232 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
and a place on the south side of the market, zoo
feet below, the father slid down it in half a minute.
The son performed the same feat, blowing a trumpet
all the way, to the astonishment of a vast
crowd of spectators.
Three days afterwards there was a repetition of
the performance, ? at the desire of several people
of quality,? when after sliding down, the father made
his way up to the battery again, firing a pistol,
striking.? These houses were not so old, however,
as the order of the Templars, but having been built
upon their land, and being also the heritage of the
Hospitallers, and forming, as such, a portion of the
barony of Drem, had affixed to them the iron
cross in remembrance of certain legal titles and
privileges which are to this day productive of
solid benefits.
With the Temple Close, which was entered by a
THE TEMPLE LANDS. GRASSMARKET. (From a Drawing by Gcorge W. Simson.)
beating a drum, and proclaiming that while up
there he could defy the whole Court of Session.
The whole of the south side of the Grassmarket
had been pulled down and re-built at intervals
before 1879.
Among the oldest edifices that once stood here
were unquestionably the Temple tenements and
the Greyfriars Monastery. In describing the execution
of Porteous, which took place in front of the
former, Scott says :-?? The uncommon height and
antique appearance of these houses, some of which
were formerly the property of the Knights Templar
and the Knights of St. John, and still exhibit
on their fronts and gables the iron cross of their
orders, gave additional effect to a scene in itself so
narrow arch beneath them, they have been entirely
swept away since 1870.
Immediately to the westward of them was one of
the most modem houses in this quarter, through
which entered Hunter?s Close, above the arch of
which was inscribed ANNO DOM. MDCLXXI., and
it was from the dyer?s pole in front of this tenement
that Porteous was hanged in 1736. ?The
long range of buildings that extend beyond this,?
says Wilson, writing in 1847, ?presents as singular
and varied a group of antique tenements as either
artist or antiquary could desire. Finials of curious
and grotesque shapes surmount the crowstepped
gables, and every variety of form and elevation
diversifies the skyline of their roofs and chimneys,
