NOTES TO VOL. I.
Page 66, Dr. CARLPLE.
For the actual facts regarding Carlyle’s friendship with Home, wide Dr. Carlyle’s
Autobiography. He attended two rehearsals along with the author, Lord Elibank, Dr.
Ferguson, and David Hume, at the old Canongate theatre, then under the management
of Captain Digges, a well-born profligate, who had been dismissed the army, it was said,
as a poltroon. The
friends of Home were accustomed to meet at a tavern within the Abbey Sanctuary, and
out of this originated the Griskin Club, one of the old convivial clubs of Edinburgh.
He performed Young Douglas, and Mrs. Ward, Lady Randolph.
Page 72, CROCHALLACLNU B.
For an account of the Club, vide Ker’s Life of Xmellie, by whom Burns was introduced
to the Club. See the poet’s impromptu on Smellie ; and also his addenda to the
old song of “ Rattlin’ roarin’ Willie,” in both of which the Crochallan Club is referred to,
Page 11 7, Mr. WOODS.
Woods the actor was a special friend of the poet Fergusson. Vide ‘‘ My Last Will : ”
“ To thee, whose genius can provoke
Thy pmsions to the bowl or sock ;
For love to thee, Woods, and the Nine,
%e my immortal Shakespeare thine,” etc.
An Address, in Verse, “ To Mr. R. Ferpsson, on his recovery from severe depression
of spirits,” by Mr. Woods, appeared originally in the Culedoninn Mercury, July 9, 1774,
and was appended to the first edition of Pequsson’s Poems, 1807.
Page 12 3, Dr. BLAIK
“ The great Dr. Blair used to walk in a sort of state, with gown and wig, from his
house in Argyle Square, down the Horse Wynd, up the Old Fishmzrket Close, and so
to the High Church, every Sunday foreuoon when he went to preach. His style of
walking was very pompous, though perhaps not affected.”- Fide Chambers’s Traditions.
Page 127, ERSKINEAN D THE PHYSICIANHSA’ LL.
It is almost necessary to note here that the Physicians’ Hall, a somewhat tasteful
building, with a portico of Corinthian columns, was one of the prized architectural
features of the New Town in its early days. It was erected in 1775 ; and as it stood
opposite St. Andrew’s Church, the two porticoes would have harmonised well in a
general view of the street, had not the Physicians’ Hall been thrown back behind the
general line of the street. The site is now occupied by the much more imposing
building of the Commercial Bank.
Page 160, Rev. JOHNM ‘LuRE.
Dr. Robert Chambers describes this same character in his Traditions of Edinburgh,
hut he gives him the name of Andrew M‘Lnre. He lived “ in the second flat of a house
at the head of Bell’s Wynd, fronting the southern wall of the Old Tolbooth, and next
door to the Baijen Hole.” This, Dr. Chambers states, was a celebrated baker’s shop,
named in Peter Williamson’s Directory for 1784 as Bugon Hole ; but he says “ the
origin of the word defies all research.” The
Bejauni were the freshmen, or students of the first year in the old universities. In
Aberdeen the freshman is still called a Bejeant, as in Paris he was a Bbjaune, i.e. a
ninny, in the fourteenth century. No doubt the Eaijen Hole was a favourite resort of
the younger students who had not yet lost a schoolboy’s love for gib, candy, etc. Old
High School boys will remember Brown’s Baijen Hole, in the old High School Wynd,
the reputation of which survived till the desertion of the Old High School Yards for the
Calton HilL
The word, however, is very significant.
