34 OJ,D AND NEW EDINBURGH. -. -
by a clause in one of the Acts of the North British
Railway; and since 1847 it has fortunately become
the property of the Free Church of Scotland, by
whom it is now used as a training college or nor.
mal school, managed by a rector and very efficient
staff,
On the Same side, but to the eastward, is Milton
House, a large and handsome mansion, though
heavy and sombre in style, built in what had been
originally the garden of Lord Roxburghe?s house,
or a portion thereof, during the eighteenth century,
by Andrew Fletcher of Milton, raised to the bench in
1724 in succession to the famous Lord Fountainhall,
and who remained a senator of the Court of
Session till his death. He was the nephew of the
noble and patriotic Fletcher of Salton, and was an
able coadjutor with his friend Archibald the great
Duke of Argyle, during whose administration he
exercised a wise control over the usually-abused
Government patronage in Scotland. He sternly
discouraged all informers, and was greatly esteemed
for the mild and gentle manner in which he used his
authority when Lord Justice Clerk after the battle
of Culloden.
From the drawing-room windows on the south a
spacious garden extended to the back of the
Canongate, and beyond could be seen the hill of
St. Leonard and the stupendous craigs. Its walls
are still decorated with designs and landscapes,
having rich floral borders painted in distemper,
and rich stucco ceilings are among the decorations,
and ? interspersed amid the ornamental borders
there are various grotesque figures, which have the
appearance,? says Wilson, ? of being copies, from
an illuminated missal of the fourteenth century.
They represent a cardinal, a monk, a priest, and
other churchmen, painted with great humour and
drollery of attitude and expression. They so entirely
differ from the general character of the composition,
that their insertion may be conjectured to
have originated in a whim of Lord Milton?s, which
the artist has contrived to execute without sacrificing
the harmony of his .design.?
Lord Milton was the guardian of the family of
Susannah Countess of Eglinton for many years,
and took a warm and fatherly interest in her beautiful
girls after the death of the earl in 1729 ; and
the terms of affectionate intimacy in which he stood
with them are amusingly shown in ? The petition of
the six vestal virgins of Eglinton,? signed by them
all, and addressed ? To the Honourable Lord Milton,
at his lodgings, Edinburgh,? in I 735-a curious
and witty production, .printed in the ?Eglinton
Memorials.?
Lord Milton died at his house of Brunstane,
[Canangate. -
near Musselburgh, on the 13th of December, 1766,
aged seventy-four. Four years after that event the
Scots Magazine for 1770 gives us a curious account
of a remarkable mendicant that had long haunted
his gates:--? Edinburgh, Sept. 29th. A gentleman,
struck with the uncommon good appearance
of an elderly man who generally sits bareheaded
under a dead wall in the Canongate, opposite to
Lord Milton?s house, requesting alms of those
who pass, had the curiosity to inquire into his
history, and learned the following melancholy account
of him. He is an attainted baronet, named
Sif John Mitchell of Pitreavie, and had formerly
a very affluent estate, . In the early part of his life
he was a captain in the Scots Greys, but was broke
for sending a challenge to the Duke of Marlborough,
in consequence of some illiberal reflections thrown
out by his Grace against the Scottish nation.
Queen Anne took so personal a part in his prosecution
that he was condemned to transportation
for the offence ; and this part of his sentence was,
with difficulty, remitted at the particular instance
of John Duke of Argyle. Exposed, in the hundredth
year of his age, to the inclemencies of the
weather, it is hoped the humane and charitable
of this city will attend to his distresses, and relieve
him from a situation which appears too severe a
punishment for what, at worst, can be termed his
spirited imprudence. A subscription for his annual
support is opened at Balfoufs coffee-house, where
those who are disposed to contribute towards it will
receive every satisfaction concerning the disposal of
their charity and the truth of the foregoing relation.?
The aged mendicant referred to may have been
a knight, but the name of Mitchell is not to be
found in the old list of Scottish baronets, and Pitreavie,
belonged to the Wadlaws.
In later years Milton House was occupied as a
Catholic school, under the care of the Sisters of
Charity, who, with their pupils, attracted considerable
attention in 1842, on the occasion of the first
visit of Queen Victoria to Holyrood, from whence
they strewed flowers before her up the ancient street.
It was next a school for deaf and dumb, anon
5 temporary maternity hospital, and then the property
of an engineering firm.
Where Whiteford House stands now, in Edgar?s
map ?or 1765 there are shown two blocks of
buildings (with a narrow passage between, and a
Zarden 150 feet long) marked, ?Ruins of the Earl
Df Winton?s house,? a stately edifice, which, no
loubt, had fallen into a state of dilapidation from
its extreme antiquity and abandonment after the
attainder of George, fourth Earl of Winton, who
was taken prisoner in the fight at Preston in 1715,
?
