104 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cahoa Hill.
on their return from the Army of Occupation in
France, under Colonel Wallace.
One of the last feasts of St. Crispin was held in
the Calton Convening Rooms, in 1820, when six
hundred of the ancient Corporation of Cordiners,
bearing St. Crispin with regal pomp, marched from
Holyrood. ?On reaching the Cross,?says the Week0
Journal for that year, ? it was found impossible to
proceed farther, from the mass of people collected ;
the procession therefore filed off into the Royal
Exchange, until a guard of the 13th Foot arrived
from the Castle ; then it proceeded along the
mound to the New Town.? It is added that fortyfour
years had elapsed since the last procession of
the kind.
The same paper, in 1828, records :hat a mighty
ing of the Regent Bridge, the foundation stone of
which was laid in 1815, forming a magnificent
entrance to the New Town from the east. The arch
is fifty feet wide, and about the same in height,
having on the top of the side ledges, arches, and
ornamental pillars, connected with the houses in
Waterloo Place. The whole was finished in 1819,
and formally opened on the visit of Prince Leopold,
afterwards King of Belgium j but the bridge must
have been open for traffic two years before, as it was
crossed by the 88th Connaught Rangers, in 1817,
15,000 men, and about the date above mentioned,
Earl Grey entered the city amid a vast concourse
of admirers. He was presented with the freedom
of the city in a gold box, and was afterwards entertained
at a public banquet, in a pavilion erected
for the occasion, 113 feet long by IDI broad. in
the eastern compartment of the High School on
the south side of the Calton Hill. Archibald,
Earl of Rosebery, K.T., in absence of the Duke
of Hamilton, occupied the chair.
On the north-west shoulder of the hill is the
old observatory, a rough, round-buttressed tower,
three storeys in height. The scheme for the
erection of a building of this kind was first projected
in 1736, but the local commotions occasioned
by the Porteous mob caused it to be relinquished
mass of rock, fully fifty tons in weight, fell from
under Nelson?s monument with a great crash from
a height of twentyfive feet, and carrying all before
it, rolled on the roadway below.
On the 15th September, 1834, there occurred the
only local event of interest since the visit of
George 1V.-the Grey banquet. A great portion
of the citizens had signalised themselves in their
zeal for the Reform Bill, the passing of which, in
August, 1832, they celebrated by a grand procession
of the trades, amounting to more than
NELSON?S MONUMENT, CALTON HILL, FROM PRINCES STREET. (Fwm a Dmwiwby A. Kaswytfi, pnbliskd in 18a6.)
Calton HiX] SHORT?S 0 ESERVATORY. ?05
?patriotic Earl of Morton gave a sun1 for the purpose;
leaving the management thereof to Colin
?Maclaurin, Professor of Mathematics, and others
of the Senatus Academicus. Maclaurin, with his
characteristic liberality, added to the earl?s gift by
the profits arising from a course of lectures on
experimental philosophy ; but his death, in 1746,
put a stop a second time to the execution of the
disposal for the purpose of building an observatory,
and to allow him to draw the whole emoluments
arising from the use of his apparatus for a certain
number of years ; ?but,? says Arnot, ?? on condition
that the students should, in the meantime,
have access to the observatory for a small gratuity,
and that the building,withall the instruments, should
. be vested in the Town Council for ever, as trustees
THE CALTON HILL, CALTON GAOL, BURYING-GROUND, AND MONUMENTS.
In 1776 there came to Edinburgh Mr. Short,
brother and executor to Mr. James Short, F.R.S.,
formerly an optician in Leith, and who brought with
him all his brother?s optical apparatus, particularly
a large reflecting telescope that magnified 1,200
times, ?and is,? says the Week0 Magazine for
that year, ? superior to any in Europe, but one in
possession of the King of Spain.? Mr. Short
intended to erect an observatory, which was to
be his own private property, and from which he
expected to draw considerable emoluments ; but
Dr. Alexander Monro, Professor of Anatomy, one
of Lord Morton?s trustees, showed that an observatory
unconnected with the Council and University
would conduce but little to the progress of science,
62
after a certain period. Mr. Short readily agreed,
and the Council were applied to for their concurrence
and patronage.?
It appears from their Register that in the
summer of 1776 the Council granted to Mr. Short,
his sons and grandsons, a life-rent lease of
half an acre on the Calton HilL A plan of the
intended building was made by James Craig,
architect, and the foundation-stone was laid by
Provost James Stodart, in presence of the Senatus,
25th July, I 776 ; and upon the suggestion of Adam,
the famous architect, in consequence of the high
and abrupt nature of the site, the whole edifice was
constructed to have the aspect of a fortification. 1 In the partial execution of this faulty design, thc
