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2 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. fails to adorn his pages with the ‘‘ mute inglorious ” history of his native village. All that tradition could have preserved of its early history, may still be traced by the intelligent eye in the natural features of its romantic site. In the midst of a fertile and beautiful country, and within easy distance of a navigable estuary of the sea, rises a bold and precipitous cliff, towering upon three of its sides, an inaccessible natural fortress, to the height of 300 feet above the plain. In immediate connection with this, the sloping hill forms at once the natural approach to the Castle, and a site protected already on one side by R marsh and lake, and on all but one by steep approaches, admitting of ready defence and security from surprise. Here at once ’is discovered a situation, planned, as it were, by the hand of Nature, to offer to the wandering tribes of early Caledonia the site for their Capital ; when every one’# hand was against his brother, and war was deemed the only fitting occupation of men. Nor was it until the union with our once natural foes, had made the rival sisters, “ like kindred drops to mingle into one,” that Edina ventured forth from her hilly stronghold, and spread abroad her noble skirts over the valley of the Forth. But in addition to the natural obscurity of an infant city, the history of Edinburgh, as of Scotland, is involved in more than usual uncertainty, even down to a period when both should fill an important page in the annals of the British Isles, owing to the double destruction of the national records, first under Edward I., and again under Cromwell; leaving ita historian dependent for much of his material on vague and uncertain tradition, or on information obtained by patient labour, or fortunate chance in the pursuit of other investigations. The earliest notices refer almost exclusively to the CastIe, which has been occupied as a fortified station as far back as our traditions extend. The remotest date we have been able to discover, assigned for its origin, is in Stow’s Summarie of EngZyshe Chronicles, where it is placed as far back as 989 years before Christ ; sufficiently remote, we should presume, for the most zealous chronologist. Ebranke,” says he, “the some of Mempricius, was made ruler of Britayne ; he had, as testifieth Policronica, Ganfride, and other twenty-one wyves, of whom he receyved twenty sonnes and thirty daughters ; whyche he sente into Italye, there to be maryed to the blood of the Troyans. In Albanye (now called Scotlande) he edified the castell of Alclude, which is Dumbritayn ; he made the castell of Maydens, now called Edenbrough; he made also the castell of Banburgh in the 23d yere of his reign. He buylded Yorke citie, wherein he made a temple to Diana, and set there an Arch-flame ; and there was buried, when he had reigned 49 peares.” From more trustworthy sources, we learn of its occupation as far back as the fifth century by the Picts, from whom it was wrested by the Northumbrian Saxons in the pear 452. And from that time, down to the reign of Malcolm IL, its history exhibits a constant struggle, maintained between them and the Picts, and each alternately victorious. From Edwin, one of these Northumbrian invaders, it may be remarked, who rebuilt the fortress about the year 626, the name of Edwinesburg, as it is termed in the oldest charters we have any notice of, is derived with more plausibility, than from any other of the contradictory sources from which learned antiquaries have sought to deduce it. Passing intermediate incidents of uncertain significance, the next important epoch is that of 1093, when Donald Bane laid siege to the Castle, in an unsuccessful endeavour to pos- 1 Dumbarton. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. fails to adorn his pages with the ‘‘ mute inglorious ” history of his native ...

Book 10  p. 2
(Score 0.53)

INDEX.. 469 Preatongrange, Lord, 253 Prestonpans, 52 Potterrow, 345 Priestfield House, 104 Primrose, Viscount, 163 Prince, Sir Magnus, 178 Provost, Title of Lord, 153 Pirses, The, 188, 197, 280 Quarrel Holes, 64 Queen Mary‘s Dial. See Dial Queensberry, Earl of, 323 Port, 398 Lady, 163 Oreyfriars’ Port, 454 Bath. See Bath Duke of, 108,137,183, 210,299 Duchess of, 199 House, 199, 299, 454 Raeburn, Sir Henry, 181, 237 Rae’s Close, 280 Rambollet, Monsieur, 284 Ramsay, Alexander, 7 Allan, 142, 198, 228, 241, 251, 252, 326 Cuthbert, 73 Oeorge, 187 Mias Jean, 285 Lane, 143 Randolph, the Nephew of Bruce, 6 Ratho Church, 129 Rebus of Preston, 382 Regalia, The, 25, 36, 127 Regent’s Aisle, St Oiles’s Church, 390 Reid, James, Constable of the Castle, 128 Reid‘s Close, Canongate, 299 Reservoir, 143 Restalrig Church, 83, 398 Restoration, The, 98, 99, 436, Rich, Lady Diana, Apparition of, 410 Richard, II., of England, 379, 384 Richmond, Alexander, 110 Riddle’s Close, Lawnmarket, 167, 453 Riding School, Old, 347 Ridotto of Holyrood House, 324 Risp. See Tiding Pin Robert the Bruce, 6, 356, 373 II., 8, 11, 12, 17, 384 Robertson, Dr, 162, 328 of Kincraigie, 214 Robin Hood, 58, 69, 83 Rockville, Lord, 141 Roman Eagle Hall, 169, 431 Romieu, Paul, the Clockmaker, 340 Roseburn House, 95 Rosehaugh Close, 261 Roslyn Castle, 50 ROM, Earl of, 13 Ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, 72 of Prior Bolton, 382 Street, East, 347 Close, Castlehill, 141 Countem of, 260 Ross, Sir John, the Poet, 24 James, Bishop of, 399 Xom’s Court, 141 Rothes, Lord, 215, 287, 326 Rotheay, 12 Duke of, 350, 388 Rotten Row, Leith, 360 Roull of Corstorphine, the Poet, 24 Rowan, Mr William, 290 Roxburgh, Earls of, 230 Roxburgh, Robert, 1st Earl of, 293, 373 Tavern, 209 Robert, 4th Earl of, 298 Castle, 18 Hotse, 298 Close, 230 Royal Exchange, 235 Royal Circus, 369 Royston, Lord, 169 Ruddiman, Thomas, 210 Rudeside, Leith, 366 Rumbold, Richard, an Ironside, 216 Runciman, Alexauder, the Painter, 172, 237,347 Runic Inscription, 131 Ruthven, Lord, 65, 76, 77 Master of, 57 Ruthven’s Land, Lord, 338 Ryan, John, Actor, 287 Rye House Plot, 21 7, 231 Rynd, James, Burgess, 156 Janet, Foundress of Magdalene Chapel, 400-403 Sadler, Sir Ralph, 64 Salamander Land, 242 Salisbury Crags, 83 Cathedral, 197 Sanctuary, 137,306, 317 Sanderson, Deacon, 69 Sandilands’ Close, 255 Sark, Battle of, 17 Saxe-Coburg Place, 369 Scott of Thirlstane, Sir Francis, 269 of Ancrum, Sir John, 256 Sir Walter, 115, 129, 154, 185, 289, 347, 365,376 Sir James, 68 442,443 Birth Place of, 323 Thomas, one of the Miirderers of Rizdo, 77 Scougal, John, the Painter, 229 Seafield, Lord Chancellor, 218, 295 Seaton, 77 Seatoun House, 303 Sebastian, one of the Jdurderers of Darnley, 81 Secret Chamber, 149, 152 Selkirk, Earl of, 269 Sellar‘s Close, 225 Sempill, Lord, E‘, 144 Lady, 145 Honourable Anne, 145 of Beltrees, 144, 354 Colonel, 176 Sempill’s Close, 144, 145 Seton, Oeorge, 2d Lord, 22 3 0 ... 469 Preatongrange, Lord, 253 Prestonpans, 52 Potterrow, 345 Priestfield House, 104 Primrose, Viscount, ...

