242 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HIGH STREET-(continued).
?The Salamander Land ?-The Old Fishmarket Close-Heriot?s Mansion-The Deemster?s Hocse-Borthwick?s Close-Lord Durie?s House-
Old Assembly Rooms-Edinburgh As.emblies, 17zc-53-Mes Nicky Blurray-Formalities of the Balls-Ladies? Fashions-Assemblies
Removed to Hell?s Wpd-Hair Srreet and Hunter?s Square-Kennedy?s Close-George Buchanan?s Death-Niddry?r Wynd- Nicol
Edwards? House-A Case of Homicide in 1597-A Quack Doctor -Livingstone?s Liberty.
IN describing the closes and wynds which diverge
from the great central street of the old city on the
south we must resume at the point where the great
fire of 1824 ceased, a conflagration witnessed by
Sir Walter Scott, who says of it :-
?? I can conceive no sight more grand or terrible
than to see those lofty buildings on fire from top to
bottom, vomiting out flames like a volcano from
every aperture, and finally crashing down one after
another into a* abyss of fire, which resembled
nothing but hell ; for there were vaults of wine and
spirits, which sent up huge jets of flames wherever
they were called into activity by the fall of these
massive fragments.?
?( The Salamander Land,? an enormous black
tenement, so named from its having survived or
escaped the fires that raged eastward and westward
of it, and named also from that curious propensiv,
which is so peculiarly Scottish, for inventive
and appropriate sobriquets, was removed to
make way for the Police Chambers and the
Cournnt office, in the latter of which James Hannay,
the author of ?Satire and Satirists? and several
other works, and Joseph Robertson, the wellknown
Scottish antiquary, conducted the editorial
duties of that paper, the first editor of which
was Daniel Defoe. ?We have been told,? says
Wilson, writing of the old tenement in question,
?that this land was said to have been the residence
of Daniel Defoe while in Edinburgh ; the tradition,
however, is entirely unsupported by other testimony.?
Descending the street on the south, as we have
done on the north, we shall peep into each of the
picturesque alleys that remain, and recall those
.which are no more, with all the notables who once
.dwelt therein, and summon back the years, the
men, and the events that have passed away.
Through ?? the Salamander Land ? a spacious
archway led into the Old Fishmarket Close,
where, qrevious to the great fire, an enormous pile
of buildings reared their colossal front, with that
majestic effect produced now by the back of the
Royal Exchange and of James?s Court, and where
now the lofty tenements of the new police office
stand.
To this alley, wherein the cannon shot of Kirkaldy
fell with such dire effect during the great siege
of 1573, Moyse tells us the plague was brought, on
the 7th of May, 1588, by a servant woman from St.
Johnston.
Within the Fishmarket Close was the mansion of
George Heriot, the royal goldsmith, wherein more
recently resided President Dundas, ?? father of Lord,
Melville, a thorough bon vivant of the old claretdrinking
school of lawyers.?
Here, too, dwelt, we learn from Chambers?s
? Traditions,? the Deemster, a finisher of the law?s
last sentence, a grim official, who annually drew his
fee from the adjacent Royal Bank; and one of the
last of whom, when not officiating at the west end
of the Tolbooth or the east end of the Grassmarket,
eked out his subsistence by cobbling shoes,
Borthwick?s Close takes its name from the noble
and baronial hmily of Borthwick of that ilk, whose
castle, a few miles south from the city, is one of
the largest and grandest examples of the square
tower in Scotland. In the division 6f the city in
October, 1514, the third quarter is to be-according
to the Burgh records-? frae the Lopelie Stane
with the Cowgaitt, till Lord Borthwick?s Close,?
assigned to ?? Bailie Bansun,? with his sergeant
Thomas Amott, and his quartermaster Thomas
Fowler.
The property on the middle of the east side of
the close belonged to one of the Lords Napier of
Merchiston, but to which there is no record to
show; and it is n9t referred to in the minute will
of the inventor of logarithms, who died in 1617.
A new school belonging to Heriot?s Hospital
occupies the ground that intervenes between this
alley and the old Assembly Close.
On that site stood the town mansion of Lord
Dune, President of the Court of Session in 1642,
the hero of the ballad of ? Christie?s Will,? and
according thereto the alleged victim of the Earl of
Traquair, as given in a very patched ballad of the
Border Minstrelsy, beginning :-
? Traquair he has ridden up Chapelhope,
And sae has he doon by the Greymare?s Tail ;
Till he spiered for Christie?s Will?
