190 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hart Street
York Place he officiated there, until a severe illness
in 1831 compelled him to relinquish all public
duties, In ?Peter?s Letters? we are told that he
possessed all the qualifications of a popular orator.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh in the first year of its formation, and
was the intimate friend of many of its most distinguished
members, as he was of most of the men of
genius and learning of his time in Scotland. His
?Essays on Taste? appeared first in 1790, since
when it has passed through several editions, and
has been translated into French. His theory of
taste has met the approval of men of the highest
genius in poetry, criticism, and art. He died, universally
respected, on the 17th of May, 1839.
St. George?s Episcopal chapel, built in 1794,
stands on the south side of York Place. It was
designed by Robert Adam, and is of no known
style of architecture, and is every way hideous in
conception and in detail. This dingy edifice cost
North of the two streets we have described, and
erected coeval with them, are Forth and Albany
Streets.
In No. 10 of the former street lived for years,
, and died on the 27th of August, 1837, in his
seventy-first year, George Watson, first president
and founder of the Royal Scottish Academy, of
whom an account has already been given in connection
with that institution, as one of the most
eminent artists of his time. In the same house
also lived and died his third son, Smellie George
Watson, RSA, a distinguished portrait painter,
named from the family of his mother, who was
Rebecca, eldest daughter of William Smellie, the
learned and ingenious paintef and natural philosopher.
In the little and obscure thoroughfare named
Hart Street lived long one who enjoyed considerable
reputation in his day, though well-nig; forgotten
now: William Douglas, an eminent miniature
painter, and the lineal descendant of the
ancient line of Glenbervie. ? He received a useful
education,? says his biographer, ?and was well
acquainted with the dead and living languages
From his infancy he displayed a taste for the fine
arts. While yet a mere child he would leave his
playfellows to their sports, to watch the effects of
light and shade, and, creeping along the furrows of
the fields, study the perspective of the ridges.
This enabled him to excel as a landscape painter,
and gave great beauty to his miniatures.?
As aminiature painter he was liberally patronised
by the upper ranks in Scotland and England, and
his works are to be found in some of the finest
L3,ooo.
collections of both countries. In particular he was
employed by the family of Buccleuch, and in 1817
was appointed Miniature Painter for Scotland to
the Princess Charlotte, and Prince Leopold afterwards
King of the Belgians.
Prior to his removal to Hart Street he lived in
No. 17 St. James?s Square, a common stair. He
possessed genius, fancy, taste, and delicacy,, with a
true enthusiasm for his art; and his social worth
and private virtues were acknowledged by all who
had the pleasure of knowing him. He had a vast
fund of anecdote, and in his domestic relations was
an affectionate husband, good father, and faithful
friend. His constant engagements precluded his
contributing to the exhibitions in Edinburgh, but
his works frequently graced the walls of the Royal
Academy at Somerset House. In a note attached
to David Malloch?s ? Immortality of the Soul,? he
says :-?? The author would take this opportunity
of stating that if he has been at all successful in
depicting any of the bolder features of Nature, this
he in a great measure owes to the conversation of
his respected friend, William Douglas, Esq., Edinburgh,
who was no less a true poet than an eminent
artist.?
He died at his house in Hart Street on the 20th
of January, 1832, leaving a daughter, Miss Ranisay
Douglas, also an artist, and the inheritor of his
peculiar grace and delicacy of touch.
York Place being called from the king?s second
son by his English title, Albany Street, by a
natural sequence, was ndmed from the title of
the second son of the king of Scotland. Albany
Row it was called in the feuing advertisements
in 1800, and for some twenty years after. In
No. 2, which is now broken up and subdivided, lived
John Playfau, Professor of Natural Philosophy in
the University, z man of whom it has been said
that he was cast in nature?s happiest mould, acute,
clear, comprehensive, and having all the higher
qualities of intellect combined and regulated by
the most perfect good taste, being not less perfect
in his moral than in his intellectual nature. He
was a man every?way distinguished, respected, and
beloved.
When only eighteen years old he became a candidate
in 1766 for the chair of mathematics in
the Marischal College, Aberdeen, where, after a
lengthened and very strict examination, only two
out of six nval competitors were judged to have
excelled him-these were, Dr. Trill, who was
appointed to the chair, and Dr. Hamilton, who
subsequently succeeded to it. He was the son
of?the Rev. James Playfair, minister of Liff and
Benvie, and upon the representation of Lord
.
.
