Traditions Of Edinburgh - free ebook by Robert Chambers

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Traditions Of Edinburgh

Robert Chambers

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TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH

TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH

AN ELEGANT MODERN CITY. Page 8. Traditions of Edinburgh By Robert Chambers, ll.d. ILLUSTRATED BY JAMES RIDDEL, R.S.W. LONDON: 38 Soho Square, W. W. &amp; R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED EDINBURGH: 339 High Street J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA 1912 Edinburgh: Printed by W. &amp; R. Chambers, Limited....

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INTRODUCTION TO PRESENT ISSUE.

INTRODUCTION TO PRESENT ISSUE.

C. E. S. CHAMBERS. Hugo Arnot—Allan Ramsay—House of the Gordon Family—Sir David Baird—Dr Webster—House of Mary de Guise. The Bowhead—Weigh-house—Anderson’s Pills—Oratories—Colonel Gardiner—‘Bowhead Saints’—‘The Seizers’—Story of a Jacobite Canary—Major Weir—Tulzies—The Tinklarian Doctor—Old Assembly Room—Paul Romieu—‘He that Tholes Overcomes’—Provost Stewart—Donaldsons the Booksellers—Bowfoot—The Templars’ Lands—The Gallows Stone. David Hume—James Boswell—Lord Fountainhall. The Regent Morton—The

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EDINBURGH OLD AND NEW.

EDINBURGH OLD AND NEW.

A series of towers rising from a palace on the plain to a castle in the air. Page 1....

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THE CHANGES OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. [1745-1845.]

THE CHANGES OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. [1745-1845.]

Fortified Gate, Nether Bow Port, from Canongate. Edinburgh was, at the beginning of George III.’s reign, a picturesque, odorous, inconvenient, old-fashioned town, of about seventy thousand inhabitants. It had no court, no factories, no commerce; but there was a nest of lawyers in it, attending upon the Court of Session; and a considerable number of the Scotch gentry—one of whom then passed as rich with a thousand a year—gave it the benefit of their presence during the winter. Thus the town had l

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HUGO ARNOT.

HUGO ARNOT.

The cleverly executed History of Edinburgh , published by Arnot in 1779, and which to this day has not been superseded, gives some respectability to a name which tradition would have otherwise handed down to us as only that of an eccentric gentleman, of remarkably scarecrow figure, and the subject of a few bon-mots . He was the son of a Leith shipmaster, named Pollock, and took the name of Arnot from a small inheritance in Fife. Many who have read his laborious work will be little prepared to he

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ALLAN RAMSAY.

ALLAN RAMSAY.

On the north side of the esplanade—enjoying a splendid view of the Firth of Forth, Fife and Stirling shires—is the neat little villa of Allan Ramsay, surrounded by its miniature pleasure-grounds. The sober, industrious life of this exception to the race of poets having resulted in a small competency, he built this odd-shaped house in his latter days, designing to enjoy in it the Horatian quiet which he had so often eulogised in his verse. The story goes that, showing it soon after to the clever

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HOUSE OF THE GORDON FAMILY.

HOUSE OF THE GORDON FAMILY.

Tradition points out, as the residence of the Gordon family, a house, or rather range of buildings, situated between Blair’s and Brown’s Closes, being almost the first mass of building in the Castle-hill Street on the right-hand side. The southern portion is a structure of lofty and massive form, battlemented at top, and looking out upon a garden which formerly stretched down to the old town-wall near the Grassmarket, but is now crossed by the access from the King’s Bridge. [8] From the style of

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DR WEBSTER.

DR WEBSTER.

An isolated house which formerly stood in Webster’s Close, [12] a little way down the Castle-hill, was the residence of the Rev. Dr Webster, a man eminent in his day on many accounts—a leading evangelical clergyman in Edinburgh, a statist and calculator of extraordinary talent, and a distinguished figure in festive scenes. The first population returns of Scotland were obtained by him in 1755; and he was the author of that fund for the widows of the clergy of the Established Church which has prov

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HOUSE OF MARY DE GUISE.

HOUSE OF MARY DE GUISE.

The restrictions imposed upon a city requiring defence appear as one of the forms of misery leading to strange associations. We become, in a special degree, sensible of this truth when we see the house of a royal personage sunk amidst the impurities of a narrow close in the Old Town of Edinburgh. Such was literally the case of an aged pile of buildings on the north side of the Castle-hill, behind the front line of the street, and accessible by Blyth’s, Nairn’s, and Tod’s Closes, which was declar

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THE BOWHEAD.

THE BOWHEAD.

This is a comparatively open space, though partially straightened again by the insertion in it of a clumsy, detached old building called the Weigh-house , where enormous masses of butter and cheese are continually getting disposed of. Prince Charles had his guard at the Weigh-house when blockading the Castle; using, however, for this purpose, not the house itself, but a floor of the adjacent tall tenement in the Lawnmarket, which appears to have been selected on a very intelligible principle, in

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ANDERSON’S PILLS.

ANDERSON’S PILLS.

In this tall land , dated 1690, there is a house on the second-floor where that venerable drug, Dr Anderson’s pills, is sold, and has been so for above a century. As is well known, the country-people in Scotland have to this day [1824] a peculiar reverence for these pills, which are, I believe, really a good form of aloetic medicine. They took their origin from a physician of the time of Charles I., who gave them his name. From his daughter, Lillias Anderson, the patent came to a person designed

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ORATORIES—COLONEL GARDINER.

ORATORIES—COLONEL GARDINER.

This house presents a feature which forms a curious memorial of the manners of a past age. In common with all the houses built from about 1690 to 1740—a substantial class, still abundant in the High Street—there is at the end of each row of windows corresponding to a separate mansion, a narrow slit-like window, such as might suffice for a closet. In reality, each of these narrow apertures gives light to a small cell—much too small to require such a window—usually entering from the dining-room or

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BOWHEAD SAINTS—SEIZERS—A JACOBITE BLACKBIRD.

