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HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES. 71 ~ left the High School Wynd. In the Cowgate, at the foot of Rlackfriars’ Wynd, stood Cardinal Beaton’s house, in the neighbourhood of the Mint, also recently demolished. At the foot of Carrubber’s Close, on the north side of the High ST. PAUL’S. PLAYHOUSE CLOSE. Street, there is an interesting ecclesiastical relic, St. Paul’s, the oldest Episcopal chapel in the city; here also stood Whitefield Chapel, originally opened by WHII’R HSJRSE INN. PAIIXURE CI.OSE. illlan Ramsay as a theatre in 1736, but closed the following year. It was in Playhouse Close, Canongate, that the first regular theatre in Edinburgh was erected, where, on the evening of the 14th of December 1746,
Volume 11 Page 116
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72 EDINBURGH PAST AND PRESENT. Home’s tragedy of ‘ Douglas’ was first presented’ to the public.’ The White Horse Inn, White Horse Close, was the resort of Prince Charlie’s officers in i 745, and in another ‘White Horse,’ formerly situated near the head of the Canongate, Boswell first met Dr. Johnson. Adam Smith, author of the WeaZfh of Nations, breathed his last in Panmure House, now occupied as a foundry. He was buried in the Canongate Churchyard. The house is shown on the left of the Engraving. ADAM SMITH’S GRAVE. Within little more than a gun-shot of Holyrood, and nearly opposite Queensberry House, is Whiteford House, originalIy occupied by Sir John Whiteford. Almost under the shadow of the tasteful but inadequate monument to Robert Burns, it stands upon the site of the town residence of the Setons, Earls of Winton, which is referred to in the DiumaZ of Occurrents i~z ScutZand as ‘my Lord Seytoun’s lugeing in the Cannongait besyid Edinburgh,’ where Lord Darnley sojourned in 1564, and Manzeville, the French Ambassador, about eighteen years later.’ Almost every one is familiar with Sir Walter Scott’s description of the ancient mansion in the first volume of the Abbot, in connection with one of Catherine Seyton’s interviews with Roland Grzme-the solemn quadrangle, ‘all around which rose huge black walls, exhibiting windows in rows of five stories, with heavy architraves over each, bearing armorial and religious devices ;, while in the interior were displayed 1 There are now no fewer than@ theatres in the Scottish metropolis. The site is marked No. 54 in Edgar’s plan of the city of Edinburgh, published in 1742. and is indicated by a metal tablet recently erected at the front of Galloway‘s Entry by a descendant of the family.
Volume 11 Page 117
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