106 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Glton Hill.
money appropriated for the work was totally exhausted,
and the luckless observatory was once
more left to its fate, and when thus abandoned,
was the scene of a singular disturbance in 1788.
It was assailed by ten armed persons, who severely
wounded a gentleman who endeavoured to oppose
them ?in capturing the place, which was next
literally stormed by the City Guard, ?without
any killed or wounded,? says Kincaid, ?but in
the hurry of conducting their prisoners to the
guard-house, they omitted to take a list of the
stores and ammunition found there.? On the 26th
February, 1789, there were arraigned by the Procurator
Fiscal these ten persons, among whom were
Jacobina, relict of Thomas Short, optician in Edinburgh,
John McFadzean, medical student, for
forcibly entering, on the 7th November, ?the
observatory formerly possessed by Thomas Short,
optician, in order to dispossess therefrom James
Douglas, grandson of the said Thomas Short, with
pistols, naked swords, cutlasses, and other lethal
weapons, attacking and wounding Robert Maclean,
accountant of Excise,? &c. For this, eight were
dismissed from the bar, and two were imprisoned
.and fined 500 merks each. (Edin. Advert., 1789.)
In 1792 the observatory was completed by the
magistrates, but in a style far inferior to what the
utility of such an institution deserved ; and being
without proper instruments, or a fund for procuring
them, it remained in this condition till 1812, when
a more fortunate attempt was made to establish an
observatory on a proper footing by the formation
in Edinburgh of an Astronomical Institution, and
the old edifice is how used for a self-registering
anemometer, or rain-gauge, in connection with the
new edifice.
The latter had its origin in a few public-spirited
individuals, who, in 1812, formed themselves into
the Astronomical Institution, and circulated an
address, written by their President, Professor Playfair,
urging the necessity for its existence and
progress. ? He used to state,? says Lord Cockburn,
? in order to show its necessity, that a foreign
vessel had been lately compelled to take refuge in
Leith, and that before setting sail again, the master
wished to adjust his timepiece, but found that he
had come to a large and learned metropolis, where
nobody could tell him what o?clock it was.?
A little to the east of the old institution, the
new observatory was founded on the 25th April,
I 8 I 8, by Sir George Mackenzie, Vice-President, from
a Grecian design by W. H. Playfair, after the model
of the Temple of the Winds, and consists of a
central cross of sixty-two feet, with four projecting
pedimentssupported bysix columns fronting the four
points of the compass. The central dome, thirteen
feet in diameter, contains a solid cone or pillar
nineteen feet high, for the astronomical circle. To
the east are piers for the transit instrument and astronomical
clock; in the west end are others for
the mural circle and clock.
? The original Lancastrian School,? says Lord
Cockburn, ?? was a long wood and brick erection,
stretched on the very top of the Calton Hill, where
it was then the fashion to stow away anything
that was too abominable to be tolerated elsewhere.??
, The great prison buildings of the city occupy
the summit of the Doiv Craig, to which we have
referred more than once.
The first of these, the ? Bridewell,? was founded
30th November, 179r, by the Earl of Morton,
Grand Master of Scotland, heading a procession
which must have ascended the hill by the tortuous
old street at the back of the present Convening
Rooms. The usual coins and papers were enclosed
in two bottles blown at the glass-house in Leith,
and deposited in the stone, with a copper plate
containing a long Latin inscription. The architect
was Robert Adam.
Prior to this the city had an institution of a
similar kind, named the House of Correction, f a
the reception of strolling poor and loose characters.
It had been projected as far back as 1632,
and the buildings therefor had been situated near
Paul?s Work. Afterwards a building near the
Charity Workhouse was used for the purpose, but
being found too small, after a proposal to establish
a new one at the foot of Forrester?s Wynd, the
idea was abandoned, the present new one projected
and camed out. It was finished in ~796, at the
expense of the city and county, aided by a petty
grant from Government. In front of it, shielded
by a high wall and ponderous gate, on the street
line, is the house for the governor. Semicircular
in form, the main edifice has five floors, the highest
being for stores and the hospital. All round on
each floor, at the middle of the breadth, is a
comdor, with cells on each side, lighted respectively
from the interior and exterior of the
curvature. Those on the inner are chiefly used
as workshops, and can all be surveyed from a dark
apartment in the house of the governor without
the observer being visible. On the low floor is
a treadmill, originally constructed for the manufacture
of corks, but now mounted and moved
only in cure of idleness or the punishnient of
delinquency.
