liferent, and to his children in fee, and a dispute
in law occurred about the division of the property.
Buccleuch Place, branching westward off the old
Carlisle Road, as it was named, was formed between
1766 and 1780, as part of a new and aristocratic
quarter, and in rivalry to the New Town. Among
the first residents there was Elizabeth Fairlie,
dowager of George, fifth Lord Reay, who?died in
1768. She died in Buccleuch Place on,the 10th
November, 1800.
The street is of uniform architecture, 270 yards
long, but has a chilling and forsaken aspect. The
large and isolated tenement facing the south-east
entrance to GeorgeSquare was built, and used for
many years as Assembly Rooms for the aristocratic
denizens of this quarter. ?In these beautiful
rooms,? says Lord Cockburn, ?were to be seen
the last remains of the stately ball-room discipline
of the preceding age.? Now they are occupied as
dwelling-houses.
Jeffrey, on marrying a second cousin of his own
in 1801, began housekeeping in the third flat of a - - - -
common stair here, No. 18, at a time when, as
he wrote to his brother, his profession had never
brought in a hundred a year; and there he and his
wife were living in 1802, when in March, Brougham
and Sydney Smith niet at his house, and it was proposed
to start the Edinburgh Xeview; and these,
the first three, were joined in meeting with Murray,
Honier, Brown, Lord Webb Seymour, and John and
Thomas Thomson, and negotiations were opened
with Manners and Millar, the publishers in the
Parliament Close ; and-as is well known-Jeffrey
was for many years the editor of, as well as chief
contributor to, that celebrated periodical.
Where the Meadows now lie there lay for ages a
loch coeval with that at Uuddingstone, some threequarters
of a mile long from Lochrin, and where
the old house of Drumdryan stands on the west,
to the road that led to the convent of Sienna on
the east, and about a quarter of a mile in breadth *
-a sheet of water wherein, in remote times, the
Caledonian bull, the stag, and the elk that roamed
in the great oak forest of Drumsheugh, were
wont to quench their thirst, and where, amid the
deposit of mar1 at its bottom, their bones have
been found from time to time during trenching and
draining operations. The skull and horns of one
-
gigantic stag (Cetvus eZ@has), that must have found
a grave amidst its waters, were dug up below the
root of an ancient tree in one of the Meadow
Parks in 1781, and are now in the Antiquarian
Museum.
In 1537 the land lying on its south bank was
feued by the sisters of the Cistercian convent, and
in July, 1552, the provost, bailies, and council,
ordered that no person should ?wesch ony claithis
at the Burrow Loch in tyrne cummyng, and dischargis
the burnmen to tak ony bum at ony wells
in the burgh under sic pains as the jugis ples
imput to them?
On the 25th of May, 1554, the magistrates and
council ordained that the Burgh Loch should be
inclosed, ? biggit up ? in such a manner as would
prevent its overflow (Ibid). In April, 1556, they
again ordained the city treasurer to build up the
western end of it, ?and hold the watter thairof,?
though in the preceding January they had ordered
its water ?to be lattin forth, and the dyke thairof
stoppit, so that it may ryn quhair it ran before?
(? Burgh Records.?)
Dr. J. A. Sidey kindly supplieo a description of the original of the
engraving on p. 349, taken from the Merchant Company?s Catalogue.
? View of George Watsan?s hospital and grounds from the south, with
the castle and a portion of the town of Edinburgh in the distance One
of the two fine fresoos which originally adorned the walls of the
Governor?s Board Roomin said hospital. . . The paints is believed to
have ken Alexander Runciman, the celebrated Scottish artist. He died
on the zxst October, 1785. His younger brother John dicd in 1768,
pged *?
Pasche nixt to cum,? when they should consider
whether the water, which seemed to occasion
some trouble to the bailies, ?be lattin furth or
holden in as it is now.?
In 1690 the rental of the loch and its ?broad
meadows? is given at A66 13s. 4d. sterling, in
common good of the city. Early in the seventeenth
century an attempt was boldly made to drain this
loch, and so far did the attempt succeed that in
1658 the place, with its adjacent marshes, was let
to John Straiton, on a lease of nineteen years,
for the annual rent of LI,OOO Scots, and from him
it for a time received the name of Straiton?s Loch,
by which it was known in 1722, when it was let
for L80o Scots to Mr. Thomas Hope of Rankeillor,
on a fifty-seven years? lease.
Hope was president of U The Honourable Society
of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in
Scotland,? who met once a fortnight in a house
near what is now called Hope Park, where they re.
ceived and answered queries from country people
on fanning subjects. Mr. Hope had travelled in
Holland, France, and England, where he picked
up the best hints on agriculture, and was indefatigable
in his efforts to get them adopted in
Scotland.
In consideration of the moderate rent, he bound
himself to drain the loch entirely, and to make a
walk round it, to be enclosed with a hedge, a row
of lime-trees, and a narrow canal, nine feet broad,
on each side of it; and in this order the meadows
remained unchanged till about 1840, always a