Book 10  p. 508
(Score 0.53)

I 0 6 . MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. their will. The magnificent carved stalls, which had just been completed, and all the costly fittings of the Chapel were devoted to destruction, and the fine old fabric only abandoned when its newly-completed decorations had been reduced to an unsightly heap of ruins. Other acts of violence were perpetrated by the rioters; and the students again testified their zeal, by marching in triumphal procession to the Cross, with banda of music, and the College mace borne before them, and there again burning the effigy of the Pope. On the assembly of the Parliament, the Bishop of Edinburgh prayed for the welfare and restoration of King James, and the Episcopal body generally maintained their fidelity to the exiled Prince, the well-known consequence of which was the restoration of Presbytery as the national religion, and the expulsion of the recently-created Bishops from their sees. On the 11th of April 1688, William and Mary were proclaimed at the Cross, King and Queen of Scotland. The Castle was still held by the Duke of Clordon for King James, while Viscount Dundee, after a brief conference with its commander, in which he endeavoured to induce the Duke to accompany him to the Highlands, engaged him to hold out that fortification, while he went north to raise the friends of the King. The citizens were filled with the utmost alarm at the news of this interview. The drums beat to arms, and a body of troops, which the Duke of Hamilton had quartered in the city, was called out to pursue Dundee, but no serious consequences resulted; and the Duke of Gordon, being almost destitute of provisions, at length yielded up the Castle on the 13th of June 1689, the last considerable place of strength that had remained in the interest of the exiled Monarch. In 1695, the grand national project of the Darien expedition was set on foot, and a company formed for establishing a settlement on the Isthmus of Darien, and fitting out ships to trade with Africa and the Indies. The highest anticipations were excited by this project. The sum of 2,400,000 sterling waa speedily subscribed, and a numerous body embarked for the new settlement. When intelligence reached Edinburgh of the company having effected a landing at Darien, and successfully repelled the attacks of the Spaniards, thanksgivings were offered up in all the churches, and a general illumination made throughout the city. The mob further testified their joy, by securing the city ports ; and then setting fire to the Old Tolbooth door, they liberated the prisoners incarcerated for printing seditious publications. The indignation of the populace was no less vehement on the failure of this national project than their joy at its first success. The prison was again forcibly opened, the windows of all obnoxious citizens were broken ; and such violence was shown, that the Commissioner and officers of state were compelled to leave the city for some days, to escape the vengeance of the infuriated multitude. The Old Darien House still stands' within the extended line of the city wall, near the Bristo Port, a melancholy and desolate looking memorial of that unfortunate enterprise. It is a substantial and somewhat handsome structure, in the French style, and with the curious high-pitched roof which prevailed in the reign of William 111. It has more recently been abandoned to the purposes of a pauper lunatic asylum, and is popularly known by the name of Redlam. A melancholy association attaches to a more modern portion of it towards the 1 The Darien House was entirely demolished in 1871 ; and its site ia now occupied by several bloclw of buildings, on the walla of one of which is B tablet indicating where it stood. ... 0 6 . MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. their will. The magnificent carved stalls, which had just been completed, and all ...

Book 10  p. 116
(Score 0.53)

318 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The West Bow. Jambites pointing t a it with mingled howls and jeers, as a proof of the enslavement of Scotland.?? Outside the archway of the Bow Port, and on the west side of the street, was the house of Archibald Stewart, Lord Provost of Edinburgh in the ever memorable year 1745. Its upper windows overlooked the Grassmarket, and it was as full of secret stairs, trap-doors, little wainscoted closets, and concealed recesses, as any haunted mansion in a nursery tale. In one apartment there stood a cabinet, or what appeared to be such, but which in reality was the entrance to a trap-stair. It is unknown whether Provost Stewart-whose Jacobite proclivities are well known, as they brought him before a court on charges of treason-contrived this means of retreat, or whether (which is more probable) it had been a portion of the original design of the house ; but local tradition avers that he turned it to important use on one occasion. , It is said that during the occupation of Edinburgh by the Highland army in 1745 he gave a secret entertainment to Prince Charles and some of the chiefs of his army ; and it was not conducted so secretly but that tidings of it reached the officer commanding in the adjacent Castle, which was then garrisoned chiefly by the 47th or Lascelles Regiment. A party of the latter was sent to seize the Prince if possible, and, to do so, came down the Bow from the street of the Castle Hill. Fortunately, their own appearance created an alarm, and before they gained admission the guests of the Provost had all disappeared by the?secret stair. Tradition has never varied in the relation of this story, but the real foundation of it is difficult of discovery, This house stood at the foot of Donaldson?s Close, and Archibald Stewart was th(! third chief magistrate of Edinburgh who had inhabited it. In subsequent years it came into possession of Alexander. Donaldson, the well-known bookseller, .whose litigation with the trade in London made much noise at one time, as he was in the habit of deliberately reprinting the most modem English works in Edinburgh, where, before his epoch, both printing and publishing were at the lowest ebb. Refemng to the state of this branch of industry at the time he wrote (1779), Arnot says:--?Till within these forty years, the printing of newspapers and of school-books, of the fanatic effusions of Presbyterian clergymen, and the law-papers of the Court of Session, joined to the patent Bible printing, gave a scanty employment to four printinghouses. Such, however, has been the increase of this trade by the reprinting of English books, that there are now no fewer than twenty-seven printingoffices in Edinburgh.? In our own time there are about eighty. From his printing-house in the Castle Hill, Alexander Donaldson issued the first number of his once famous newspaper, The Edinburgh Advertiser, on the 3rd of January, 1764. It was a large quarto, and was also issued and sold from his shop, ?I near Norfolk Street in the Strand, London ;?, and, his first number contains the following curious. advertisement, among others :- ?Any young woman not under IS, nor much over 30 years of age, that is tolerably handsome, and would incline to give her hand to a Black Prince, upon directing a letter to F. Y., care of the Publisher, will be informed particularly as to this. matrimonial scheme, which they may be assured is a good one in every respect, the colour of the husband only excepted. If desired, secresy may be depended on.? For a long course of years this journal, prominent as a Conservative organ, proved a most lucrative speculation; and as all his other undertakings prospered, he left, together with his old house in the Bow, a rich inheritance to his son, the late Mr. James Donaldson, who eventually realised a large fortune, the mass of which (about ;t;240,000) at his death, in 1840, he bequeathed to found the magnificent hospital which bears his name at the west end of the city. Six years before his death the old house in the Bow, where he and his father had resided for so many years, and wherein they had entertained most of the literati of their time, was burned to the ground. Lower down than the house of the Donaldsons was an ancient edifice, with a timber front of picturesque aspect, in former times the town mansion of the Napiers of Wrightshouse-a family which passed away about the close of the 17th century, but was of some importance in its time. Alexander Napier of Wrightshouse appears as one of an inquest in 1488. His coat armorial was a bend, charged with a crescent between two mullets. He married Margaret Napier of Merchiston, whose father, Sir Alexander, was slain at Flodden, and whose brother (his heir) was slain at. Pinkie. In 1581, among the names of the Commissioners appointed by James VI., ?anent the cuinze,? that of William Napier of the Wrightshouse appears; and in 1590 his sister Barbara. Napier was accused of witchcraft on the 8th of Mayr and of being present at the great meeting of Scottish witches held by the devil in North Berwick. The wife of Archibald Douglas (brother of the Laird of Carshoggil), her trial was one of great ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The West Bow. Jambites pointing t a it with mingled howls and jeers, as a proof of ...

