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
