I18 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
So difficult was it to induce people to build in a
spot so sequestered and far apart from the mass of
the ancient city, that a premium of Azo was
publicly offered by the magistrates to him who
should raise the first house; but great delays
ensued. The magistrates complimented Mr. James
Craig on his plan for the New Town, which was
selected from several. He received a gold medal
and the freedom of the city in a silver box; and
by the end of July, 1767, notice was given that
? the plan was to lie open at the Council Chamber
for a month from the 3rd of August, for the inspection
o?f such as inclined to become feuars, where
also were to be seen the terms on which feus
would be granted.?
At last a Mr. John Young took courage, and
gained the premium by erecting a mansion in
Rose Court, George Street-the j r s f edifice of
New Edinburgh; and the foundation of it was
laid by James Craig, the architect, in person,
on the 26th of October, 1767. (Chambers?s
Traditions,? p. 18.)
An exemption from all burghal taxes was also
granted to Mr. John Neale, a silk mercer, for an
elegant mansion built by him, the first in the line 01
Princes Street (latterly occupied as the Crown
Hotel), and wherein his son-in-law, Archibald
Constable, afterwards resided. ? These now appea
whimsical circumstances,? says Robert Chambers :
?so it does that a Mr. Shadrach Moyes, on
ordering a house to be built for himself in Princes
Street, in 1769, held the builder bound to run
another farther along, to shield him from the west
wind. Other quaint particulars are remembered,
as for instance, Mr. Wight, an eminent lawyer, who
planted himself in St. Andrew Square, finding that
he was in danger of having his view of St. Giles?s
clock shut up by the advancing line of Princes
Street, built the intervening house himself, that he
might have it in his power to keep the roof low,
for the sake of the view in question; important to
him, he said, as enabling him to regulate his
movements in the morning, when it was necessary
that he should be punctual in his attendance at
the Parliament House.?
By I 790 the New Town had extended westward
to Castle Street, and by 1800 the necessity for a
second plan farther to the north was felt, and soon
acted upon, and great changes rapidly came over
the customs, manners, and habits of the people.
With the enlarged mansions of the new city, they
were compelled to live more expensively, and
more for show. A family that had long moved in
genteel or aristocratic society in Blackfriars Wynd,
or Lady Stair?s Close, maintaining a round of quiet
[New Town.
tea-drinkings with their neighbouis up the adjoining
turnpike stair, and who might converse with lords,
ladies, and landed gentry, by merely opening their
respective windows, found all this homely kindness
changed when they emigrated beyond the North
Loch. There heavy dinners took the place of
tea-parties, and routs superseded the festive suppers
of the closes and wynds, and those who felt themselves
great folk when dwelling therein, appeared
small enough in George Street or Charlotte
Square.
The New Town kept pacewith the growing pros.
perity of Scotland, and the Old, if unchanged in
aspect, changed thoroughly as respects the character
of its population. Nobles and gentlemen, men of
nearly all professions, deserted one by one, and a
flood of the lower, the humbler, and the plebeian
classes took their places in close and wynd ; and
many a gentleman in middle life, living then perhaps
in Princes Street, looked back with wonder and
amusement to the squalid common stair in which
he and his forefathers had been born, and where
he had spent the earliest years of his life.
Originally the houses of Craig?s new city were
all of one plain and intensely monotonous plan and
elevation-three storeys in height, with a sunk
area in front, enclosed by iron railings, with link
extinguishers ; and they only differed by the stone
being more. finely polished, as the streets crept
westward. But during a number of years prior to
1840, the dull uniformity of the streets over the
western half of the town had disappeared.
Most of the edifices, all constructed as elegant
and commodious dwelling-houses, are now enlarged,
re-built, or turned into large hotels, shops,
club-houses, ,insurance-offices, warehouses, and new
banks, and scarcely an original house remains
unchanged in Princes Street or George Street.