Book 2  p. 318
(Score 0.53)

ECCLESIA S TICA L ANTIQUITIES. 419 rials of the olden time. An unpicturesque fragment of the ruins of the Convent of St Katherine de Sienna still remains, and serves as a sheep-fold for the flocks that pasture in the neighbouring meadow ; and the name of the Sciennes, by which the ancient Mure-burgh is now known, preserves some slight remembrance of the abode of I‘ the Sisters of the Schenis,” where Chastitie found hospitable welcome, at a time when the bold Scottish satirist represents her as spurned from every other door. A few notes, in reference to more recent ecclesiastical erections, are reserved for the Appendix ; but there is something in the flimsy and superficial character of our modern religious edifices, which, altogether apart from the sacred or historical associations attached to them, deprives them of that interest with which we view the architectural remains of the Middle Ages. Instead of stuccoed ceilings and plaster walls, we h d , in the old fabrics, solid ribs of stone, and the arched vaulting adorned with intricate mouldings and richly sculptured bosses. The clustered piers below, that range along the solemn aisles, are like the huge oaks of the forest, and their fan-like groinings like the spreading boughs, from whence their old builders have been supposed to have drawn the first idea of these massive columns and the o’erarching roof. After all, the olden time with which we have dealt is a comparatively modern one. ‘She relics even of St Margaret’s Chapel, and St David‘a Monastery, and the Maiden Castle, which Chalmera ranks only as “ first of modern antiques,” mould possess but poor claims to our interest, as mere antiquities, beside the temples of Egypt or the marble columns of the Acropolis. The Castle, indeed, is found to have been occupied as a stronghold as far back as any trustworthy record extends ; and beyond this our older British chroniclers relate, as authentic, traditions which assip to it an origin nearly coeval with the Temple of Solomon, and centuries before the founding of Rome I Wyntoun records of the renowned Kyng Ebrawce,” who flourished 989 years before the Christian era :- “ He byggsd EDYNBWBwGyEth t-alle, And gert thaim Allynclowd it calle, The Maydyn castell, in Bum place The sorowful Hil it callyd waa.” Coming down a little nearer our own day, we arrive at the era of Fergus the First, the famed progenitor of one hundred and eighteen sovereigns, ‘( of the same unspotted blood and royal line,” who began his reign 330 years before Christ. Fergus, however, was no plebeian upstart. He again traced his descent from Mileaius, who reigned in Ireland 1300 years before. the Christian era, and “ who makes the twenty-sixth degree inclusively from Noe ; the twenty-first from Niul, a son of Fenius-farsa, king of Scythia, a prince very knowing in all the languages then spoken ; the twentieth from Gaedhal-Glass, a contemporary with Moses and Pharaoh ; the seventeenth inclusively from Heber-Scot, an excellent bow-man I ” a Upon the whole, we are put in the fair way of tracing King Fergus’s genealogy back to Adam,-a very satisfactory and credible beginning, in case anyeof its more recent steps should be thought to stand in need of additional proof. Leaving such famous worthies of the olden time, we come thereafter to Edwin, king of Northumbria, of whom we possess trustworthy historic account, and who, there seems no reason to doubt, gave his Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 669. ’ Dr Matthew Remedy, Ahercromby’a Martial Achievements, voL i p. 4. ... S TICA L ANTIQUITIES. 419 rials of the olden time. An unpicturesque fragment of the ruins of the Convent ...

Book 10  p. 459
(Score 0.53)

summons (said Sir Walter Scott, in the Quarter@ Revkw,) instead of rousing the hearts of the volunteers, like the sound of a trumpet, rather reminded them of a passing knell. Most pitiful was the bearing of the volunteers, according to Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk, who was one of them on this occasion. ? The ladies in the windows treated us very variously; many with lamentation, and even with tears, and some with scorn and derision. In one house on the south side of the street there was a row of windows full of ladies, who appeared to enjoy our march to danger with much mirth and levity.? He adds that these civic warriors were about to fire on these ladies; but they pulled their windows down. Summoned from Leith, the 14th Dragoons came spurring up the street, huzzaing and clashing their swords in silly bravado ; the volunteers began their march, with wives and children clinging to them, imploring them not to risk their lives against wild Highland savages ; but resolutely enough their The preposterous idea of meeting the Highlanders in the open field was abandoned; the remains of the force were led to the College yards and dismissed for the evening ; but the City Guard, the men of the Edinburgh Regiment, and the cavalry, went out to reconnoitre as far as Corstorphine. Seeing nothing of the enemy, the famous ~ and pious Colonel Gardiner of the 13th Dragoons, who commanded the whole, halted in the fields between Edinburgh and Leith, leaving a small party OLD HOUSES, WEST now. (From a MeawredDrazuing by T. Hamilton, pirUiskd in 1830.) commander ex-Provost Drummond led the way, till the most ludicrous cowardice was exhibited by all. ?? In descending the famous West Bow, they disappeared by scores under doorways or down wynds, till, when their commander halted at the West Port and looked behind him, he found, to his surprise and mortification, that nearly the whole of his valiant followers had disappeared, and that only a few of his personal friends remained. The author of a contemporary pamphlet-alleged to be David Hume-afterwards compared their march to the course of the Rhine, which at one place is a majestic river, rolling its waves through fertile fields, but being continually drawn off by little canals, dwindles into a small streamlet, and is almost lost in the sands before reaching the ocean.* It was said that the volunteers rushed about in the sorest tribulation, bribing with sixpences every soldier they met to take their arms to the Castle. to watch the west road, while fresh volunteers came into the city from Musselburgh and Dalkeith. That night Brigadier Fowkes arrived from London to assume the command, and he at once led the cavalry towards Coltbridge, which spans the Leith, about two miles distant from the then city. Here a few Highland gentlemen, forming the Prince?s van, fired their pistols, on which adreadful panic at once seized the 13th and 14th Dragoons, who went ?threes about,? and, laden with all the property they could ?? loot ? from Corstorphine and Bell?s Mills, were seen from the Castle and the city, flying in wild disorder eastward by the Lang Gate. At Leith they halted for a few minutes till a cry was raised, in mockery, that the Highlanders were at hand, when again they resumed their flight as far as Preston Pans. Then a cry from one of their comrades, who fell into a disused coalpit, filled these cravens with such ungovernable terror, that they fled to North Berwick. The road by which they galloped was strewn, according to Dr. Carlyle, with their swords, pistols, carbines, and skull-caps, which the mortified Colonel Gardiner, who had passed the night at his own house at Bankton, caused to be gleaned up and sent in covered carts to Dunbar. General Guest sent a detachment into the city to spike the cannon, which in his heart he had no wish should be used against the Prince, tG save them for whom the Provost declined all ... (said Sir Walter Scott, in the Quarter@ Revkw,) instead of rousing the hearts of the volunteers, like the ...

Book 2  p. 324
(Score 0.52)

272 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street lawyer and judge. Admitted an advocate at the early age of nineteen, he obtained a full share of practice, and the rooms of his mansion in Elphinstone Court were frequently crowded byhis clients; but having gained a cause in which the celebrated Lockhart (Lord Covington) was the opposing counsel, that eminent barrister, in bitter chagrin at his signal defeat, styled him ?a presumptuous boy.? Young Wedderburn?s reply was so terribly sarcastic as to draw upon him a severe rebuke from England, resided here while practising at the Scottish Bar. He was born in East Lothian, in 1733, where his great-grandfather, Sir Peter Wedderburn of Gosford, was a man of influence in the reign of Charles II., and rose to be an eminent courts for ever, was called to the English bar in 1753, and soon gained fresh fame as counsel for the great Lord Clive ; and in I 768-9 his eloquence in the famous Douglas cause won him the notice of Lord Camden and the friendship of the Earls of Bute and Mansfield. He sat in the Commons as member for the Inverary Burghs, and for Bishop?s Castle, and in 1780 was raised to the British peerage as Lord Loughborough, in the county of Leicester. In April, 1783, he united with Lord one of the judges, on which he threw off his gown, and declared that never again would he plead in a place where he was subjected to insult. A11 unaware of the brilliant future that awaited him, with great regret he quitted the Scottish ELPHINSTONE COURT. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street lawyer and judge. Admitted an advocate at the early age of nineteen, he ...

