G d Stuart St~et.1 PROFESSOR AYTOUN. 207
of sixteen feet there spring curves which bend
round into the arms, while between those arms and
the upright shaft are carried four arcs, having a
diameter of six feet.
On each of its main faces the cross is divided
into panels, in which are inserted bronze basreliefs,
worked out, like the whole design, from
drawings by R. Anderson, A.R.S.A. Those occupying
the head and arms of the cross represent the
various stages of our Lord?s Passion, the Resurrection
and the Ascension; in another series of six,
placed thus on either side of the shaft, are set forth
the acts of charity, while the large panels in the
base are filled in with sculptured ornament of the
fine twelfth-century type, taken from Jedburgh
abbey.
Three senators of the College of Justice have
had their abodes in Ainslie Place-Lord Barcaple,
raised to the bench in 1862, Lord Cowan, a judge
of 1851, and George Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse,
the brother of Mrs. Dugald Stewart, who resided
in No. 12. This admirable judge was the son of
the Hon. George Cranstoun of Longwarton, and
Miss Brisbane of that ilk. He was originally intended
for the army, but passed as advocate in
1793, and was Dean of Faculty in 1823, and
succeeded to the bench on the death of Lord
Hermand, three years after. He was the author
of the famous Court of Session jeu rFespn2, known
as ?The Diamond Beetle Case,? an amusing and
not overdrawn caricature of the judicial style, manners,
and language, of the judges of a bygone
time.
He took his judicial title from the old ruined
castle of Corehouse, near the Clyde, where he had
built a mansion in the English style. He was an
excellent Greek scholar, and as such was a great
favourite with old Lord Monboddo, who used to
declare that Cranstoun was the only scholar in
all Scotland,? the scholars in his opinion being all
on the south side of the Tweed.
He w& long famed for being the beau-ideal of
a judge; placid and calm, he listened to even
the longest debates with patience, and was an
able lawyer, especially in feudal questions, and
his opinions were always received with the most
profound respect.
Great Stuart Street leads from Ainslie Place
into Randolph Crescent,which faces the Queensfeny
Road, and has in it3 gardens some of the fine old
trees which in former times adorned the Earl of
Moray?s park.
In No. 16 of the former street lived and died,
after his removal from No. I, Inverleith Terrace, the
genial and. patriotic author of the Lays of t h e
.
Scottish Cavaliers,? a Scottish humourist of a very
high class. William Edmondstoune Aytoun, Professor
of Rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh,
was born in 1813, of a fine old Fifeshire family,
and in the course of his education at one of the
seminaries of his native capital, he became dis
tinguished among his contemporaries for his powers
of Latin and English composition, and won a prize
for a poem on ?( Judith.? In his eighteenth year
he published a volume entitled Poland and other
Poems,? which attracted little attention ; but after
he was called to the bar, in 1840, he became one
of the standing wits of the Law Courts, yet, save
as a counsel in criminal cases, he did not acquire
forensic celebrity as an advocate.
Five years afterwards he was presented to the
chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University,
and became a leading contributor to
Blackwoofls Magazine, in which his famous LL Lays,?
that have run through so many editions, first
appeared. Besides these, he was the author of
many brilliant pieces in the Book of Ballads,? by
Bon Gaultier, a name under which he and Sir
Theodore Martin, then a solicitor in Edinburgh,
contributed to various periodicals.
In April, 1849, he married Jane Emily Wilson,
the youngest daughter of Christopher North,? in
whose class he had been as a student in his early
years, a delicate and pretty little woman, who predeceased
him. In the summer of 1853 he delivered
a series of lectures on ?Poetry and Dramatic
Literature,? in Willis?s Rooms, to such large and
fashionable audiences as London alone can produce
; and to his pen is ascribed the mock-heroic
tragedy of Firrnilian,? designed to ridicule, as it
did, the rising poets of ?? The Spasmodic School.?
With all his brilliance as a humourist, Aytoun was
unsuccessful as a novelist, and his epic poem
?Bothaell,? written in 16 Great Stuart Street, did
not bring him any accession of fame.
In his latter years, few writers on the Conservative
side rendered more effective service to their
party than Professor Aytoun, whom, in 1852, Lord
Derby rewarded With the offices of Sheriff and
Vice-Admiral of Orkney.
Among the many interesting people who frequented
the house of the author of ?The Lays?
few were more striking than an old lady of
strong Jacobite sentiments, even in this prosaic
age, Miss Clementina Stirling Graham, of Duntrune,
well worthy of notice here, remarkable for her
historical connections as for her great age, as she
died in her ninety-fifth year, at Duntrune, in 1877.
Born in the Seagate of Dundee, in 1782, she was
the daughter of Stirling of Pittendreich, Forfar
