362 MEMORIAL S OF EDINB URG H.
old oaken chair remained till recently an heirloom, bequeathed by its patrician occupants
to the humble tenants of their degraded dwellings. A recent writer on the antiquities
of Leith, conceives it probable that this may have been the residence of the Regent
Lennox; but we have been baffled in our attempts to arrive at any certain evidence
on the subject by reference to the titles. “ Mary,” says Maitland, “ haviug begun
to build in the town of Leith, was followed therein by divers of the nobility, bishops,
and other persons of distinction of her party; several of whose houses are still remaining,
as m y be seen in sundry places, by their spacious rooms, lofty ceilings, large staircases,
and private oratories or chapels for the celebration of mass.” Beyond the probable
evidence afforded by such remains of decaying splendour and former wealth, nothing
more can now be ascertained. The occupation of Leith by nobles and dignitaries of
the Church was of a temporary nature, and under circumstances little calculated to
induce them to leave many durable memorials of their presence. A general glance, therefore,
at such noticeable features as still remain, will suffice to complete our survey of the
ancient seaport.
The earliest date that we have discovered on any of the old private buildings of the
burgh, occurs on the projecting turnpike of an antique tenement at the foot of Burgess
Close, which bears this inscription on the lintel, in Roman characters :-NISI DNS FRUSTBA,
1573. This ancient alley is the earliest thoroughfare in the burgh of which we have
any account. It was granted to the burgesses of Edinburgh, towards the close of the
fourteenth century, by Logan of Restalrig, the baronial over-lord of Leith, before it
acquired the dignity of a royal burgh, and the owner of nearly all the lands that extended
along the banks of the harbour of Leith. We are led to infer from the straitened proportions
of this narrow alley, that the whole exports and imports of the shipping of Leith were
conveyed on pack-horses or in wheel-barrows, as it would certainly prove impassable for
any larger wheeled convejance. Its inconvenience, however, appears to have been felt at
the time, and the Laird of Restalrig was speedily compelled to grant a more commodious
access to the shore. The inscription which now graces this venerable thoroughfare, though
of a date so much later than its first construction, preserves a memorial of its gifts to the
civic Council of Edinburgh, as we may reasonably ascribe to the veneration of some wealthy
merchant of the capital the inscribing over the doorway of his mansion at Leith the
very appropriate motto of the City Arms. To this, the oldest quarter of the town, indeed,
we must direct those who go “in search of the picturesque.” Watera’ Close, which
adjoins Burgess Close, is scarcely surpassed by any venerable alley of the capital, either in
its attractive or repulsive features. Stone and timber lands are mixed together in admired
disorder ; and one antique tenement in particular, at the corner of Water Lane, with a
broad projecting turnpike, contorted by corbels and string courses, and every variety of
convenient aberration from the perpendicular or horizontal, which the taste or whim of its
constructor could devise, is one of the most singular edifices that the artist could select as a
subject for his pencil.
The custom of affixing sententious aphorisms to the entrances of their dwellings appears
to have pertained fully as much to the citizens of Leith as of Edinburgh. BLISSIT . BE .
GOD . OF . HIS . GIFTIS . 1601., I. W., I. H., is boldly cut on a large square panel on
the front of an old house at the head of Sheriff Brae; and the same favourite motto