BOWHEAD SAINTS—SEIZERS—A JACOBITE BLACKBIRD.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, the inhabitants of the West Bow enjoyed a peculiar fame for their piety and zeal in the Covenanting cause. The wits of the opposite faction are full of allusions to them as ‘the Bowhead Saints,’ ‘the godly plants of the Bowhead,’ and so forth. [This is the basis of an allusion by a later Cavalier wit, when describing the exit of Lord Dundee from Edinburgh, on the occasion of the settlement of the crown upon William and Mary: It is to be feared that

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MAJOR WEIR.[23]

MAJOR WEIR.[23]

Major Weir’s House. It must have been a sad scandal to this peculiar community when Major Weir, one of their number, was found to have been so wretched an example of human infirmity. The house occupied by this man still exists, though in an altered shape, in a little court accessible by a narrow passage near the first angle of the street. His history is obscurely reported; but it appears that he was of a good family in Lanarkshire, and had been one of the ten thousand men sent by the Scottish Co

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TULZIES.

TULZIES.

At the Bowhead there happened, in the year 1596, a combat between James Johnston of Westerhall and a gentleman of the house of Somerville, which is thus related in that curious book, the Memorie of the Somervilles . ‘The other actione wherein Westerhall was concerned happened three years thereftir in Edinburgh, and was only personal on the same account, betwext Westerhall and Bread (Broad) Hugh Somervill of the Writes. This gentleman had often formerly foughten with Westerhall upon equal termes,

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THE TINKLARIAN DOCTOR.

THE TINKLARIAN DOCTOR.

In the early part of the last century, the Bowhead was distinguished as the residence of an odd, half-crazy varlet of a tinsmith named William Mitchell, who occasionally held forth as a preacher, and every now and then astounded the quiet people of Edinburgh with some pamphlet full of satirical personalities. He seems to have been altogether a strange mixture of fanaticism, humour, and low cunning. In one of his publications—a single broadside, dated 1713—he has a squib upon the magistrates, in

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OLD ASSEMBLY-ROOM.

OLD ASSEMBLY-ROOM.

At the first angle of the Bow, on the west side of the street, is a tall picturesque-looking house, which tradition points to as having been the first place where the fashionables of Edinburgh held their dancing assemblies. Over the door is a well-cut sculpture of the arms of the Somerville family, together with the initials P. J. and J. W., and the date 1602. These are memorials of the original owner of the mansion, a certain Peter Somerville, a wealthy citizen, at one time filling a dignified

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PAUL ROMIEU.

PAUL ROMIEU.

At this angle of the Bow the original city-wall crossed the line of the street, and there was, accordingly, a gate at this spot, [35] of which the only existing memorial is one of the hooks for the suspension of the hinges, fixed in the front wall of a house, at the height of about five feet from the ground. It is from the arch forming this gateway that the street takes its name, bow being an old word for an arch. The house immediately without this ancient port, on the east side of the street, w

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‘HE THAT THOLES OVERCOMES.’

‘HE THAT THOLES OVERCOMES.’

Pursuing our way down the steep and devious street, we pass an antique wooden-faced house, bearing the odd name of the Mahogany Land , and just before turning the second corner, pause before a stone one of equally antiquated structure, [37] having a wooden-screened outer stair. Over the door at the head of this stair is a legend in very old lettering—certainly not later than 1530—and hardly to be deciphered. With difficulty we make it out to be: HE YT THOLIS OVERCVMMIS. He that tholes (that is,

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PROVOST STEWART’S HOUSE—DONALDSONS THE BOOKSELLERS.

PROVOST STEWART’S HOUSE—DONALDSONS THE BOOKSELLERS.

The upper floors of the house which looks down into the Grassmarket formed the mansion of Mr Archibald Stewart, Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1745. This is an abode of singular structure and arrangements, having its principal access by a close out of another street, and only a postern one into the Bow, and being full of curious little wainscoted rooms, concealed closets, and secret stairs. In one apartment there is a cabinet, or what appears a cabinet, about three feet high: this, when cross-exam

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TEMPLARS’ LANDS.

TEMPLARS’ LANDS.

We have now arrived at the Bow-foot , about which there is nothing remarkable to be told, except that here, and along one side of the Grassmarket, are several houses marked by a cross on some conspicuous part—either an actual iron cross, or one represented in sculpture. This seems a strange circumstance in a country where it was even held doubtful, twenty years ago, whether one could be placed as an ornament on the top of a church tower. The explanation is that these houses were built upon lands

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THE GALLOWS STONE.

THE GALLOWS STONE.

In a central situation at the east end of the Grassmarket, there remained till very lately a massive block of sandstone, having a quadrangular hole in the middle, being the stone which served as a socket for the gallows, when this was the common place of execution. Instead of the stone, there is now only a St Andrew’s cross, indicated by an arrangement of the paving-stones. This became the regular scene of executions after the Restoration, and so continued till the year 1784. Hence arises the se

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DAVID HUME.

DAVID HUME.

The first fixed residence of David Hume in Edinburgh appears to have been in Riddel’s Land , Lawnmarket, near the head of the West Bow. He commenced housekeeping there in 1751, when, according to his own account, he ‘removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a man of letters.’ It was while in Riddel’s Land that he published his Political Discourses , and obtained the situation of librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. In this place also he commenced the writing of his History of E

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JAMES BOSWELL.

JAMES BOSWELL.

It appears that one of the immediately succeeding leaseholders of Hume’s house in James’s Court was James Boswell. Mr Burton has made this tolerably clear ( Life of Hume , ii. 137), and he proceeds to speculate on the fact of Boswell having there entertained his friend Johnson. ‘Would Boswell communicate the fact, or tell what manner of man was the landlord of the habitation into which he had, under the guise of hospitality, entrapped the arch-intolerant? Who shall appreciate the mental conflict

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LORD FOUNTAINHALL.