And this brings us now to the Edinburgh of
modem intellect, power, and wealth. ?At no
period of her history did Edinburgh better deserve
her complimentary title of the modem Athens
than the last ten years of the eighteenth
and the first ten years of the nineteenth century,?
says an English writer. ?She was then, not only
nominally, but actually, the capital of Scotland, the
city in which was collected all the intellectual life
and vigour of the country. London then occupied
a position of much less importance in relation to
the distant parts of the empire than is now the
case. Many causes have contributed to bring
about the change, of which the most prominent are
the increased facilities for locomotion which have
been introduced . . . . , . various causes which.
contributed to increase the importance of pro
Princes Street.] EDINBURGH IN 1783. 119
vincial towns were combined in the case of Edinburgh
She was the titular capital of Scotland, and
as such, was looked up to with pride and veneration
by the nation at large. She was then the
residence of many of the old Scottish nobility, and
the exclusion of the British from the Continent,
during a long, protracted war, made her, either for
business, society, or education, the favourite resort
of strangers. She was the headquarters of the
legal profession at a time when both the Scottish
bench and bar were rendered illustrious by a numbet
of men celebrated far their learning, eloquence, and
wit. She was the head-quarters of the Scottish
Church, whose pulpits and General Assembly were
adorned by divines of great eminence and piety.
Lastly, she was the chief seat of scholarship, and
the chosen home of literature and science north of
the Tweed.?
With the Edinburgh of those days ,and of the
present we have now deal
CHAPTER XVII.
PRINCES STREET.
A Glance at Society-Change of BIanners, &-The Irish Giants-Poole?s Coffee-house-Shop of Constable 8 Co.-Weir?s Muscum, 1794-
The Grand Duke Nichoh-North British Insurance Life Association4ld Tax Office and New Club-Craig of Ricarton-??he
White Rose of Scotland??-St. John?s Chapel-Its Tower and Vaults, &.-The Scott Monument and its MUseum-The Statues of Professor
Wilson, Allan Ramsay, Adam Black, Sir James Sirnpson, and Dr. Livingstone-The General Improvements in Princes Street.
IN 1774 a proposal to erect buildings on the south
side of Princes Street-a lamentable error in taste
it would have proved-led to an interdict by the
Court of Session, which ended in a reference to
the House of Lords, on which occasion Imd
Mansfield made a long and able speech, and the
result was, that the amenity of Princes Street was
maintained, and it became in time the magnificent
terrace we now find it.
Of the city in 1783 some glimpses are given us
in the ?? Letters of Theophrastus,? appended to the
second edition of ?Arnot.? In that year the
revenue of the Post Office was only ~ 4 0 , 0 0 0 .
There were four coaches to Leith, running every
half hour, and there were 1,268 four-wheeled carriages
and 338 two-wheeled paying duty. The
oystercellars had become numerous, and were
places of fashionable resort. A maid-servant?s
wages were about f;4 yearly. In 1763 they wore
plain cloaks or plaids; but in 1783 ?silk, caps,
ribbons, ruffles, false. hair, and flounced. petticoats.?
In 1783 a number of bathing-machines had been
adopted at Leith. People of the middle class and
above it dined about four o?clock, after which no
business was done, and gentlemen were at no pains
to conceal their impatience till the ladies retired.
Attendance at church . was, much neglected, and
people did not think it ?genteel? to take their
domestics with them. ?In 1783 the daughters
even of tradesmen consume the moriings at the
toilet (to which rouge is now an appendage) or in
strolling from the perfumer?s to the milliner?s.
They would blush to be seeri at market. The
cares of the family devolve upon a housekeeper,
?
and Miss employs those heavy hours when she
is disengaged from public or private amusements
in improving her mind from the precious stores of
a circulating library.? In that year a regular cockpit
was built for cock-fighting, where all distinctions
of rank and character were levelled. The weekly
concert of music began at seven o?clock, and
mistresses of boarding-schools, &c., would not allow
their pupils to go about unattended ; whereas,
twenty years before ?young ladies might have
walked the streets in perfect security at all hours.?
In I 783 six criminals lay under sentence of death
in Edinburgh in one week, whereas it1 1763 three
was an average for the whole kingdom in a year.
A great number of the servant-maids still continued
? their abhorrence of wearing shoes and stockings
in the morning.? The Register House was unfinished,
?? or occupied by pigeons only,? and the
Records ? were kept in a dur.geon called the high
Parliament House.?
The High Street alone was protected by the
guard. The New Town to the north, and all the
streets and new squares to the south, were totally
unwatched ; and the soldiers of the guard still preserved
?the purity of their native Gaelic, so that
few of the citizens understand, or are understood
by them ;? while the king?s birthday and the last
night of the year were ?? devoted to drunkenness,
outrage, and riot, instead of loyalty, peace, and
harmony,? as of old.
One of the earliest improvements in the extended
royalty was lighting it with oil lamps; but in
the Adnerh?ser for 1789 we are told that ?while all
strangers admire the beauty and regularity of the
