156 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. . [Queen Street,
always washed and carefully put away by her own
delicate hands, and thus breakage was evaded.
Marketing was then done in the early morning;
and many a time was the stately figure of old Mrs.
Wilson, ? in her elegantly-fitting black satin dress,
Seen to pass to and fro from the old market place
of Edinburgh, followed by some favourite caddie
peace and harmony reigned supreme, and there are
now not a few of her grandchildren who remember
this fine old Scottish matron with affection and
gratitude.
In 1815 John Wilson had been called to the bar,
at the same time with his firm friend Patrick Robertson,
Sir William Hamilton, Andrew Rutherford,
SIR JAMES WUNG SIMPSON.
(or street porter), bearing the well-chosen meats and
vegetables that no skill but her own was permitted
to, select?
She was a high Tory of the old school ; and it is
told of her that on hearing it said that her, son
was contributing to the Edinburgh Revim, she
exclaimed, ?John, if you turn Whig this house is
no longer big enough for us both ! ??
In No. 53 she had under her roof for several
years two married sons, with their wives, children,
.
Archibald Alison, and others ; and in 1819, he, with
his wife and children, then five in number, removed
from his mother?s house in Queen Street to No. 20
Anne Street, Stockbridge. It was in No. 53, however,
that the famous ? Chaldee Manuscript ? was
written, amid such shouts of laughter, says Mrs.
Gordon, ? that the ladies in the room above, sent
to inquire in wonder what the gentlemen below
were about. I am informed that among those who
were met together on that memorable occasion
Queen Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57
own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a
fit of laughter.?
No. 62 Queen Street was inhabited by Lord
Jeffrey from 1802 till 1810. In the following year
it became the residence of Sir John Leslie, K.H.,
Professor of Mathematics in the University of
Edinburgh, who in 1800 invented the differential
thermometer, one of the most beautiful and delicate
instruments that inductive genius? ever contrived
as a help to experimental research ; and the
results of his inquiries concerning the nature and
laws of heat, in which he was so much aided by
this exquisite instrument, were published in 1804,
in his celebrated ?Essay on the Nature and Propagation
of Heat.? Sir John Leslie was one of
those many self-made men who are peculiarly the
glory of Scotland, for he was the son of a poor
joiner in Largo, yet he attained to the highest
honours a university can bestow. In 1832, along
with Herschel, Brewster, Hams, Nichols, and others,
on the recommendation of Lord Brougham, he was
created a Knight of the Guelphic Order, but died
in the November of that year from an attack of
erysipelas.
No. 64 was, and is still, the town residence of
the Earls of Weniyss, but has had many other
tenants. Among others here resided ?? Lang Sandy
Gordon? as he was named in those days of simple
and unassuming familiarity, the son of William,
second Earl of Aberdeen, who was admitted an
advocate in 1759, and became Stewart-depute of
Kirkcudbright in 1764. Twenty years afterwards
he was raised to the bench as Lord Rockville, and
resided long in the close which bore .that name on
the Castle Hill, and afterwards in Queen Street
He was remarkable for his manly beauty and
handsome figure. He was a member of the Crochallan
Club, and a great convivialist. Walking
down the High Street one day, when the pavement
was unsafe by ice, he fell, and broke his arm.
He was conveyed to Provost Elder?s shop, opposite
the Tron church, where surgical aid was procured
and his arm dressed ; but, unfortunately, when his
friends were conveying him to his new home at
No. 64, one of the chairmen fell and overturned
the sedan in the street, which unsettled the splinting
of his lordship?s arm, and ultimately brought on
afever, of which he died on the 13th of March,
?792.
No. 64 was afterwards occupied by Sir James
Grant, Bart., of Grant, usually known as ?the
good Sir James.? His town house, with extensive
stable-offices, had previously been at the ,foot of
the Canongate, where it was advertised for sale
in 1797, as ? presently possessed by Professor
Stewart.? At a period when the extensive Highland
proprietors were driving whole colonies of
people from the abodes of their forefathers, and
compelling them to seek on distant shores that
shelter which was denied them on their own, and
?when absenteeism and the vices of courtly intrigue
and fashionable dissipation had sapped the
morality of too many of our landholders, Sir James
Grant escaped the contagion, and during a long
life was distingifished for the possession of those
virtues which are the surest bulwarks of the peace,
happiness, and strength of a country. Possessed
of extensive estates, and surrounded by a numerous
tenantry, his exertions seemed to be equally devoted
to the progressive improvement of the one
and the present comfort and enjoyment of the
other.? ?
Among his clau he raised two regiments of Highland
Fencibles within a few months of each other.
One was numbered as the 97th, or Strathspey
Regiment, 1,800 strong, and a portion of it joined
the 4nnd for service in the West Indies. Sir
James died at Castle Grant in 181 I.
No. 66, now offices, was occupied by Stewart of
Castle Stewart ; and in No. 68 lived George Joseph
Bell, Advocate, Professor of Law, and author of
? Principles of the Law of Scotland.? No. 7 I, in
181 I, was the residence of Francis, Lord Napier,
who served in the American war under General.
Burgoyne, but left the army in 1789. He took a
leading part in many local affiirs, was Grand
Master Mason of Scotland, Colonel of the Hopetoun
Fencibles in 1793, Commissioner to the
General Assembly in 1802, and a member of the
Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Scottish
Manufactures and Fisheries.
His prominently aquiline face and figure were
long remarkable in Edinburgh ; though, at a time
when gentlemen usually wore gaudy coloursfrequently
a crimson or purple coat, a green plush
vest, black breeches, and white stockings-when
not in uniform, he always dressed plainly, and with
the nicest attention to propriety. An anecdote of
his finical taste is thus given in Lockhart?s ?Life
of Scott ? :-
?Lord and Lady Napier arrived at Castlemilk
(in Lanarkshire), with the intention of staying a
week, but next morning it was announced that a
circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable
for them to return without delay to
their own seat in Selkirkshire. It was impossible
for Lady Stewart to extract any further explanation
at the moment, but it afterwards turned out that
Lord Napier?s valet had committed the grievous
mistake of packing up a set of neckcloths which