LORD FOUNTAINHALL.

Before James’s Court was built, its site was occupied by certain closes, in one of which dwelt Lord Fountainhall, so distinguished as an able, liberal, and upright judge, and still more so by his industrious habits as a collector of historical memorabilia, and of the decisions of the Court of Session. Though it is considerably upwards of a century since Lord Fountainhall died, [45] a traditionary anecdote of his residence in this place has been handed down till the present time by a surprisingly

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STORY OF THE COUNTESS OF STAIR.

STORY OF THE COUNTESS OF STAIR.

In a short alley leading between the Lawnmarket and the Earthen Mound, and called Lady Stair’s Close , [47] there is a substantial old mansion, presenting, in a sculptured stone over the doorway, a small coat-armorial, with the initials W. G. and G. S., the date 1622, and the legend: FEAR THE LORD, AND DEPART FROM EVILL. The letters refer to Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, the original proprietor of the house, and his wife. Within there are marks of good style, particularly in the lofty ceiling

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OLD BANK CLOSE.

OLD BANK CLOSE.

The house of oldest date in the close was one on the west side, of substantial and even handsome appearance, long and lofty, and presenting some peculiarities of structure nearly unique in our city. There was first a door for the ground-floor, about which there was nothing remarkable. Then there was a door leading by the stair to the first floor , and bearing this legend and date upon the architrave: IN THE IS AL MY TRAIST: 1569. Close beside this door was another, leading by a longer, but disti

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CHIESLY OF DALRY.

CHIESLY OF DALRY.

The head of the Old Bank Close was the scene of the assassination of President Lockhart by Chiesly of Dalry, [56] March 1689. The murderer had no provocation besides a simple judicial act of the president, assigning an aliment or income of £93 out of his estate to his wife and children, from whom it may be presumed he had been separated. He evidently was a man abandoned to the most violent passions—perhaps not quite sane. In London, half a year before the deed, he told Mr Stuart, an advocate, th

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RICH MERCHANTS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY—SIR WILLIAM DICK.

RICH MERCHANTS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY—SIR WILLIAM DICK.

Several houses in the neighbourhood of the Old Bank Close served to give a respectful notion of the wealth and domestic state of certain merchants of an early age. Immediately to the westward, in Brodie’s Close, was the mansion of William Little of Liberton, bearing date 1570. This was an eminent merchant, and the founder of a family now represented by Mr Little Gilmour of the Inch, in whose possession this mansion continued under entail, till purchased and taken down by the Commissioners of Imp

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THE BIRTH OF LORD BROUGHAM.

THE BIRTH OF LORD BROUGHAM.

[1868.—It has been remarked elsewhere that, for a great number of years after the general desertion of the Old Town by persons of condition, there were many denizens of the New who had occasion to look back to the Canongate and Cowgate as the place of their birth. The nativity of one person who achieved extraordinary greatness and distinction, and whose death was an occurrence of yesterday, Henry, Lord Brougham, undoubtedly was connected with the lowly place last mentioned. The Edinburgh traditi

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THE OLD TOLBOOTH.

THE OLD TOLBOOTH.

The principal entrance to the Tolbooth, and the only one used in later days, was at the bottom of the turret next the church. The gateway was of tolerably good carved stone-work, and occupied by a door of ponderous massiness and strength, having, besides the lock, a flap-padlock, which, however, was generally kept unlocked during the day. In front of the door there always paraded, or rather loitered, a private of the town-guard, with his rusty red clothes and Lochaber axe or musket. The door adj

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LORD COALSTOUN AND HIS WIG.

LORD COALSTOUN AND HIS WIG.

The fourth floor , constituting the Byres mansion, after being occupied by such persons as Lord Coupar, Lord Lindores, and Sir James Johnston of Westerhall, fell into the possession of Mr Brown of Coalstoun, a judge under the designation of Lord Coalstoun, and the father of the late Countess of Dalhousie. His lordship lived here in 1757, but then removed to a more spacious mansion on the Castle-hill. A strange accident one morning befell Lord Coalstoun while residing in this house. It was at tha

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COMMENDATOR BOTHWELL’S HOUSE.

COMMENDATOR BOTHWELL’S HOUSE.

The eastern of the tenements, which has only been renovated by a new front, formerly was the lodging of Adam Bothwell, Commendator of Holyrood, who is remarkable for having performed the Protestant marriage ceremony for Mary and the Earl of Bothwell. This ecclesiastic, who belonged to an old Edinburgh family of note, and was the uncle of the inventor of logarithms, [66] is celebrated in his epitaph in Holyrood Chapel as a judge, and the son and father of judges. His son was raised to the peerage

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THE KRAMES.

THE KRAMES.

The central row of buildings—the Luckenbooths proper —was not wholly taken away till 1817. The narrow passage left between it and the church will ever be memorable to all who knew Edinburgh in those days, on account of the strange scene of traffic which it presented—each recess, angle, and coign of vantage in the wall of the church being occupied by little shops, of the nature of Bryce’s, devoted to the sale of gloves, toys, lollipops, &amp;c. These were the Krames , so famous at Edinburgh f

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CREECH’S SHOP.

CREECH’S SHOP.

The building at the east end of the Luckenbooths proper had a front facing down the High Street, and commanding not only a view of the busy scene there presented, but a prospect of Aberlady Bay, Gosford House, and other objects in Haddingtonshire. The shop in the east front was that of Mr Creech, a bookseller of facete memory, who had published many books by the principal literary men of his day, to all of whom he was known as a friend and equal. From this place had issued works by Kames, Smith,

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SOME MEMORANDA OF THE OLD KIRK OF ST GILES.

SOME MEMORANDA OF THE OLD KIRK OF ST GILES.