Book 2  p. 272
(Score 0.52)

21% OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nether Bow. with cannon stone-shot in 1544, ere advancing ;against the Castle. ? They hauled their. cannons up the High Street by force of men to the ButteI Tron, and above,? says Calderwood, ? and hazarded a shot against the fore entrie of the Castle (i.e., the port of the Spur). But the wheel and axle 01 .one of the English cannons was broken, and some of their men slain by shot of ordnance out of the Castle j so they left that rash enterprise.? In 1571, during the struggle between Kirkaldy .and the Regent Morton, this barrier gate played a prominent part. According to the ?Diurnal of Qccurrents,? upon the nznd of August in that year, the Regent and the lords who adhered against the .authority of the Queen, finding that they were totally excluded from the city, marched several bands of soldiers from Leith, their head-quarters, .and concealed them under cloud of night in the I closes and houses adjoining the Nether Bow Port. At five on the following morning, when it was supposed that the night watch would be withdrawn, six soldiers, disguised as millers, approached the .gates, leading horses laden with sacks of meal, which were to be thrown down as they entered, so .as to preclude the rapid closing of them, and while they attacked and cut down the warders, with those weapon? which they wore under their disguise, the .men in ambush were to rush out to storm the -town, aided by a reserve, whom the sound of their trumpets was to summon from Holyrood. ?But the eternal God,? says the quaint old journalist we quote, ? knowing the cruel1 murther that wold have beene done and committit vponn innocent poor personis of the said burgh, wold not thole this interpryse to tak successe; but evin quhen the said meill was almaist at the port, and the said men of war, stationed in clois headis, in readinesse to enter at the back of the samyne it chanced that a burgher of the Canongate, named Thomas Barrie, passed out towards his hcuse in the then separate burgh, and perceiving soldiers concealed on every hand, he returned and gave the alarm, on which the gate was at once barricaded, and the design of the Regent and his adherents baffled. This gate having become ruinous, the magis trates in 1606, three years after James VI. went to England, built a new one, of which many views are preserved. It was a handsome building, and quite enclosed the lower end of the High Street. The arch, an ellipse, was in the centre, strengthened by round towers and battlements on the eastern or external front, and in the southern tower there was a wicket for.foot passengers. On the inside of the arch were the arms of the city. The whole building was crenelated, and consisted of two lofty storeys, having in the centre a handsome square tower, terminated by ii pointed spire. It was adorned by a statue of James VI., which was thrown down and destroyed by order of Oliver Cromwell, and had on it a Latin inscription, which runs thus in English :- ?Watch towers and thundr?ng walls vain fences prove No guards to monarchs like their people?s love. Jacobus VL Rex, Anna Regina, 1606.? This gate has been rendered remarkable in history by the extra-judicial bill that passed the House of Lords for razing it to theground, in consequence of the Porteous mob, For a wonder, the Scottish members made a stand in the matter, and as the general Bill, when it came to the Commons, was shorn of all its objectionable clauses, the Nether Bow Port escaped. In June, 1737, when the officials of Edinburgh, who had been taken to London for examination concerning the not, were returning, to accord them a cordial reception the citizens rode out in great troops to meet them, while for miles eastward the road was lined by pedestrians. The Lord Provost, Alexander Wilson, a modest man, eluded the ovation by taking another route ; but the rest came in triumph through the city, forming a procession of imposing length, while bonfires blazed, all the bells clanged and clashed as if a victory had been won over England, and the gates of the Nether Bow Port, which had been unhooked, were re-hung and closed amid the wildest acclamation. In 1760 the Common Council of London having obtained an Act of Parliament to remove their city gates, the magistrates of Edinburgh followed suit without any Act, and in 1764 demolished the Nether Bow Port, then one of the chief ornaments of the city, and like the unoffending Market Cross, a peculiarly interesting relic of the past. The ancient clock of its spire was afterwards placed in that old Orphan?s Hospital, near Shakespeare Square, where it remained till the removal of the latter edifice in 1845, when the North British Railway was in progress, and it is now in the pediment between the towers of the beautiful Tuscan edifice built for the orphans near the Dean cemetery. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nether Bow. with cannon stone-shot in 1544, ere advancing ;against the Castle. ? They ...

Book 2  p. 218
(Score 0.52)

HISTORICAL AND DESCRTPTIVE NOTES. 77 ~ little to the east of Winchburgh station, the old square keep is distinctly seen from the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway. It is well known that the unfortunate Mary Stuart found shelter within its massive walls, on her flight from Loch Leven to the disastrous field of Langside, in 156%. Her loyal host and protector' was long commemorated by a brief inscription on an oblong stone tablet surmounting the east window of the Castle. Unfortunately, the tablet has disappeared within the last few years ; but the restoration of the inscription is contemplated by the Earl of Hopetoun, to whom the ancient structure now belongs. The tablet appears on the following page. THE OLD YEW TREE While leaving the more historical features, let us glance for a little -at the picturesque, and from the Dean Cemetery, with its memories of departed 1 George, seventh Lord Seton, who was Provost of Edinburgh in 1557. He was the elder brother of John, first Baron of Cariston in the county of Fife, and half-bro:her of Mary Seton, one of the ' four Maries ' in attendance upon the beautiful Scottish Queen. The office of Provost was also held by his distinguished son Alexander, Earl of Dunfermline (younger brother of the first Earl of Winton). from IS+ to I*. Lord Dunfermline, whose armocia1 ensigns appear in the upper portion of the great south window in the Parliament House, was appointed President of the Court of Session in 1593, and discharged the duties of Chancellor of Scotland from 1604 till his death at Pinkie in 1612. Impartial as a judge and able as a statesman, he is praised by both Spttiswoode and Calderwood ... AND DESCRTPTIVE NOTES. 77 ~ little to the east of Winchburgh station, the old square keep is ...

Book 11  p. 122
(Score 0.52)

them were captured, among others old McLean, who made a desperate resistance in the West Port with a musket and bayonet. Many who rolled down the rocks to the roadway beneath were severely injured, and taken by the City Guard. A sentinel was bound hand and foot and thrown into Macintosh, of Borlum, in his 80th captivity of fifteen years, for participation rising of 1715; and for twelve months, there were confined in a small, horrid, unhealthy chamber above the portcullis, many a year as '' the black hole " of south) where he confessed the whole plot ; the corporal was mercilessly flogged ; and Sergeant Ahslie was hanged over the postern gate. Colonel Stuart was dismissed ; and Brigadier Grant, whose regiment was added to the garrison, was appointed temporary governor. From this period, with the exception of a species of blockade in 1745, to be related in its place, the history of the Castle is as uneventful as that of the Tower of London, save a visit paid to it in t+ time of George I., by Yussuf Juniati, General and Governor of Damascus. Many unfortunate Jacobites have suffered most protracted periods of imprisonment within its walls. ' with her daughters, the Ladies Mary who were brought in by an escort of twenty under a ruffianly quartermaster, who with every indignity, even to tearing weddingring from Lady Strathallan's finger, and daughters of their clothes. During the these noble ladies were in that noisome the gate, they were without female attendance, under the almost hourly surveillance sergeants of the guard. The husband of was slain at the head of his men on Culloden, where the Jacobite clans were by neither skill nor valour, but the sheer numbers and starvation. ... were captured, among others old McLean, who made a desperate resistance in the West Port with a musket and ...

