238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
other, Willielmina, became the wife of John Lord
Glenorchy.
The fate of the Earl of Sutherland, and of his
countess, whose beauty excited the admiration of
all at the coronation of George III., was a very
cloudy one. In frolicking with their first-born, a
daughter, the earl let the infant drop, and it sustained
injuries from which it never recovered, and
the event had so serious an effect on his mind,
that he resorted to Bath, where he died of a
malignant fever. For twenty-one days the countess,
then about to have a babe again, attended him
unremittingly, till she too caught the distemper, and
predeceased him by a few days, in her twenty-sixth
year. Her death was sedulously concealed from
him, yet the day before he expired, when delirium
passed away, he said, I am going to join my dear
Wife,? as if his mind had already begun to penetrate
the veil that hangs between this world and the
next.
In one grave in Holyrood, near the north-east
corner of the ruined chapel, the remains of this
ill-fated couple were laid, on the 9th of August,
1766.
Lady Glenorchy, a woman remarkable for the
piety of her disposition, was far from happy in her
marriage j but we are told that she met with her
rich reward, even iii this world, for she enjoyed
the applause of the wealthy and the blessings of the
poor, with that supreme of all pleasures-the conviction
that the eternal welfare of those in whose
fate she was chiefly interested was forwarded by
her precepts and example.?
In after years, the Earl of Hopetoun, when
acting as Royal Commissioner to the General
Assembly, was wont to hold his state levees in the
house that had been Lord Alva?s.
To the east of hfylne?s Square stood some old
alleys which were demolished to make way for the
North Bridge, one of the greatest local undertakings
of the eighteenth century. One of these alleys was
known as the Cap and Feather Close, immediately
above Halkerston?s Wynd. The lands that formed
the east side of the latter were remaining in some
places almost intact till about 1850.
In one of these, but which it was impossible
to say, was born on the 5th of September, 1750,
that luckless but gifted child of genius, Robert
Fergusson, the poet, whose father was then a clerk
in the British Linen Company; but even the site
of his house, which has peculiar claims on the
interest of every lover of Scottish poetry, cannot
be indicated.
How Halkerston?s Wynd obtained its name we
have already told. Here was an outlet from the
ancient city byway of a dam or dyke across the
loch, to which Lord Fountainhall refers in a case
dated zIst February, 1708. About twenty years
before that time it would appear that the Town
Council ?had opened a new port at the foot
of Halkerston?s Wynd for the convenience of those
who went on foot to Leith; and that Robert
Malloch, having acquired some lands on the other
side of the North Loch, and made yards and built
houses thereon, and also having invited sundry
weavers and other good tradesmen to set up
on Moutree?s Hill [site of the Register House], and
the deacons of crafts finding this prejudicial
to them, and contrary to the 154th Act of Parliament,
I 592,?? evading which, these craftsmen paid
neither scot, lot, nor stent,? the magistrates closed
up the port, and a law plea ensued between them
and the enterprising Robert Malloch, who was
accused of filling up a portion of the bank of the
loch with soil from a quarry. ?The town, on the
other hand, did stop the vent and passage over the
loch, which made it overtlow and drown Robert?s
new acquired ground, of which he complained as
an act of oppression.?
Eventually the magistrates asserted that the loch
was wholly theirs, and ?( that therefore he could
drain no part of it, especially to make it regorge
and inundate on their side. The Lords were
going to take trial by examining the witnesses, but
the magistrates prevented it, by opening the said
port of their own accord, without abiding an order,
and let the sluice run,? by which, of course, the
access by the gate was rendered useless.
Kinloch?s Close adjoined Halkerston?s Wynd, and
therein, till about 1830, stood a handsome old
substantial tenement, the origin and early occupants
of which were all unknown. A mass of curious
and abutting projections, the result of its peculiar
site, it had a finely-carved entrance door, with
the legend, Peir. God. in . Luzy., 1595, and the
initials I. W., and the arms of the surname of
Williamson, together with a remarkable device, a
saltire, from the centre of which rose a crosssymbol
of passion.
Passing Allan Ramsay?s old shop, a narrow bend
gives us access to Carrubber?s Close, the last stronghold
of the faithful Jacobites after 1688. Episcopacy
was abolished in 1689, and although from
that period episcopal clergymen had no legal provision
or settlement, they were permitted, without
molestation, to preach in meeting-houses till I 746 ;
but as they derived no emolument from Government,
and no provision from the State, they did not,
says Arnot, perplex their consciences with voluminous
and unnecessary oaths, but merely excluded
High Street.] CARRUBBER?S CLOSE. 239
the name of ? the Hanoverian usurpers ? from all
their devotions. But the humble chapels with
which these old Scottish Episcopalians contented
themselves in Carrubber?s Close, Skinner?s Close,
and elsewhere, present a wonderful contrast? to their
St. Paul?s and St. Mary?s in the Edinburgh of
to-day.
