162 OLD AED NEW EDINBURGH. [Hanover Street.
in yhich David Hume died the Bible Society oi
Edinburgh was many years afterwards constituted,
and held its first sitting.
In the early part of the present century, No. 19
was the house of Miss Murray of Kincairnie, in
Perthshire, a family now extinct.
In 1826 we find Sir Walter Scott, when ruin
had come upon? him, located in No. 6, Mrs.
Brown?s lodgings, in a third-rate house of St.
David Street, whither he came after Lady Scott?s
death at Abbotsford, on the 15th of May in thatto
him-most nielancholy year of debt and sorrow,
and set himself calmly down to the stupendous
task of reducing, by his own unaided exertions, the
enormous monetary responsibilities he had taken
upon himself.
Lockhqt tells us that a week before Captain
Basil Hall?s visit at No. 6, Sir Walter had suf
ficiently mastered himself to resume his literary
tasks, and was working with determined resolution
at his ?Life of Napoleon,? while bestowing
an occasional day to the ?Chronicles of the
Canongate ?? whenever he got before the press with
his historical MS., or felt the want of the only
repose Be ever cared for-simply a change oi
labour.
No. 27,
now a shop, was the house of Neilson of Millbank,
and in No. 33, now altered and sub-divided, dwell
Lord Meadowbank, prior to I 7gqknown when at the
bar as Allan Maconochie. He left several children,
one of whom, Alexander, also won a seat on the
bench as Lord Meadowbank, in 18x9. No. 39, at
the corner of George Street, w2s the house ol
Majoribanks of Marjoribanks and that ilk.
No. 54, now a shop, was the residence of Si1
John Graham Dalyell when at the bar, to which
he was admitted in 1797. He was the second son
of Sir Robert Dalyell, Bart., of Binns, in Linlithgowshire,
and in early life distinguished himself by the
publication of various works illustrative of the
history and poetry of his native country, particularly
?Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century,??
?? Bannatyne Memorials,? ?? Annals of the Religious
Houses in Scotland,? Szc. He was vice-president
of the Antiquarian Society, and though heir-presumptive
to the baronetcy in his family, received
in 1837 the honour of knighthood, by letters patent
under the Great Seal, for his attainments in literature.
A few doors farther down the street is now the
humble and unpretentious-looking office of that
most useful institution, the Edinburgh Association
for Improving the Condition of the Poor, and
maintained, like every other charitable institution
in the city, by private contributions.
Hanover Street was built about 1786.
In South Hanover Street, No. 14-f old the
City of Glasgow Bank-is now the new hall of the
Merchant Company, containing many portraits of
old merchant burgesses on its walls, and some
views of the city in ancient times which are not
without interest. Elsewhere we have given the
history of this body, whose new hall was inaugurated
on July 9, 1879, and found to be well adapted
for the purposes of the company.
The large hall, formerly the bank telling-room,
cleared of all the desks and other fixtures, now
shows a grand apartment in the style of the Italian
Renaissance, lighted by a cupola rising from eight
Corinthian ? pillars, with corresponding pilasters
abutting from the wall, which is covered by
portraits. The space available here is forty-seven
feet by thirty-two, exclusive of a large recess.
Other parts of the building afford ample accommodation
for carrying on the business of the ancient
company and for the several trusts connected
therewith. The old manageis room is now used
by the board of management, and those on the
ground floor have been fitted up for clerks. The
premises were procured for ~17,000.
All the business of the Merchant Company is
now conducted under one roof, instead of being
carried on partly in .the Old Town and partly in
the New, with the safes for the security of papers
of the various trusts located, thirdly, in Queen
Street.
By the year 1795 a great part of Frederick
Street was completed, and Castle Street was
beginning to be formed. The first named thoroughfare
had many aristocratic residents, particularly
widowed ladies-some of them homely yet stately
old matrons of the Scottish school, about whom
Lord Cockburn, &c., has written so gracefully and
so graphically-to wit, Mrs. Hunter of Haigsfield
in No. I, now a steamboat-office; Mrs. Steele of
Gadgirth, No. 13; Mrs. Gardner of Mount Charles,
No. 20 ; Mrs. Stewart of Isle, No. 43 ; Mrs. Bruce
of Powfoulis, No. 52 ; and Lady Campbell of
Ardkinglas in No. 58, widow of Sir Alexander, last
of the male line of Ardkinglas, who died in 1810,-
and whose estates went to the next-heir of entail,
Colonel James Callender, of the 69th Regiment,
who thereupon assumed the name of Campbell,
and published two volumes of ?Memoirs? in 1832,
but which, for cogent reasons, were suppressed by
his son-in-law, the late Sir James Graham of
Netherby. His wife, Lady Elizabeth Callender,
died at Craigforth in 1797.
In Numbers 34 and 42 respectively resided
Ronald McDonald of Staffa, and Cunningham of
Baberton, and in the common stair, No. 35, there
