354 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Meadows
?upwards of eighty years of age, as captain-general,
and the Earl of Wemyss as lieutenant-general,
marched at the head of the Royal Archers, with
colours flying, from the Parliament Square to Holyrood,
and thence to Leith, wbere they shot for the
Edinburgh Arrow, and returned with similar parade,
receiving from all guards and troops the honours that
are paid to the regular army ; but in the following
year (1715), the Earl of Cromartie being dead, they
vere led by the Earl of Wemyss to a similar parade.
On the 16th of June a letter addressed to Wodrow
says :-? Upon Monday last the Royal Company of
Archers, consisting of about zoo, all clad in the
old Scottish garb, made their parade through this
town and in Leith; they all consist of Jacobites,
except five or six At night they came to the
playhouse, and betwixt the acts they desired Sir
Thomas Dalzell (who is mad) to order the musicians
to play that air called ?Let the King enjoy
his own again.? After it was over, the whole house
clapp?d 3 times lowd, but a few hissed.??
These facts serve to show that what was called
the Royal Ccmpany of Archers all through the
reigns of Anne and George I. was really a sodality,
composed exclusively of the Jacobite aristocracyin
short, a marked muster for the House of Stuart.
Their leaders were, and have been always, nobles
of the highest rank; they had ?their adjutant and
other officers, their colours, music, and uniforms,
and pretty effective military organisation and appearance.?
(? Dom. Ann.?)
Their dress was tartan, trimmed with green silk
fringe ; their bonnets were trimmed with green and
white ribbons, with St. Andrew?s cross in front;
their horns and swords were decorated with green
and white ribbons, and the dresses of the officers
were laid over with rich silver lace. We are told
that ?the cavalier spirit of Allan Ramsay glowed at
seeing these elegant specimens of the Arisior? of
Scotland engaged at butts and rovers, and poured
itself forth in verses to their praise.?
After the futile insurrection of 1715, the Archers
made no parade for nine years; bur on James,
Duke of Hamilton, K.T., being chosen captaingeneral,
they marched to Musselburgh in 1724,
and afterwards occasionally till, the 10th July,
1732, when they had a special parade, in which the
Jacobite element greatly predominated. A guard
of honour brought the colours from the Duke of
Hamilton?s apartments at Holyrood, when the
march to the Links began under his Grace as
captain-general, preceded by Lord Bruce ? on
horseback, with fine Turkish furniture, as majorgeneral,
in absence of the Earl of Crawford.?
- ?Th?e Lord Provost and magistrates saw the
.-
.
procession from a window, and were saluted by the
several officers, as did General Wade from a balcony
in the Earl of Murray?s lodgings in the Canongate.
The Governor of Damascus came likewise to see
the ceremony. Betwixt one and two the company
arrived in the Links, whence, after shooting for the
arrow (which was won by Balfour of Foret), they
marched into Leith in the same order, and after
dinner returned to the city, and saw acted the
tragedy called Macbeafh.? (Caledonian Mermrj;
Including the sovereign?s prize, there are seventeen
shot for annually by the archers. Among
these are the City of Edinburgh silver arrow, given
in 1709, and the Musselburgh silver arrow, which
appears to have been shot for so far back as 1603.
As in the instance of many of the other prizes, the
victor retains it only for a year, and returns it with
a medal appended, and engraved with a motto,
device, or name. The affairs of the Guard are
managed by a preses, six councillors, a secretary,
and treasurer. The rules say ?That all persons
possessed of Scottish domicile or of landed estate
in Scotland, or younger sons, though not domiciled
in Scotland, of a Scottish landed proprietor qualified
to act as a commissioner of supply, are eligible for
admission to the royal company.?
After the battle of Culloden and the decay of
Jacobitism, the vigour of the Archer Guard declined,
till some new life was infused into its ranks by
William St. Clair of Roslin, and then it was that
the present Archers? Hall, near Hope Park End,
was built. There an acre of ground was feued
from the city, at a feu of 6 1 2 yearly, with double
that sum every twenty-fifth year, and the foundation
stone was laid by Mr. St. Clair on August
the 15th? 1776.
The dining-hall measures 40 feet by 24, and is
IS feet in height. There are two other rooms
about 18 feet square, with other apartments,
kitchen, &c The last most important appearances
of the Royal Archers have been on the occasion of
George IV.?s visit in 18zzwhen they wore the old
tartan costume, which was afterwards replaced by
tunics of Lincoln green,-on the visit of Queen
Victoria, and the first great volunteer review in the
Royal Park.