Albany Street.] GENERAL SCOTT. 19=
Gray was ordained his successor to that charge in
1773, but he resigned it ten years afterwards. In
1785 he was appointed joint Professor of Mathematics
in the University of Edinburgh with the
celebrated Adam Ferguson, LL.D., and discharged
the duties of that chair till the death of
his friend Professor Robinson, in 1805, when he
was appointed his successor. Among his works
are ? Elements of Geometry ? published in I 796 ;
?Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the
Earth ? in 1804; ?? Outlines of Natural Philosophy;?
besides many papers to the scientific department
of the Edinburgh &view and to various other
periodicals.
He died at No. 2, Albany Street, in his seventieth
year, on the 20th of July, 1819. An unfinished
?? Memoir of John Clerk of Eldin,? the inventor of
naval tactics, left by him in manuscript, was
published after his death in the ninth volume of
the ? Edinburgh Transactions.? An interesting account
of the character and merits of this illustrious
mathematician, from the pen of Lord Jeffrey,
was inserted in the ?? Encyclopzdia Britannica ?
and in the memoir prefixed to his works by his
nephew, and a noble monument to his memory
is erected on the Calton Hill.
Northwards of the old village of Broughton,
in the beginning of the present century, the land
was partly covered with trees ; a road led fkom it
to Canonmills by Bellevue to Newhaven, while
another road, by the water of Leith, led westward.
In the centre of what are now the Drummond
Place Gardens stood a country house belonging
to the Lord Provost Drummond, and long inhabited
by him ; he feued seven acres from the
Governors of Heriot?s Hospital. The approach to
this house was by an avenue, now covered by West
London Street, and which entered from the north
road to Canonmills.
On the site of that house General Scott of Balcolnie
subsequently built the large square threestoreyed
mansion of Bellevue, afterwards converted
into the Excise Office, and removed when the
Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee Railway Company
constructed the now disused tunnel from Princes
Street to the foot of Scotland Street.
In 1802 the l a d s of Bellevue were advertised
to be sold ?by roup within the Justiciary
Court Roomy for feuing purposes, but years
elapsed before anything was done in the way of
building. In 1823 the papers announce that
?? preparations are making for levelling Bellevue
Gardens and filling up the sand-pits in that
neighbourhood, with a view to finishing Bellevue
Crescent, which will connect the New Town with
Canonmills on one side, as it is already connected
with Stockbridge on the other.?
By that year Drummond Place was nearly completed,
and the south half of Bellevue Crescent
was finished and occupied; St. Mary?s parish church
was founded and finished in 1824 from designs b j
Mr. Thomas Brown, at the cost of A13,ooo for
1,800 hearers. It has a spire of considerable elegance,
168 feet in height.
General Scott, the proprietor of Bellevue, was
one of the most noted gamblers of his time. It
is related of him that being one night at Stapleton?s,
when a messenger brought him tidings that Mrs.
Scott had been delivered of a daughter, he turned
laughingly to the company, and said, ?You see,
gentlemen, I must be under the necessity of
doubling my stakes, in order to make a fortune for
this little girl.? He accordingly played rather
deeper than usual, in consequence of which, after
a fiw hours? play, he found himself a loser by
A8,ooo. This gave occasion for some of the
company to rally him on his ?? daughter?s fortune,?
but the general had an equanimity of temper
that nothing could ruffle, and a judgment in play
superior to most gamesters. He replied that he
had still a perfect dependence on the luck of the
night, and to make his words good he played steadily
on, and about seven in the morning, besides
clearing his .&8,000, he brought home A15,ooo.
His eldest daughter, Henrietta, became Duchess
of Portland.
Drummond Place was named after the eminent
George Drummond, son of the Laird of Newton, a
branch of the Perth family, who was no less than
six times Lord Provost of the city, and who died
in 1776, in the eightieth year of his age.
The two most remarkable denizens of this
quarter were Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddam
(previously of 93, Princes Street) and Lord
Robertson.
Among the attractions of Edinburgh during the
bygone half of the present century, and accessible
only to a privileged few, were the residence
and society of the former gentleman. Born of an
ancient Scottish family, and connected in many
ways with the historical associations of his country,
by his reputation as a literary man no less than
by his high Cavalier and Jacobite tenets, Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe was long looked up to as one
of the chief authorities on all questions connected
with Scottish antiquities.
No. 93, Princes Street, the house of Mrs. Sharpe
of Hoddam, was the home of her son till the time
of her death, and there he was visited by Scotc
Thomas Thomson, and those of the next genera