Canongate1 SIR JOHN WHITEFORD OF THAT ILK 35
but who, after being sentenced to death, escaped to
Rome, where he died in 1749, without issue, aceording
to Sir Robert Douglas ; and, of course, is
:the same house that has been mentioned in history
as the Lord Seton?s lodging ?? in the Cannogait,?
wherein on his arrival from England, ?.? Henrie Lord
Dernlie, eldest son of Matho, erle of Lennox,? re-
:sided when, prior to his marriage, he came to Edinburgh
on the 13th of February, 1565, as stated in
the ?? Diurnal of Occurrents.?
In the same house was lodged, in 1582, according
to Moyse, Mons. De Menainville, who came
as an extra ambassador from France, with instructions
to join La Motte Fenelon. He landed at
Burntisland on the 18th of January, and came to
Edinburgh, where he had an audience with Janies
VI. on the 23rd, to the great alarm of the clergy,
who dreaded this double attempt to revive French
influence in? Scottish affairs. One Mr. James
Lawson ?? pointed out the French ambassaye?
as the mission of the King of Babylon, and characterised
Menainville as the counterpart of the
blaspheming Rabshakeh.
Upon the 10th February, says Moyse, ?La Motte
having received a satisfying answer to his comniission,
with a great banquet at Archibald Stewart?s
lodgings in Edinburgh, took his journey homeward,
and called at Seaton by the way. The said Monsieur
Manzeville remained still here, and lodging
at my Lord Seaton?s house in the Canongate, had
daily access to the king?s majesty, to whom he
imparted his negotiations at all times.?
In this house died, of hectic fever, in December,
1638, Jane, Countess of Sutherland, grand-daughter
af the first Earl of Winton. She ?was interred at
the collegiat churche of Setton, without any funeral1
ceremoney, by night.?
In front of this once noble mansion, in which
Scott lays some of the scenes of the ?Abbot,?
there sprang up a kind of humble tavern, built
chiefly of lath and plaster, known as ?Jenny Ha?s,?
from Mrs. Hall, its landlady, famous for her claret.
Herein Gay, the poet, is said to ??have boosed
during his short stay in Edinburgh ;? and to this
tavern it was customary for gentlemen to adjourn
after dinner parties, to indulge in claret from the
butt.
On the site of the Seton mansion, and surrounded
by its fine old gardens, was raised the present
edifice known as Whiteford House, the residence of
Sir John Whiteford, Bart., of that ilk and Ballochof
the early patrons of Burns, who had been htre
duced to him by Dr. Mackenzie, and the grateful
bard never forgot the kindness he accorded to him.
The failure of Douglas, Heron, & Co., in whose
bank he had a fatal interest, compelled him to
dispose of beautiful Ballochmyle, after which he
resided permanently in Whiteford House, where
he died in 1803. To the last he retained a military
bearing, having served in the army, and been a
major in 1762.
Latterly, and for many years, Whiteford House
was best known as the residence of Sir William
Macleod Bannatyne, who was raised to the bench
on the death of Lord Swinton, in 1799, and was
long remembered as a most pleasing example of the
old gentleman of Edinburgh ?before its antique
mansions and manners had fallen under the ban
of modern fashion.?
One of the last survivors of the Mirror Club,
in private life his benevolent and amiable qualities
of head and heart, with his rich stores of literary
and historical anecdote, endeared him to a numerous
and highly distinguished circle of friends. Robert
Chambers speaks of breakfasting with him in Whiteford
House so late as 1832, ?on which occasion
the venerable old gentleman talked as familiarly
of the levees of the sous-nziniske for Lord Bute in
the old villa at the Abbey Hill as I could have
talked of the Canning administration, and even
recalled, 2.5 a fresh picture of his memory, his father
drawing on his boots to go to make interest in
London on behalf of some men in trouble for
the ?45, particularly his own brother-in-law, the
Clanranald of that day.? He died at Whiteford
House on the 30th of November, 1833, in the
ninety-first year of his age. His mansion was
latterly used as a type-foundry.
On the south side of the street, nearly opposite
the site of the Seton lodging, the residence of the
Dukes of Queensberry still towers up, a huge, dark,
gloomy, and quadrangular mass, the scene of much
stately life, of low corrupt intrigue, and in one
instance of a horrible tragedy.
It was built by Lord Halton on land belonging
to the Lauderdale family; and by a passage in
Lord Fountainhall?s folios would seem to have been
sold bp him, in June, 1686, to William first Duke
of Queensbeny and Marquis of Dumfries-shire, Lord
High Treasurer and President of the Council,a
noted money-lender and land-acquirer, who built
the castle of Drumlanrig, and at the exact hour
.
niyle, a locality in Ayrshire, on which the muse of whose death, in 1695, it is said, a Scottish
of Bums has conferred celebrity, and whose father skipper, being in Sicily, saw one day a coach and
is said to have been the prototype of Sir Arthur ,six driving to flaming Mount Etna, while a dia-
Wardour in the ?Antiquary.? Sir John was one 1 bolical voice was heard to exclaim, ?Way for the
