36 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canongate
4? History of Music j ? Dr. Gregory ; David Xllan ;
Lord Cromarty; and many others who have left
$heir ?? footprints on the sands of time.?
There, too, is the grave of the ill-fated Fergusson
the poet, above which is the tombstone placed
at the order of Robert Burns by Gowans, a marble-
-cutter in the Abbey Hill, ?to remain for ever
sacred to the memory of him whose name it bears,?
with the inscription Bums penned :-
? HERE LIES ROBERT FERGUSSON.
Born Sept. sth, 1751. Died October 16th, 1774.
No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,
This simple stone directs pale Scotia?s way
No stoned urn nor animated bust ;
To pour her sorrows o?er her poet?s dust.?
Here, on the 16th of Tune, , -
? Henry Prentice. Died . . . .
Be not curious to know how I lived ;
But rather how yourself should die.?
He was, however, eventually interred at Restalrig.
At least three tenements of three storeys each
would seem to have occupied the site of the church.
One of the picturesque relics of the past in
Edinburgh is the old Canongate Tolbooth, with its
sombre tower and spire, Scoto-French corbelled
turrets, huge projecting clock, dark-mouthed archway,
its moulded windows, and many sculptured
stones. Above the arch is the inscription-
S. L. B.
PATRIA ET POSTERIS 1591 ;
and in a niche are the usual insignia of
1821, Sir Walter Scott att the burgh, the stag?s head and- cross,,
the funeral of John Ballantyne, with the motto SIC ITUR AD ASTRA, while
.and displayed considerable emo- the appropriate niotto ESTO FIDUS surtion.
?He cast his eyes along mounts the inner doorway to the court-
-the overhanging line of the Calton house. At the south-east comer is the
Hill, with its gleaming walls and old shaft of the cross and pillory, near
towers, and then turning to the the entrance to the police-station.
.grave again, ?I feel,? he whispered it is a fine example of the
fices of the reign of Janies
VI. In the tower are two bells,
in Lockhart?s ear, ?I feel as
if there would be less sun-
-shine for me from this day one inscribed SOLI DEO HONOR ET
forth.? 2y GLORIA, 1608, and a larger one,
In May 1880 there was cast in 1796. Between the stately
erected here a monument windows of the Council
.of rose-coloured granite, Hall is a pediment sur-
Wenty-six feet high, by Mr. mounted by a great thistle
Ford of the Holyroad Glass and the legend :-
-Works, ?? In memory of the J. R 6. JUSTITIA ET PIETAS
burgh Castle, situated in , FERGUSSON?S GRAVE. Herein the magistrates
soldiers who died in Edin- VALIDE SUNT PRINCIPIS ABCES.
.the Parish of Canongate,
interred here from the year 1692 to 1880.? It
k very ornate, has on its base sculptured trophies,
-and was inaugurated in presence of General Hope,
his staff, and the 71st Highlanders. Prior to its
erection the spot where so many soldiers have
.found their last home was only a large square patch
covered by grass.
In the ?? Domestic Annals ? we find recorded the
.death, in 1788, of Henry Prentice, by whom the
field culture of the potato was first introduced into.
the county of Edinburgh, in 1746. He had made
.a. little money as a travelling merchant, was an
.eccentric character, and in 1784 sunk A140 with
the managers of the Canongate poorhouse for a
weekly subsistence. He had his coffin made, with
the date of his birth thereon, 1703, and long bad
his gravestone conspicuously placed in the burgh
churchyard, inscribed thus :-
who came as successors
of the abbots of Holyrood as over-lords of the
burgh, held u-eekly courts for the punishment of
offenders, the adjustment of small debts, and
the affairs of the little municipality. That the
building is older than any of the dates upon it, or
that it had apredecessor, the following extracts from
the ?? Burgh Records ? attest :-
?? Vndecimo decembris, an : 1567.
?The quhilk day it was concludit, be the Baillies and
Counsall, to pursew quhatsomever person that is known and
brutit wt the breking of the Tolbooth of this burcht, the
tyme of the furth letting of Janet Robertsoun, being werdit
within the samyn, &c.?
In 1572 the following item occurs :-
?TO sax pynonis (pioneers?) att the Baillies *command
for taking doun of the lintel-stone of the Ruld Tolbooth
window-iij-s vi-d.?
