162 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
Tience, he was appointed captain of the East New
Town Company, and inaugurated his new service
by fighting a duel with a Dr. Bennet, whom he
wounded, the dispute having occurred about some
Tepairs on the doctor?s chaise. ?He was,?? says
Kay?s editor, ? a fine manly-looking person, rather
florid in complexion, exceedingly polite in his manners,
and of gentlemanly attainments.? He was
treasurer of the city in 1795-6, and died at No. I,
*Gayfield Square, in 1823. His son Archibald,
born there, a High School boy, became physician
to the Emperor Alexander of Russia in 1817 ; he
was also physician to the Imperial Guard, was
knighted by the Emperor, and paid a visit to his
native city in 1823. He is refetred to in our
.account of Princes Street.
In a house on the west side of the square lived
Kincaid Mackenzie, in 1818-9 ; previously he had
resided in No. 14, Dundas Street. In 1817 he was
elected Lord Provost ; and two years afterwards he
.entertained at his house in the square, Prince Leopold,
afterwards King of the Belgians, He died
.suddenly, on the 2nd of January, 1830, when he
was about to sit down to dinner.
In the common stair, No. 31, Campbell of Barcaldine
had a house in 1811, at which time the
square was still called Gayfield Place.
Lower down the Walk, on the same side, was
the old Botanical Garden, the successor of the old
Physic Garden that lay in the swampy valley of the
North Loch, and the garden of Holyrood Palace.
Dr. John Hope, the professor of botany, appointed
in 1768, used every exertion to procure a
more favourable situation for a garden than the old
.one, and succeeded, about 1766, in obtaining such
aid and countenance from Government as enabled
him to accomplish the object he had so much at
?heart. *? His Majesty,? says Arnot, with laudable
detail-Government grants being few for Scotland
in those days-? was graciously pleased to
grant the sum of jt;1,330 IS. 24d. for making it,
and for its annual support A69 8s. ; at the same
time the magistrates and Town Council granted
the sum of ;Ezs annually for paying the rent of the
ground.?
The latter was five acres in extent, and the rapid
progress it made as a garden was greatly owing to
the skill and diligence of John Williamson, the
head gardener. ?? The soil,? says Amot, ? is sandy
.or gravelly.? Playfair, in his ? Illustrations of the
Huttonian Theory,? says of this garden that its
ground, ? after a thin covering is removed, consists
entirely of sea-sand, very regularly stratified with
layers of black carbonaceous matter in three
lameke interposed between them. Shells, I believe,
are rarely found in it ; but it has every other
appearance of a sea-beach.?
By 1780 it was richly stocked with trees to afford
good shelter for young and tender plana. In the
eastern division was the school of botany, containing
2,000 species of plants, systematically arranged,
A German traveller, nanied Frank, who
visited it in 1805, praised the order of the plants,
and says, ?? among others I saw a beautiful Fe+a
asafatida in full bloom. The gardens at Kew received
their plants from this garden.?
The latter was laid out under the immediate
direction of Dr. Hope, who arranged the plants
according to the system of Linneus, to whom, in
1778, he erected in the grounds a monument-a
vase upon a pedestal-inscribed :
LINNAEO POSUIT 10. HOPE.
He built suitable hothouses, and formed a pond
for the nourishment of aquatic plants. These were
all in the western division of the ground. The conservatories
were 140 feet long. Bruce of Kinnakd,
the traveller, gave the professor a number of
Abyssinian plant seeds, among them the plant which
cured him of dysentery, In a small enclosure the
industrious professor had a plantation of the true
rhubarb, containing 3,000 plants.
The greenhouse was covered by a dated roof,
according to the Sots Magazine, in 1809 ; and as
light was only admitted at the sides, the plants
were naturally drawn towards them. ? To remedy
this radical defect,? adds the writer, ? a glass roof
is necessary. The soil of this garden is by no
means good ; vast pains have been bestowed upon
it to produce what has been done. The situation,
which, at one period, may be admitted to have
been favourable, is now indifferent, and is daily
becoming worse, from the rapid encroachment of
building, and the Hasfing effects of an iron-foundry
on the opposite side of Leith Walk.?
Some of the new walks here were laid out by
Mr. John Mackay, said to be one of the most
enthusiastic botanists and tasteful gardeners that
Scotland had as then produced, and who died
in 1802.
In 1814, on the death of Dr. Roxburgh, he was
succeeded as superintendent of this garden by Dr.
Francis Buchanan, author of several works on
India, where, in 1800, he was chosen to examine
the state of the country which had been lately conquered
from Tippoo Sahib; he had also been surgeon
to the Marquis of Wellesley, then Governor-GeneraL
He died in 1829, prior to which, as we have elsewhere
related, this Botanical Garden had been
abandoned, and all its plants removed without