Book 1  p. 69
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344 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. over its entrance the common inscription, BLISSET . BE . GOD . FOR . AL. HIS , GIFTIS with the initials, I. L., G. K. ; and the windows above retain the old oaken mullions and transoms richly carved in a variety of patterns. Another antique tenement to the east of this is finished with a bartizan and ornamental parapet, on the centre of which the badge of its ancient subjection to the Templar Knights appears like a dagger struck into the roof, and left to serve as a memento of strife in more peaceful times. The assignment of this locality as the appointed place for a weekly market, dates from the year 1477, when James 111. appointed “ all ald graith and ger to be usit and sald in the Friday Market before the Gray-Frers ; alsa all qwyck bestis, ky, oxon, not to be brought in the town, bot under the wall fer west at oure stable.” ’ The town wall extended on the west from the Castle across the area of the market on the site uow occupied by the Corn Exchange ; and here stood the ancient gate of the city from whence the neighbouring suburb derived its name of the West Port. Like the other gates of the city, it was usually garnished with a few heads and dismembered limbs of malefactors and political offenders ; and so essential were these appendages considered that Fountainhall, after recording the execution of three Covenanters in the Grassmarket in the year 1681, adds :-‘‘ About eight dayes before this they had stollen away two of the heads which stood on the West Port of Edinburgh ; the criminal lords,. to supply that want, ordained two of thir criminall’s heads to be struck off, and to be sexed in ther place.”3 Here also was the scene of some of those quaint ceremonials wherewith our ancestors were wont to testify their loyal gratulations at the Sovereign’s approach. James VI. was appropriately received at the gate by Kiug Solomon on his first entry to the capital in 1579; and here, in 1590, his Queen, Anne of Denmark, was welcomed in a Latin oration, and received the silver keys of the city in the accustomed manner, from the hands of an angel who descended in a globe from the battlements of the Port.* King Jamea was again welcomed in still more costly fashion at the same spot on his return to his native city in 1617; and the Nymph Edina waited there for his son, Charles I., in 1633, attended by beautiful damsels, and, with a brief congratulatory oration, presented the keys, leaving, however, the burden of the welcome to the Lady Caledonia, who lay in wait for him at the corner of the Bow, and in ‘( a copious speech,” prepared by Drummond of Hamthornden in his most bombastic vein, congratulated his Majesty on his safe arrival. The most interesting features of the burgh of Western Portsburgh have already been described in a previous chapter.6 Many of the old buildings of its main street have been replaced of late years by the plain unpretending erections of modern times. It still, however, has at least one venerable edifice of a picturesque character, erected in the reign of Queen Mary by John Lowrie,‘ a substantial burgher, and, as it would seem, a zealous adherent of the ancient faith in those ticklish times. So, at least, we infer from the sculptured lintel of its ancient doorway, which bears, in large characters, this abbreviation of the common motto,-SOLI DE0 * H - G * with the date 1565; and in the centre, between - 1 The mme inscription occura with the date 1637, over a neighbouring tenement at the foot of the Castle Wynd. ’ Charter of James 111. ; Maitland, pp. 8, 9. ‘ AFonuten,t apipn.h a8l5l-’a8 7H. istorical Observes, p. 30. Ante, pp. 135-137. 6 Traditions, vol. i. p. 304. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. over its entrance the common inscription, BLISSET . BE . GOD . FOR . AL. HIS , ...

Book 10  p. 376
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YAMES VI. TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. 95 as is well known, followed the Scottish forces under Leslie, in all their movements, so that they were encamped at various times all round the city. One spot is particularly pointed out, immediately to the westward of Coltbridge, where Cromwell’s forces lay on the rising ground all around, and only separated from the Presbyterian army by the Water of Leith and the marshy fields along its banks. Roseburn House, a very interesting old mansion, where Cromwell is said to have passed the night while the army lay encamped in its neighbourhood, still remains, bearing the date 1562 over its principal entrance. In levelling one of the neighbouring mounds some years since, some stone coffins were found, and a large quantity of human bones, evidently of a very ancient date, as they crumbled to pieces on being exposed to the air ; but the tradition of the neighbouring hamlet is, that they were the remains of some of Cromwell’P troopers. Our informant, the present intelligent occupant of Roseburn House, mentioned the curious fact, that among the remains dug up, there were the bones of a human leg, with fragments of a wooden coffin or case, of the requisite dimensions, in which it had evidently been buried apart. The battle of Dunbar at length placed the southern portion of Scotland completely in the power of Cromwell, at the very moment when he was preparing to abandon the enterprise, and embark his troops for England. The magistrates, as well as the ministers and the principal inhabitants, having been involved in the movements of the defeated party, either deserted the town, or took refuge in the Castle on the approach of the victorious General. On the 7th of September 1650, Cromwell entered Edinburgh at the head of his army, and took possession of it and of the town of Leith. The capital was now subjected to martial law ; the most rigid regulations were enforced, such as, (‘ that upone ony allarum no inhabitant luik out of his hous upone payne of death, or walk on the streets after top-tow, upone payne of imprissonement.” Yet the peaceable inhabitants found no great reason to complain of his civic rule ; justice seems to have been impartially administered, though often with much severity, and the most rigid discipline enforced on the English troops. ‘‘ Upon the 27th of September,” says Nicol, “ by orders of the General Cromwell, thair wes thrie of his awin sodgeris scurged by the Provest Marschellis men, fiom the Stone Chop to the Neddir Bow, and bak agane, for plundering of houssis within the toun ; and ane uther sodger maid to ryde the Meir at the Croce of Zdinburgh, with ane ppnt stop about his neck, his handis bund behind his back, and musketis hung at his feet, the full space of twa hours, for being drunk.” The same punishment of riding the Mare remained in force, as a terror to evil doers, till the destruction of the old citadel of the town-guard, and all its accompaniments, in the year 1785. The General again took up his residence in “ the Earl of Xurrie’s house in the Cannigate, where a strong guard is appointed to keep constant watch at the gate ; ”’ and his soldiers were quartered in the Palace, and billeted about the town, while actively engaged in the siege of the Castle. The guard-house was in Dunbar’s Close, a name which it retains from the quarters it then furnished to the victors of Dunbar ; and a tradition is preserved, with considerable appearance of probability, that a handsome old house, still remaining at the foot of Sellars’ Close, was occasionally occupied by Cromwell. It is a fine Nicol’s Diary, p. 30. ’ Ibid, p. 33. f King’s Pamphleta, apud Carlyle, vol i. p. 375. See the Wooden Mare in the view, ante, p. 74. ... VI. TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. 95 as is well known, followed the Scottish forces under Leslie, in all ...

