castle Stratl CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 165
principal duty as clerk in court was to sit below
the bench, watch the progress of the suits, and
record the decisions orally pronounced, by reducing
them to technical shape.
Prior to living in No. 39 he would appear to
have lived for a time in ig South Castle Street
(1798-g), and in the preceding year to have taken
his bride to his lodging, 198 George Street.
In 1822 Lord Teignmouth visited Edinburgh,
and records in his (? Diary? that he dined here with
Sir Walter Scott, who on that occasion wore the
Highland dress, and was full of the preparations
for the forthcoming visit of George IV. To Lord
Teignmouth the dinner in all its features was a
novelty; and he wrote of it at the time as being
the most interesting at which he ever was present,
as ?( it afforded a more complete exhibition of Highland
spirit and feelings than a tour of the country
might have done.?
Four years afterwards saw the melancholy change
in Sir Walter?s life and affairs, and from his ?? Diary?
we can trace the influence of a darker species of
distress than mere loss of wealth could bring to a
noble spirit such as his. His darling grandson was
sinking apace at Brighton. The misfortunes
against which his manhood struggled with stem
energy were encountered by his affectionate wife
under the disadvantages of enfeebled health ; and
it would seem but too evident that mental pain and
mortification had a great share in hurrying Lady
Scott?s ailments to a fatal end.
He appears to have been much attached to the
house referred to, as the following extract from his
?(Diarf? shows:-(?March 15, 1826.-This morning
I leave No. 39 Castle Street for the last time!
?The cabin was convenient,? and habit made it
agreeable to me. . . . So farewell poor No. 39 !
What a portion of my life has been spent there !
It has sheltered me from the prime of life to its
decline, and now I must bid good-bye to it.?
On that daythe family left Castle Street for Abbotsford,
and in Captain Basil Hall?s ?( Diary? he records
how he came, by mistake, to 39 Castle Street, and
found the door-plate covered with rust, the windows
shuttered up, dusty and comfortless, and from the
side of one a board projected, with the ominous
words ?( To Sell ? thereon. ?( The stairs were unwashed,?
he continues, ?and not a footmark told
of the ancient hospitality which reigned within,
In all nations with which I am acquainted the
fashionable world moves westward, in imitation,
perhaps, of the civilisation ; and, vice vend, those
persons who decline in fortune, which is mostly
equivalent to declining in fashion, shape their course
eastward. Accordingly, by involuntary impulse I
turned my head that way, and inquiring at the
clubs in Princes Street, learned that he now resided
in St. David Street, No. 6.?
On the occasion of the Scott Centenary in
1871 the house in Castle Street was decorated,
and thrown open to the public by its then tenant
for a time. It became the residence of Macvey
Napier, editor of the seventh edition of the
He died in 1847,
and his Life and Correspondence? was published
in 1879.
Early in the century, No. 49, at the corner of
Hill Street, was the residence of Ochterlony of
Guynd, in Forfarshire, a family of whom several
members have since those days settled in Russia,
and a descendant of one, Major-General Ochterlony,
fell in the service of the Emperor at Inkerman,
after bearing a flag of truce to the British
head-quarters.
Charlotte Street and Hope Street lie east and
west respectively ; but the former is chiefly rernarkr
able ?or having at its foot on the north-west side a
monument, in the shape of a lofty and ornate
Eleanor cross, to the memory of Catherine Sinclair,
the authoress of (? Modem Accomplishments? and
many other works, She was born April 17th, 1800,
and died August 6th, 1864. Her sister Margaret,
one of the best known members of old Edinburgh
society, and one of the last survivors of the
Abbotsford circle, died on 4th August, 1879, in
London, in her eighty-seventh year. She had the
curious fortune of being the personal friend of Anne
Scott, Sir Walter?s daughter, and in her extreme youth
of being presented at Court bythe beautiful Duchess
of Gordon. Miss Margaret Sinclair was intimate
with the princesses of the old royal family of
(( Farmer George,? and retained to the last a multitude
of recollections of the Scottish world of two
generations ago.
Encyclopadia Britannic&?
