332 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Aliison Squam
Chloris of some of his finest lyrics, the daughter of
a prosperous farmer at a place called Kemmis
Hall, on the banks of the Nith, and who, after
undergoing many vicissitucies, and having for a
time ?had her portion with weeds and outworn
faces,? was seized with consumption, and retired to
an obscure abode in that narrow and gloomy lane.
? If Fortune smile, be not puffed up,
And if it frown, be not dismayed ;
For Providence govemeth all,
Although the world ?s turned upside down,?
It was in Alison Square that Thomas Campbell,
the poet, resided when writing the ?? Pleasures of
Hope.? He occupied the second floor of a stair
CLARINDA?S HOUSE, GENERAL?S ENTRY.
There she lingered long in loneliness and suffering,
supported by the chanty of strangers, till she found
a final home in Newington burying-ground.
Alison Square, which lay farther south, and
through which a street has now been run, was
built in the middle of the eighteenth century, upon
a venture, by Colin Alison, a joiner, who in after
iife was much reduced in circumstances by the
speculation. In his latter days he erected two
boards on different sides of his buildings, whereon
he had painted a globe in the act of falling, with
this inscription :-
on the north side of the central archway, with
windows looking partly into the Potterrow, and
partly into Nicolson Street. The poem is said to
have been written here in the night, his master?s
temper being so irritable that it was then only he
could find peace for his task.
Alison Square was completely transformed in
1876, when Marshal1 Street was constructed through
it. A Baptist church, in a most severe Lombardic
style, stands on the north side of this new street.
It was built in 1876-7, at the cost of L4,ooo.
Between 1773 and 1783, Francis, eighth Earl of
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