,338 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
less than eight feet of this loose earth between his
shovels and the natural solid clay, Another error
seems to ha\-e been committed in not raising the
piers to a sufficient height ; and to remedy this he
raised about? eight feet of earth upon the vaults
and arches at the south end, causing thereby a
regular, but still unsightly slope.
The result of all this was that on the 3rd of
August, 1769, this portion gave way, by the mass
of earth having been swollen by recent rains.
The abutments burst, the vaults yielded to the
pressure, and five persons were buried in the ruins,
out of which they were dug at different times.
This event caused the greatest excitement in the
city, and had it happened half an hour sooner
might have proved very calamitous, as a vast
,multitude of persons of every religious denomination
was assembled in Orphan Hospital Park,
northward of the Trinity College church, to hear a
sermon preached by Mr. Townsend, an Episcopal
clergyman ; and after it was over some would have
had to cross the bridge, and others pass beneath
it, to their homes. Three or four scattered houses
were already erected in the New Town j but after
this event it was some time before people took
courage to erect more.
The bridge was repaired by pulling down the
side walls, rebuilding them with chain bars, removing
the vast masses of earth, and supplying its
place with hollow arches, and by raising the walls
that crossed the bridge, so that the vaults which
sprang from them might bring the road to a proper
elevation. Strong buttresses and counterforts were
added to the south end, and on these are erected
the present North Bridge Street. At the north
end there is only one counterfort on the east side;
but ere all this was done. there had been a plea
in law between the contracting parties before the
Court of Session, and an appeal to the House of
Lords, in both of which Mr. Mylne was unfortunate.
The expense of completion amounted to
&17,354. The height?of the great arches from the
top of the parapet to the base is 68 feet.
The bridge was first passable in 1772 ; but the
balustrades being open, a complaint was made
publicly in 1783 that ?passengers continue to be
blown from the pavement into the mud in the
middle of the bridge.? Those at the south end
were closed in 1782, thus screening the eyes ?! of
passengers from the blood and slaughter,? in the
markets below, according to the appendix to
Amot?s ?? History;? and regarding the tempests of
wind, to which Edinburgh is so subject, elsewhere
he tells us that in 1778 ?? the Leith Guard, consisting-
of a sergeant and twelve, men of the 70th
Regiment, were all there blown of the Castle Hilland
some of them sorely hurt.?
In 1774 the magistrates proclaimed that all
beggars found in the streets would be imprisoned
in the dark vaults beneath the North Bridge, and
there fed on bread and water.
From the then new buildings erected on the southwest
end of the bridge, a flight of steps upward
gives access to Mylne?s Court; and two flights
downward lead to the old market at the foot of the
Fleshmarket Close. 1
In Edgais plan, 1765, the Upper and Lower
Fleshmarkets are both shown as being in this.
quarter, and also that the bridge had run through a,
great portion of the ancient Greenmarket. Kincaid
$bus describes them in his time (1794) as.
consisting of three divisions forming oblong
squares. ? The uppermost is allotted for the veal
market, and as yet only finished on the north side;
the middlemost is occupied by the incorporation of
fleshers, and is neatly fitted up and arched all
round, and .each division numbered; the other,.
called the Low Market, is likewise arched round,
but not numbered, and allotted for those that are.
not of the incorporation. Few cities in Britain are.
better supplied with butcher meat of all kinds than.
this city, an instance of which, occurred in 1781.
Admiral Parker, with a fleet of 15 sail of the line,
g frigates, and 600 merchantmen, lay nearly two.
months in Leith Roads, and was supplied with every
kind of provisions, and the markets were not raised,
one farthing, although there could not be less than
zo,ooo men for nearly seven weeks. Merchants from;
different parts of Britain who, either from motives
of humanity, or esteeming it a profitable adventure,
had sent four transports with fresh provisions to,
the fleet, had them returned without breaking bulk.?
The market is now much more complete and.
perfect than in the days referred to, and smaller
town markets than the central suite are open in
other quarters. .
In the block of buildings next the north market
stair the General Post Office for Scotland was.
established, after its removal from Lord Covington?s
house; after which, in 1821, it was transferred
to a new edifice on the Regent Bridge, at which,
period, we are told, the despatch of the mails was
Zonducted in an apartment about thirty feet square,
ind purposely kept as dark as possible, in order to
Jerive the full advantage of artificial light employed
in the process of examining letters, to see
whether they contained enclosures or not. At this
time James Earl of Caithness was Deputy Postnaster-
General for Scotland.
The same edifice was latterly, and until their.
