260
I
OLD AND NEW EDtNEURGH. [The Cowgate.
Full of years and honours, Tam 0? the Cowgate
died in 1637. At Tynninghame, his family seat,
:here are two portraits of him preserved, and also
his state dress, in the crimson velvet breeches of
which there are no less than nine pockets. Among
many of his papers, which remain at Tynninghame
House, one contains a memorandum which throws
a curious light upon the way in which political
matters were then managed in Scotland. This
paper details the heads of a petition in his own
each way, and had a border of trees upon its east
and south sides. Latterly it bore the name of
Thomson?s Green, from the person to whom it
was leased by the Commissioners of Excise.
The Hammerman?s Close, Land, and Hall, adjoined
the site of this edifice on the westward.
The Land was in I 7 I I the abode of a man named
Anthony Parsons, among the last of those who
followed the ancient practice of vending quack
medicines on a public stage in the streets. In the
THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR'S CHAPEL. (From a Drawing by W. Geikie.)
hand-writing to the Privy Council with a prayer to
?gar the Chancellor? do something else in his behalf
The Excise Office was removed about 1730 from
the Parliament Square to the houge so long occupied
by the Earl of Haddington, which afforded excellent
accommodation for so important a public
institution. The principal room on the second
floor, the windows of which opened to the Cowgate,
was one of great magnificence, having a stucco
ceiling divided into square compartments, each of
which contained an elegant device, and there was
also much fine paneling. At the back of the
house, extending to where the back of Brown
Square was built, and entered by a gate from the
Candlemaker Row, it measured nearly zoo feet
October of that year he advertised in the Scofs Postman-?
It being reported that Anthony Parsons
is gone from Edinburgh to mount public stages in
the country, this is to give notice that he hath left
off keeping stages, and still lives in the Hammerman?s
Land, near the head of the Cowgate, where
may be had the Orvicton, a famous antidote against
infectious distempers, and helps barrenness,? &c
Four years subsequently Parsons-an Englishman,
of course-announced his design of bidding adieu
to Edinburgh, and in that prospect offered his quack
medicines at reduced rates, and likewise, by auction,
?a fine cabinet organ.?
The last of these English quacks was Dr. Green,
gauger, of Doncaster, who made his appearance in
The Cowgate.] - THE MAGDALENE CHAPEL 261
Michael Macqueen (or Macquhen), .a wealthy citi-
Zen, and afterwards by his widow, Janet Rhynd.
1725, accompanied by a servant, ?or tumbler,?
who robbed him, and against whom he warned the
people of certain country towns in the Courant of
December, I 7 25.
Arnot records that in early times there existed
in the Cowgate an ancient Maisoson Dieu which had
fallen into decay; but it was re-founded in the reign
with ancient painted glass-the only fragments in
all Scotland which have survived the Reformation,
the latter was used as a hall for their meetings.
The foundation was augmented in 1541 by two
donations from Hugh Lord Somerville, who was
taken prisoner by the English in the following
year, and had to ransom himself for I,OCO merks.
If the edifice suffered in the general sack of the
city during the invasion of 1544 it must have been
The hospital4esigned to accommodate a chap
lain and seven poor men-and the chzpel, the little
square spire of which (with its gargoyles formed like
cannon, each with a ball stuck in its mouth) is
nearly lost amid the towering modern edifices which
surround it-were dedicated to St Mary Magda-
1 and contain the royal arms of Scotland, encircled
by a wreath of thistles, and those of the Queen
Regent Mary of Guise, within a wreath of laurel,
with the shields of the founder and foundress within
ornamental borders. These probably date from
1556, in which year we find that ?The baillies and