But he never stinted his light gallop,
And hence for a time the alley bore the name of
Lord Dune?s Close.
On the site of his mansion, till its destruction by
the fire of 1824, stood the Old Assembly Rooms
High Street.] MISS NICKY MURRAY. 243
in the charter room of the burgh, dated 1723, is
described as being ?that big hall, or great room,
now known by the name of the Assembly House,
twice upon it in one night, and often the most
beautiful girls in the city passed it, as inere spectators,
which threw serious duties on the gentlemen
There it was that the Honourable Miss Nicky
Murray reigned supreme as lady-directress and
goddess of fashion, for many years during the
middle of the eighteenth century. She was a
sister of the Earl of Mansfield, and was a woman
possessed of much good sense, firmness, knowledge
of the world, and of the characters of those by
whom she was surrounded. With her sisters she
lived long in one of the tenements at the head of
Bailie Fyfe?s Close, where she annually received
whole broods of fair country cousins, who came to
town to receive the finishing touches of a girl?s education,
and be introduced to society-the starched
and stately society of old Edinburgh.
The Assembly Room was in the close to which
it gave its name. It had a spacious lobby, lighted
by sconces, where the gilded sedans set down their
powdered, hooped, and wigged occupants, while
links flared, liveried valets jostled, and swords were
sometimes drawn; and where a reduced gentleman-
a claimant to the ancient peerage of Kirkcudbnght-
sold gloves, for which he was rather
ungenerously sneered at by Oliver Goldsmith.
From this lobby the dancing-hall opened at
once, and up-stairs was a tea-room. The former
had in its centre a railed space,-within which were
the dancers ; while the spectators, we are told, sat
on the outside, and no communication was permitted
between the different sides of this sacred
pale. Here it was that in 1753 Goldsmith first
saw, with some astonishment, the formalities of
the old Scottish balls. He relates that on entering
the dancing-room he saw one end of it taken up
by the ladies, who ?sat dismally in a group by
themselves. ?On the other end stand their
pensive partners that are to be, but no more
intercourse between the sexes than between two
countries at war. The ladies, indeed, may ogle,
and the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid on
any closer commerce.?
The lady directress occupied a high chair, or
species of throne, upon a dais at one end, and
thereon sat Miss Nicky Murray in state. Her
immediate predecessors there had been Mrs.
Browne of Colstoun, and Lady Minto, daughter
of Sir Robert Stuart of Allanbank.
The whole arrangements were ofa rigid character,
iartner for the whole year! The arrangements
were generally made at some preliminary ball or
Ither gathering, when a gentleman?s cocked hat
was unflapped and the ladies? fans were placed
;herein, and, as in a species of ballot, the beaux
hew forth the latter, and to whomsoever the fan
3elonged he was to be the partner for the season,
I system often productive of absurd combinations
md many a petty awkwardness. ? Then,? as Sir
Alexander Boswell wrote-
? The Assembly Clbse received the fair-
Order and elegance presided there-
Each gay Right Honourable had her place,
To walk a minuet with becoming grace.
No racing to the dance, with rival hurry-
Such was thy sway, 0 famed Miss Nicky Murray !
Each lady?s fan a chosen Damon bore,
With care selected many a day before ;
For, unprovided with a favourite beau,
The nymph, chagrined, the ball must needs forego,
But previous matters to her taste arranged,
Certes, the constant couple never changed ;
Through a long night, to watch fair Delia?s will,
The same dull swain was at her elbow still.??
With sword at side, and often hat in hand, the
gallants of those days escorted the chairs of their
partners home to many a close and wynd now the
ibode of squalor and sordid poverty; for much
Df stately and genuine old-fashioned gallantry prevailed,
as if it were part of the costume, referred
to by the poet :-
? Shades of my fathers ! in your pasteboard skirts,
Your broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts,
Your formal bag-wigs, wide extended cuffs,
Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs.
Gods! how ye strut at times in all your state,
Amid the visions of my thoughtful pate ! ?
Those who attended the assemblies belonged
exclusively to the upper circle of society that then,
existed in Edinburgh ; and Miss Murray, on
hearing a young lady?s name mentioned to her for
approval, was wont to ask, ?? Miss-of what? ? and,
if no territorial or family name followed, she might
dismiss the matter by a wave of her fan, for,
according to her views, it was necessary to be
??a lady 0? that ilk;? and it is well known, that
?upon one occasion, seeing at an assembly a
wan who had been raised to wealth in some