Jenny Geddes was an herbwoman— Scottice , a greenwife —at the Tron Church, where, in former as well as in recent times, that class of merchants kept their stalls. It seems that, in the midst of the hubbub, Jenny, hearing the bishop call upon the dean to read the collect of the day, cried out, with unintentional wit: ‘Deil colic the wame o’ ye!’ [73] and threw at the dean’s head the small stool on which she sat; ‘a ticket of remembrance,’ as a Presbyterian annalist merrily terms it, so well aimed

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BOOTHS.

BOOTHS.

Old St Giles’s. In 1632, the present great hall of the Parliament House was founded upon the site of the houses formerly occupied by the ministers of St Giles’s. It was finished in 1639, at an expense of £11,630 sterling, and devoted to the use of parliament. It does not appear to have been till after the Restoration that the Parliament Close was formed, by the erection of a line of private buildings, forming a square with the church. These houses, standing on a declivity, were higher on one sid

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GOLDSMITHS.

GOLDSMITHS.

The goldsmiths of those days were considered a superior class of tradesmen; they appeared in public with scarlet cloak, cocked hat, and cane, as men of some consideration. Yet in their shops every one of them would have been found working with his own hands at some light labour, in a little recess near the window, generally in a very plain dress, but ready to come forth at a moment’s notice to serve a customer. Perhaps, down to 1780, there was not a goldsmith in Edinburgh who did not condescend

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GEORGE HERIOT.

GEORGE HERIOT.

The shop and workshop of George Heriot existed in this neighbourhood till 1809, when the extension of the Advocates’ Library occasioned the destruction of some interesting old closes to the west of St Giles’s Kirk, and altered all the features of this part of the town. There was a line of three small shops, with wooden superstructures above them, extending between the door of the Old Tolbooth and that of the Laigh Council-house , which occupied the site of the present lobby of the Signet Library

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MEMORIALS OF THE NOR’ LOCH.

MEMORIALS OF THE NOR’ LOCH.

Old Arrangements of the House—Justice in Bygone Times—Court of Session Garland—Parliament House Worthies. The Parliament House, a spacious hall with an oaken arched roof, finished in 1639 for the meetings of the Estates or native parliament, and used for that purpose till the Union, has since then, as is well known, served exclusively as a material portion of the suite of buildings required for the supreme civil judicatory—the Court of Session. This hall, usually styled the Outer House , is now

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JUSTICE IN BYGONE TIMES.

JUSTICE IN BYGONE TIMES.

In the curious history of the family of Somerville there is a very remarkable anecdote illustrative of the course of justice at that period. Lord Somerville and his kinsman, Somerville of Cambusnethan, had long carried on a litigation. The former was at length advised to use certain means for the advancement of his cause with the Regent Morton, it being then customary for the sovereign to preside in the court. Accordingly, having one evening caused his agents to prepare all the required papers,

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COURT OF SESSION GARLAND.

COURT OF SESSION GARLAND.

A curious characteristic view of the Scottish bench about the year 1771 is presented in a doggerel ballad, supposed to have been a joint composition of James Boswell and John Maclaurin, [99] advocates, and professedly the history of a process regarding a bill containing a clause of penalty in case of failure. This Court of Session Garland , as it is called, is here subjoined, with such notes on persons and things as the reader may be supposed to require or care for. A few additions to the notes,

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LOCKHART OF COVINGTON.[126]

LOCKHART OF COVINGTON.[126]

Lockhart used to be spoken of by all old men about the Court of Session as a paragon. He had been at the bar from 1722, and had attained the highest eminence long before going upon the bench, which he did at an unusually late period of life; yet so different were those times from the present that, according to the report of Sir William Macleod Bannatyne to myself in 1833, Lockhart realised only about a thousand a year by his exertions, then thought a magnificent income. The first man at the Scot

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LORD KAMES.

LORD KAMES.

This able judge and philosopher in advance of his time—for such he was—is described by his biographer, Lord Woodhouselee, as indulging in a certain humorous playfulness, which, to those who knew him intimately, detracted nothing from the feeling of respect due to his eminent talents and virtues. To strangers, his lordship admits, it might convey ‘the idea of lightness.’ The simple fact here shadowed forth is that Lord Kames had a roughly playful manner, and used phrases of an ultra-eccentric cha

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LORD HAILES.

LORD HAILES.

When Lord Hailes died, it was a long time before any will could be found. The heir-male was about to take possession of his estates, to the exclusion of his eldest daughter. Some months after his lordship’s death, when it was thought that all further search was vain, Miss Dalrymple prepared to retire from New Hailes, and also from the mansion-house in New Street, having lost all hope of a will being discovered in her favour. Some of her domestics, however, were sent to lock up the house in New S

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LORD GARDENSTONE.

LORD GARDENSTONE.

This judge had a predilection for pigs. One, in its juvenile years, took a particular fancy for his lordship, and followed him wherever he went, like a dog, reposing in the same bed. When it attained the mature years and size of swinehood, this of course was inconvenient. However, his lordship, unwilling to part with his friend, continued to let it sleep at least in the same room, and, when he undressed, laid his clothes upon the floor as a bed to it. He said that he liked it, for it kept his cl

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LORD PRESIDENT DUNDAS.

LORD PRESIDENT DUNDAS.

This distinguished judge was, in his latter years, extremely subject to gout, and used to fall backwards and forwards in his chair—whence the ungracious expression in the Garland . He used to characterise his six clerks thus: ‘Two of them cannot read , two of them cannot write , and the other two can neither read nor write !’ The eccentric Sir James Colquhoun was one of those who could not read . In former times it was the practice of the Lord President to have a sand-glass before him on the ben

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LORD MONBODDO.

LORD MONBODDO.

