HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES. 71
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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,
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.