34= OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [G-ge Sqmm
over the head with sufficient strength to cut him
down. When this was seen, the casualty was so
far beyond what had ever taken place before that
both parties fled different ways, leaving poor Green
Breeks, with his bright hair plentifully dabbled in
._? blood, to the care of the watchman, who (honest ? man) took care not to know who had done the
mischief. The bloody hanger was flung into
one of the meadow ditches, and solemn secrecy
sworn on all hands j but the remorse and terror of
the actor were beyond all bounds, and his apprehensions
of the most dreadful character. The
wounded hero was for a few days in the infirmary,
the case being only a trifling one; but though
inquiry was strongly pressed on him, uo argument
could make him indicate the person from whom he
had received the wound, though he must have
been perfectly well known to him. When he recovered,
the author and his brother opened a
communication with him, through the medium of a
popular gingerbread baker, with whom both parties
were customers, in order to tender a subsidy in the
name of smart-money. The sum would excite
ridicule were I to name it ; but I am sure that the
pockets of the noted Green Breeks never held so
much money of his own. He declined the remittance,
saying he would not sell his blood ; but
at the same t h e repudiated the idea of being an
informer, which he said was clam-that is, base or
mean With much urgency he accepted a pound
of snuff for the use of some old woman-aunt,
grandmother, or the like-with whom he lived.
We did not become friends, for the bickers were
more agreeable to both parties than any other
pacific amusement; but we conducted them ever
after under mutual assurances of the highest consideration
for each other.??
Lockhart tells us that it was in No. 25 that, at a
later period, an acquaintance took place which by
degrees ripened into friendship with Francis Jeffrey,
born, as we have said, at No. 7, Charles Street,
about 150 yards distant from Scott?s house. Here
one evening Jeffrey found him in a small den on
the sunk floor, surrounded by dingy books, and
from thence they adjourned to a tavern and supped
together. In that den ? he was collecting ?? the
germ of the magnificent library and museum of
Abbotsford.? Since those days,? says Lockhart,
? the habits of life in Edinburgh have undergone
many changes ; and ? the convenient parlour ? in
which Scott first showed Jeffrey his collection of
minstrelsy is now, in all probability, thought hardly
good enough for a tnenial?s sleeping-room.?
There it was, however, that his first assay-piece
a~ a poet-his bold rendering of Burger?s weird
hre-was produced ; and there it was, too, that
by his energy his corps of Volunteer Horse. was
developed. The Ediiiburg4 Herald and Chronicle
for 20th February, I 7 9 7, announced the formation
of the corps thus :-
LrAn offer of service, subscribed hy sixty gentlemen and
upwards of this city and neighbourhood, engaging to serve
as a Corps of Volunteer Lqht Dragoons during the present
war, has been presented to His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch,
Lord Lieutenant of the county, who has expressed his high
approbation of the pIan. Regular drilb have in consequence
been established.
? Such gentlemen as wish to become members of this corps
will make their application through &fr. Wulfer Scott,
Advacuft-, Gmrge Square, secretary to the committee of
management.
?The service is limited to Midlothian, unless in case of
actual invasion or the imminent hazard, when it extends to
all Scotland. No member of the corps can be required to
join unless during his residence within the county.?
Of this corps Scott was the quartermaster.
In one of his notes to ?Wilson?s Memorials,?
the cynical C. K. Sharpe says :-?? My grand-aunt,
hfrs. Campbell of Monzie, had the house in
George Square that now belongs to Mr. Borthwick
(of Crookston). I remember seeing from the
window Walter limping home in a cavalry uniform,
the most grotesque spectacle that can be conceived.
NoSody then cared much about his two
German balIads. This was long before I personally
knew him.?
In 1797 Scott ceased to reside in No. 25 on his
marriage, and carried his bride to a lodging in the
second floor of No. 108, George Street ; however,
the last rod he was under in his ?own romantic
town? was that of the Douglas Hotel, St. Andrew
Square, where, on his return from Italy, on the 9th
of July, 1832, he was brought from Newhave4 in
a state of unconsciousness, and after remaining
there two nights, was taken home to Abbotsford
to die. His signature, in a boyish hand, written
with a diamond, still remains on a pane in one
of the windows in 25, George Square, or did so
till a recent date.
On the 19th of June, 1795, Lord Adam Gordon,
Commander of the Forces in Scotland, had the
honour of presenting, in George Square, a new set
of British colours to the ancient Scots Brigade of
immortal memory, which, after being two hundred
years in the Dutch service, had-save some fifty
who declined to leave Holland-joined the British
army as the 94th Regiment, on the 9th October in
the preceding year, under Francis Dundas.