Lord Monboddo’s motion for the enforcement of the bill, on account of its representing the value of a horse, is partly an allusion to his Gulliverlike admiration of that animal, but more particularly to his having once embroiled himself in an action respecting a horse which belonged to himself. His lordship had committed the animal, when sick, to the charge of a farrier, with directions for the administration of a certain medicine. The farrier gave the medicine, but went beyond his commission, i

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PARLIAMENT HOUSE WORTHIES.

PARLIAMENT HOUSE WORTHIES.

Scott has sketched in Peter Peebles the type of a class of crazy and half-crazy litigants who at all times haunt the Parliament House. Usually they are rustic men possessing small properties, such as a house and garden, which they are constantly talking of as their ‘subject.’ Sometimes a faded shawl and bonnet is associated with the case—objects to be dreaded by every good-natured member of the bar. But most frequently it is simple countrymen who become pests of this kind. That is to say, simple

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CONVIVIALIA.

CONVIVIALIA.

Tavern dissipation, now so rare amongst the respectable classes of the community, formerly prevailed in Edinburgh to an incredible extent, and engrossed the leisure hours of all professional men, scarcely excepting even the most stern and dignified. No rank, class, or profession, indeed, formed an exception to this rule. Nothing was so common in the morning as to meet men of high rank and official dignity reeling home from a close in the High Street, where they had spent the night in drinking. N

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TAVERNS OF OLD TIMES.

TAVERNS OF OLD TIMES.

A venerable person has given me an anecdote of this singular mixture of learning, wit, and professional skill in connection with the Greping-office. Here, it seems, according to a custom which lasted even in London till a later day, the clever physician used to receive visits from his patients. On one occasion a woman from the country called to consult him respecting the health of her daughter, when he gave a shrewd hygienic advice in a pithy metaphor not be mentioned to ears polite. When, in co

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THE CROSS—CADDIES.

THE CROSS—CADDIES.

FORENOON AT THE CROSS. Page 174. As the place where state proclamations were always made, where the execution of noted state criminals took place, and where many important public ceremonials were enacted, the Cross of Edinburgh is invested with numberless associations of a most interesting kind, extending over several centuries. Here took place the mysterious midnight proclamation, summoning the Flodden lords to the domains of Pluto, as described so strikingly in Marmion ; the witness being ‘Mr

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THE TOWN-GUARD.

THE TOWN-GUARD.

Previous to 1805, when an unarmed police was established for the protection of the streets, the Town-guard had consisted of three equally large companies, each with a lieutenant (complimentarily called captain) at its head. Then it was a somewhat more respectable body, not only as being larger, but invested with a really useful purpose. The unruly and the vicious stood in some awe of a troop of men bearing lethal weapons, and generally somewhat frank in the use of them. If sometimes roughly hand

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EDINBURGH MOBS.

EDINBURGH MOBS.

In this ‘fierce democracy’ there once arose a mighty Pyrrhus, who contrived, by dint of popular qualifications, to subject the rabble to his command, and to get himself elected, by acclamation, dictator of all its motions and exploits. How he acquired his wonderful power is not recorded; but it is to be supposed that his activity on occasions of mobbing, his boldness and sagacity, his strong voice and uncommonly powerful whistle, together with the mere whim or humour of the thing, conspired to h

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BICKERS.

BICKERS.

The house on the west side of the Old Stamp-office Close, High Street, formerly Fortune’s Tavern, was, in the early part of the last century, the family mansion of Alexander, Earl of Eglintoune. It is a building of considerable height and extent, accessible by a broad scale stair. The alley in which it is situated bears great marks of former respectability, and contained, till the year 1821, the Stamp-office, then removed to the Waterloo Buildings. [162] The ninth Earl of Eglintoune [163] was on

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SUSANNA, COUNTESS OF EGLINTOUNE.

SUSANNA, COUNTESS OF EGLINTOUNE.

Unhappily for this accomplished and poetical lover, Lord Eglintoune’s sickly wife happened just about this time to die, and set his lordship again at large among the spinsters of Scotland. Admirers of a youthful, impassioned, and sonnet-making cast might have trembled at his approach to the shrine of their divinity; for his lordship was one of those titled suitors who, however old and horrible, are never rejected, except in novels and romances. It appears that poor Clerk had actually made a decl

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FEMALE DRESSES OF LAST CENTURY.

FEMALE DRESSES OF LAST CENTURY.

Stays were made so long as to touch the chair, both in front and rear, when a lady sat. They were calculated to fit so tightly that the wearers had to hold by the bedpost while the maid was lacing them. There is a story told of a lady of high rank in Scotland, about 1720, which gives us a strange idea of the rigours and inconvenience of this fashion. She stinted her daughters as to diet, with a view to the improvement of their shapes; but the young ladies, having the cook in their interest, used

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THE LORD JUSTICE-CLERK ALVA.[172]

THE LORD JUSTICE-CLERK ALVA.[172]

In his Mylne Square mansion Lord Alva’s two step-daughters were married; one to become Countess of Sutherland, the other Lady Glenorchy. There was something very striking in the fate of Lady Sutherland and of the earl, her husband—a couple distinguished as much by personal elegance and amiable character as by lofty rank. Lady Sutherland was blessed with a temper of extraordinary sweetness, which shone in a face of so much beauty as to have occasioned admiration where many were beautiful—the coro

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STORY OF LADY GRANGE.[180]

STORY OF LADY GRANGE.[180]

Lord and Lady Grange had been married upwards of twenty years, and had had several children, when, in 1730, a separation was determined on between them. It is usually difficult in such cases to say in what degree the parties are respectively blamable; how far there have been positive faults on one side, and want of forbearance on the other, and so forth. If we were to believe the lady in this instance, there had been love and peace for twenty years, when at length Lord Grange took a sudden disli

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ABBOT OF MELROSE’S LODGING.

ABBOT OF MELROSE’S LODGING.

