340 OLD AND ?NEW EDINBURGH. [George Square.
Centenary celebration in 1872 was a ?? Contract
between James Brown, architect in Edinburgh, and
Walter Scott, W.S., to feu and bui!d a dnellinghouse,
with cellars, coach-house, &c., on the west
side of the great square, called George Square
(No. 25), at the annual feu of &s 14s.~ the first
payment to commence on Whit Sundayl 1773. Six
pages, each signed WaZfeer Scoft.?
In this house, then, with its back windows overlooking
the Meadow Walk, beneath its happy
my infirmity (his lameness) as she lifted me
coarsely and carelessly over the flinty steps which
my brother traversed with a shout and bound. I
remember the suppressed bitterness of the moment,
and, conscious of my own infirmity, the envy with
which I regarded the elastic steps of my more
happily-formed brethren.?
In No. 25 Scott received, from private tutors,
the first rudiments of education ; and he mentions
that ?our next neighbour, Lady Cumming, sent
THE BLIND ASYLUM (FORMERLY THE HOUSE OF DR. JOSEPH BLACK), NICOLSON STREET, 1820. (AficrStom.)
parental roof, were spent the bright young years
of Scott, who there grew up to manhood under the
eye of his good mother. Among his papers, after
death, there was found a piece of verse, penned in
a boyish hand, endorsed in that of his mother,
? My WaZter?sJfrst lines.?
?My father?s house in George Square,? says
Scott, ?continued to be my most established place
of residence (after my return from Prestonpans in
1776) till my marriage in 1797.?
Writing of an incidentof his childhood, he says:-
?? Every step of the way (the Meadow Walk, behind
George Square) has for me something of an early
remembrance. There is the stile at which I
recollect a cross child?s maid upbraiding me with
to beg that the boys might not be all flogged at the
same hour, as though she had no doubt the punishment
was deserved, yet the noise was dreadful !?
There, too, he had that long illness which confined
him to bed, and during which the boy, though
full of worldly common sense, was able to indulge
in romantic and poetical longings after a mediad
age of his own creation, and stored his mind with
those treasures of poesy and romance which he
afterwards turned to such wondrous account.
During the weary weeks of that long illness he
was often enabled to see the vista of the Meadow
Walk by a combination of mirrors so arranged that
while lying in bed he could witness the troops marching
out to exercise in the Links, or any other
G-s %-.I ?GREEN BREEKS.? 341
incident which occurred in that then fashionable
promenade.
It was in this square, and in the adjoining
suburbs of Bristo Street, the Potterrow, and Cross
Causeway, that those ? bickers? of stones, or street
fights between boys of different ranks and localities-
New Town and Old Town boys, Herioters
and Watsoners-took place-juvenile exploits, to
which he refers in his general preface to the
Waverley Novels.? These dangerous rows were
bickers which took place between the aristocratic
youths of George Square and the plebeian fry of its
vicinity, and it runs thus :-? It followed, from our
frequent opposition to each other, that, though not
knowing the names of our enemies, we were yet
well acquainted with their appearance, and had
nicknames for the most remarkable of them. One
very active and spirited boy might be considered
leader in the cohort of the suburbs, He was, I
suppose, thirteen or fourteen years old, finely made,
GEORGE SQUARE, SHOWING HOUSE (SECOND ON THE LEFT) OF SIR WALTER SCOTT?S FATHER
difficult of suppression, as the parties always kept
pretty far apart, and the fight was often a running
one, till the Town Guard came on the ground, and
then all parties joined against that force as a
common foe, and clouds. of stones were hurled at
them. These bickers, as an Edinburgh feature,
were of great antiquity, and we have already cited
an act of the Town Council published antnf them
in 1529; and Calderwood tells us that ?upon the
Lord?s Day, the 20th (January, 1582-3), the Lord
Heries departed this life suddonlie, in time of the
afternoone?s preaching, going to an upper chamber
in William Fowllar?s lodging to see the bqes
Bicker,?
Scott has told us an anecdote of his share in the
tall, blue-eyed, with long fair hair, the very picture
of a Goth. This lad was always the first in the
charge and last in retreat-the A4chilles and Ajax
of the Cross Causeway.? From an old pair of
green livery breeches which he wore, he was named
Green Breeks. ?? It fell once upon a time,? he added,
?when the combat was at the thickest, this
plebeian champion headed a sudden charge, so
rapid and furious that all fled before him. He
was several paces before his comrades, and had
actually laid his hands on the patrician standard,
when one of our party, whom some misjudging friend
had entrusted with a caufeau de rhusse, inspired
with a zeal for the honour of the corps worthy of
Major Sturgeon himself, struck poor Green Breeks
