cyloagate.1 HANNAH ROBERTSON. 21
of stone with a
Panmure of Forth, and was the last who possessed
this house, in which he was resident in the middle
of the last century, and was succeeded in it by the
Countess of Aberdeen.
From 1778 till his death, in 1790, it formed the
residence of Adam Smith, author of ? The Wealth
of Nations,? after he came to Edinburgh as Commissioner
of the Customs, an appointment obtained
by the friendship of the Duke of Buccleuch. A few
days before his death, at Panmure House, he gave
orders to destroy all his mandscripts except some
detached essays, which were afterwards published
by his executors, Drs. Joseph Black and Janies
Hutton, and his library, a valuable one, he left to
his nephew, Lord Reston. From that old mansion
the philosopher was borne to his grave in an obscure
nook of the Canongate churchyard. During
the - last years of his blameless life his bachelor
household had been managed by a female cousin,
Miss Jeanie Douglas, who acquired a great control
? had attained her
From her published memoir-which, after its first
appearance in 1792, reached a tenth edition in
1806, and was printed by James Tod in Forrester?s
Wynd-and from other sources, we learn that she
was the widow of Robert Robertson, a merchant
in Perth, and was the daughter of a burgess named
George Swan, son of Charles 11. and Dorothea
Helena, daughter of John Kirkhoven, Dutch baron
of Ruppa, the beautiful Countess of Derby, who had
an intrigue with the king during the protracted
absence of her husband in Holland, Charles, eighth
earl, who died in 1672 without heirs.
According to her narrative, the child was given
to nurse to the wife of Swan, a gunner at Windsor,
a woman whose brother, Bartholomew Gibson, was
the king?s farrier at Edinburgh; and it would
further appear that the latter obtained on trust for
George Swan, from Charles 11. or his brother the
Duke of York, a grant of lands in New Jersey,
where Gibson?s son died about 1750, as would
over him.
At the end of Panmure Close
was the mansion of John
Hunter, a wealthy burgess, who
was Treasurer of the Canongate
in 1568, and who built it in
1565, when Mary was on the
throne. Wilson refers to it as
the earliest private edifice in
the burgh, and says ?it consists,
like other buildings of
the period, of a lower erection
forestair leading to the first floor, and an ornamental
turnpike within, affording access to the
upper chambers. At the top of a very steep
wooden stair, constructed alongside of the latter,
a very rich specimen of carved oak panelling
remains in good preservation, adorned with the
Scottish lion, displayed within a broad wreath and
surrounded by a variety of ornaments. The doorway
of the inner turnpike bears on the sculptured
lintel the initials I. H., a shield charged with a
chevron, and a hunting horn in base, and the
date 1565.? It bore also a comb with six teeth.
It was demolished in August, 1853.
A little lower down are Big and Little Lochend
Closes, which join each other near the bottom and
TU into the north back of the Canongate. In the
former are some good houses, but of no great antiquity.
One of these was occupied by Mr. Gordon
of Carlton in 1784; and in the other, during the
close of the last and first years of the present century,
there resided a remarkable old lady, named
Mrs Hannah Robertson, who was well known in her
time as a reputed grand-daughter of Charles 11.
appear from a notice in the
Lndon ChronicZe for 1771.
Be all this as it may, the old
lady referred to was a great
favourite with all those of
Jacobite proclivities, and at the
dinners of the Jacobite Club
always sat on the right hand of
the president, till her death,
which occurred in Little Lochend
Close in 1808, when she
eighty-fourth year, and a vast - . . .
concourse attended her funeral, which took place
in the Friends? burial-place at the Pleasance.
Unusually tall in stature, and beautiful even in old
age, her figure, with black velvet capuchin and
cane, was long familiar in the streets of Edinburgh.
From a passage in the ?Edinburgh Historical Register?
for 1791-2, she would appear to have been
a futile applicant for a pension to the Lords of the
Treasury, though she had many powerful friends,
including the Duchess of Gordon and the Countess
of Northesk, to whom she dedicated a book named
?? The Lady?s School of Arts.?
One of the most picturesque and interesting
houses in the Canongate is one situated in what
was called Davidson?s Close, the old ?White Horse
Hostel,? on a dormer window of which is the date
1603. It was known as the ?White Horse? a
century and more before the accession of the
House of Hanover, and is traditionally said to
have taken its name from a favourite white palfrey
when the range of stables that form its basement
had been occupied as the royal mews. The adjacent
Water Gate took its name from a great
Cmongate.1 THE CANONGATE THEATRE. 23
the morning;?? and of the sanitary state of the
community in those days some idea may be gathered
from the fact that swine ran loose in the Canongate
till 1583, when an attempt was made to put
down the nuisance. In the city this was done
earlier, as we find that in 1490 the magistrates
ordain ?the lokman, quhairwer he fyndis ony
.swyne betwk the Castell and the Netherbow upon
the Gaitt,? to seize them, with a fine of fourpence
.upon each sow taken.