Back of Mackenzie’s House, looking into Cant’s House. Mackenzie has still a place in the popular imagination in Edinburgh as the Bluidy Mackingie , his office having been to prosecute the unruly Covenanters. It therefore happens that the founder of our greatest national library, [189] one whom Dryden regarded as a friend, and who was the very first writer of classic English prose in Scotland, is a sort of Raw-head and Bloody-bones by the firesides of his native capital. He lies in a beautiful ma

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PALACE OF ARCHBISHOP BETHUNE [OR BEATON].

PALACE OF ARCHBISHOP BETHUNE [OR BEATON].

At the foot of the wynd, on the east side, is a large mansion of antique appearance, forming two sides of a quadrangle, with a porte-cochère giving access to a court behind, and a picturesque overhanging turret at the exterior angle. [193] This house was built by James Bethune, Archbishop of Glasgow (1508-1524), chancellor of the kingdom, and one of the Lords Regent under the Duke of Albany during the minority of James V. Lyndsay, in his Chronicles , speaks of it as ‘his owen ludging quhilk he b

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BOARDING-SCHOOLS OF THE LAST CENTURY.

BOARDING-SCHOOLS OF THE LAST CENTURY.

When the reader hears such things of the Freir Wynd, he must not be surprised overmuch on perusing the following advertisement from the Edinburgh Gazette of April 19, 1703: ‘There is a Boarding-school to be set up in Blackfriars Wynd, in Robinson’s Land, upon the west side of the wynd, near the middle thereof, in the first door of the stair leading to the said land, against the latter end of May, or first of June next, where young Ladies and Gentlewomen may have all sorts of breeding that is to

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THE LAST OF THE LORIMERS.

THE LAST OF THE LORIMERS.

To return for a moment to the archiepiscopal palace. It contained, about eighty years ago, a person calling himself a Lorimer —an appellative once familiar in Edinburgh, being applied to those who deal in the ironwork used in saddlery. [196]...

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LADY LOVAT.

LADY LOVAT.

The widow of the rebel Lord Lovat spent a great portion of a long widowhood and died (1796) in a house at the head of Blackfriars Wynd. Her ladyship was a niece of the first Duke of Argyll, and born, as she herself expressed it, in the year Ten —that is, 1710. The politic Mac Shemus [197] marked her out as a suitable second wife, in consideration of the value of the Argyll connection. As he was above thirty years her senior, and not famed for the tenderest treatment of his former spouse, or for

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HOUSE OF GAVIN DOUGLAS THE POET—SKIRMISH OF CLEANSE-THE-CAUSEWAY.

HOUSE OF GAVIN DOUGLAS THE POET—SKIRMISH OF CLEANSE-THE-CAUSEWAY.

From these descriptions we attain a tolerably distinct idea of the site of the house of the bishops of Dunkeld in Edinburgh, including, of course, one who is endeared to us from a peculiar cause—Gavin Douglas, who succeeded to the see in 1516. This house must have stood nearly opposite to the bottom of Niddry Street, but somewhat to the eastward. It would have gardens behind, extending up to the line of the present Infirmary Street. We thus not only have the pleasure of ascertaining the Edinburg

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COLLEGE WYND—BIRTHPLACE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

COLLEGE WYND—BIRTHPLACE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The old buildings of the College of Edinburgh, themselves mean, had for their main access, in former times, only that narrow dismal alley called the College Wynd, [205] leading up from the Cowgate. Facing down this humble lane was the gateway, displaying a richly ornamented architrave. The wynd itself, strange as the averment may now appear, was the abode of many of the professors. The illustrious Joseph Black lived at one time in a house adjacent to the College gate, on the east side, afterward

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THE HORSE WYND.

THE HORSE WYND.

This alley, connecting the Cowgate with the grounds on the south side of the town within the walls, and broad enough for a carriage, is understood to have derived its name from an inn which long ago existed at its head, where the Gaelic Church long after stood. Although the name is at least as old as the middle of the seventeenth century, none of the buildings appear older than the middle of the eighteenth. They had all been renewed by people desirous of the benefit of such air as was to be had

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TAM O’ THE COWGATE.

TAM O’ THE COWGATE.

A court of old buildings, in a massive style of architecture, existed, previous to 1829, on a spot in the Cowgate now occupied by the southern piers of George IV. Bridge. In the middle of the last century it was used as the Excise-office; but even this was a kind of declension from its original character. It is certain that the celebrated Thomas Hamilton, first Earl of Haddington, President of the Court of Session, and Secretary of State for Scotland, lived here at the end of the sixteenth centu

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ST CECILIA’S HALL.

ST CECILIA’S HALL.

‘The vocal department of our concerts consisted chiefly of the songs of Handel, Arne, Gluck, Sarti, Jornelli, Guglielmi, Paisiello, Scottish songs, &amp;c.; and every year, generally, we had an oratorio of Handel performed, with the assistance of a principal bass and a tenor singer, and a few chorus-singers from the English cathedrals; together with some Edinburgh amateurs, [212] who cultivated that sacred and sublime music; Signor and Signora Domenico Corri, the latter our prima donna , sin

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THE MURDER OF DARNLEY.

THE MURDER OF DARNLEY.

The house itself, by this explosion, was destroyed, ‘ even ,’ as the queen tells in a letter to her ambassador in France, ‘ to the very grund-stane .’ The bodies of the king and his servant were found next morning in a garden or field on the outside of the town-wall. The buildings connected with the Kirk o’ Field were afterwards converted into the College of King James, now our Edinburgh University. The hall of the Senatus in the new buildings occupies nearly the exact site of the Prebendaries’

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ROBERT CULLEN.

ROBERT CULLEN.

Robert Cullen, the son of the physician, made a great impression on Edinburgh society by his many delightful social qualities, and particularly his powers as a mimic of the Mathews genus. He manifested this gift in his earliest years, to the no small discomposure of his grave old father. One evening, when Dr Cullen was going to the theatre, Robert entreated to be taken along with him, but for some reason was condemned to remain at home. Some time after the departure of the doctor, Mrs Cullen hea

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MISS NICKY MURRAY.

