PI0 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Melville Street
pr0mot.e the pleasant intercourse of. those who
practise art either professionally or privately ; to
increase facilities for the study and observation of
art, and to obtain more general attention to its
claims.
The association is composed of artists, professional
and amateur, and has exhibitions of paintings,
sculpture, and water-colour drawings, at intervals
during the year, without being antagonistic
in any way to the Royal Scottish Academy.
Lectures are here delivered on art, and the entire
institute is managed by a chairman and executive
council,
In No. 6 Shandwick Place Sir Walter Scott
resided from 1828 to 1830, when he relinquished
his office as clerk of session in the July of the
latter year. This was his Zasf permanent residence
in Edinburgh, where on two future occasions,
however, he resided temporarily. On the 31st of
January, 1831, he came to town from Abbotsford
for the purpose of executing his last will, and on
that occasion he took up his abode at the house of
his bookseller, in Athole Crescent, where he resided
for nine days. At that time No. 6 was the
residence of Mr. Jobson.
No. 11, now a hotel, was for about twenty years
the residence of Lieutenant-General Francis Dundas,
son of the second President Dundas, and
brother of the Lord Chief Baron Dundas. He was
long a colonel in the old Scots Brigade of immortal
memory, in the Dutch service, and which afterwards
came into the British in 1795, when his regiment was
numbered as the 94th of the line. In 1802-3 he was
Governor of the Cape of Good Hope. During the
brief peace of Amiens, in accordance with his instructions
to evacuate the colony, he embarked his
troops on board the British squadron, but on the
same evening, having fortunately received counter
orders, he re-landed the troops and re-captured the
colony, which has ever since belonged to Britain.
In I 809 he was colonel of the 7 I st Highlanders,
and ten years after was Governor of Dumbarton
Castle. He died at Shandwick Place on the 4th
of January, 1824 after a long and painful illness,
?which he supported With the patience of a Christian
and the fortitude of a soldier.?
. At the east end of Shandwick Place is St
George?s Free Church, a handsome and massive
Palladian edifice, built for the congregation of the
celebrated Dr. Candlish, after a design by David
Bryce, RSA, seated for about 1,250 persons, and
erected at a cost, including;t;13,600 for the site, 01
~31,000.
In No. 3 Walker Street, the short thoroughfare
between Coates Crescent and Melville Street, Su
.
Walter Scott resided with his daughter during the
winter of 1826-7, prior to his removal to Shandwick
Place.
Melville Street, which runs parallel with the
latter on the north, at about two hundred yards
distance, is a spacious thoroughfare symmetrically
and beautifully edificed; and is adorned in its
centre, at a rectangular expansion, with a pedestrian
bronze statute of the second Viscount Melville,
ably executed by Steel, on a stone pedestal ; it was
erected in 1557.
This street contains houses which were occupied
by two eminent divines, the Rev. David Welsh and
the Rev. Andrew Thomson, already referred to in
the account of St George?s parish church. In No.
36, Patrick Fraser Tytler, F.R.S.E., the eminent
Scottish historian, resided for many years, and
penned several of his works. He was the youngest
son of Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee,
and thus came of a race distinguished in Scottish
literature. Patrick was called to the bar in 1813,
and six years after published, at Edinburgh, a ?? Life
of the Admirable Crichton,? and in 1826, a ?Life
of WicliK? His able and laborious ? History of
Scotland? first appeared in 1828, and at once won
him fame, for its accuracy, brilliance, and purity
of style ; but his writings did not render him independent,
as he. died, when advanced in lie, in
receipt of an honorary pension from the Civil List.
In Manor Place, at the west end of Melville
Street, lived Mrs. Grant of Laggan, the well-known
authoress of ?? Letters from the Mountains,? and
whose house was, in her time, the resort of
select literav parties ; of whom Professor Wilson
was always one. She had for some time previous
resided in the Old Kirk Brae House. In 1825 an
application was made on her behalf to George IV.
for a pension, which was signed by Scott, Jeffrey,
Mackenzie-? The Man of Feeling ?-and other influential
persons in Edinburgh, and in consequence
she received an annual pension of LIOO from the
Civil Establishment of Scotland.
This, with the emoluments of her literary works,
and liberal bequests by deceased friends, made
easy and independent her latter days, and she died
in Manor Place, on the 7th of November, 1838,
aged 84.
It was not until 1868 that this street was edificed
on its west side partially, Westward and northward
of it a splendid new extension of the city spreads,
erected subsequently to that year, comprising property
now worth nearly&~,ooo,ooo.