North Bridge.] ADAM BLACK. 339
removal in 1850 to a handsome and more spacious
.one, built in a kind of old Scoto-English style of
.architecture, an the opposite side, and on the site
of a portion of Halkerston?s Wynd, and numbered
as 6 in the street, the establishment of the old and
well-known firm of publishers, Adam and Charles
Black. The former, long a leading citizen, magistrate,
and member of the city, was born in 1784,
.and died on the 24th of January, 1874.
Educated at the High School and University of
his native city Edinburgh, though but the son of a
humble builder, Adam Black raised himself to affluuence,
and is said to have more than once declined
the honour of knighthood. After serving his apprenticeship,
he started in business as a bookseller,
and among other important works brought out the
? Encyclopzedia Britannica,? under the joint conduct
of Professor Macvey Napier and James
Browne, LL.D.; and to this his own pen contributed
many articles. From the beginning of his
career he took an active part in the politics of the
city, and in the early part of the present century was
among the boldest of the slender band of Liberals
who stood up for burgh reform, as the preliminary
to the great measure of a Parliamentary one.
When the other wel!-known firm of constable
and Co. failed, the publication of The Edinburgh
Revim passed into the hands of Adam Black, and
thus drew the Liberal party more closely by his
side. He was Provost of the city from 1843 to
1848, and filled his trust so much to the satisfaction
of the citizens, that they subscribed to have
his portrait painted to ornament the walls of the
Council Room. He was proprietor, by purchase,
of the copyright of ?? The Waverley Novels,? and
many other works by Sir Walter Scott. It was
when he was beyond his seventieth year that he
was returned to the House of Commons as member
. for the city, in succession to Lord Macaulay ; and
being a member of the Independent body, he
was ever an advocate for unsechrian education,
absolute freedom of trade, and the most complete
toleration in religion; but the cradle of his fortunes
was that little shop which till 1821 was, as
we said, deemed ample enough for the postal
establishment and requirements of all Scotland.
The new buildings along the west side of the
North Bridge, from Princes Street to the first open
arch, were erected between 1817 and 1819, with a
Tange of shops then deemed magnificent, but far
outshone by hundreds erected since in their vicinity,
These buildings are twice the height in rear that
they are to the bridge front, and their erection
intercepted a grand view from Waterloo Place
south-westward to the Castle, and thus roused a
spirited, but, as it eventually proved, futile resistance,
on the part of Cockburn and Cranston, Professor
Playfair, Henry Mackenzie, James Stuart of
Dunearn, and others, who spent about &I,OOO in
the work of opposition.
Their erection led to the demolition of a small
edificed thoroughfare named Ann Street, which
once contained the house of a well-known literary
citizen, John Grieve, who gave free quarters to
James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, when the latter
arrived in Edinburgh in 1810, and published a
little volume of poems entitled ?The Forest Mintrel,?
from which he derived no pecuniary benefit.
Poverty was pressing sorely on Hogg, ?but,? says
a biographer, ?he found kind and steady friends in
Messrs. Grieve and Scott, hatters, whose welltimed
benevolence supplied all his wants.?
While he was still in obscurity, John Grieve
obtained him introductions to Professor Wilson
and other local literati, which ultimately led to his
becoming a contributor to BZackwood?s Magazine.
Mr. Grieve is referred to in the quarrel between
the Shepherd and the Blackwoods concerning the
famous Nocft-s Ambrosiana ? He ceased to contribute,
whereupon Wilson wrote thus to Grieve on
the subject :-
?If Mr. Hogg puts his return to ?Maga? on the
ground that ? Maga? suffers from his absence from
her pages, and that Mr. B. must be very desirous
of his re-assistance, that will be at once a stumblingblock
in the way of settlement ; for Mr. B., whether
rightly or wrongly, will not make, the admission.
No doubt Mr. H.?s articles were often excellent,
and no doubt ?Noctes? were very popular, but the
magazine, however much many readers must have
missed Mr. Hogg and the ?Noctes,? has been
gradually increasing in sale, and therefore Mr.
B. will never give in to that view of the Subject.
? Mr. Hogg in his letter to me, and in a long
conversation I had with him in my own house
yesterday after dinner, sticks to his proposaf of LIOO settled on him, on condition of writing,
and becoming again the hero of the ?Noctes? as
before. I see many difficulties in the way of such
an arrangement, and I know that Mr. Blackwood
will never agree to it in any shape, for it might
eventually prove degrading and disgraceful to both
parties, appearing to the public to be a bribe given
and taken dishonourably.?
?My father,? adds Mrs. Gordon, whose life of
the Professor we quote, ?never wrote another
?Noctes ? after the Shepherd?s death, which took
place in 1835.?
In consequence of tie increase of populatibn
and traffic by its vicinity to the railway termini,