MISS NICKY MURRAY.

A little before Miss Nicky’s time, it was customary for gentlemen to walk alongside the chairs of their partners, with their swords by their sides, and so escort them home. They called next afternoon upon their Dulcineas to inquire how they were and drink tea. The fashionable time for seeing company in those days was the evening, when people were all abroad upon the street, as in the forenoon now, making calls and shopping . The people who attended the assemblies were very select . Moreover, the

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[THE BISHOP’S LAND.

[THE BISHOP’S LAND.

The lower portion of the High Street, including the Netherbow , was, till a recent time, remarkable for the antiquity of the greater number of the buildings, insomuch that no equal portion of the city was more distinctly a memorial of the general appearance of the whole as it was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On the north side of the High Street, immediately adjacent to the Netherbow, there was a nest of tall wooden-fronted houses of one character, and the age of which generally mi

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JOHN KNOX’S MANSE.

JOHN KNOX’S MANSE.

The only authentic information to be obtained on the point is presented by Maitland, when he tells us that the clearing of the Boroughmoor of timber took place in consequence of a charter from James IV. in 1508. He says nothing of robbers, but attributes the permission granted by the magistrates for the making of wooden projections merely to their desire of getting sale for their timber. After all, I am inclined to trace this fashion to taste. The wooden fronts appear to have originated in open

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HYNDFORD’S CLOSE.

HYNDFORD’S CLOSE.

So easy and familiar were the manners of the great in those times, fabled to be so stiff and decorous, that Miss Eglintoune, afterwards Lady Wallace, used to be sent with the tea-kettle across the street to the Fountain Well for water to make tea. Lady Maxwell’s daughters were the wildest romps imaginable. An old gentleman, who was their relation, told me that the first time he saw these beautiful girls was in the High Street, where Miss Jane, afterwards Duchess of Gordon, was riding upon a sow,

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HOUSE OF THE MARQUISES OF TWEEDDALE—THE BEGBIE TRAGEDY.

HOUSE OF THE MARQUISES OF TWEEDDALE—THE BEGBIE TRAGEDY.

The passage from the street into Tweeddale Court is narrow and dark, and about fifteen yards in length. Here, in 1806, when the mansion was possessed as a banking-house by the British Linen Company, there took place an extraordinary tragedy. About five o’clock of the evening of the 13th of November, when the short midwinter day had just closed, a child, who lived in a house accessible from the close, was sent by her mother with a kettle to obtain a supply of water for tea from the neighbouring w

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[THE LADIES OF TRAQUAIR.

[THE LADIES OF TRAQUAIR.

Signing of the Covenant—Henderson’s Monument—Bothwell Bridge Prisoners—A Romance. Henderson’s Monument, Greyfriars. This old cemetery—the burial-place of Buchanan, [230] George Jameson the painter, Principal Robertson, Dr Blair, Allan Ramsay, Henry Mackenzie, and many other men of note—whose walls are a circle of aristocratic sepulchres, will ever be memorable as the scene of the Signing of the Covenant; the document having first been produced in the church, after a sermon by Alexander Henderson

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BOTHWELL BRIDGE PRISONERS.

BOTHWELL BRIDGE PRISONERS.

As if there had been some destiny in the matter, the Greyfriars Churchyard became connected with another remarkable event in the religious troubles of the seventeenth century. At the south-west angle, accessible by an old gateway bearing emblems of mortality, and which is fitted with an iron-rail gate of very old workmanship, is a kind of supplement to the burying-ground—an oblong space, now having a line of sepulchral enclosures on each side, but formerly empty. On these enclosures the visitor

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STORY OF MRS MACFARLANE.

STORY OF MRS MACFARLANE.

It will surprise every one to learn that this Scottish Lucrece was a woman of only nineteen or twenty years of age, and some months enceinte , at the time when she so boldly vindicated her honour. She was a person of respectable connections, being a daughter of Colonel Charles Straiton, ‘a gentleman of great honour,’ says one of the letters already quoted, and who further appears to have been entrusted with high negotiations by the Jacobites during the reign of Queen Anne. By her mother, she was

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THE CANONGATE.

THE CANONGATE.

and mentions in a note that this place was ‘the greatest sufferer by the loss of our members of parliament, which London now enjoys, many of them having had their houses there;’ a fact which Maitland confirms. Innumerable traces are to be found, in old songs and ballads, of the elegant population of the Canongate in a former day. In the piteous tale of Marie Hamilton—one of the Queen’s Maries—occurs this simple but picturesque stanza: An old popular rhyme expresses the hauteur of these Canongate

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ST JOHN STREET.

ST JOHN STREET.

‘Troth, ma’am,’ said he, ‘I hav’na a bawbee in my pouch.’ ‘Tut, man, ne’er mind that,’ replied the lady; ‘let’s e’en play for a pund o’ candles!’ During his last visit to Edinburgh (1766)—the visit which occasioned Humphry Clinker —Smollett lived in his sister’s house. A person who recollects seeing him there describes him as dressed in black clothes, tall, and extremely handsome, but quite unlike the portraits at the front of his works, all of which are disclaimed by his relations. The unfortun

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MORAY HOUSE.

MORAY HOUSE.

When, in 1650, the Lord Lorn, eldest son of the Marquis of Argyll, was married to Lady Mary Stuart, eldest daughter of the Earl of Moray, the wedding feast ‘stood,’ as contemporary writers express it, at the Earl of Moray’s house in the Canongate. The event so auspicious to these great families was signalised by a circumstance of a very remarkable kind. A whole week had been passed in festivity by the wedded pair and their relations, when, on Saturday the 18th of May, the Marquis of Montrose was

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THE SPEAKING HOUSE.

THE SPEAKING HOUSE.

