OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Princes Street 121
famous china emporium-has had many and various
occupants. In I 783, and before that period, it was
Poole?s Coffee-house, and till the days of Waterloo
was long known as a rendezvous for the many
military idlers who were then in Edinburgh-the
veterans of Egypt, Walcheren, the Peninsula, and
India-and for the officers of the strong garrison
. maintained there till the general peace. In July,
1783, by an advertisement, ?Mathew Poole returns
his most grateful acknowledgments to the
nobility and gentry for their past favours, and begs
leave respectfully to inform them that he has taken
the whole of the apartments above his coffee-house,
which he has fitted up in the neatest and most
genteel manner as a hotel. The airiness of the
situation and the convenience of the lodgings,
which are perfectly detached from each other,
render it very proper for families, and the advantage
of the coffee-house and tavern adjoining must
make it both convenient and agreeable for single
gen tlemen.?
In the Post Ofice Directory for 181 5, Nos. 3 and
14 appear as the hotels of Walker and Poole ; the
latter is now, and has been for many years, a portion
of the great establishment of Messrs. William
Renton and Co.
When, in the summer of 1822, Mr. Archibald
Constable, the eminent publisher, returned from
London to Edinburgh, he removed his establkhment
from the Old Town to the more commodious
and splendid premises, No. 10, Princes Street,
which he had acquired by purchase from the connections
of his second marriage, and in that yeat
he was included among the justices of the peace
for the city. ?Though with a strong dash of the
sanguine,? says Lockhart-? without which, indeed,
there can be no great projector in any ryalk of life-
Archibald Constable was one of the most sagacious
persons that ever followed his profession. . - .
Indeed, his fair and handsome physiognomy carried
a bland astuteness of expression not to be inistaken
by any one who could read the plainest of nature?s
handwriting. He made no pretensions to literature,
though he was, in fact, a tolerable judge of it
generally, and particularly well skilled in the department
of Scotch antiquities. He distrusted himself,
however, in such matters, being conscious that
his early education had been very imperfect ; and,
moreover, he wisely considered the business of a
critic quite as much out of his proper line as
authorship itself. But of that ?proper line,? and
his own qualifications for it, his estimation was
ample; and as often as I may have smiled at the
lofty serenity of his self-complacence, I confess
that I now doubt whether he rated himself too
highly as a master in the true science of the bookseller.
He was as bold as far-sighted, and his
disposition was as liberal as his views were
wide.?
In January, 1826, the public was astonished by
the bankruptcy at No. 10, Princes Street, when
Constable?s liabilities were understood to exceed
~250,000-a failure which led to the insolvency
of Ballantyne and Co., and of Sir Walter Scott,
who was connected with them both j and when it
became known that by bill transactions, &c., the
great novelist had rendered himself responsible for
debts to the amount of &IZO,OOO, of which not
above a half were actually incurred by himself.
Constable?s failure was the result of that of Messrs.
Hunt, Robinson, and Co., of London, who had
suspended payment of their engagements early in
the January of the same fatal year.
At the time of his bankruptcy Constable was
meditating a series of publications, which afterwards
were issued under the title of ?Constable?s Mis
cellany,? the precursor of that now almost universal
system of cheap publishing which renders the
present era one as much of reprint as of original
publication ; but soon after its commencement he
was attacked by a former disease, dropsy, and died
on the zIst of July, 1827, in the fifty-third year of
his age. His portrait by Raeburn is one of the
most successful likenesses of him.
No. 16, farther westward, was, in 1794, occupied
as Weir?s Museum, deemed in its time a
wonderful collection ?? of quadrupeds, birds, fishes,
insects, shells, fossils, minerals, petrifaction, and
anatomical preparations . . , . . . One cannot
help,? says Kincaid, ? admiring t.he birds from Port
Jackson, New South M7ales, for the extreme beauty
of their plumage j their appearance otherwise eb
hibits them as not deprived of life.?
It is of this collection that Lord Gardenstone
wrote, in his ?Travelling Memoranda? :-?I cannot
omit to observe that in the whole course of
my travels I have nowhere seen the preservation
of quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and insects executed
with such art and taste as by Mr. Alexander Weir
of Edinburgh. He is a most ingenious man, and
certainly has not hitherto been so much encouraged
by the public as his merit deserves.?
No. 27, a corner house, was in 1789 the
abode of the Honourable Henry Erskine, who
figures prominently in the remarkable collection of
Kay ; and in the same year No. 47 was occupied
by Lady Gordon of Lesmore, in the county of
Aberdeen, an old family, created baronets in 1625.
It.now forms a portion of the great premises of
Kennington and Jenner, the latter of whom is
Prince Street.] CRAIG OF RICCARTON. ?23
brother of Sir William Jenner, Bart., the eminent
physician.