Book 10  p. 103
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cantoned with other four in the angles. The tiar, or bonnet, was of purple velvet; but, in 1685, it got a .cap of crimson velvet, adorned with four plates of gold, on each of them a great pearl, and the bonnet -is trimmed up with ermine. Upon the lowest circle there are eight small holes, two and two, on the -four quarters of the crown, which mere for lacing -or tying thereto diamonds or precious stones. The crown is g inches in diameter, 27 inches about, and in height from the under circle to the top of the cross patee 6; inches. The sceptre : its stem or stalk, which is of silver double overgilt, is two feet long, of a hexagon form, with three buttons or knobs; betwixt the first button and the second is the handle of a hexagon form, furling in the middle and plain. Betwixt the second button and the third are three sides engraven. From the third button to the capital the three sides under the statues are plain, and on the other three are antique engravings. Upon the top of the stalk is an antique capital of leaves embossed, the abacus whereof arises round the prolonged stem, surrounded with three little statues; between every two statues arises a rullion in the form of a dolphin ; above the rullions and statues stands another hexagon button, with oak leaves under every corner, and down it a crystjl (beryl?) globe. The whole sceptre is in length 34 inches.? The statues are those of the Virgin, St. Andrew, and St. James. The royal initials, J. R. V. are engraved under them. If James V. had this sceptre made, the metallic settings of the great beryl belong to some sceptre long anterior to his time. The sword is in length 5 feet ; the handle and pommel are of silver overgilt, in length 15 inches. The pommel is round and somewhat flat on the two sides. The traverse or cross OF the sword, which is of silver overgilt, is in length 17h inches; its form is like two dolphins with their heads joining and their tails ending in acorns; the shell is hanging down towards the point of the sword, formed like an escalop flourished, or rather like a green oak-leaf. On the blade of the sword are indented with gold these letters-JuLIus 11. P. The scabbard is of crimson velvet, covered with silver wrought in philagram-work into branches oj the oak-tree leaves and acorns.?? Such are the Scottish regalia, which, since the destruction 01 those of England by Cromwell, are the only ancien! regal emblems in Great Britain. The sword of state is of an earlier date than the rod of the sceptre, being presented by the rvarlikr Pope Julius to James IV. with a consecrated hai in 1507. The keys of St. Peter figure promhentlj among the filagree work. After the fall of the Castle of Dunottar, in 1651, the belt of the sword became an heirloom in the family of Ogilvie of Barras. The great pearl in the apex of the crown is alleged to be the same which in 1620 was found in the burn of Kellie, a tributary of the Ythanz in Aberdeenshire, and was so large and beautiful that it was esteemed the best that had at any time been found in Scotland.? Sir Thomas Menzies, Provost of Aberdeen, obtaining this precious jewel, presented it to James VI., who in requital gave him twelve or fourteen chaldron of victuals about Dunfermline, and the custom of certain merchant goods during his life.? * Before quitting the Castle of Edinburgh, it is impossible to omit some special reference to Mons Meg-that mighty bombard which is thirteen feet long and two feet three and a half inches within the bore, and which was long deemed by the Scots a species of palladium, the most ancient cannon in Europe, except one in Lisbon, and a year older than those which were made for Mahomet 11. Not a vestige of proof can be shown for the popular error that this gun was forged at Mons, while unvarying tradition, supported by very strong carroborative evidence, proves that she was formed by Scottish artisans, by order of James II., when he besieged the rebellious Douglases in the castle of Thrieve, in Galloway, during 1455. He posted his artillery at the Three Thorns of the Carlinwark, one of which is still surviving ; but their fire proving ineffective, a smith named M?Kim, and his sons, offered to construct a more efficient piece of ordnance. Towards this the inhabitants of the vicinity contributed each a ,rrczud, or iron bar. Tradition, which never varied, indicated the place where it was forged, a mound near the Three Thorns, .and when the road was formed there, that mound was discovered to be a mass of cinders and the iron dCbris of a great forge. To this hour the place where the great gun was posted is named Knock-cannon. Only fwo of Meg?s bullets were discharged before Thrieve surrendered, and it is remarkable that both have been found there. ?The first,? says the New Statistical Accowif, <?was, towards the end of thk last century, picked out of the well and delivered to Gordon of Greenlam. The second was discovered in 1841, by the tenant of Thrieve, when removing an accumulation of rubbish.? It lay in a line direct from Knock-cannon to the breach in the wall. To reward M?Kim Jarnes bestowed upon him the forfeited lands of MolIFnce. The smith is said to have nanied the gun after his wife ; and the con- ... with other four in the angles. The tiar, or bonnet, was of purple velvet; but, in 1685, it got a .cap of ...

Book 1  p. 74
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370 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. were exhumed in digging for the foundation of the north pier of the Dean Bridge. They we very slightly burned, and the ornamental devices, which have been traced on the soft clay, bear a striking resemblance to those usually found on the fragments of ancient pottery which have been discovered in the Tumuli of the North American Continent. Annexed is a view of one of those discovered at the Dean, and now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. Another interesting feature which belongs to the history of the New Town, in common with many other cities, is the absorption of hamlets and villages that have sprung up at an early period in the neighbouring country and been gradually swallowed up within its extending outskirts. First among such to fall before the progress of the rising town, was the village of Moutrie’s Hill, which stood on the site of the Register Office and James’ Square, the highest ground in the New Town. This suburban hamlet is of great antiquity, and its etymology has been the source of some very curious research. Lord Hailes remarks on the subject, ‘‘ Moutrees is supposed to be the corruption of two Gaelic words, signifying the covert or receptacle of the wild boar.”’ It appears, however, from contemporary notices, to have derived its name from being occupied by the mansion of the Noutrays, a family of distinction in the time of James V. A daughter of Alexander Stewart, designed of the Grenane, an ancestor of the Earls of Galloway, who fell at the Battle of Flodden, was married in that reign to Moutray of Seafield.’ Upon the 26th April 1572, while the whole country around Edinburgh was a desolate and bloody waste by reason of long protracted civil war, a party of the Regent Mar’s soldiers, who had been disappointed in an ambuscade they had laid for seizing Lord Claud Hamilton, one of the opposite leaders, took five of their prisoners, Lieutenant White, Sergeant Smith, and three common soldiers, and hanged them immediately on their return to Leith. The leaders of the Queen’s party, in Edinburgh, retaliated by like barbarous executions, “ and causit hang the morne theirefter twa of thair souldiouris vpoun ane trie behind Movtrays Hous, in sicht of thair aduersaris, in lycht, quha hang ane day, and wer takin away in the nycht be the saidis aduersaris.”’ Another annalist, who styles the locality ‘‘ The Multrayes in the hill besyid the toun,” adds, “ The same nycht the suddartia of Leith come to the said hill and cuttit doun the deid men, and als distroyit the growand tries thairabout, quhairon the suddartis wer hangit. Thir warres wer callit amang the peopill the Douglass wearres.” ‘ Near to the scene of these barbarous acts of retaliation, on the ground UON occupied by the buildings at the junction of Waterloo Place with Shakespeare Square: formerly stood an ancient stronghold called Dingwdl Castle. It is believed to have derived its name from John Dingwall, who was Provost of the neighbouring Collegiate Foundation of Trinity College, and one of the original Judges of the Court of Session on the spiritual side. The rains of the castle appear in Gordon of Rothiemay’s map as a square keep with round towers at its angles; and some fragments of it are believed to be still extant among the fouudations of the buildings on its site. Near to this also there would appear to have been an ‘ Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 96. * Wood’s Peerage, voL i p. 618. Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 262. ’ Ibid, p. 294. * Shakespeare Square, in the centre of which stood the old Theatre Rojal, was removed in 1860 for the erection of the new Poet-Office. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. were exhumed in digging for the foundation of the north pier of the Dean Bridge. ...

