Xigh Street.] EXCISE OFFICE. 217
not only to inspire his enthusiasm, but improve his
seamanship ; and there was something prophetic
in the poem, as the frigate Azlroru, in which he
served, perished at sea in 1769.
Eastward of Knox?s manse is an old timberfronted
land, bearing the royal arms of Scotland
on its first floor, and entered by a stone turnpike,
the door of which has the legend Beus Benedictat,
and long pointed out as the excise office of early
times. ? The situation,? says Wilson, ? was peculiarly
convenient for guarding the principal gate of
das?s splendid mansion in St. Andrew?s Square,
now occupied by the Royal Bank. This may be
considered its culminating point It descended
thereafter to Bellevue House, in Drummond Place,
built by General Scott, the father-in-law of Mr.
Canning, which house was demolished in 1846 in
completing the tunnel of the Edinburgh and Leith
Railway; and now we believe the exciseman no
longer possesses a local habitation ? within the
Scottish capital.?
The interesting locality of the Nether Bow takes
the city, and the direct avenue (Leith Wynd) to
the neighbouring seaport. . . . . . Since
George 11.?~ reign the excise office had as many
rapid vicissitudes as might mark the ?areer of a
profligate spendthrift. In its earlier days, when a
floor of the old land in the Nether Bow sufficed
for its accommodation, it was regarded as foremost
among the detested fruits of the Union. From
thence it removed to more commodious chambers
in the Cowgate, since demolished to make way for
the southern piers of George IV. bridge. Its next
resting place was the large tenement on the south
side of Chessel?s Court in the Canongate, the scene
of the notorious Deacon Brodie?s last robbery.
From thence it was removed to Sir Lawrence Dun-
28
its name from the city gate, known as the Nether
Bow Port, in contradistinction to the Upper Bow
Port, which stood near the west end of the Eigh
Street. This barrier united the city wall from St.
Mary?s Wynd on the south to the steep street known
as Leith Wynd on the north, at a time when, perhaps,
only open fields lay eastward of the gate,
stretching from the township to the abbey of Holyrood.
The last gate was built in the time of Tames
VI. ; what was the character of its predecessor
we have no means of ascertaining; but to repair it,
in 1538, as the city cash had run low, the magistrates
were compelled to mortgage its northern
vault for IOO rnerks Scots; and this was the gate
which the English, under Lord Hertford, blew open
