[North Bridge. __ 362 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Magazine (started in Edinburgh), and minister of? son of Sir Michael Balfour of Denmylne. An emithe
Congregational church in Glasgow. I nent physician and botanist, he was born in 1630,
In 1828, on the 8th of June-the fiftieth year of graduated in medicine at St. Andrews, prosecuted
his ministry being complete-a hundred gentlemen, his medical studies under the famous Harvey in
? connected with Lady Glenorchy?s chapel, enter- I London, after which he visited Blois, to see the
t:tined Dr. Jones at a banquet given in his honour , celebrated botanical garden of the Duke de ~~ at the Waterloo Tavern, and presented him ?with
an elegant silver vase, as a tribute of the respect
and esteem which the people entertained for the
..uniform uprightness of his conduct during the long
period they had enjoyed his ministry.?
Lady Glenorchy?s chapel and school were alike
demolished in 1845, as stated. The former, as a
foundation, is now in Roxburgh Place, as a chapel
in connection with the Establishment. ? It has now
a quoad sacm district attached to it,? says FuZZarton?s
Gazetteer; ?? the charge h 1835 was collegiate.
<There is attached to the chapel a school attended
by IOO or 120 poor children.?
In the same quiet and secluded hollow, overlooked
by the Trinity Church and Hospital, the
Orphan Hospital, and the Glenorchy Chapel-in
the very bed of. what was once the old loch, and
where now prevail all the bustle and uproar of
one of the most confused of railway termini, and
where, ever and anon, the locomotive sends up its
shriek to waken the echoes of the Calton rocks 01
the enormous masses of the Post-office buildings,
and those which flank the vast Roman-like span of
the Regent Bridge-lay the old Physic Gardens,
for the creation of which Edinburgh was indebted
to one or two of her eminent physicians in the
seventeenth century.
They extended between the New Port at the
foot of Halkerston?s Wynd, i.e., from the east side 01
the north bridge to the garden of the Trinity
College Hospital, which Lord Cockburn describes
as being ?? about a hundred feet square ; but it is
only turf surrounded by a gravel walk. An old
thorn, and an old elm, destined never to be in leaf
again, tell of old springs and old care. And there
is a wooden summer house, which has heard many
ipi old man?s crack, and seen the sun soften many
an old man?s wrinkles.?
In Gordon of Rothiemay?s view this particular
garden (now among the things that were) is shown
as extending from the foot of Halkerston?s Wyiid
to the west gable of the Trinity Hospital, and
northward in a line with the tower of the church.
From the New Port, the Physic Garden, occupying
much of that we have described, lay north
cross the valley, to where a path between hedgerows
led to the Orphan Hospital. It is thus shown
in Edgar?s plan, in 1765. .
1 It owed its origin to Sir Andrew Balfour, the
Guise, then kept by his countryman Dr. Robert
Morison, author of the ?? Hortus Regius Bloisensis,?
and afterwards, in 1669, professor of botany at
Oxford.
In 1667 Balfour commenced to practise as a
physician in St. Andrews, but in 1670 he removed
to Edinburgh, where among other improvements he
introduced the manufacture of paper into Scotland.
Having a small botanical garden attached to his
house, and chiefly furnished with rare seeds sent by
his foreign correspondents, he raised there many
plants never before seen in Scotland. His friend
and botanical pupil, Mr. Patrick Murray of Livingstone,
had formed at his seat a botanic garden containing
fully a thousand specimens of plants ; and
after his death Dr. Balfour transferred the whole
of this collection to Edinburgh, and, joining it to
his own, laid the foundation of the first botanic
garden in Scotland, for which the magistrates allotted
him a part of the Trinity garden, and then,
through the patronage of Sir Robert Sibbald, the
eminent physician and naturalist, Mr. James Sutherland,
an experienced botanist, was appointed headgardener.
After this Balfour was created a baronet by
Charles 11. He was the first who introduced the
dissection of the hunian body into Scotland; he
planned the present Royal College of Physicians,
projected the great hospital now known as the
Royal Infirmary; and died full of honours in 1694,
bequeathing his museum to the university.
It was in September, 1676, that he placed the
superintending of the Physic Garden under James
Sutherland, who was by profession a gardener, but
of whose previous history little is known. ? By his
ownindustry,? says Sir Robert SibbaId, ?heobtained
to great knowledge of plants,? and seems to have
been one of those self-made men of whom Scotland
has produced so many of whom she may well be
proud. In 1683 he published his ?Norizcs Nedicus
Edinburgensis, or a catalogue of the plants in the
Physic Gardens at Edinburgh, containing the
most proper Latin and English names,? dedicated
to the Lord Provost, Sir George Drummond. In
his little garden in the valley of the North Loch
he taught the science of herbs to the students of
medicine for small fees, receiving no other encouragement
than a salary of A20 from the city, which
did not suffice to pay rent and Servants? wages, to
North Bridge.7 . JAMES SUTHERLAND. 363 #
4 I
say nothing of the cost of new plants, so difficult
to procure in those non-travelling times.
