
the first floor, which has doubtless often been decorated with gay hangings, and crowded
with fair and noble spectators to see the riding of the parliaments, and the magnificent
state pageants of early times. This interesting old tenement was totally destroyed by fire
in 1814, but the carved lintel has been preserved, and is now built into the adjoining
pend of North Gray’s Close. From the evidence in the famous Douglas cause, it appears
that Lady Jane Douglas resided in Bishop’s Land soon after her arrival in Scotland, and
was visited there by Lord Prestongrange, then Lord Advocate, in 1752.l Here also is
stated to have been the house of the first Lord President Dundas, and the birthplace of
the celebrated Viscount Melville ; and so aristocratic were the denizens of this once
fashionable tenement, that we have been told by an old citizen there was not a family
resident in any of its flats, towards the end of the century, who did not keep livery servants-
a strange contrast to their plebeian successors. In the title-deeds of Archbishop
Spottiswood‘s mansion, it is described as bounded on the east by the tenement sometime
pertaining to James Henderson of Fordel. This was no doubt the house referred to in
the “ Diurnal of Occurrents,” where it is said that Queen Mary, after the bootless muster
at Carbery Hill, ‘‘ quhen she come -to Edinburgh, wes lugeit in James Hendersones hous
Case of Respondents, foL p. 34. Chambem’s Traditions, vol. i Appendix.
