University.] THE NEW BUILDING COMPLETED. 2 3
Elder being Lord Provost of the city, William
Robertson, Principal of the University, and Robert
Adam, the architect. ? May the undertaking prosper
and be crowned with success.?
The proceedings of the day were closed by a
princely banquet in the Assembly Rooms.
The building was now begun, and, portion by
portion, the old edifices engrafted on those of the
Kirk-of-Field gave place to the stately quadrangular
university of the present day; and, as nearly as
can be ascertained, on the spot occupied by the
Senate Hall stood that fatal tenement in which
King Henry was lodged on his return from Glas
gow, and which was partly blown up on the night
of his assassination, between the 9th and 10th of
February, 1567. In the repaired portion some
of the professors resided, and it was averred to
be ghost haunted, and the abode of mysterious
sounds.
The foundation stone of the old university-if
it ever had one-was not discovered during the
erection of the present edifice. The magistrates,
with more zeal for the celebrity of the city than
consideration for their financial resources, having
wished that-subscriptions apart-they should bear
the chief cost of the erection, it remained for more
than twenty years after the foundation-stone
was laid a monument of combined vanity, rashness,
and poverty, Government, as usual in most
Scottish matters, especially in those days, withholding
all aid. Yet, in 1790, when Profess01
William Cullen, first physician to His Majesty in
Scotland, and holder of the chair of medicine from
1773, died, it was proposed (( to erect a . statue to
him in the new university,? the walls of which
were barely above the ground.
Within the area of the latter masses of the old
buildings still remained, and in the following year,
1761, these gave accommodation to 1,255 students.
In that year we learn from the Scots Magazine that
the six noble pillars which adorn the front, each
22 feet 4 inches high, and in diameter 3 feet 3 inches,
were erected. These were brought from Craigleith
quarry, each drawn by sixteen horses.
Kincaid records that the total sum subscribed
by the end of February, 1794, amounted to only
If;32,000. Hence the work languished, and at
times was abandoned for want of funds; and
about that time we read of a meeting of Scottish
officers held at Calcutta, who subscribed a sum
towards its completion, the Governor-General, Lord
Cornwallis, heading the list with a contribution ol
3,000 sicca rupees.
But many parts of the edifice remained an open
aid unfinished ruin, in which crows and other
.
birds built their nests ; and a strange dwarf, known
as Geordie More (who died so lately as 1828), built
unto himself a species of booth or hut at the
college gate unchallenged.
In an old (( Guide to Edinburgh,? published in
181 I, we read thus of the building :-? It cannot
said to be yet half finished, notwithstanding the
prodigious sums expended upon it ; if we advert to
the expenses which will unavoidably atttend the
completing of its ichnography or inside accommodations,
and, without the interference of the Legislature,
it will perhaps be exhibited to posterity as a
melancholy proof of the poverty of the nation.?
This state of matters led to the complete curtailment
of Adam?s grand designs, and modifications
of them were ultimately accomplished by Mr. W.
H. Playfair, after Parliament, in 1815, granted an
annual sum of LIO,OOO for ten years to finish
the work, which, however, was not completely done
till 1834; and since then, the idea of the great
central dome, which was always a part of the
original design, seems now to have been entirely
abandoned.
The university, as we find it now, presents its
main front to South Bridge Street, and forms an
entire side respectively to West College Street, to
South College Street, and to Chambers Street
on the north. It is a regular parallelogram,
356 feet long by 225 wide, extending in length
east and west, and having in its centre a stately
quadrangular court. The main front has some
exquisite, if simple, details, and is of stupendous
proportions. In style, within and without, it is
partly Palladian and partly Grecian, but is so
pent up by the pressure of adjacent streetson
three sides, at least-that it can never be seen
to advantage, It has been said that were the
university ? situated in a large park, particularly
upon a rising ground, it would appear almost
sublime, and without a parallel among the modern
edifices of Scotland ; but situated as it is, it makes
upon the mind of a stranger, in its exterior views
at least, impressions chiefly of bewilderment and
confusion.?
It is four storeys in height, and is entered by
three grand and lofty arched porticoes from the
east ; at the sides of these are the great Craigleith
columns above referred to, each formed of a single
stone.
On the summit is a vast entablature, bearing
the following inscription, cut in Roman letters :-
?Academia Jacobi VI., Scotorum Regis anno post
Christum natum b1,DLXXXII. instituta ; annoque
M,DCC,LXXXIX., renovari coepta ; regnante Georgio III.
Principe munificentissimo ; Urbis Edinensis Pmfecto