In the spring of 1689, during the siege of the
Castle, a woeful mishap befell him. For certain
strategic reasons it had been thought necessary by
Sir John Lanier and other leaders to drain the
North Loch, and, as the water thereof ran through
the Botanic Gardens, as it had done of old through
that of the Hospital, it came to pass that for
several days the place was completely inundated,
and when left dry was found to be covered with
mud, and the rubbish of the city drains, so that
nearly all the delicate and costly plants collected
by Balfour, by Sibbald, and by Sutherland, were
destroyed ; and it cost the latter and his assistants
nearly a whole season to clear the ground, and in
his distress he appealed to the Privy Council.
That body considered his memorial, and the
good services he was rendering, ?whereby not only
the young physicians, apothecaries, and chirurgeons,
but also the nobility and gentry, are taught
the knowledge of herbs, and also a multitude of
plants, shrubs, and trees, are cultivated, which were
never known in this nation before, and .more
numerous,? continues the Privy Council Record,
?than in any other garden in Britain, as wee1 for
the?honour of the place as for the advantage -of the
people.? They ?therefore awarded him a pension
of 650 yearly out of the fines accruing to them.
Encouraged by this, and further aided by the
Lords of the Scottish Treasury, James Sutherland,
in 1695, extended his operations to a piece of
ground lying between the porch of Holyrood
palace and the old road to Restalrig, near where
the great dial stands now, where in that year he
raised ?a good crop of melons,? and many ? other
curious annuals, fine flowers, and other plants not
ordinary in this country.? In a few years he hoped
to rival London, if supplied with means to procure
?reed hedges to divide, shelter, and lay the
ground ?lown,? and warm, and a greenhouse and
store to preserve oranges, myrtles, and lemons,
with other tender plants and fine exotics in winter.?
He entreated the Lords of Council to further aid
him, ?? without which the work must cease, and the
petitioner suffer in reputation and interest, what he
is doing being more for the honour of the nation,
and the ornament and use of his majesty?s palace,
than his own private behoof.?
This place remained still garden ground till
about the time of Queen Victoria?s first visit, when
the new north approach to the palace was run
through it.
James Sutherland is supposed to have died about
1705, when his collection of Greek, Roman,
Scottish, Saxon, and English coins and medals, was
purchased by the Faculty of Advocates, and is
still preserved in their library.
The old Physic Garden, which had been his
own, eastward of the bridge, continued to be used
as such till the time when the chair of botany was?
occupied by Dr. John Hope, who was born at
Edinburgh in 1725, and was the grandson of Sir
Alexander Hope, Lord Rankeillor. On the 13th
April, 1761, he was appointed king?s botanist for
Scotland, and elected a few days after, by the
town council, Professor of materia medica, and
of botany, He was the first who introduced into
Scotland the Linnean system; and in 1768 he
resigned the professorship of materia medica, that,
in the end, he might devote himself exclusively to
botany, and his exertions in promoting the study of
it in Edinburgh were attended with the most
beneficial results. His immediate predecessor,
Dr. Alston, was violently opposed to the Linnean
system, against which he published an essay in
?751.
It was in the humble garden near the Trinity
College that he taught his students, and, for the.
purpose of exciting emulation among them, he
annually, towards the close of the session, gave a
beautiful medal to the student who had displayed
most diligence and zeal in his studies. It was
inscribed-? A cedro hyysopum usque. J. HOPE, Bot.
Pro$, dal . . . ?I In Kay?s portraits we have a clever
etching of the Professor superintending hisgardeners,
in a roquelaure and cocked hat. Besides some
useful manuals for facilitating the acquisition of
botany by his students, two valuable dissertations
by him, the one on the ??Rhtzun Palmaturn,? and
the other on the ?? Fer& AssafkMu,? were published
by him in the ?Philosophical Transactions.?
Finding that the ancient garden was unsuited to
advancing science, he used every exertion to have it
removed to a more favourable situation, To further
his objects the Lords of the Treasury granted
him, says Arnot, ??;GI,~~o IS. z+d. to make it, and
for its annual support the sum of A69 3s. At the
same time the magistrates and town council granted
the sum of A25 annually for paying the rent of
the ground.?
The place chosen was on the west side of Leith
Walk. It was laid out under the eye of Professor
Hope, who died in November, 1786. After the
formation of the new garden, the old one was completely
abandoned about 1770, and continued. to
be a species of desolate waste ground, enclosed by
a rusty iron railing, with here and there an old
tree dying of neglect and decay, till at length
innovations swept it away.