Book 10  p. 407
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Truir Church 1 THE TRON CHURCH. 187 is, into which the sun scarcely penetrates. But it once contained a tavern of great consideration in its time, ?The Star and Garter,? kept by a man named Cleriheugh, who is referred to in ? Guy Mannering,? for history and romance often march side by side in Edinburgh, and Scott?s picture of the strange old tavern is a faithful one. The reader . of the novel may remember how, on a certain Saturday night, when in search of Mr. Plzydell, Dandie Dinmont, guiding Colonel Mannering, turned into a dark alley, then up a dark stair, and then into an open door. While Dandie ?was whistling shrilly for the waiter, as if he had been one of his collie dogs, Mannering looked around him, and could hardly conceive how a gentleman of a liberal profession and good society should choose such a scene foi social indulgence. Besides the miserable entrance, the house itself seemed paltry and half ruinous. The passage in which they stood had a window to the close, which admitted a little Irght in the daytime, and a villainous compound of smells at all times, but more especially towards evening. Corresponding to this window was a borrowed lighl on the other side of the passage, looking into the kitchen, which had no direct communication with the free air, but received in the daytime, at second. hand, such straggling and obscure light as found its way from the lane through the window opposite. At present, the interior of the kitchen was visible by its own huge fires-a sort of pandemonium, where men and women, half-dressed, were busied in baking, boiling, roasting oysters, and preparing devils on the gridiron; the mistress of the place, with her shoes slipshod, and her hair straggling like that of Megzra from under a round-eared cap, toiling, scolding, receiving orders and giving them and obeying them all at once, seemed the presiding enchantress of that gloomy and fiery Tegion.? Yet it was in this tavern, perhaps more than any other, that the lawyers of the olden time held their high jinks and many convivialities. Cleriheugh?s was also a favourite resort of the magistrates and town councillors when a deep ,libation was deemed an indispensable element in the adjustment of all civic affairs; thus, in the last century, city wags used to tell of a certain treasurer d Edinburgh, who, on being applied to for new rope to the Tron Kirk bell, summoned the Council to consider the appeal. An adjournment to Cleriheugh?s was of course necessary ; but as one dinnei was insufficient for the settlement of this weighty matter, it was not until three had been discussed that the bill was settled, and the old rope spliced ! Before proceeding with the general history ot the High Street we will briefly notice that of the Tron Church, and of the great fire in which it was on the eve of perishing. The old Greyfriars, with the other city churches, being found insufficient for the increasing population, the Town Council purchased two sites, on which they intended to erect religious fabrics. One was on the Castle Hill, where the reservoir now stands ; the other was where the present Tron Church is now built. This was in the year 1637, when the total number of householders, as shown by the Council records, could not have been much over 5,000, as a list made four years before ?shows the numbers to have been 5,071, and the annual amount ofrents payable by them only ;EI~z,I 18 ss., hots money. Political disturbances retarded the progress of both these new churches. The one on the Castle Hill was totally abandoned, after having been partially destroyed by the English during the siege in 1650 ; and the other-the proper name of which is Christ?s Church at the Tron-was not ready for public worship till 1647, nor was it completely finished ,till 1663, at the cost of A6,000, so much did war with England and the contentions of the Covenanters and Cavaliers retard everything and impoverish the nation. On front of the tower over the great doorway a large ornamented panel bears the city arms in alto-relievo, and beneath them the inscription-XDEM HANC CHRISTO ET ECCLESIE SACRARUNT CIVES EDINBGRGENSES,, ANNO Doxr MDCLI. It is finished internally with an open roof of timber-work, not unlike that of the Parliament House. Much of the material used in the construction of the sister church on the Castle Hill was pulled down and used in the walls of the Tron, which the former was meant closely to resemble, if we may judge from the plan of Gordon of Rothiemay. 10 1644 the magistrates bought 1,000 stone weight of copper in Amsterdam to cover the roof; but such were the exigencies of the time that it was sold, and stones and lead were substituted in its place. In 1639 David Mackall, a merchant of Edinburgh; gave >,so0 merks, or about ;E194 sterling, to the magistrates in trust, for purchasing land, to be applied to the maintenance of a chaplain in the Tron Church, where he was to preach every Sunday morning at six o?clock, or such other hour as the wgistrates should appoint They may be truly said, continues Arnot, ?to have hid this talent in a napkin. They did not? appoint a preacher for sixty-four years. As money then bore ten per cent., although the interest of thii ... Church 1 THE TRON CHURCH. 187 is, into which the sun scarcely penetrates. But it once contained a tavern of ...

Book 1  p. 187
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Queen Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57 own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a fit of laughter.? No. 62 Queen Street was inhabited by Lord Jeffrey from 1802 till 1810. In the following year it became the residence of Sir John Leslie, K.H., Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, who in 1800 invented the differential thermometer, one of the most beautiful and delicate instruments that inductive genius? ever contrived as a help to experimental research ; and the results of his inquiries concerning the nature and laws of heat, in which he was so much aided by this exquisite instrument, were published in 1804, in his celebrated ?Essay on the Nature and Propagation of Heat.? Sir John Leslie was one of those many self-made men who are peculiarly the glory of Scotland, for he was the son of a poor joiner in Largo, yet he attained to the highest honours a university can bestow. In 1832, along with Herschel, Brewster, Hams, Nichols, and others, on the recommendation of Lord Brougham, he was created a Knight of the Guelphic Order, but died in the November of that year from an attack of erysipelas. No. 64 was, and is still, the town residence of the Earls of Weniyss, but has had many other tenants. Among others here resided ?? Lang Sandy Gordon? as he was named in those days of simple and unassuming familiarity, the son of William, second Earl of Aberdeen, who was admitted an advocate in 1759, and became Stewart-depute of Kirkcudbright in 1764. Twenty years afterwards he was raised to the bench as Lord Rockville, and resided long in the close which bore .that name on the Castle Hill, and afterwards in Queen Street He was remarkable for his manly beauty and handsome figure. He was a member of the Crochallan Club, and a great convivialist. Walking down the High Street one day, when the pavement was unsafe by ice, he fell, and broke his arm. He was conveyed to Provost Elder?s shop, opposite the Tron church, where surgical aid was procured and his arm dressed ; but, unfortunately, when his friends were conveying him to his new home at No. 64, one of the chairmen fell and overturned the sedan in the street, which unsettled the splinting of his lordship?s arm, and ultimately brought on afever, of which he died on the 13th of March, ?792. No. 64 was afterwards occupied by Sir James Grant, Bart., of Grant, usually known as ?the good Sir James.? His town house, with extensive stable-offices, had previously been at the ,foot of the Canongate, where it was advertised for sale in 1797, as ? presently possessed by Professor Stewart.? At a period when the extensive Highland proprietors were driving whole colonies of people from the abodes of their forefathers, and compelling them to seek on distant shores that shelter which was denied them on their own, and ?when absenteeism and the vices of courtly intrigue and fashionable dissipation had sapped the morality of too many of our landholders, Sir James Grant escaped the contagion, and during a long life was distingifished for the possession of those virtues which are the surest bulwarks of the peace, happiness, and strength of a country. Possessed of extensive estates, and surrounded by a numerous tenantry, his exertions seemed to be equally devoted to the progressive improvement of the one and the present comfort and enjoyment of the other.? ? Among his clau he raised two regiments of Highland Fencibles within a few months of each other. One was numbered as the 97th, or Strathspey Regiment, 1,800 strong, and a portion of it joined the 4nnd for service in the West Indies. Sir James died at Castle Grant in 181 I. No. 66, now offices, was occupied by Stewart of Castle Stewart ; and in No. 68 lived George Joseph Bell, Advocate, Professor of Law, and author of ? Principles of the Law of Scotland.? No. 7 I, in 181 I, was the residence of Francis, Lord Napier, who served in the American war under General. Burgoyne, but left the army in 1789. He took a leading part in many local affiirs, was Grand Master Mason of Scotland, Colonel of the Hopetoun Fencibles in 1793, Commissioner to the General Assembly in 1802, and a member of the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Scottish Manufactures and Fisheries. His prominently aquiline face and figure were long remarkable in Edinburgh ; though, at a time when gentlemen usually wore gaudy coloursfrequently a crimson or purple coat, a green plush vest, black breeches, and white stockings-when not in uniform, he always dressed plainly, and with the nicest attention to propriety. An anecdote of his finical taste is thus given in Lockhart?s ?Life of Scott ? :- ?Lord and Lady Napier arrived at Castlemilk (in Lanarkshire), with the intention of staying a week, but next morning it was announced that a circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable for them to return without delay to their own seat in Selkirkshire. It was impossible for Lady Stewart to extract any further explanation at the moment, but it afterwards turned out that Lord Napier?s valet had committed the grievous mistake of packing up a set of neckcloths which ... Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57 own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a fit of ...

Book 3  p. 157
(Score 0.51)

CHAPTER XI. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. EXT to the Castle of Edinburgh, the ancient Parish Church of St Giles, and the Abbey of Holyrood, form the most prominent objects of interest in the history of the capital. The existence of the first Parish Church of Edinburgh is traced to the second century after the death of its tutelar saint, the Abbot and Confeseor St Giles, who was born in Greece, of illustrious parentage, in the sixth century, and afterwards abandoning his native land, and bestowing his wealth on the poor, retired into the wilderness of Languedoc, and founded the celebrated monastery which long after bore his name. To some wandering brother from the banks of the Rhone, we probably owe the dedication of the ancient Parish Church of Edinburgh to St Giles, a favourite saint who owes his honours in the southern capital to Matilda, the Queen of Henry I. of England, and daughter of St Margaret, Queen of Malcolm Canmore, who founded there St Giles’s Hospit.al for lepers, in 11 17. The Bishopric of Lindisfarn, which comprehended Edinburgh, dates so early as A.D. 835, and Simeon of Durham, in reckoning the churches and towns belonging to the see in the pear.854, mentions EdminsburcA among the latter.’ We can only infer the existence of the Church, however, from this notice, as it is not directly mentioned, nor can we discorer its name in any authentic record till the -reign of Alexander 11.-who succeeded his father, William the Lion, in 1214-when Baldredus, Deacon of Lothian, and John, Perpetual Vicar of the Church of St Giles, at Edinburgh, a f b their seals in attestation of a copy of certain Papal bulls and other charters Maitland, p. 270. VIGNETTE-chapel of Robed, Duke of Albany, St ades’s Church. 3 B ... XI. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. EXT to the Castle of Edinburgh, the ancient Parish Church of St Giles, ...

