Edinburgh Bookshelf

Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III

Search

alowing each 20 lbs. weight,.and all above to pay 6d. per lb. The coach sets off at six in the morning. Performed by Henry Hamson, Nich. Speighl, Rob. Garbe, Rich. Croft? When we consider the cost of food on a thirteen THE CANONGATE-CONTINUATIOK EASTWARD OF PLAN ON PAGE 5. (From Cordon of Rofhiemy?s Mn.4.) 8, Moray House; 30, Canongate Cross; 32, Canongate Tolbooth. Canongate, every other Tuesday. In the winter to set out from London and Edinburgh every other Monday morning, and to go to Burrowbridge on Saturday night ; and to set out from thence on Monday morning, and to get to London and Edinof Anne and Victoria seems great indeed. In July, 1754, the Ertinburgh Courant advertises the stage-coach, drawn by six horses, with a postillion on one of the leaders, as ?a new, genteel, two-end glass machine, hung on steel springs; exceeding light and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter,? setting out from Hosea Eastgate?s, at the Coach and Horses, Dean Street, Soho, and from John Somerville?s, in the parcels, according fo their vahe.? A few years before this move in the way of progress, the Canongate had been the scene of a little religious persecution; thus we find that on a Sunday in the April of 1722 the Duchess Dowager of Gordon, Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, venturing to have mass celebrated at her house in the Canongate for herself and some fifty other Roman Catholics, Bailie Hawthorn,
Volume 3 Page 16
  Enlarge Enlarge     Pictures Pictures
18 secure lock was placed upon it for the same purpose. In 1647 only three open thoroughfares are shown OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. r.,anongate. 1695, he early exhibited great talent with profound legal knowledge, and the mere enumeration of his I but there once stood on its eastern side a stately ald tenement, bearing the date 1614 with this pious legend: I. TAKE. THE. LORD. JESUS. AS. MY. ONLV. ALL. SUFFICIENT. P~RTION. TO. CONTENT. ME. This was cut in massive Roman letters, and the house was adorned by handsome dormer windows and moulded stringcourses; but of the person who dwelt therein no memory remains. And the same must be said of the edifices in the closes called Morocco and Logan?s, and several others. Between these two lies Rae?s Close, .very dark and narrow, leading only to a house with a back green, beyond which can be seen the Calton Hill. In the sixteenth century this alley was the only open thoroughfare to the north between Leith Wynd ? Kinloch?s mansion and that which adjoined itthe abode of the Earls of Angus-were pulled down about 1760, when New Street was built, ?a curious sample of fashionable modem improvement, prior to the bold scheme of the New Town,? and first called Young Street, according to Kincaid. Though sorely faded and decayed, it still presents a series of semi-aristocratic, detached, and not indigent mansions of the plain form peculiar to the time. Among its inhabitants were Lords Kames and Railes, Sir Philip Ainslie, the Lady Betty Anstruther, Christian Rarnsay daughter of the poet, Dr. Young the eminent physician, and others, Henry Home, Lord Kames, who was raised to the bench in 1752, occupied a self-contained to the north-one the Tolbooth Wynd-and all are closed by arched gates in a wall bounding the Canongate on the north, and lying parallel with a long watercourse flowing away towards Craigentinnie, and still extant. Kinloch?s Close, described in 1856 as ?short, dark, and horrible,? took its name from Henry Kinloch, a wealthy burgess of the? Canongate in the days of Queen Mary, who committed to his hospitality, in 1565, when she is said to have acceded to the League of Bayonne, the French . ambassadors M. de Rambouillet and Clernau, who came on a mission from the Court of France. Their ostensible visit, however, was more probably to invest Darnley with the order of St. Michael. They had come through England with a train of thirty-six mounted gentlemen. After presenting themselves before the king and queen at Holyrood, according to the ?? Diurnal of Occurrent$,? they ?there after depairtit to Heny Kynloches lugeing in the Cannogait besyid Edinburgh.? A few days after Darnley was solemnly invested with the collar of St. Michael in the abbey church; and on the I rth of February the ambassadors were banqueted, and a masked ball y.as given, when ? the Queenis Grace and all her Manes and ladies were cZed in men?s appardy and each of them presented a sword, ? brawlie and maist artificiallie made a d embroiderit with gold, to the said ambassatour and his gentlemen.? Next day they were banqueted in the castle by the Earl of Mar, and on the? next ensuing they took their departure for France vid England. works on law and history would fill a large page. He was of a playful disposition, and fond of practical jokes; but during the latter part oc his life he entertained a nervous dread that he would outlive his noble faculties, and was pleased to find that by the rapid decay of his frame he would escape that dire calamity; and he died, after a brief illness, in 1782, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. The great Dr. Hunter, of ?the Tron church, afterwards lived and died in this house. Lord Hailes, to whom we have referred elsewhere, resided during his latter years in New Street; but prior to his promotion to the?bench he generally lived at New Hailes. His house, No. 23, was latterly possessed by Mr. Ruthven, the ingenious improver of the Ruthven printing-press. Christian Ramsay, the daughter of ?honest Allan,? and so named from her mother, Christian Ross,?lived for many years in New Street, She was an amiable and kind-hearted woman, and possessed something of her fatheis gift of verse. In her seventy-fourth year she was thrown down by a hackney-coach and had her leg broken ; yet she recovered, and lived to be eighty-eight. Leading a solitary life, she took a great fancy to cats, and besides supporting many in her house, cosily disposed of in bandboxes, she laid out food for others around her house. ?Not a word of obloquy would she listen to against the species,? says the author of ? Traditions of Edinburgh,? ?? alleging, when any wickedness of a cat was spoken 05 that the animal must have acted under provocation, for by nature, she asserted, they were hapless
Volume 3 Page 17
  Enlarge Enlarge