An old gable-ended house, the windows of.which
looked westward along the vista of the Meadows,
and their Fredecessor, the Burgh Loch, was traditionally
said to have been inhabited by George.
Heriot, but was removed in 1843, when the Messrs.
Nelson built there an establishment, which, for
printing, publishing. and bookbinding together,
was the most extensive in Scotland. His initials,
I734
THE MESSRS, NELSON. 355 The Meadows.]
G. H., cut in wood, remained in Several parts of the
l?ouse. The Rev. Dr. Steven, gpvernor of the
hospital, presented a coloured drawing of the house
to the Messrs. Nelson, as ?the country residence
of the founder of the hospital.? It perished in the
fire of 1878, but another is preserved.
The house was also, about 1800, the abode of an
aged lady, well known to those of Jacobite proclivities
in Edinburgh, Mrs. Hannah Robertson, an
alleged grand-daughter of Charles II., and whose
sister was ancestress of the Mercers of Gorthy.
She died in 1808.
The well-known firm of the Messrs. Nelson and
Sons was originally established by the late Mr.
Thomas Nelson, whose first business premises were
in a small corner shop at the head of the West Bow,
only lately removed, where he published cheap
editions of the ? Scots Worthies,? Baxter?s ?Saints?
Rest,? and similar works; but it was not until
his sons entered the business that the work of the
firm was placed upon a wider basis.
Mr. Nelson was born at a village called Throsk,
near Stirling, in 1780. When twenty years of age
he went to London, and after experiencing his own
share of difficulties, familiar to young men in
pushing their way in the world, he at last entered
the service of a publishing house in Paternoster
Row. This determined the course of his career.
One of his early associates in London was the late
Mr. Kejly, publisher, afterwards raised to the Lord
Mayor?s chair. Mr. Nelson had begun by this time
to show that love for the standard works of the old
theological school which characterised him in afteI
iife. He remained for some years in London, and
then came to Edinburgh, where he soon signalized
himself as a publisher.
Cheap issues are a common feature of the
publishing trade of the country now, but it was
otherwise in the beginning of the century, and he
was among the first to introduce the new order 01
things by the publication of works like those ol
Paley, Leighton, Romaine, Newton, and many
ithers.
For several years in the latter part of his life
le was more or less of an invalid. He died, at the
ige of eighty, on the 23rd of March, 1861. He
.ies buried in Edinburgh in the Grange cemetery,
iext to the grave of Hugh Miller.
The Messrs. Nelsons? range of offices at Hope
Park were on a scale surpassing any similar place
2f business in Edinburgh, as it consisted of three
:onjoined blocks of neat and plain design, forming
as many sides of a square. In the main building
were three floors, and machinery was used
wherever it was available, and by means of that
and an admirably organised system of the division
of labour, the amount of literary work turned out
was enormous. The process of stereotyping, which
was invented by Mr. William Ged, a goldsmith in
Edinburgh, and has been brought to the highest
perfection in the place of its birth, was here greatly
in practice. By 1870 the Messrs. Nelson employed
fully 600 workpeople, the half of whom were young
women, and on theii own premises they manufactured
all the inks used in printing, and the varnishes
for bookbinding.
The whole of their extensive premises were destroyed
by a calamitous fire, after which the Messrs.
Nelson erected new offices and workshops upon
several acres of land, known as Parkside, with a
fine frontage to the old Dalkeith Road, south of
?The Castle of Clouts,? and near what was called
of old the Gibbet TolL
Erected by the Messrs. Nelson in 1881, two
handsome pillars, surmounted respectively by
the Unicorn and Lion, now ornament the entrance
to the Melville Drive at the east end of the
Meadows. These pillars stand near the site of
their former premises, and were erected as a gift to
the city, in commemoration of the kindness and
sympathy shown to tkm by the magistrates at the
time of the great fire.
CHAPTER XLII.
LAURISTON.
The New University B u i l d h ~ l ? h c Estimates and Accommodation-George Watson?s Hospital-Founded-Opened and Sold--The New
Infirmary-Its Capabilities for Accommodation-Simpwn Memorial Hospital-Sick C h i l M s Hospital-Mberdust Maiden Haspitai-
Watson?s SchoobIauriston United Resbyterian Church-St. Catharine?s Convent.
IN the district of Lauriston we find quite a cluster
of charitable institutions ; but before treating of the
more ancient one-Heriot?s Hospital-we shall
describe those edifices which lie between the street
and the northern walk of the Meadows
In the city map of 1787, after Watson?s Hospital,
