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
