*lEe %we.] THE LORDS ROSS. 339
long, from where the north-east end of Teviot Row
was latterly. There were the stable offices; in
front of the house was a tree of great size, while
its spacious garden was bordered by Bristo Street.
When offered for sale, in March, 1761, it was
described in a newspaper of the period as ?ROSS
House, with the fields and gardens lying around
it, consisting of about twenty-fou acres, divided as
follows : About an acre and a half in a field and
court about the house; seventeen acres in one
field lying to the south-west, between it and Hope
Park j the rest into kitchen-gardens, running along
Bristo Street and the back of the wall. The house
consists of dining, drawing, and dressing rooms,
six bed-chambers, several closets and garrets; in
the ground storey, kitchen, larder, pantry, milkhouse,
laundry, cellars, and accommodation for
servants, &c?
This house, which was latterly used as a lying-in
hospital, was occupied for some time prior to 1753
by George Lockhart of Carnwath, during whose
time it was the scene of many a gay rout, ball, and
ridotto ; but it was, when the family were in Edinburgh,
the permanent residence of the Lords Ross
of Halkhead, a family of great antiquity, dating
back to the days of King Willmm the Lion,
1165.
In this house died, in June, 2754, in the seventy
third year of his age, George, twelfth Lord ROSS,
Commissioner of the Customs, whose body wa
taken for interment to Renfrew, the burial-place 01
the family. His chief seats were Halkhead and
Melville Castle, He was succeeded by his son,
the Master of Ross, who waa the last lord of that
ilk, and who died in his thirty-fourth year, unmarried,
at Mount Teviof the seat of his uncle, the Marquis
of Lothian, in the following August, and was alsa
taken to Renfrew for purposes of interment.
His sister Elizabeth became Countess of Glas
gow, and eventually his heiress, and through he1
the Earls of Glasgow are also Lords Ross of
Halkhead, by creation in 1815.
Another sister was one of the last persons in
Scotland supposed to be possessed of an evil
spirit-Mary, who died unmarried. A correspondent
of Robert Chambers states as follows:-
??A person alive in 1824 told me that, when a
child, he saw her clamber up to the top of an oldfashioned
four-post bed. In her fits it was impossible
to hold her.?
At the time-Ross House was offered for sale
the city was almost entirely confined within the
Flodden Wall, the suburbs being of small extent-
Nicolson Street and Square, Chapel Street, the
southern portion of Bristo Street, Crichton Street,
-
.
Buccleuch Street, and St. Patrick Square; though
some mere projected, the sites were nearly alI
fields and orchards. The old Statistical Account
says that Ross Park was purchased for ;GI,ZOO,
and that the ground-rents of the square yield
now (i.e., in 1793) above LI,OOO sterling per
annum to the proprietor.
James Brown, architect, who built Brown Square,
having feued from the city of Edinburgh the lands
of Ross Park, built thereon most of the houses of
the h?ew Square, which measures 220 yards by
150, and is said to have named it, not for the king,
but Brown?s elder brother George, who was the
Laud of Lindsaylands and Elliestown. It speedily
became a more popular place of residence than
Brown Square, being farther from town, and possessing
houses that were greatly superior in style
and accommodation.
Among the early residents in the square in
1784, and prior to that year, were the Countesses
of Glasgow and Sutherland, the Ladies Rae and
Philiphaugh, Antliony, Earl of Kintore, eighth
Lord Falconer of Halkertoun, Sir John Ross
Lockhart, and the Lords Braxheld, Stonefield, and
Kennet; and in 1788, Major-General Sir Ralph
Abercrombie, who died of his wounds in Egypt
It has been recorded as an instance of Lord Braxfield?g
great nerve that during the great political
trials in 1793-4, when men?s blood was almost at
fever heat, after each day?s proceedings closed,
usually about midnight, he always walked home,
alone and unprotected, through the dark or illlighted
streets, to his house in George Square,
though he constantly commented openly upon the
conduct of the Radicals, and more than once
announced in public that ?? They wad a? be muckle
the better 0? bein? hung !
Here, too, resided in 1784 the Hon. Henry
Erskine (brother of the Earl of Buchan), the witty
advocate, who, after being presented to Dr. Johnson
by Mr. Boswell, and having made his bow in
the Parliament House, slipped a shilling into
Boswell?s hand, whispering that it was for the sight
of his English bear.
To those named, Lord Cockburn, in his ?Memorials,?
adds the Duchess of Gordon, Robert
Dundas of Amiston, Lord Chief Baron of Exchequer,
the hero of Camperdown, Lord President Blair,
Dr. John Jamieson, the Scottish lexicographer, and
says, ?a host of other distinguished people all
resided here. The old square, with its pleasant
trim-kept gardens, has still an air of antiquated
grandeur about it, and retains not a few traces of
its former dignity and seclusion.?
Aniong the documents exhibited at the Scott