Again, in 1506, swine found in the streets or
kennels are to be slaughtered by the ?lokman? and
escheated ; and in 15 13 swine were again forbidden
to wander, under pain of the owners being banished,
and each sow to be escheat. At the same time
fruit was forbidden to be sold on the streets, or in
crames, ?? holden thairupon, under the pain oi
escheitt ?-that is, of forfeit.
In 1562 no flesh was to be eaten or even cooked
on ,Friday or Saturday, under a penalty of ten
pounds; and in 1563 all markets were forbidden
.in the streets upon Sunday.
Among the first operations of the Improvement
?Trust were the demolitions at the head of St.
Mary?s Wynd, including with them the removal 01
-the Closes of Hume and Boyd, the first alleys a1
the head of the street on the south side, and the
erection on their site of lofty and airy tenements in
A species of Scottish style.
Four,alleys to the eastward, Bell?s, Gillon?s, Gibbs?
and Pine?s Closes, all narrow, dark, and filthy,
have been without history or record j but Chessel?s
Court, numbered as 240, exhibits a very superior
style of architecture, and in 1788 was the scene 01
that daring robbery of the Excise Office which
brought to the gallows the famous Deacon Brodie
.and his assistant, thus closing a long career of
secret villainy, his ingenuity as a mechanic giving
him every facility in the pursuits to which he
addicted himself. ? It was then customary for the
shopkeepers of Edinburgh to hang their keys upon
a nail at the back of their doors, or at least to take
no pains in concealing them during the day. Brodie
used to take impressions of them in putty or clay,
a piece of which he used to carry in the palm of his
hand. He kept a blacksmith in his pay, who
forged exact copies of the keys he wanted, and
with these it was his custom to open the shops of
his fellow-tradesmen during the night.?
In a house of Chessel?s Court there died, in I 854,
an aged maiden lady of a very ancient Scottish
stock-Elizabeth Wardlaw, daughter of Sir William
Wardlaw, Bart., of the line of BalmuIe and Pitreavie
in Fifeshire.
In the Playhouse Close, a cdde-mc, and its
neighbour the Old Playhouse Close, a narrow and
gloomy alley, we find the cradle of the legitimate
drama in Edinburgh.
In the former, in 1747, a theatre was opened, on
such a scale as was deemed fitting forthe Scottish
capital, where the drama had skulked in holes
and corners since the viceregal court had departed
from Holyrood, in the days of the Duke of Albany
and York. From 1727 till after 1753 itinerant
companies, despite the anathemas of the clergy,
used with some success the Tailors? Hall in the
Cowgate, which held, in professional phraseology,
from ;E40 to ;E45 nightly.? In the first-named year
a Mr. Tony Alston endeavoured to start a theatre,
in the same house which saw the failure of poor
Allan Ramsay?s attempt, but the Society of High
Constables endeavoured to suppress his ? abominable
stage plays;? and when the clergy joined
issue with the Court of Session against him, his
performances had to cease. But, accqding to
Wodrow, there had been some talk of building
another theatre as early as 1728.
In 1746 the foundation of the theatre within a
back area (near St. John?s-Cross), now called the
Playhouse Close, was laid by Mr. John Ryan, a
London actor of considerable repute in his day,
who had to contend with the usual opposition of the
ignorant or illiberal, and that lack of prudence and
thrift incidental to his profession generally. The
house was capable of holding A70 ; the box seats
were halfa-crown, the pit one-and-sixpence ; and
for several years it was the?kcene of good acting
under Lee, Digges, Mrs. Bellamy, and Mrs. Ward.
After the affair of 1745 the audiences were apt
to display a spirit of political dissension. On the
anniversary of the battle of Culloden, in I 749, some
English officers who were in the theatre commanded
the orchestra, in an insolent and unruly manner,
to strike up an obnoxious air known as CulZoden ;
but in a spirit of opposition, and to please the
people, the musicians played (? You?re welcome,
Charlie S h u t ? The military at once drew their
sworQs and attacked the defenceless musicians and
players, but were assailed by the audience with
tom-up benches and every missile that couid be
procured. The officers now attempted to storm
the galleries ; but the doors were secured. They
were then vigorously attacked in the rear by the
Highland chairmen with their poles, disarmed, and
most ignominiously drubbed and expelled ; but in
consequence of this and similar disturbances, bills
were put up notifying that no music would be
played but such as the management selected.
Another disturbance ensued soon after, occasioned
by the performance of Garrick?s farce, ?? High
I