This street is named from the adjacent mansion
house of the Walkers of Coates, and is on the property
of the latter name. Lyingimmediately west
coate3 Street.] ST, MARY?S CATHEDRAL 211
ward of Princes Street, this estate includes the sites
of Coates Crescent, Melville,Walker, Stafford Streets,
and other thoroughfares, yielding a rental of aboul
&zo,ooo yearly, and representing a capital oi
~400,000, the whole of which, in 1870, was be
queathed by the late Misses Walker of Coates and
Drumsheugh, for the erection of a cathedral for the
Scottish Episcopal Church, dedicated to St. Maq
facing the west end of Melville Street.
Miss Mary Walker-the last of an old Episcopalian
family-died in 1871, her sister Barbara having
pre-deceased her. The foundation-stone was laid
with impressive ceremony, by the Duke of Buccleuchj
assisted by some zoo clergy and laymen 01
the Episcopal communion on the zIst of May, 1874;
and when fully completed it will be the largest and
most beautiful church that has been erected in
Scotland, or perhaps in Great Britain since the
Reformation. The total cost, when finished, will
be about .&132,567.
The architect, Sir Gilbert Scott, founded his
design on the early Pointed style of architecture.
The axis of this cathedral coincides with the
centre of Melville Street, its site being immediately
to the south of Coates House, the sole example of
an old Scottish mansion surviving in the New Town.
The form adopted is that of a cruciform church, the
general effect being enhanced by the introduction
to the central tower of two minor, though still lofty,
towers at the western end. The plan embraces a
choir with north and south aisles ; at the intersection
of the transepts rises the central or rood tower,?z75
feet inheight; the total length of the edifice externally
is 278 feet 2 inches, and the breath 98 feet 6 inches.
The choir is 60 feet 9 inches long and 29 broad,
with aisles 16 feet wide, divided into two great and
four minar bays by beautifully clustered columps.
From the floor to the key-stones of the vaulting,
which is all of stone, the height is 58 feet. The
transepts, which project by one ?bay beyond the
nave and choir, are .35 feet 4 inches long, by 30
feet g inches broad, with aisles above 13 feet wide.
This unusual proportion of breadth -was given to
the transepts to provide ample accommodation for
congregational purposes. To the north of the north
chancel aisle is the library, an apartment measuring
30 feet by I 9 feet. The main entrance of the church
is from Palmerston Place, opposite what are grotesquely
named Grosvenor Gardens. This elevation
is the most imposing modern Gothic fapde in Scotland,
severe in its purity, and rich in elaboration.
The most important features here are the portal and
great west window. The shafts and flanking arches
of the former are of red granite, from Shap in Westmoreland,
harmonising well with the fine nunmore
and Polmaise freestone of which the edifice i s built.
In the vesica of the centre pediment is a seated
figure of the Saviour, supporting with the left hand
a lamb, and with the outstretched right holding a
key. Around is the legend :-
SALVABITUR?
?EGO SUM OSTIUM; PER ME SI QUIS INTROIERIT
In the spandrils are figures of St. Peter and
John the Baptist. Below this grouping are ranged
along the door lintel angels bearing a scroll inscribed-
?TU ES CHRISTUS FILIUS DEI.?
The side elevations of the nave present the
usual features of the early Pointed style, the walls
of the aisle being substantially buttressed, dividing
the length into five bays, in each of which is a
double window. Above the clerestory runs a bold
cotnice, and from the wall head there springs a high
pitched roof. In the gable of the south transept is
anotherportal, the mouldings of which are exquisitely
carved. The window consists of three lancets separated
by massively clustered buttress shafts. Above
it is a rose window 24 feet in diameter, filled
in with geometrical tracery. Above it are five
pointed niches, containing statues of St. Paul and
St. Luke, Titus, Silas, and Timotheus.
the gable of the north transept has some features
peculiarly its own. The wheel window, 24 feet
in diameter, is of a later period than that in the
south gable, Over it is a statue of David. As
usual in cathedrals, the choir has been treated
with greater elaboration of design and detail than
the nave, especially in the triforium and clerestory.
The gable fronting Melville Street is nearly
occupied by a triple lancet window, the apex of
the arches being 54 feet from the ground. Above
is an arcade, the arches of which are filled by
statues of the mother of our Lord and the four
Evangelists. In the vesica is a figure of the
Saviour surrounded by angels in the act of adoration.
The four shafted and clustered pillars of the roodtower,
though framed to support a superincumbent
mass of no less than 6,000 tons, are finely proportioned
and even light in appearance. The tower
rises square from the roof in beautiful proportions,
the transition to the octagonal form taking place
at the height of 120 feet from the foundation.
Viewed from any point, the nave, with its longdrawn
aisles and interlacing arches, has a peculiarly
p n d and impressive effect. Designed in the
style of the twelfth century, the font stands in the
baptistery under the south-west tower. It is
massive, of yellowish alabaster streaked with red
Though treated in a somewhat similar manner, ,
