THE CANONGA TE AND ABBEY SANCTUAR Y. 285
Young, a celebrated physician of the period, with others of wealth and influence, among
whom may be mentioned Miss Jean Ramsay, a daughter of the poet, who lived there till
a very advanced age, in the second house below the chapel.
A lofty stone tenement on the south side of the main street, to the east of Gillon’s
Close, was erected by Charles, fourth Earl of Traquair, and formed the residence of his
twin daughters, Lady Barbara and Lady Margaret Stewart. They both died there at a
very advanced age-Lady Margaret in 1791, and her sister in 1794. They must have been
born very early in the eighteenth century, as Dr Archibald Pitcairn, who died in 1713,
made them the subject of some elegant Latin verses. They were till lately remembered as
two kindly, but very precise old ladies, the amusement and main business of whose lives
consisted in dressing and nursing a family of little dolls-a recreation by no means
unusual among the venerable spinsters of former days. The date over the main doorway
of the building is 1700. A little farther to the eastward, and almost directly opposite the
head of New Street, is the Playhouse Close, within the narrow alley of which the stage
was established in 1747, on such a footing as was then deemed not only satisfactory but
highly creditable to the northern capital, where the drama had skulked about from place
to place ever since its denouncement by the early reformers, finding even the patrosage of
royalty, and the favour of the vice-regal Court of Holyrood, hardly sufficient to protect it
from ignominious expulsion.
The history of the Scottish drama is ohe of very fitful add stinted encouragement, and
of correspondingly meagre results. The first approach to regular dramatic composition,
after the period when religious mysteries and moralities were enacted under the sanction
of the Church,’ was Sir David Lindsay’s ‘‘ Pksant Satyre of the Three Estaitis ; ” and
this so effectually aided the work of the Reformers, under whose care the stage was
immediately placed, that it may be styled the first and last effort of dramatic genius in
Scotland, almost to our own day. It was “ playit besyde Edinburgh in 1544, in presence
of the Quene Regent,” as is mentioned by Henry Charteris, the bookseller, who sat
patiently for nine hours on the bank at Greenside to witness the play. It so far surpasses
any effort of contemporary English dramatists, that it renders the barrenness of the Scottish
muse in this department afterwards the more apparent. Birrell notes on the 17th
January 1568 :-“ A play made by Robert Semple, and played before the Regent [Murray]
and divers uthers of the nobilitie.” This has been afinied, though seemingly on very
imperfect evidence, to have been Philotus, a comedy printed at Edinburgh by Robert
Charteris in 1603, the author of which is not named. It exhibits, both in plan and
execution, a much nearer approach to the modern drama than Sir David Lindsay’s Satire,
and is altogether a work of great merit. In the same year there issued from the Edinburgh
press, Darius, a tragedy written by ‘‘ that most excellent spirit and earliest gem of
l A few extracts from the Treasurers’ accounts will afford a hint of the dawn of theatrical amusements at the Scottish
court in the reign of James IF., January 1, 1503 :-“Item, ye samyn nycht to ye gyearis that playit to ye King,
41. 4s. Feb. 18.-To ye
QUENEO F YE CANONGAIT14,s .” Thin character repeatedly occurs in the accounts, and seems to have been B favourite
masker. “1504, Jan. 1.-Tu Hog the tale-tellar, 14s. Jan. 3.-Yat samyn day to Thos. Boauell and Pate Sinclair to
by yaim daunsing gere, 28s. Yat samyne nycht to ye
GYSARISO F YE TOUNE OB EDINBUBG8E f,r . cr. [French crowns.] Junel0.-Payit to Jamea Dog that halaid doune for
girse one Corpus Christi day, at the play to the Kingis and Quenis chamerig 3s. 4d.” bcc.
Feb. &-To ye mene that brocht in ye Morice Dance, and to ye menstralis in Strevelin, 42s.
Pat day to Yaister Johne to by beltis for ye Yorise Danae, 28s.