In this close was the house of Robert Ainslie?s
master, during Burns?s visit to Edinburgh, Mr.
Samuel Mitchelson, a great musical amateur ; and
here it was that occurred the famous ?Haggis
Scene,?described by Smollett in ?Humphrey Clinker.?
At the table of Mitchelson the poet was a frequent
guest, while on another floor of the old Clam Shell
Land, as it was named, dwelt another friend of
Burns?s, the elder Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo,
prior to his removal to the New Town. On the
second floor of an ancient stone land at the head
.of the close dwelt Captain Matthew Henderson,
a well-known antiquary, a gentleman of agreeable
and dignified manners, who was a hero of Minden,
and .a member of the Crochallan Club, and dined
constactly at Fortune?s tavern.
He died in 1789, and Bums wrote a powerful
elegy on him as ? a gentleman who held the patent
for his honours immediately from Almighty God.?
? I loved the man much, and have not flattered his
memory,? said Burns in a note to the elegy, which
contains sixteen verses. The old captain was one
whom all men liked. ? In our travelling party,?
says Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglas in his
(suppressed) Memoirs, ? was Matthew Henderson,
then (I 759) and afterwards well known and much
esteemed in the town of Edinburgh, at that time
an officer in the 25th Regiment of Foot, and, like
myself, on his way to join the army; and I may say
with truth, that in the course of a long life I have
never known a more estimable character than
Matthew Henderson.?
This close was the scene of the unsuccessful
speculation of another poet, for here Allan Ramsay
made a bold attempt to establish his theatre,
which was roughly closed by the magistrates in
1737, after it had been barely opened, for which
he took a poet?s vengeance in rhyme in the
GenlZmn?s Magazine. The edifice, which stood
at the foot of the close, was quizzically named
st. Andrew?s Chapel, and in 1773 was the arena
for the debates of a famous speculative club named
the Pantheon.
Five years subsequently Hind Dr. Moyes, the
clever lecturer on natural philosophy, held forth
therein to audiences both fashionable and select,
on optics, the property?of light, and so forth. It
was afterwards occupied by Mr. John Barclay,
founder of the Bereans, whose chief tenet was, that
the knowledge of the existence of God is derived
from revelation and not from Scripture.
From him and his followers Ramsay?s luckless
theatre passed to the Rev. Mr. Tait and other
founders of the Rowites, during whose occupancy
the pulpit was frequently filled by the celebrated
Edward Irving. The Relief and Secession congregations
have also had it in succession; the
Catholics have used it as a schoolroom ; and till
its demolition to make way for Jeffrey Street, it
has been the arena of a strange oZZapodda of per
sonages and purposes.
In Carrubber?s Close stood the ancient Tailor?s
Hall, the meeting-place of a corporation whose
charter, granted to them by the Town Council, is
dated 20th October, 1531, and with their original
one, was further confirmed by charters from James V.
and JamesVI. Theyhad analtar in St. Giles?sChurch
dedicated to their patron St. Ann, and the date of
their seal of cause is 1500. They had also an
altar dedicated to St. Ann in the Abbey church,
erected in 1554 by permission of Robert Commendator
of Holyrood.
The fine old hall in the Cowgate has long
since been abandoned by the Corporation, which
still exists; and in their other place of meeting
in Carrubber?s Close an autograph letter of
King James VI., which hung framed and glazed
over the old fireplace, was long one of its chief
features.
It was dated in 1594, and ran thus; but afew
lines will suffice for a specimen :-
?Dekin and remanent Maisters and Brethren of the
Tailyer Craft within oure burgh of Edinburgh, we g e t
zow weilL
?Forsaemeikle as, respecting the gude service of AZexander
MilZer, in making and working the abulzements of our
awn person, minding to continue him in oure service, as ain
maist fit and meit persone. We laitlie recommendit him into
zow be oure letter of requiest, desiring you to receive and
admit him gratis to the libertie and fredom of the said craft,
as a thing maist requisite for him, having the a i r of our
awin wark, notwithstanding that he was not prenteis
amongk zow, according to your ancient liberties and priviliges
had in the contraie. M?illing zow at this our requiest to
dispense him thereanent, &c, JAMES R.?
The king?s request was no doubt granted, and
the Alexander Miller to whom it referred died in
1616, a reputable burgess, whose tomb in the
Greyfriars? churchyard was inscribed thus by
his heirs :-
?AZexundro Milka, Jorobi Mug. Brit. FY&, &c.,
Regis Sarion; adfiltrni vifre, frinrario, hmedes. F. C. *it
annb 57, obiit Principis et Civium iauta decoratus, Anno
1616. Maii 2.??
