St. Mary?s Wynd.1 THE ? WHITE HORSE? INN. 299
long dwelt the celebrated artistic decorator of
many of the best old houses in Edinburgh, John
Norrie, whose workshop adjoined the coach-house
of Lord Milton, and both of which were converted
into stables for Boyd?s famous old ?White Horse ?
Inn, one of the great hostelries of Edinburgh, in
the days when ?? hotels? were unknown, and when
guests, except those whose business was of a very
temporary nature, usually repaired to lodging-houses,
of which the most famous in 1754 was Mrs. Thomson?s
at the Cross, who, as per advertisement, served
people who had not their own silver plate, tea
china, table china, and tea linen, with all these
luxuries, together with wines and spirits.
When the famous patriot chief, Pasquale de
Paoli, had been driven into exile by the French
invaders of Corsica, among other places in his
wanderings he came to Edinburgh in the autumn
of 177 I, accompanied by the Polish Ambassador,
Count Burzyuski; and on the 3rd of September
they arrived at Peter Ramsay?s ? White Horse ?I
Inn, in St. Mary?s Wynd, from whence he was
immediately taken home by Boswell to his house
in James?s Court, while the Count became the
guest of his neighbour, Dr. John Gregory, ?to
whom they brought a letter from the ingenious
Mrs. Montague.? Boswell introduced Paoli to
Lord Kames, Dr. Robertson, David Hume, and
others, who though greatly his seniors, admitted
him into their circle, and he showed him over
the Castle, Holyrood, Duddingston, and other
places. Ramsay?s inn was chiefly famous for its
stables, and in that establishment he realised a large
fortune.
In I 776 he advertised that, exclusive of some part
of his premises recently offered for sale, he possessed
? a good house for entertainment, good stables for
above one hundred horses, and sheds for above
twenty carriages.? He retired from business in
St. Mary?s Wynd in 1790, with above LIO,OOO,
according to one account, and his death is thus
recorded in the ?Scottish Register.? ?Jan. I,
1794. At his son?s house of Gogar, Co. Edinburgh,
Peter Ramsay, Esq., formerly an eminent
innkeeper at the Cowgate Port, in which station he
acquired upwards of ~ 3 0 , 0 0 0 . He has left one
son, William Ramsay, jun., Esq., banker in Edinburgh,
and one daughter, the widow of Captain
Mansfield, of the South Fencible Regiment, who
lost his life at Leith in 1779, when attempting to
quell a mutiny.?
Eoyd?s Close, or the White Horse Close, as it
was often called, opened into Boyd?s Entry from
St. Mary?s Wynd. The inn there was more modern,
and was larger than Ramsay?s, but had, like his,
the principal rooms above the stables ; and at this
White Horse? it was that Dr. Johnson, on arriving
at Edinburgh on the 17th of August, 1773,
put up, and from whence he sent his curt note to
Boswel1:-
?( Saturday night :-<? Mr. Johnson sends his
compliments to Mr. Boswell, being just arrived at
Boyd?s.?
And here it was, as we have related, that Boswell
found him storming at the waiter, when he and
William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, repaired
thither, and received an instalment of that domineering
manner which excited the aristocratic
contempt that old Lord Auchinleck so freely
expressed for ?? the dominie the auld English
dominie, that keepit a schule and ca?ad it an
acaademy.?
In Boyd?s ?? White Horse Inn ? one particularly
large room was the scene of many a marriage between
runaway English couples ; and on a window,
written with a diamond, were long to be seen the
remarkable names of
Jeremiah and Sarah Bmtham, I 768.
? James Eoyd, the keeper of this inn, was addicted
to horse racing, and his victories on the
turf, or rather on Leith sands, are frequently chronicled
in journals of that day. It is said that he
was one time on the brink of ruin, when he was
saved by a lucky run with a white horse, which
in gratitude he kept idle all the rest of its days,
besides setting up its portrait as his sign. He
eventually retired from this ? dirty and dismal? inn
with a fortune of several thousand pounds ; and, as
a curious note upon the impression which its
slovenliness conveyed to Dr. Johnson, it may be
stated as a fact, well authenticated, that, at the
time of his giving up the house he possessed
napery to the value of five hundred pounds.?
St. Mary?s Wynd was, in 1869, the first scene of
the operations of the trustees who acted under the
Improvement Act of 1867, when they commenced
to pull down the buildings between it and Gullan?s
Close, in the Canongate. By this time it had
become one of the most wretched slums in the
city, a narrow and stifling alley, to navigate the
intricacies of which required some courage. I t
was scarcely possible to avoid coming in contact
with cast-off apparel of all kinds, or stumbling
against piles of old boots, pots, pans, and furniture.
Under designs furnished for the upper part by the
late David Cousin, who for many years occupied
an important official post in connection with the
municipality, and for the lower part by Mr. Lessels,
another architect, the wynd has now become a