In 1654 several Scottish prisoners of war, con
Canongate.] MORAY HOUSE. 31
fined here under a guard of Cromwell?s soldiers,
effected their escape by rending their blankets
and sheets into strips. In January, 1675, the
captain of the Edinburgh Tolbooth complained
to the Lords of Council that his brother official
in the Canongate used to set debtors at liberty
at his own free will, or by consent of the creditor
by whom they were imprisoned without pemiission
accorded.
After the erection of the Calton gaol this edifice
was used for the incarceration of debtors alone;
and the number therein in October, 1834, was only
seventeen, so little had it come to be wanted for
that purpose.
Within a court adjoining the Tolbooth was the
old Magdalene Asylum, instituted in 1797 for the
reception of about sixty females j but the foundation-
stone of a new one was laid in October, 1805,
by the Provost, Sir
William Fettes, Bart, in
presence of the clergy
and a great concourse
of citizens. ?In the
stone was deposited a
sealed bottle, containing
various papers relating
to the nse, progress, and
by an arrangement with her younger sister, Anne
Home, then Countess of Lauderdale, by whom the
mansion was built. ?It is old and it is magnificent,
but its age and magnificence are both different
from those of the lofty piled-up houses of
the Scottish aristocracy of the Stuart dynasty.?
Devoid of the narrow, suspicious apertures,
barred and loopholed, which connect old Scottish
houses with the external air, the entrances and
proportions of this house are noble, spacious,
and pleasing, though the exterior ha$ little ornament
save the balcony, on enormous trusses, projecting
into the street, with ornate entablatures
over their great windows and the stone spires of
its gateway. There are two fine rooms within,
both of them dome-roofed and covered with designs
in bas-relief,
The initials of its builder, M. H., surmounted
by a coronet, are sculp
THE STOCKS, FROM THE CANONGATE TOLBOOTH.
(Now in the Scottisk A ~ ~ ~ w w % z R Mfucum.)
present state of the
asylum.? This institution was afterwards transferred
to Dalry.
A little below St. -John Street, within a court,
stood the old British Linen Hall, opened in 1766
by the Board of Manufactures for the Sale and
Custody of Scottish Linens-an institution to be
treated of at greater length when we come to its
new home on the Earthen Mound. Among the
curious booth-holders therein was (( old John
Guthrie, latterly of the firm of Guthrie and Tait,
Nicholson Street,?? who figures in ? Kay?s Portraits,?
and whose bookstall in the hall-after he ceased
being a travelling chapman-was the resort of all
the curious book collectors of the time, till he
removed to the Nether Bow.
A little below the Canongate Church there
was still standing a house, occupied in 1761 by
Sir James Livingstone of Glentenan, which possessed
stables, hay-lofts, and a spacious flowergarden.
By far the most important private edifice still
remaining in this region of ancient grandeur and
modern squalor is that which is usually styled
Moray House, being a portion of the entailed property
of that noble family, in whose possession it
remained exactly zoo years, having become the
property of Margaret Countess of Moray in 1645
tured on the south &-
dow, and over another
on the north are the
lions of Home and
Dudley impaled in a
lozenge, for she was the
daughter of Lord Dudley
Viscount Lyle, and
then the widow of Alexander
first Earl of Home, who accompanied
James VI. into England. She erected the house
some years before the coronation of Charles I.
at Edinburgh in 1633; and she contributed
largely to the enemies of his crown, as appears
by a repayment to her by the English Parliament
of ~ 7 0 , 0 0 0 advanced by her in aid? of the
Covenanters; and hence, no doubt, it was, that
when Cromwell gained his victory over the
Duke of Hamilton in the north of England, we
are told, when the (then) Marquis of Argyle conducted
Cromwell and Lambert, with their army,
to Edinburgh, they kept their quarters at the
Lady Home?s house in the Canongate, according
to Guthrie, and there, adds Sir James Turner,
they came to the terrible conclusion ?( that fhere
was a necessitie fa fake away fhe King?s Zzyee;?? so
that if these old walls had a tongue they might
reveal dark conferences connected with the most
dreadful events of that sorrowful time. In conclave
with Cromwell and Argyle were the.Earls of
Loudon and Lothian, the Lords Arbuthnot, Elcho,
and Burleigh, with Blair, Dixon, Guthrie, and other
Puritans. Here, two years subsequently, occurred,
on the balcony, the cruel and ungenerous episode
connected with the fallen Montrose, amid the
joyous banquetings and revelry on the occasicn of
