Cowgate.] THE BIRTHPLACE OF SCOTT. 255
inaugural thesis containing an outline of his celebrated
discovery of fixed air, or carbonic gas, which
with his discovery of latent heat laid the foundation
of modem pneumatic chemistry, and has opened
to the investigation of the philosopher a fourth
kingdom of nature, viz., the gaseous kingdom.
Other brilliant achievements in science followed
fast before and after Dr. Black?s appointment to a
chair in Glasgow in 1756. Ten years after he
became Professor of Chemistry in Edinburgh, and
was so fm twenty-nine years. .He died in 1799,
while sitting at table, with his usual fare, a few
prunes, some bread, and a little milk diluted with
water. Having the cup in his hand, and feeling the
approach of death, he set it carefully down on his
knees, which were joined together, and kept it
steadily in his hand, in the manner of a person
perfectly at ease, and in this attitude, without
spilling a drop, and without a writhe on his countenance,
Joseph Black, styled by Lavoisier ?the
illustrious Nestor of the chemical revolution,? expired
placidly, as if an experiment had been wanted
to show his friends the ease with which he could
die.
In another house at the wynd head, but exactly
opposite, Sir Walter Scott was born on the 15th
of August, 1771. It belonged to his father Walter
Scott, W.S., and was pulled down to make room for
the northern front of the New College. According
to the simple fashion of the Scottish gentry of that
day, on another floor of the same building-the first
flat-dwelt Mr. Keith, W.S., father of the late Sir
Alexander Keith, of Ravelston, Bart. ; and there,
too, did the late Lord Keith reside in his student
days.
Scott?s father, deeming his house in the College
Wynd unfavourable to the health of his familyfor
therein died several brothers and sisters of Sir
Walter, born before him-removed to an airier
mansion, No. 25, George Square ; but the old wynd
he never forgot. ?( In the course of a walk through
this part of the town in 1825,? says genial Robert
Chambers, ?Sir Walter did me the honour to
point out the site of the house in which he had
been born. On his mentioning that his father had
got a good price for his share of it, I took .the
liberty of jocularly expressing my belief that more
money might have been made of it, and the public
certainly much more gratified, if it had remained to
be shown as the birthplace of the man who had
written so many popular books. ?Ay, ay,? said
Sir Walter, that is very well ; but I am afraid I
should have required to be dead first, and that
would not have been so comfortable, you know.??
The house of Mr. Scott, W.S., on the flat of the
old tenement, was approached by a turnpike stair,
within a little court off the wynd head ; in another
corner of it resided Mr. Alexander Mumy, the
future solicitor-general, who afterwards sat on the
Bench as Lord Henderland, and died in 1795.
It was up this narrow way, on Sunday the
15th of August, 177j-when Scott was exactly a
baby of two years old-that Boswell and Principal
Robertson conducted Dr, Johnson to show him
the College.
Within the narrow compass of this ancient wynd
-so memorable as the birthplace of Scott-were
representatives of nearly every order of Scottish
society, sufficient for a whole series of his Waverley
novels, No wonder is it then, beyond the experience
of ?? Auld Reekie,? that we should find one
of Kay?s quaintest characters, ? Daft Bailie DuK?
a widow?s idiot boy, long regarded as the indispensable
appendage of an Edinburgh funeral,
dwelling in a little den at the foot of the alley,
where he died in I 7 88.
Most picturesque were the venerable ?edifices
that stood between the foot of the College and the
Horse Wynds, though between them 4 St. Peter?$
Close, which, in its latter days, led only to a byre,
and a low, dark, filthy, and homble place, ? full of
holes and water.?
On the east side of St. Peter?s Pend was a very
ancient house, the abode of noble proprietors in
early times, but which had been remodelled and
enlarged in the days of James VI. Three large
and beautiful dormer windows rose above its roof,
the centre one surmounted by an escallop shell,
while a smaller tier of windows peeped out above
them from the ?sclaited roof,? and the lintel of
its projecting turnpike stair, bore all that remained
of its proprietors, these initials, v. P. and A. V.
On the other side of the Pend, and immediately
abutting on the Horse Wynd, was that singularly
picturesque timber-fronted stone tenement, of which
drawings and a description are given in the ?? Edinburgh
Papers,? on the ancient architecture of the city
published in 1859, and referred to as ?another of
the pristine mansions of the Cowgate-the houses
where William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas may
have paid visits, and probably sent forth mailed
warriors to Flodden. . . . . Here, besides the
ground accommodation and gallery floor, with an
outside stair, there is a contracted second flosr,
having also a gallery in front with a range of small
windows. On the gallery floor at the head of the
outside stair, is a finely-moulded door, at the base
of an inner winding or turnpike stair leading up
to the second floor. Such is the style or door to
be seen in all these early woden houses-a style
