APPENDIX. 431
TmoBa.--The Corporation of Tailors, a more ancient fraternity, claiming, indeed, as their founder the firat
stitcher’of fig-leaf aprons, or, according to the old Geneva Bible, of h&, in the plains of Mesopotamia,-
appear to have had an altar in St Giles’s Church, dedicated to their patron saint, St Ann, at the date of their
Seal of Cause, AD. 1500. In 1554, Robert, Commendator of Abbey of HoIyrood, granta to ye Tailzour crawft
within our aaid Brwcht of the cannogait of our said Abbay,” Letters of Incorporation, which specially provide
for ‘‘ augmentation of diuine seruice at ane altar biggit within our said Abbay, quhair Sanct An, thah patrone
now stands.” So that tJ& saint appears to have been the adopted patronesa of the Craft in general
Though the fine old hall in the Cowgate hae long been abandoned by this Corporation, they s t i l l exist arr e
body, and had a place of meeting in Carrubber’s Close., one of the chief olpamenta of which was an autograph
letter of James VI., addressed to the Tdom of Edinburgh, which hung framed and glazed over the old fireplace.
St ~ ~ d a l e n eC’hsa pel, and the modem Mary‘a Chapel in Bell’a Wynd, form the chief halle of the
remaining Corporations of Edinburgh, that have long survived all the pnrpo~esf or which they were originally
chartered and incorporated.
FmEMA8ONs.-Probab1y in no city in the world have the brotherhood of the mystic tie more zealously
revived their ancient secret fraternisation than they did in Edinbuqh during the eighteenth century- The
hereditary office of grand-master which bad been granted by Jamea II. William St Clair of R.oalin, and to
hia heirs and succe~~oimn the barony of Roalin, was then about to expire with the last of that old line. In
. 1736, William St Clair of Ro&, the last h d i t q grand-maater, intimated to 8 &apter of the Canongate
Kilwinning Lodge hb intention of resigning Bi office into the Ban& of the Bcottish brotherhood, in order that
the office he inherited might be perpetuated by free election. Ths oonueqww wm the aseembly in Edinburgh,
on the ensuing St Anhew% Day, of a representative assembly, consistingaof deputies elected l ~ ayll the
Scottish lodges, and thus was constituted Ths Grand Lodge of S c ~ t h d The Scottish lodges took precedence
according to seniority : the Kilwinniug Lodge standing foremost, and next in order the ancient Edinburgh
Lodge of St Mary, the Canongate Kilwjnning Lodge, and after it the Lodge of Perth and Scone, the more
ancient seat of the Scottish government. Their lodge halls are to be found in various quarters of the town.
Among the antiquities of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., is a hely carved oak door of a small press or ambry, having e
figure of the Virgin carved in low relief on the panel, which belonged to one of the lodgea In the hall of St
David’s Lodge in Hyndfoni’s Clme, a still more venerable antique used to be 8hoq-n original portrait of
King Solomon, painted for the first Grand Lodge, at the founding of the order, while the Temple of Jerusalem
was in pmgreaa ! We understand, however, that some of the brethren entertain doubta of ita being quite JO dd,
though one venerable octagenarian answered our inquiries by an ancient legend of the burgh, which beam that
certain of the Town Guard of Edinburgh were present in Jerusalem at the Crucifixion, and carried off thk
veritable portrait from the Temple during the commotions that ensued ; all which the reader will receive and
believe as a genuine old Edinburgh tradition I
The most characteristic feature, however, of the Masonic fraterniv of Edinburgh, was the Roman Eagle
Lodge. There was at the period of Robert Bum’s h t viait to Edinburgh about a dozen different maeonic
lodges assembling in Edinburgh, wherein noblemen, judges, grave profasora, and learned divines, lawye- and
scholars of all sorts, mixed with the brotherhood in decorone fraternisation and equality. It was, perhaps, from
an idea of creating within the masonic republio a scholarly aristocracy, that should preserve for their own
exclusive enjoyment one lodge of the fraternity, without infringing on the equality of rights in the order, that
the Roman Eagk Mga was founded, at whose meetings no language but Latin waa allowed to be spoken. It
waa eatablished, we believe, h t h e year 1780, by the celebrated and eccentric Dr Brown, author of EIsmcnta
&“kim~, and founder of what ia termed the Brunonian System in medicine. It affords no very flattering
picture of Edinburgh society at that period, to learn that this classic fraternity owed ita dissozution to the
excessea of ita memberg wherein they far surpassed their brethren-not altogether famous an ptterns of temperance,
The Roman Eagle Hall, in B d e ’ s Close, still bears the name of the learned brotherhood.
’
.
.
‘