It was built in the year of the assassination of the Regent Moray, and one is somewhat surprised to think that, at so dark a crisis of our national history, a mansion of so costly a character should have taken its rise. The owner, whatever grade he held, seems to have felt an apprehension of the popular talk on the subject of his raising so elegant a mansion; and he took a curious mode of deprecating its expression. On a tablet over the ground-floor he inscribes: HODIE MIHI: CRAS TIBI. CUR IGITU

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PANMURE HOUSE—ADAM SMITH.

PANMURE HOUSE—ADAM SMITH.

The gentle, virtuous character of Smith has left little for the anecdotist. The utmost simplicity marked the externals of the man. He said very truly (being in possession of a handsome library) that ‘he was only a beau in his books.’ Leading an abstracted, scholarly life, he was ill-fitted for common worldly affairs. Some one remarked to a friend of mine while Smith still lived: ‘How strange to think of one who has written so well on the principles of exchange and barter—he is obliged to get a f

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JOHN PATERSON THE GOLFER.

JOHN PATERSON THE GOLFER.

It appears that this quatrain was the production of Dr Pitcairn, while the sentence below is an anagram upon the name of John Patersone . The stanza expresses that ‘when Paterson had been crowned victor in a game peculiar to Scotland, in which his ancestors had also been often victorious, he then built this mansion, which one conquest raised him above all his predecessors.’ We must resort to tradition for an explanation of this obscure hint. Golfers’ Land. Till a recent period, golfing had long

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[LOTHIAN HUT.

[LOTHIAN HUT.

No doubt is entertained on any hand that the field-culture of the potato was first practised in Scotland by a man of humble condition, originally a pedlar, by name Henry Prentice. He was an eccentric person, as many have been who stepped out of the common walk to do things afterwards discovered to be great. A story is told that while the potatoes were growing in certain little fields which he leased near our city, Lord Minto came from time to time to inquire about the crop. Prentice at length to

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HENRY PRENTICE AND POTATOES.

HENRY PRENTICE AND POTATOES.

He also had a coffin prepared at the price of two guineas, taking the undertaker bound to screw it down gratis with his own hands. In addition to all this, his friends the magistrates were under covenant to bury him with a hearse and four coaches. But even the designs of mortals respecting the grave itself are liable to disappointment. Owing to the mischief done by the boys to the premature monument, Prentice saw fit to have it removed to a quieter cemetery, that of Restalrig, where, at his deat

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THE DUCHESS OF BUCCLEUCH AND MONMOUTH.

THE DUCHESS OF BUCCLEUCH AND MONMOUTH.

Were any further proof wanting, it might be found in the regard in which she was held by James II., who, as is well known, had such a tendency to plain women as induced a suspicion in his witty brother that they were prescribed to him by his confessor by way of penance. This friendship, in which there was nothing improper, was the means of saving her grace’s estates at the tragical close of her husband’s life. It is curious to learn that the duchess, notwithstanding the terms on which she had be

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CLAUDERO.

CLAUDERO.

The most remarkable poems in this volume are: ‘The Echo of the Royal Porch of the Palace of Holyrood House, which fell under Military Execution, anno 1753;’ ‘The Last Speech and Dying Words of the Cross, which was Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered on Monday the 15th of March 1756, for the horrid crime of being an Incumbrance to the Street;’ ‘Scotland in Tears for the horrid Treatment of the Kings’ Sepulchres;’ ‘An Elegy on the much-lamented Death of Quaker Erskine;’ [255] ‘A Sermon on the Condemnatio

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QUEENSBERRY HOUSE.

QUEENSBERRY HOUSE.

Charles, third Duke of Queensberry, who was born in Queensberry House, resided occasionally in it when he visited Scotland; but as he was much engaged in attending the court during the earlier part of his life, his stay here was seldom of long continuance. After his grace and the duchess embroiled themselves with the court (1729), on account of the support which they gave to the poet Gay, they came to Scotland, and resided for some time here. The author of the Beggar’s Opera accompanied them, an

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CANONGATE THEATRE.

CANONGATE THEATRE.

From a period subsequent to 1727 till after the year 1753, the Tailors’ Hall in the Cowgate [264] was used as a theatre by itinerating companies, who met with some success notwithstanding the incessant hostility of the clergy. [265] It was a house which in theatrical phrase, could hold from £40 to £45. A split in the company here concerned led to the erection, in 1746-7, of a theatre at the bottom of a close in the Canongate, nearly opposite to the head of New Street. This house, capable of hold

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MARIONVILLE—STORY OF CAPTAIN MACRAE.

MARIONVILLE—STORY OF CAPTAIN MACRAE.

In Mr and Mrs Macrae’s circle of visiting acquaintance, and frequent spectators of the Marionville theatricals, were Sir George Ramsay of Bamff and his lady. Sir George had recently returned, with an addition to his fortune, from India, and was now settling himself down for the remainder of life in his native country. I have seen original letters between the two families, showing that they lived on the most friendly terms and entertained the highest esteem for each other. One written by Lady Ram

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ALISON SQUARE.

ALISON SQUARE.

Alison Square [270] has enjoyed some little connection with the Scottish muses. It was in the house of a Miss Nimmo in this place that Burns met Clarinda. It would amuse the reader of the ardent letters which passed between these two kindred souls to visit the plain, small, dusky house in which the lady lived at that time, and where she received several visits of the poet. It is situated in the adjacent humble street called the Potterrow, the first floor over the passage into General’s Entry, ac

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LEITH WALK.

LEITH WALK.

Besides being of old the chosen place for shows, Leith Walk was the Rialto of objects . This word requires explanation. It is applied by the people of Scotland to persons who have been born with or overtaken by some miserable personal evil. From one end to the other, Leith Walk was garrisoned by poor creatures under these circumstances, who, from handbarrows, wheelbarrows, or iron legs, if peradventure they possessed such adjuncts, entreated the passengers for charity—some by voices of song, som

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