The area within the circle is a small court,
glazed overhead, The house is under good
Calton Hi1I.l THE BURYING-GROUND. I07
regulations, and is made as much as possible
the scene rather of the reclamation and the comfortable
industry of its unhappy inmates than of
the punishment of their offences.
At one time a number of French prisoners of
war were confined here.
At the east end of Waterloo Place, and adjoining
Bridewell, is the town and county gaol. It was
founded in 1815 and finished in 1817, when the
old Heart of Midlothian? was taken down. In
a Saxon style of architecture, it is an extensive
building, and somewhat castellated-in short, the
whole masses of these buildings, with their towers
and turrets overhanging the steep rocks, resemble
a feudal fortress of romance, and present a striking
and interesting aspect. Along the street line are
apartments for the turnkeys. Behind these, with
an area intervening, is the gaol, 194 feet long by 40
wide, four storeys high, with small grated windows.
In the centre is a chapel, with long, ungrated
windows. Along the interior run corridors, opening
into forty-eight cells, each 8 feet by 6, besides
other apartments of larger dimensions.
From the lower flat behind a number of small
airing yards, separated by high walls, radiate to a
point, where they are all overlooked and commanded
by a lofty octagonal watch-tower, occupied
by the deputy governor. Farther back, and
perched on the sheer verge of the precipice which
overhangs the railway, is the castellated tower, occupied
by the governor. The whole gaol is classified
into wards, is clean and well managed, and possesses
facilities for the practice of approved prison
discipline, but is seriously damaged in some of its
capacities by being a gaol for both criminals and
debtors, thus lacking the proper accommodation for
each alike.
From the Calton Hill the view is so vast, so
grand, and replete with everything that in either
city, sea, or landscape can thrill or delight, that
it has been said he is a bold artist who attempts
to depict it with either pen or pencil ; for far around
the city, old and new, there stretches a panorama
which combines in its magnificent expanse the
richest elements of the sublime and beautiful,
while the city itself is opulent, beyond all parallel,
in the attractions of the picturesque.
Prior to the erection of the Regent Bridge,
Princes Street, says Lord Cockburn, was closed at
its east end ??by a mean line of houses running
north and south. All to the east of these was a
burial-ground, of which the southern portion still
remains ; and the way of reaching the Calton Hill
was to go by Leith Street to its base (as may yet
be done), and then up a narrow, steep street, which
still remains, and was then the only approach,
Scarcely any sacrifice could be too great that
removed the houses from the end of Princes Street
and made a level to the hill, or, in other words,
produced the Waterloo Bridge.?
On the south side of the narrow street referred
to is the old entrance to the burying-ground, which
Lord Balmerino gifted to his vassals, and through
which the remains of David Hume must have been
borne to their last resting-place, in what is now the
southern portion of the cemetery, and in the round
tower of Roman design at the south-eastern corner
thereot Near it is the great obelisk, called
the Martyrs? Monument, erected to the memory of
those who were tried and banished from Scotland
in 1793 for advocating parliamentary reform. It
is inscribed, in large Roman letters :-?TO THE
MEMORY OF THOMAS MUIR, THOMAS FYSSHE
PALMER, WILLIAM SKIRVING, MAURICE MARGAROT
AND JOSEPH GEKALD. ERECTED BY THE FRIENDS
OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM IN SCOTLAND AND
ENGLAND, 1844.?
In this burying-ground lie the remains of Professor
George Wilson and many other eminent
citizens.
On the northern slope of the hill is a species of
cavern or arched vault in the rock, closed by a
gate, and known as the Jews? burial-place. It is the
property of the small Jewish community, but when
or how acquired, the Rabbi and other officials,
from their migratory nature, are quite unable to
state, and only know that two individuals, a man aml
his wife, lie in that solitary spot, Concerning this
place, a rare work by Viscount DArlincourt, a
French writer, has the following anecdote, which
may be taken for what it is worth. ?A Jew, named
Jacob Isaac, many years ago asked leave to lay his
bones in a little corner of this rock. As it was at
that time bare of monuments, he thought that in
such a place his remains ran no risk of being disturbed
by the neighbourhood of Christian graves.
His request was granted for the sum of 700 guineas.
Jxob paid the money without hesitation, and has
long been at rest in a corner of the Calton. But,
alas ! he is now surrounded on all sides by the
tombs of the Nazarenes.?
Though not correct at its close, this paragraph
evidently points.to the cave in the rock where one
Jew lies.
On the very apex of the hill stands the monument
to Lord Viscount Nelson, an edifice in such
doubtful taste that its demolition has been more
than once advocated. Begun shortly after the
battle of Trafalgar, it was not finished till 1816.
A conspicuous object from every point of view, by