Lord Adam, who was then a very old man,
having entered the 18th Royal Irish in 1746, said,
with some emotion:--? General Dundas and officers
*
343 - George Square.] LORD DUNCAN.
of the Scots Brigade, I have the honour to present
these colours to you, and I am very happy in
having this opportunity of expressing my wishes
that the brigade may continue by good conduct
to merit the approbation of our gracious sovereign,
and to ?maintain that high reputation which all
Europe knows that ancient and respectable corps
has most deservedly enjoyed.?
His address was received with great applause, - and many of the veterans who had served since
their boyhood in Holland were visibly affected.
We have already referred to the tragic results of
the Dundas riots in this square during 1792, when
the mob broke the windows of the Lord Advocate?s
house, and those of Lady Arniston and Admiral
Duncan, who, with a Colonel Dundas, came forth
and assailed the rabble with their sticks, but
were pelted with stones, and compelled to fly for
she1 t er.
The admiral?s house was KO. 5, on the north
side of the square, and it was there his family
resided while he hoisted his flag on board his ship
the Yenwable, and blockaded the Texel, till the
mutiny at the Nore and elsewhere compelled him
to bear up for the Yarmouth Roads; and in the
October of that year (1797) he won the great battle
of Camperdown, and with it a British peerage. The
great ensign and sword of the Dutch admiral he
brought home with him, and instead of presenting
them to Government, retained them in his own
house in George Square j and there, if we rernember
rightly, they were shown by him to Sir James
Hall of Dunglass, and his son, the future Captain
Basil Hall, then an aspirant for the navy, to
whom the admiral said, with honest pride, as he
led him into the room where the Dutch ensign
hung-
?Come, my lad, and 1?11 show you something
worth looking at.?
The great admiral died at Kelso in 1804, but
for inany years after that period Lady Duncan
resided in No. 5.
It was while the Lord Advocate Dundas was
resident in the square that, at the trial of Muir
and the other ?political martyrs,?? he spoke of
the leaders of the United Irishmen as ?? wretches
who had fled from punishment.? On this, Dr.
Drennan, as president, and Archibald Hamilton
Rowan of Killileagh, demanded, in 1793, a recantation
of this and other injurious epithets. No
reply was accorded, and as Mr. Rowan threatened
a hostile visit to Edinburgh, measures for his apprehension
were taken by the Procurator Fiscal.
Accompanied by the Hon. Simon Butler, Mr.
Rowan .arrived at Dumbreck?s Hotel, St. Andrew
Square, when the former, as second, lost no time
in visiting the Lord Advocate in George Square,
where he was politely received by his lordship,
who said that, ?although not bound to give any
explanation of what he might consider proper tu
state in his official capacity, yet he would answer
Mr. Rowan?s note without delay.? But Mr. Butler
had barely returned to Mr. Rowan when they were
both arrested on a sheriff?s warrant, but were liberated
on Colonel Norman Macleod, M.P., becoming
surety for them, and they left Edinburgh, after
being entertained at a public dinner by a select
number of the Friends of the People in Hunter?s
Tavern, Royal Exchange.
In No. 30 dwelt Lord Balgray for about thirty
years, during the whole time he was on the bench,
me of the last specimens of the old race of Scottish
judges ; and there he died in 1837.
In No. 32 lived for many years Francis Grant of
Kilgraston, whose fourth son, also Francis, became
President of the Royal Academy, and was knighted
[or great skill as an artist, and whose fifth son,
General Sir James Hope Grant, G.C.B., served
with such distinction under Lord Saltoun in China,
and subsequently in India, where he led the 9th
Lancers at Sobraon, and who further fought with
such distinction in the Punjaub war, and throughout
the subsequent mutiny, under Lord Clyde, and
whose grave in the adjacent Grange Cemeteryis
now so near the scenes of his boyhood.
In No. 36 lived Admiral Maitland of Dundrennan,
and in No. 53 Lady Don, who is said to have
been the last to use a private sedan chair.
No. 57 was the residence of the Lord Chief
Baron Dundas, and therein, on the 29th of May,
181 I, died, very unexpectedly, his uncle, the celebrated
Lord Melville, who had come to Edinburgh
to attend the funeral of his old friend the Lord
President Blair, who had died a few days before,
and was at that time lying dead in No. 56, the
house adjoining that in which Melville expired.
No. 58 was the house of Dr, Charles Stuart 01
Duneam in the first years of the present century.
His father, James Stuart of Dunearn, was a greatgrandson
of the Earl of Moray, and was Lord
Provost of the city in 1764 and 1768. The
doctor?s eldest son, James Stuart of Dunearn, W.S.,
a well-known citizen of Edinburgh, died in 1849.
The private sedan, so long a common feature
in the areas or lobbies of George Square, is no
longer to be seen there now. In the Edinburgh of
the eighteenth century there were fir more sedans
than coaches in use. The sedan was better suited
for the narrow wynds and narrower closes of the
city, and better fitted, under all the circmtances,
