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,
