366 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill.
-
dedicated to him,?) but by whom founded or when,
is quite unknown ; and from this edifice an adjacent
street was for ages named St. Ninian?s Row. ?The
under part of the building still remains,? to quote
Arnot; (?it is the nearest house to the RegisteI
Office on the south-east, except the row of houses
on the east side of the theatre. The lower storey
was vaulted, and the vaults still remain. On these
a mean house has been superstructed, and the
whole converted into a dwelling-house. The baptismal
font, which was in danger of being destroyec
was this year (1787) removed to the curious towel
built at Dean Haugh, by Mr. Falter ROSS, Write
to the Signet.? The ?? lower part ? of the building
was evidently the crypt, and the font referred to,
neatly-sculptured basin with a beautiful Gothi
canopy, is now among the many fragments built b:
Sir Walter Scott into the walls of Abbotsford. Thi
extinct chapel appears to have been a dependenc:
of Holyrood abbey, from the numerous notice
that appear in licences granted by the abbots o
that house to the Corporations of the Canongate
for founding and maintaining altars in the church
and in one of these, dated 1554, by Robert Stewart
abbot of Holyrood, with reference to St. Crispin?,
altar therein, he states, ?? it is our will yat ye Cor
dinars dwelland within our regalitie. . .
besyde our chapel1 of Sanct Ninian, out with Sanc
Andrews Port besyde Edinburcht, be in brether
heid and fellowschipe with ye said dekin anc
masters of ye cordinar craft.?
In 1775 one or two houses of St. James?s Squart
were built on the very crest of Moultray?s Hill
The first stone of the house at the south-eas
corner of the square was laid on the day that news
reached Edinburgh of the battle of Bunker?s Hill
which was fought on the 17th of June in that year.
? The news being of coul?se very interesting, wa:
the subject of popular discussion for the day, and
nothing but Bunker?s Hill was in everybody?s
mouth. It so happened that the two buildeE
founding this first tenement fell out between
themselves, and before the ceremony was concluded,
most indecorously fell to and fought out
the quarrel on the spot, in presence of an immense
assemblage of spectators, who forthwith conferred
the name of Bunker?s Hill upon the place, in
commemoration of the combat, which it retains to
this day. The tenement founded under these
curious circumstances was permitted to stand by
itself for some years upon the eminence of Bunker?s
Hill; and being remarkably tall and narrow, as
well as a solitary Zana?, it got the popular appellation
of ?Hugo Arnot? from the celebrated historian,
who lived in the neighbourhood, and whose
slim, skeleton-looking figure was well known to the
public eye at the period.?
So lately as 1804 the ground occupied by the
lower end of Katharine Street, at the north-eastem
side of Moultray?s Hill, was a green slope, where
people were wont to assemble, to watch the crowds
returning from the races on Leith sands.
In this new tenement on Bunker?s Hill dwelt
Margaret Watson of Muirhouse, widow of Robert?
Dundas, merchant, and mother of Sir David Dun- ?
das, the celebrated military tactician. ?We
used to go to her house on Bunker?s Hill,? says?
Lord Cockbum, when boys, on Sundays between
the morning and the afternoon sermons, when we
were cherished with Scottish broth and cakes, and
many a joke from the old lady. Age had made
her incapable of walking even across the room;
so, clad in a plain silk gown, and a pure muslin
cap, she sat half encircled by a high-backed blackleather
chair, reading, with silver spectacles stuck
on her thin nose, and interspersing her studies and
her days with much laughter and not a little
sarcasm. What a spirit! There was more fun
and sense round that chair than in the theatre or
the church.?
In 1809 No. 7 St. James?s Square was the residence
of Alexander Geddes, A.R.Y.A., a well-known
Scottish artist. He was born at 7 St. Patrick Street,
near the Cross-causeway, in 1783. In 1812 he removed
to 55 York Place, and finally to London,
where he died, in Berners Street, on the 5th of May,
1844. His etchings in folio were edited by David
Laing, in 1875, but only IOO copies were printed.
A flat on the west side of the square was long
the residence of Charles Mackay, whose unrivalled
impersonation of Eailie Nicol Jarvie was once the
most cherished recollection of the old theatre-going
public, and who died on the 2nd November, 1857.
In
1787 Robert Bums lived for several months in
No. z (a common stair now numbered as 30)
whither he had removed from Baxter?s Close
in the Lawnmarket, and from this place many
3f the letters printed in his correspondence are
dated. In one or two he adds, ?Direct to me
xt Mr, FV. Cruikshank?s, St. James?s Square, New
Town, Edinburgh.? This gentleman was one of
;he masters of the High School, with whom he
passed many a happy hour, and to whose daughter
ie inscribed the verses beginning-
This square was not completed till 1790,
? Beauteous rosebud, young and gay,
Blooming in thy early May,? &c.
It was while here that he joined most in that
irilliant circle in which the accomplished Duchess ?
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill.
- 368 -__
Courts, and large apartments for the stowage of
registers. In 1869 the folio record volumes numbered
42,835, occupying the shelves of twenty-one
chambers.
In one of the largest rooms are preserved the
rolls of ancient Parliaments, the records of the
Privy Council, charters of the sovereigns of
Scotland from William the Lion to the days of
Queen Anne, and on the central table lies the
Scottish duplicate of the Treaty of Union. In these
immediately to the transmission of landed property
in Scotland, and to the condition of Scottish society.
Others illustrate the relations of Scotland
with foreign countries, but more especially with
England.
The Lord Clerk Register and Keeper of the
Signet, who is a Minister of State of Scotland, and
whose office is of great antiquity, has always been
at the head of this establishment, which includes
various offices, such as those of the Lord Lyon,
ANTIQUARIAN ROOM, REGISTER HOUSE.
fireproof chambers is deposited a vast quantity
of valuable and curious legal and historical documents,
such as the famous letter of the Scottish
barons to the Pope in 1320, declaring that ?so
long as one hundred Scotsmen remained alive,
they would never submit to the dominion of
England,? adding, ?it is not for glory, riches, or
honour, that we fight, but for that liberty which no
good man will consent to lose but with life!?
There, too, is preserved the Act of Settlement of
the Scottish crown upon the House of Stuart, a
document through which the present royal family
inherits the throne ; the original deed initiating the
College of Justice by James V.; &c. Of all the
mass of records preserved here some relate more
the Lords Commissioners of Tiends, the Clerk and
Extractors of the Court of Session, the Jury Court,
and Court of Justiciary, the Great or Privy Seal,
and the Register General.
In 1789, at the request of Lord Frederick Camp-.
bell, a military guard was first placed upon this.
ihportant public building, and two sentinels were
posted, one at the east and the other at the west
end. In the same year lamps were first placed
upon it.
In modem times the two chief departments of
the Lord Clerk Register?s duty was the registration
of title deeds and the custody of historical
documents. Originally, like the Master of the
Rolls in England, he occasionally exercised judicia)
