300 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
eminent occupants of Queensberry House are Charles, the third Duke, who was born there
in 1698, and his celebrated Duchess, Lady Catherine Hyde, the patroness of the poet
Gay, and the beauty of the court of George I., whose sprightliness and wit have been
commemorated in the numbers of Pope, Swift, and Prior ; and whom Horace Walpole,
Earl of Orford, celebrated in her old age as-
Prior's Kitty, ever fair !
The eccentric beauty espoused the cause of Gay with such warmth, that on the Lord
Chamberlain refusing to 'sanction the representatiod of PO&, a piece intended as a
continuation of the Beggar's Opera, she received the poet into her house as her private
secretary, and both she and the Duke withdrew
in high dudgeon from court. Gay
accompanied his fair patroness to Edinburgh,
and resided some time at Queensberry House.
!ilk hl!..? L. h . /;2-': His intercourse with the author of "the
Gentle Shepherd," has already been referred
to, as well as his frequent visits to the poet's
shop at the cross.' We furnish a view of
another .and much humbler haunt of the
i poet during his residence in Edinburgh.
It is a small lath and plaster edifice of
1 considerable antiquity, which still stands
directly opposite Queensberry House, and
is said to have been a much frequented
tavern in Gay's time, kept by an hospitable
old dame, called Janet Hall; and, if tradition
is to be believed, Jenny Ha's changehouse
was a frequent scene of the poet's relaxations with the congenial wits of the Scottish
capital.''
The huge dimensions of Queensberry House are best estimated from the fact of its
having been subsequently converted into barracks and an hospital. The latest purpose to
which this once magnificent ducal residence has been applied, as a House of Refuge for
the Destitute," seems to complete its descent in the scale of degradation. Little idea,
however, can now be formed, from the vast and unadorned proportions which the ungaiuly
edifice presents both externally and internally, of its appearance while occupied by its
original owners. "he
wings were surmounted with neat ogee roofs. The centre had a French roof, with storm
windows, in the style of the Palace of Versailles, and the chimney stalks were sufficiently
ornamental to add to the general effect of the building, so that the whole appearance of
the mansion, though plain, was perfectly in keeping with the residence of a nobleman and
the representative of majedy. The internal decorations were of the most costly description,
including very richly carved marble chimney pieces. On the house being dismantled,
many of these were purchased by the Earl of Wemyss, for completing his new mansion
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The whole building was then a story lower than it is at present.
. Ante, p. 199. a Traditions, vol. i p. 291.
