146 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [George Smn
could be done.? On leaving the church, the
protestors proceeded to Tanfield Hall, Canonmills,
where they formed themselves into ?The General
Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland,? and
chose Thomas Chalmers, D.D., as their moderator;
so ?? the bush burned, but was not consumed.?
It was a remarkable instance of the emphatic
assertion of religious principle in an age of
material things of which St. Andrew?s church was
the scene on the 18th of May. It was no sacrifice
of blood or life or limb that was exacted,
or rendered, as in the days of ?a broken covenant
;? but it was one well calculated to excite
the keenest emotions of the people-for all these
clergymen, with their families, cast their bread upon
the waters, and those who witnessed the dark procession
that descended the long steep street towards
Tanfield Hall never forgot it.
Opposite this church there was built the old
Physicians? Hall-the successor of the still more
ancient one near the Cowgate Port. The members
of that college feued from the city a large area,
extending between the south side of George Street
and Rose Street, on which they erected a very
handsome hall, with rooms and offices, from a
design by Mr. Craig, the architect of the new city
itself.
The foundation stone was laid by Professor
Cullen, long a distinguished ornament of the
Edinburgh University, on the 27th November, I 775,
after a long discussion concerning two other sites
offered by the city, one in George Square, the
other where now the Scott monument stands. In
the stone was placed a parchment containing the
names of the then fellows, several coins of 1771,
md a large silver medal. There was also another
silver medal, with the arms of the city, and an
inscription bearing that it had been presented by
the city to Mr. Craig, in compliment to his professional
talents in 1767, as follows :-
JACOBO CRAIG,
AHCHITECTO,
PROPTER OPT1 IM U M,
EDINBURGI NOVI
ICHNOGRAPHIUM,
D.D.
SENATUS,
EDINBURGENSIS,
MDCCLXVII.
This building, now numbered among the things
that were, had a frontage of eighty-four feet, and
had a portico of four very fine Corinthian columns,
standing six feet from the wall upon a flight of
steps seven feet above the pavement. The sunk
floor, which was all vaulted, contained rooms for the
librarian and other officials ; the entrance floor
consisted of four great apartments opening frcm a
noble vestibule, with a centre of thirty-five feet :
one was for the ordinary meetings of the college,
and another was an ante-chamber; but the principal
apartment was the library-a room upwards of
fifty feet long by thirty broad, lighted by two rows
of windows, five in each row, facing Rose Street,
and having a gilded gallery on three sides. On this
edifice A4,800 was spent.
In 1781, the library, which had been stored up
in the Royal Infirmary, was removed to the hall,
when the collection, which now greatly exceeds
6,000 volumes, was still comparatively in its
infancy. Dr. Archibald Stevenson was the first
librarian, and was appointed in 1683 ; in 1696 a
law was enacted that every entrant should contribute
at least one book to the library, which was
increased in 1705 ? by the purchase of the books
of the deceased Laird of Livingstone for about
300 merks Scots;? and the records show how year
by year the collection has gone on increasing in
extent, and in literary and scientific value.
The two oldest names on the list of Fellows
admitted are Peter Kello, date December IIth,
1682, and John Abernethy, whose diploma is
dated June gth, 1683, granted at Orange, and
admitted December qth, 1684, and a wonderful
roll follows of names renowned in tke annals of
medicine. The attempt to incorporate the practitioners
of medicine in Scotland, for the purpose
of raising alike the standard of their character and
acquirements, originated in 1617, when James VI.
issued an order in Parliament for the establishnient
of a College of Physicians in Edinburgh-an order
which recites the evils suffered by the community
from the intrusion of uhqualified practitioners. He
further suggested that three members of the proposed
college should yearly visit the apothecaries?
shops, and destroy all bad or insufficient drugs
found therein ; but the year 1630 came, and found
only a renewal of the proposal for a college,
referred to the Privy Council by Charles I. But
the civil war followed, and nothing more was done
till 1656, when Cromwell issued a patent, still extant,
initiating a college of physicians in Scotland,
with the powers proposed by James VI.
Years passed on, and by the opposition principally
of the College of Surgeons, the universities,
the municipality, and even the clergy, the charter
of incorporation was not obtained until 1681, when
the great seal of Scotland was appended to it on
St, Andrew?s day. Among other clauses therein
was one to enforce penalties on the unqualified
who practised medicine; another for the punishment
of all licentiates who might violate the laws
