High Street.] HOUSE OF THE ABBOTS OF MELROSE. 253
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HIGH STREET (caitfirzued).
Dickson?s and Cant?s Closes-The House of the ? Scottish Hogarth ? and the Knight of Tillybole-Rosehaugh?s, or Strichen?s, Close-House 01
the Abbots of Melrose-Sir Georye Yaclteuzie of Rosehaugh-Lady h n e Dick-Lord Strichen-The hlanncls of 1730-Pmvost Grieve-
John Dhu, Corporal of the City Guard-Lady Lovat?s Land-Walter Chnpman, Printer-Lady Lovat.
DICKSON?S CLOSE, numbered as 118, below the
modern Niddry Street, gave access to a handsome
and substantial edifice, supposed to be the work of
that excellent artificer Robert Mylne, who built the
modern portion of Holyrood and s3 rnacy houses
of an improved character in the city about the time
of the Revolution. Its earlier occupants are unknown,
but herein dwelt David Allan, known as
the ? Scottish Hogarth,? a historical painter of
undoubted genius, who, on the death of hlexander
Runciman, in 1786, was appointed director and
master of the academy established by the board of
trustees for manufacturers in Scotland.
While resident in Dickson?s Close he published,
in 1788, an edition of the ?Gentle Shepherd,? with
characteristic etchings, and, some time after, a collection
of the most humorous old Scottish songs with
similar drawings ; these, with his illustrations of
? The Cottar?s Saturday Night ? and the satire,
humour, and spirit of his other etchings in aquatinta,
won him a high reputation as a successful
delineator of character and nature. His drawing
classes met in the old college, but he received
private pupils at his house in Dickson?s Close after
his marriage, on the 15th November, 1788. His
terms were, as advertised in the Nucz~ry, one
guinea per month for three lessons in the week,
which in those simple days would restrict his pupils
to the wealthy and fashionable class of sqciety.
He died at Edinburgh on the 6th of August, 1796.
Lower down the close, on the same side, a
quaint old tenement, doomed to destruction by the
Improvements Act, 1867, showed on the coved bedcorbel
of its crowstepped gable the arms of Haliburton,
impaled with another coat armorial, with
the peculiar feature of a double window corbelled
out ; and in a deed extant, dated 1582, its first proprietor
is named Master James Haliburton. Afterwards
it was the residence of Sir John Haliday, of
Tillybole, and formed a part of Cant?s Close.
Its appearance in 1868 has been preserved to us
by R. Chambers, in a brief description in his
?? Traditions . ? According to this authority: it was
two storeys in height, the second storey being
reached by an outside stair, within a small courtyard,
which had originally been shut by a gate.
The stone pillars of the gateway were decorated
with balls at the top, after the fashion of entrances
to the grounds of a country mansion. It was a
picturesque building in the style of the sixteenth
century in Scotland. As it resembled a neat oldfashioned
country house, it was odd to find it
jammed up amid the tall edifices of this confined
alley. Ascending the stair, the interior consisted
of three or four apartments, with elaborately-carved
stucco ceilings. The principal room had a double
window on the west to Dickson?s Close.
In 1735 this mansion was the abode of Robert
Geddes, Gird of Scotstoun in Peeblesshire, who sold
it to George Wight, a burgess of Edinburgh, after
which it became deteriorated, and its stuccoed
apartments, froin the attics to the ground floor,
became each the dwelling of a separate family, and
a scene of squalor and wretchedness.
A considerable portion of the edifices in Cant?s
Close mere once ecclesiastical, and belonged to
the prebendaries of the collegiate church, founded
at Ciichton in 1449, by Sir William Crichton of
that ilk, Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.
In Kosehaugh?s Close, now called Strichen?s, the
next alley on the east, was the town-house of the
princely mitred abbots of Melrose. In Catholic
times the great dignitaries of the church had all
their houses in Edinburgh ; the Archbishop of St.
dndrews resided at the foot of Blackfriars Wynd ;
the Bishop of Dunkeld in the Cowgate ; the Abbot
of Dunfermline at the Netherbow ; the Abbot of
Cambuskenneth in the Lawnmarket ; and the Abbot
of Melrose in the close we have named, and his
?ludging? had a garden which extend?ed down to
the Cowgate, and up the opposite slope on the
west side of the Pleasance, within the city wall.
The house of the abbot, a large and massive
building enclosing a small square or court in the
centre of it, was entered from Strichen?s Close.
?? The whole building has evidently undergone
great alterations,?? says the description of it written
in 1847; ?a carved stone bears a large and very
boldlycut shield, with two coats of arms impaled,
and the date 1600. There seems no reason to
doubt, however, that the main portion of the
abbot?s residence still remains. The lower storey is
strongly vaulted, and is evidently the work of an
early date. The smalrquadrangle also is quite in
character with the period assumed for the building;
and at its north-west angle is Cant?s Close,
