160 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 1st. Andrew Street,
rewarded by the freedom of the city, which was
conferred on him by the magistrates.
The house he occupied in St. Andrew?s Lane
was a small one, and he had an old and very
particular lady as a neighbour on the upper
floor. She was frequently disturbed by the hasty
and impetuous way in which he rang his bell, and
often remonstrated with him thereon, but without
avail, which led to much ill-feeling between them.
At length, on receiving a very imperative and
them by example in buckling on his sword again,
as in his youth he had been a lieutenant in the
army. In 1787 he retired on account of his
health to Dryburgh Abbey, but returning to Edinburgh
again, occupied the house 131 George Street,
and died in 1829.
In St. Andrew Street lived, and died in 1809, in his
sixty-eighth year, Major-General Alexander Mackay,
who in 1803 commanded the forces in Scotland,
and was thirty years upon the staff there. He was
QUEEN STREET.
petulant message one day, insisting that he should
summon his servants in a different manner, great was
the old lady?s alarm to hear the loud explosion of a
heavy pistol in Arnot?s house ! But he was simply
-as he said-complying with her request by
firing instead of ringing for his shaving water.
In 1784 St. Andrew Street was the residence of
David, Earl of Buchan, who in 1766 had been
Secretary to the British Embassy in Spain, and who
formed the Scottish Society of Antiquaries in 1780.
Though much engaged in literary and antiquarian
pursuits, he was not an indifferent spectator of the
stirring events of the time, and when invasion was
threatened, he not only used his pen to create
uniqn among his countrymen, bct essayed to rouse I
usually named ? Old Buckram,? from the stiffness of
his gait, for he ? walked as if he had swallowed a
halbert, and his long queue, powdered hair, and
cocked hat, were characteristic of a thoroughbred
soldier of the olden time.?
Sir James Gibson Craig, W.S., of Riccarton,
occupied No. 8 North St. Andrew Street in 1830.
Proceeding westward, at the north-west corner
of South St. David Street we find the house of
David Hume, whither he came after quitting his
old favourite abode in Janies?s Court. The supenntendence
of the erection of this house, in 1770, was
a source of great amusement to the historian and
philosopher, and, says Chambers, a story is related
in more than one way regarding the manner ?4
St. Cavid Street.] DAVID HUME. 161
which a denomination was conferred upon the street
in which his house is situated. ?Perhaps, if it be
premised that a corresponding street at the other
angle of St. Andrew Square is called St. Andrew
Street-a natural enough circumstance with reference
to the square, whose title was determined
on the plan-it will appear likely that the choosing
of ? St. David Street ? for that in which Hume?s
house stood was not originally designed as a jest
at his expense, though a second thought and whim of
his friends might quickly give it that application?
Burton, in his ?? Life of Hume,? relates that
when the house was first inhabited by him, and
when the street was as yet without a name-a very
dubious story, as every street was named on the
On Sunday the 25th of August, 1776, Hume died
in his new house. On the manner of his death,
after the beautiful picture which has been drawn of
it by his friend, Adam?Smith, we need not enlarge.
The coolness of his last moments, unexpected by
many, was universally remarked at the time, and
is still well known. He was buried in the place
selected by himself, in the old burial-ground on the
western slope of the Calton HilL A conflict
between vague horror of his imputed opinions and
respect for the individual who had passed a life so
pure and irreproachable, created a great sensation
among the populace of Edinburgh, and a vast
concourse attended the body to the grave, which
for some time was an object of curiosity to many
Edinburgh. Adam Smith, Blair, and Ferguson, were
within easy reach, and what remains of Hume?s
correspondence with Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto,
Colonel Edmonstone, and Mrs. Cockburn, gives
pleasant glimpses of his social surroundings, and
enables us to understand his contentment with
his absence from the more perturbed, if more
brilliant, worlds of Paris and London.
In 1775 his health began to fail, and it was
evident that he would not long enjoy his new
residence. In the spring of the following year his
disorder, which appears to have been a hzniorrhage
of the bowels, attained such a height that he knew
it must be fatal, so he made his will, and wrote
? My Own Life,? the conclusion of which is one of
the most cheerful and dignified leave-takings of
life and all its concerns.
wilderness, and may meditate undisturbedly upon
the epitome of nature and man-the kingdoms of
this world-spread out before him. Surely there
is a fitness in the choice of this last resting-place
by the philosopher and historian who saw so
clearly that these two kingdoms form but one
realm, governed by uniform laws, and based alike
on impenetrable darkness and eternal silence; and
faithful to the last to that profound veracity which
was the secret of his philosophic greatness, he
ordered that the simple Roman tomb which marks
his grave should bear no inscription but, ?DAVID
HUME. Born, 1711. Died, 1776.? Leavhg it to
posterity to add the rest.?
It is a curious fact, sometimes adverted to in
Edinburgh, but which cannot be authenticated,
according to the Book of Days, that in the room