Princes Street contains most of the best-stocked,
highest-rented, and most handsome business premises
and shops in the city. From its magnificent
situation it is now, par exceZZence, the street for
hotels; and as a proof of the value of property
there, two houses, Nos. 49 and 62, were publicly
sold on the 12th of February, 1879, for
cf26,ooo and Lz4,soo respectively.
No. 53 at an early perid became the Royal
Hotel. In December, 1817, when it was possessed
bya Mr. Macculloch, the Grand Duke Nicholas,
brother of Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, resided
there with a brilliant suite, including Baron
Nicolai, Sir Wilhm Congreve, Count Kutusoff,
and Dr. Crichton-the latter a native of the city,
who died so lately as 1856. He was a member of
the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg and that of
Natural History at Moscow, K.G.C, of St. Anne
and St. Vladimir. He was a grandson of Crichton
of Woodhouselee and Newington. A guard of the
92nd Gordon Highlanders was mounted on the
hotel, and the Grand Duke having expressed a
wish to see the regiment-the costume of which
had greatly impressed him-it was paraded before
him for that purpose on the zznd of December,
on which occasion he expressed his high admiration
of the corps.
No. 64 is now the North British and Mercantile
Insurance Company, established in I 809,
and incorporated by royal charter, with the Duke
of Roxburgh for its present president, and tht
Dukes of Sutherland and Abercorn, as vice-presi,
dents. A handsome statue of St. Andrew, tht
patron of Scotland, on his peculiar cross, adorn5
the front of the building, and is a conspicuou:
object from the street and opposite gardens.
The Life Association of Scotland, founded in
1839, occupies No. 82. It is a magnificent
palatial edifice, erected in 1855-8, after designs by
Sir Charles Barry and Mr. David Rhind, and
consists of three double storeys in florid Koman
style, the first being rusticated Uoric, the second
Ionic, and the third Corinthian. Over its whole
front it exhibits a great profusion of ornament-sa
great, indeed, as to make its appearance somewhat
heavy.
In 1811, and before that period, the Tax Office
occupied No. 84 The Comptroller in those
days was Henry Mackenzie, author of the ?Man
of Feeling,? who obtained that lucrative appoint.
ment from Mr. Pitt, on the recommendation 01
Lord Melvilla and Mr. George Rose, in 1804.
With No. 85, it now forms the site of the New
Club, a large and elegant edifice, with a handsome
Tuscan doorway and projecting windows, erected
by an association of Scottish nobles and gentlenien
for purposes similar to those of the clubs at
the west end of London.
No. 91, which is now occupied as an hotel, was
the residence of the aged Robert Craig, Esq., of
Riccarton, of whom Kay gives us a portrait, seated
at the door thereof, with his long staff and broadbrimmed,
low-crowned hat, while his faithful
attendant, William Scott, is seen behind, carefully
taking ?tent ?? of his old master from the diningroom
window. Mr. Craig had been in early life a
great pedestrian, but as age came upon him his
walks were limited to the mile of Princes Street,
and after a time he would but sit at his door and
enjoy the summer breeze. He wore a plain coat
without any collar, a stock in lieu of a neckcloth,
knee-breeches, rough stockings, and enormous brass
shoe-buckles. He persisted in wearing a hat with
a narrow brim when cocked-hats were the fashion
in Edinburgh, until he was so annoyed by boys
that he adopted the head-dress in which he is
drawn by Kay. He always used a whistle in the
ancient manner, and not a bell, to sumnion his
servant. He died on the 13th of March, 1823.
Pursuant to a deed of entail, Mr. James Gibson, W.S.
(afterwards Sir James Gibson-Craig, Bart., of
Riccarton and Ingliston), succeeded to the estate,
and assumed the name and arms of Craig ; but the
house, No. 91, went to Colonel Gibson.
The record of his demise in the papers of the
time is not without interest :-? Died at his house
in Princes Street (No. gi), on the r3th March, in
the 93rd year of his age, Robert Craig, Esq., of
Riccarton, the last male heir of Sir Thomas Craig
of Riccarton, the great feudal lawyer of Scotland.
Mr. Craig was admitted advocate in 1754, and was
one of the Commissaries of Edinburgh, the duties
of which situation he executed to the entire satisfaction
of every one connected with it. He resigned
the office many years ago, and has long been the
senior member of the Faculty of Advocates. It
is a remarkable circumstance that his father?s elder
brother succeeded to the estate of Riccarton in
January, 1681, so that there has been only one
descent in the family for 142 years.?
No. 100, now occupied as an hotel, was for
many years the house of Lady Mary Clerk of
Pennicuick, known as ?The White Rose of Scotland
.?
This lady, whose maiden name was Ilacre, was
the daughter of a gentleman in Cumberland, and
came into the world in that memorable year when
the Highland army was in possession of Carlisle,
.
