330 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Potterrow.
~~~ ~
very distinguished and accomplished circle, among
whom David Hume, John Home, Lord Monboddo,
and many other men of name, were frequently to
be found.?
Now she lies not far from Crichton Street, in the
northeast corner of the old burying-ground of the
Chapel 6f Ease; her tombstone is near the graves
of the poet Blacklock and old Rector Adam of the
High SchooL
? Except a mean street called Potterrow, and a
very short one called Bristo, there were, till within
these twelve years, hardly any buildings on the
south side of the town,? says Arnot in 1779 ; and
with these lines he briefly dismisses the entire
history of one of the oldest thoroughfares in Edinburgh-
the Eastern Portsburgh, which lies wholly
to the eastward of Bristo Street, and may be described
as comprehending the east side of that
street from the Bristo Port southward, the Potterrow,
Lothian and South College Streets, Drummond
Street to opposite Adam Street, and Nicolson
Street to nearly the entry to the York Hotel on the
west, and to the Surgeons? Hall on the east. But
jurisdictions had long ceased to be exercised in
either of the Portsburghs by the baron or resident
bailies; yet there are eight incorporated trades
therein, who derive their rights from John Touris
of Inverleith.
In Edgar?s map the main street of the Potterrow
is represented as- running, as it still does, straight
south from the Potterrow Port in the city wall,
adjacent to the buildings of the old college, its
houses on the east overlooking the wide space of
Lady Nicolson?s Park, between which and the west
side of the Pleasance lay only a riding-school and
some six or seven houses, surrounded by gardens
and hedgerows.
It has always been a quaint and narrow street,
and the memorabilia thereof are full of interest.
A great doorway on its western side, only recently
removed, in I 870, measured six feet six inches wide,
and was designed in heavy Italian rustic-work, with
the date 1668, and must have given access to an
edifice of considerable importance.
In 1582 the Potterrow, together with the West
Port, Restalrig, and other suburbs, was occupied
by the armed companies of the Duke of Lennox,
who, while feigning to have gone abroad, had a
treasonable intention of seizing alike the palace of
Holyrood and the city of Edinburgh ; but ? straitt
watche,? says Calderwood, was keeped both in the
toun and the abbey.?
In November, r584, it was enacted by the
Council that none of the inhabitants of the city,
the Potterrow, West Port, Canongate, or Leith,
~~ ~~~~ ~~
harbour, stable, or lodge strangers, for dread of the
plague, without reporting the same within an hour
to the commissary within whose quarter or jurisdiction
they dwell.
In the year 1639 a gun foundry was established
in the Potterrow to cast cannon for the first Covenanting
war, by order of General Leslie. These
guns were not exclusively metal. The greater part
of the composition was leather, and they were fabricated
under the eye of his old Swedish comrade,
Sir Alexander Hamilton of the Red House, a
younger son of the famous ?Tam 0? the Cow
gate,? and did considerable execution when the
English army was defeated at Newburnford, above
Newcastle, on the 28th August, 1640.
These cannon, which were familiarly known
among the Scottish soldiers as ?Dear Sandie?s
stoups,? were carried slung between two horses.
About the same time, or soon after this period,
witches and warlocks began to terrify the locality,
and in 1643 a witch was discovered in the Potterrow-
Agnes Fynnie, a small dealer in groceries,
who was tried and condemned to be ?worried at
the stake,? and then burned to ashes-a poor
wretch, who seems to have had no other gifts from
Satan than a fierce temper and a bitter tongue.
Among the charges against her, the fifth was, while
?? scolding with Bettie Currie about the changing of
a sixpence, which she alleged to be ill (bad), ye in
great rage threatened that ye would make the devil
take a bite of her.?
The ninth is that, ?ye ending a compt with
Isabel Atchesone, and because ye could not get all
your unreasonable demands, ye bade the devil ride
about the town with her and hers ; whereupon the
next day she broke her leg by a fall from a horse,
and ye came and saw her and said, ? See that ye
say not I have bewitched ye, as the other neighbours
say.? ? The eighteenth clause in her ditfuy is,
? that ye, having fallen into a controversie with
Margaret Williamson, ye most outrageously wished
the devil to blaw her blind; after which, she, by
your sorcerie, took a grievous sickness, whereof
she went blind.? The nineteenth is, ? for laying a
madness on Andrew Wilson conform to your
threating, wishing the devil to rivc fhe soul auf of
him.? (Law?s ? Memorialls,? 1638-84.)
At the utmost, this unfortunate creature had only
been guilty of bad wishes towards certain neighbours,
and if such had any sequel, it must have
been through superstitious apprehensions. It is
fairly presumable, says a writer, that while the
community was so ignorant as to believe that
malediction would have actively evil results, it
would occasionally have these effects by its in-
(? Privy Council Register.?)
