272 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IArgyle square.
Many professors succeeded Blair as tenants of
the same house; among them, Alexander Chris
tison, Professor of Humanity, between 1806 and
1820, father of the great chemist, Professor Sir
Robert Christison, Bart.
In the north-western extremity of the square
was the mansion of Sir George Suttie, Bart. of
that ilk, and Balgone in Haddingtonshire, who
married Janet, daughter of William Grant, Lord
the two squares which was described as prevailing
in their amusements-tea-drinking and little fetes.
at a time when manners in Edinburgh were starched,
stately, and old-fashioned, as the customs and ideas.
that were retained, when dying out elsewhere.
On the east side of this square was the old
Trades Maiden Hospital, a plain substantial
edifice, consisting of a central block, having a great
arched door, to which a flight of steps ascended,
OLD HOUSES, SOCIETY, 1852. (From a Drawing by Gewp U'. Sim~o#.)
Prestongrange ; and here also resided his son, Sir
James, who, in 1818, succeeded his aunt, Janet
Grant, Countess of Hyndford, as heir of the line
of Prestongrange, and assumed thereby in consequence
the additional name and arms of Grant.
Their neighbour was Lady Mary Cochrane,
dwghter of Thomas sixth Earl of Dundonald, who
died unmarried at an old age.
In 1795 among the residents in -4rgyle Square
were Sir John Da!rymple, the Ladies Rae, Sutton
(dowager), and Reay, Elizabeth Fairlie (dowager of
George Lord Keay, who died in 1768). Isolated
from the rising New Town on the north by. the
great mass of the ancient city, and viewing it with
a species of antagonism and rivalry, we may well
imagine the exclusiveness of the little coteries in
and wings, with a frontage of about 150 feet. It
was intended for the daughters of decayed trades
men, and was a noble institution, founded in 1704
by the charitable Mrs. Mary Erskine, the liberal
contributor to the Merchant Maiden Hospital, and
who was indeed the joint foundress of both.
In 1794 fifty girls were maintained in the
hospital, paying AI 13s. 4d. on entrance, and receiving
when they left it a bounty of ;E5 16s. 69d.,
for then its revenue amounted to only A600 per
annum. In the process of making Chambers
Street this edifice was demolished, and the institution
removed to Rillbank near the Meadows.
It stood immediately opposite Minto House, a
handsome and spacious edifice on the north side
of the square, forty-five feet square, on the slope
Aqyle Squam.1 LORD MINTO. 273
a Covenanting minister, from the Scottish Govern-
??lent, in the last days of the persecution, and is
said to have had a hand in the escape of the Earl
of Argyle from his captivity in Edinburgh ; however,
he was compelled to take refuge in Holland ;
but with the Revolution came the days of change,
and seventeen,years subsequent thereto he found
?
down towards the Cowgate, surrounded by trees,
and recessed back, within, latterly, a pillared
carriage entrance, ninety feet from the line of the
street
This was the first town lodging of the family of
Lord Minto, whose race were wont of old to take
their share in the rough moss-trooping work of the
Borders, but changed with the new world of things.
Sir Gilbert Elliot, when constituted a senator in
,, llIy sheep I nq,ected, I ,eR my sheep-hmk,
And all the gay haunts of my youth I forsook ;
No more for Amynta fresh garlands I wove,
For ambition, I said, would won cure me of love ;
Oh ! what had my Youth with ambition to
Why left I Amynta? why broke I my vow?? .
He also wrote a monody on the death of Colonel
~ ~ ~~ ~~~~~
?And had it no been for me, Willie,? retorted
Lord Minto, ?( the pyets wad hae pyked your POW
on the Netherbow Port?
He was succeeded by his son Sir Gilbert, who
was also bred to the bar, and on being appointed
Lord Justice Clerk, assumed the title of Minto,
anddied in 1766. His son, the third baronet, was
a man of considerable political and literary
abilities, and filled several high official situations.
the past
?? Had it no been for me, my lord,? said Veitch,
?ye ?d been writing papers yet, at a plack a
THE FIRST TRADES MAIDEN HOSPITAL. (After Stme?? and S W b d >
pondence with David Hume is quoted with commendation
by Dugald Stewart in ?? Philosophy of
the Human Mind,? and in his ? Dissertation
