THE WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. 347
completion of the latter street, she erected a monument to her husband at the north end,
consisting of a Corinthian column, measuring above twenty-five feet high. Upon the base
an inscription was cut in Latin and English, setting forth that Lady Nicolson had made
the adjacent ground, left to her by her husband, be planned out for building, under the
name of Nicolson Street, and had erected the monument there out of regard to his
memory. On the extension of the thoroughfare and the completion of the South Bridge,
this pious memorial was thrown aside into the yard of the public riding-school, then
occupying the site where the College of Surgeons now stands, and it has no doubt long
since been broken up for building materials. Though the monument of Lady Nicolson
might not possess any great value in general estimation, it would have been no unbecoming
act for the projectors of these extensive improvements to have found a site for it in the
neighbouring square. The building in Nicolson Street, at the corner of Hill Street, now
occupied as the Blind Asylum, acquires peculiar interest from having long formed the
residence of the celebrated chemist, Dr Black, whose reputation contributed so largely to
the fame of the University to which he belonged. Further south, on the same side of the
street, a small and mean-looking court, surrounded by humble tenements, and crowded .
with a dense population, bears the name of Simon Square, It has nothing in its appearance
to attract either the artist or the antiquary, yet its associations are intimately
connected with the Fine Arts ; for here, in a narrow lane, called Paul Street, which leads
thence into the Pleasance, David Wilkie took up his abode on his arrival in Edinburgh in
1799. Wilkie was then a raw country lad, only fourteen years of age, and so little was
thought of the productions of his pencil that it required the powerful interest of the Earl
of Leven to overcome the prejudices of the Secretary of the Academy established in Edinburgh
by the Board of Trustees, and obtain his admission as a student. The humble
lodging, where the enthusiastic young aspirant for fame first began his career as an artist,
cannot but be viewed with lively interest. It is a little back room, measuring barely ten
feet square, at the top of a common stair, on the south side of the street near the
Pleasance. From thence he removed to a better lodging in East Richmond Street, and
thereafter to a comfortable attic in Palmer’s Land, West Nicolson Street. This latter
abode of the great Scottish artist possesses peculiar associations with our national arts,
his eminent predecessor, Alexander Runciman, having occupied the same apartment till
1784, the year before his death,’ and having there probably entertained the Poet Ferguson,
while with ominous fitnest3 he sat as his model for the Prodigal Son.
Near to this is the aristocratic quarter that sprung up during the tedious delays which
preceded the commencement of the New Town, and threatened by its success to compel
the projectors of that long-cherished scheme of improvement to abandon their ‘design.
Here is George Square, once the abode of rank, and far more worthy of note, as the scene
where Scott spent his youth under the paternal roof; that bright period of his existence,
of which so many beautiful details are preserved, full of sweet glimpses of the happy
circle that gathered round his father’s hearth. The house which Scott’s father occupied
‘
The following entry ia extracted from the old family Bible which belonged to the artist’s father, and is now in the
Nov. 7, Kilwinning,
Died Oct. H a t , 1785
posseasion of a gentleman in Edinburgh :-“ Jam= Ruociman and Mary Smith, married 1735.
Alexander, born 15th Aug. 1736. Baptized by John Walker, minister, Canongata dinb burgh].
at 12 at night in Chapel Street”
