High Street.] SIR WILLIAM DICK. 221
and only remaining part of the bishop?s house has
been completely modernised, and faced with a new
stone front j ?but many citizens still (in 1847) remember
when an ancient timber faGade projected
its lofty gables into the street, with tier above tier,
then astonishing sum of ~zoo,ooo sterling, and
whose chequered history presents one of the most
striking examples of the instability of human affairs.
farming the Crown rents of the northern isles at
He came of Orkney people, and began life by ?.
. THE NETHER BOW PORT, FROM THE HIGH STREET.
(Frmn an 0n;PrircJ Draw& ammxg tk Kirg?s Prints nnd Drawings, BriiiSk Muscnm.)
far out beyond the lower storey, while below were
the covered piazza and darkened entrances to the
gloomy laigh shops, such as may still be seen
in the few examples of old timber lands that have
escaped demolition? (Wilson).
Here then abode Sir William Dick of Braid, provost
of the city in 1638, whose wealth was so great
that he was believed to have discovered the philosopheis
stone, though his fortune only reached the
.&,ooo sterling, after which he established an
active trade with the Baltic and Mediterranean,
and made, moreover, a profitable business by the
negotiation of bills of exchange with Holland.
?? He had ships on every sea, and could ride on his
own lands from North Berwick to near Linlithgow,
his wealth centreing in a warehouse in the Luckenbooths,
on the site of that now (in 1859) occupied
by John Clapperton and Co.?