Book 10  p. 414
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CHAPTER IX. THE WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. N the centre of the ancient city there I stood, till a few years since, a strange, crooked, steep, and altogether singular and picturesque avenue from the High Street to the low valley on the south, in which the more ancient extensions of the once circumscribed Scottish capital are reared. Scarcely anything can be conceived more curious and whimsically grotesque than its array of irregular stone gables and timber galleries, that seemed as if jostling one another for room along the steep and narrow thoroughfare ; while the busy throng were toiling up or hurrying down its precipitous pathways, amid the ceaseless din of braziers’ and tinsmiths’ hammers, for which it was famed, and the rumbling of wheels, accompanied with the vociferous shouts of a host of noisy assistants, as some heavy-laden wain creeked and groaned up the steep. The modern visitor who now sees the Bowhead, an open area nearly on a level with the Castle drawbridge, and then by gradual and easy descent of long flights of stairs, and the more gentle modern slope of Victoria Street, at length reaches The Bowfoot Well in the Grassmarket, will hardly be persuaded that between these two widely different elevations there extended only a few years since a thoroughfare crowded with antique tenements, quaint inscriptions, and E t i l l more strange and interesting associations ; unmatched in its historic and traditionary memories by any other spot of the curious old capital, whose memories we seek to revive. Here were the Templar Lands, with their antique gables, surmounted by the croBs that marked them as beyond the reach of civic corporation laws, and with their old- . ~IC+Nrrr+?tfajor Weir’s HOUS~. ... IX. THE WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. N the centre of the ancient city there I stood, till a few years since, ...

Book 10  p. 364
(Score 0.51)

KING’S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. I49 which had been broken away. We furnish an engraving of this apartment also, in the dilapidated state in which it existed in its latter days, with the large fireplace concealed, all but one clustered pillar, by a wooden partition.’ This apartment had also been finished with highly carved ornamental work, considerable portions of which had only been removed a few years previous to the entire destruction of the whole building. One beautiful fragment of this, which we have seen, consists of a series of oak panellings, about eight feet high, divided into four compartments by five terminal figures in high relief, and the panels all richly finished in different patterns of arabesque ornament of the finest workmanship. The demolition of this house. in 1845 brought to light a curious small concealed chamber on the first floor, lighted by a very narrow aperture looking into Nairn’s Close. The entrance to it had been by a movable panel in the room just described, affording access to a narrow flight of steps, ingeniously wound round the wall of a turnpike stair, and thereby effectually preventing any suspicion being excited by the appearance it made. The existence of this mysterious chamber was altogether unknown to the inhabitants, and all traditiou had been lost as to the ancient occupants to whom it doubtless afforded refuge. Another apartment in this portion of the house, on the same flat with the fine Gothic fireplace described above, was called the Queen’s Dead Room, where the noble occupants of the mansion were said to have lain in state, ere their removal to their final resting-place. The room had formerly been painted black, to adapt it to the gloomy purpose for which it was set apart, and the more recent coats of whitewash it had received very imperfectly veiled its lugubrious aspect. The style of the fittings of this room, however, and indeed of the greater portion of the building, was evidently long posterior to the date of erection, and the panel over the mantelpiece was filled with a landscape, painted in the manner of Old Norie. The inhabitant of this part of the house, when we last visited it, was a respectable old lady, who kept her share of the Palace in a remarkably clean and comfortable condition, and took great pride in pointing out its features to strangers. She professed an intimate knowledge of the original uses of the several portions of the house, and showed a comfortable- looking room on the first floor, commanding a very fine view to the north, which she called the Queen’s bedroom. Two round arched or waggon-shaped ceilings were brought to view in the progress of demolition, richly decorated with painted devices, in a style corresponding with the date of erection, and both concealed by flat, modern, plaster ceilings constructed below them. One of these, situated immediately above what was styled the Queen’s bedroom, had been lighted by windows ranged along each side of the arched roof, and in its original state must have formed a lofty and very elegant room. The roof, which was of wood, was painted in rich arabesques and graceful designs offlowers, fruit, leaves, &c., surrounding panels with inscriptions in Gothic letters. On one portion all that could be made out was, ge arbbili$ OF tt aigfitfob& On another was perfectly dehed the following metrical legend :- e 1 These remains are mentioned in Chambers‘s Traditions, with thin addition-‘#At the right-hand side is a pillar in the wme htg on the top of which there formerly, and till within theae-few years, etood the statue of a saint presiding over the font.” The author had doubtless been misled in this by the traditions of the neighbourhood, and the appearance of the jamb of the ancient fireplace partially exposed. We may remark that, except where it appears absolutely necessary for preventing confusion or error, we have avoided directing attention to those points on which we differ from previous writers. ... STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. I49 which had been broken away. We furnish an engraving of this ...

Book 10  p. 161
(Score 0.51)

326 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11745. -the identical vehicle in which the deputies had returned from Gray?s Mill, and the driver of which wanted to pass out at that critical juncture. ?Open the port,? he cried, ?for I behove to get out.? ?You cannot,? yeplied the sentinel, ?without an order from Provost Stewart.? ?Let the coach out instantly,? said James Gillespie, under-keeper of the gate, ?:for I have an order to that effect.? ?Oh, sir, ?tis very well; you have the keys of the port and must answer for it,? replied the soldier,. as he pulled back the ponderous gate in the arch between its two massive towers. At that moment a Highlander sprang in and wrested his musket from him ; it was the chief of Lochiel; and immediately the whole clan Cameron advanced up the street, with swords drawn and colours flying, their pipes playing ? We?ll awa to Shirramuir, And haud the Whigs ip order.? Other noise there was none, and no bloodshed; not an armed man was to be seen on the streets, to the astonishment of the Highlanders, who saw only the people in their nightdresses, at the windows, by the light of the early dawn. They seized the Guard-house, disarmed the Guard, captured the cannon and arsenal, placed pickets at the eight principal gates with the utmost order and regularity, while the magistrates retired to their houses, aware that their authority was ended. . Generals Guest and Preston hoisted the royal standard on the Castle, and fired a few cannon to warn all to keep from its vicinity, and, meanwhile, after two hours? sleep, Charles prepared to take possession of the palace of his forefathers. Making a tour to the south, to avoid the fire of the Castle till he reached Braidsburn, he turned towards the city as far as the Hare Stone, a mass of granite on the turnpike road near Morningside-the old banner stone of the Burghmuir. He then wheeled to the east by the beech-shaded Grange Loan (now bordered by villas, sequestered and grassy then), which leads by the old house of the Grange to the Causeway side Near Priestfield he entered the royal parks by a breach that had been made in the wall, and traversed the Hunter?s Bog, that had echoed so often .to the bugles of his ancestors. Leaving his troops to take up their camp, about noon he rode -with what emotions we may imagine-towards old Holyrood, of a thousand stirring memories, attended by the Duke of Perth and Lord Elcho, with a train of gentlemen and the veterans of his Highland guard-veterans of Sherriffmuir and Glenshiel- eighty in number, at the very time that Sir John Cope?s armament was disembarking at Dunbar. On reaching the eminence below St. Anthony?s chapel and well, when for the first time he came in sight of the old palace, he alighted from his horse, and paused to survey the beautiful scene. Then descending to the Duke?s Walk (so called because it had been a favourite resort of his grandfather, to whose flagrant misgovernment he owed his exile) he halted for a few minutes to show himself to the people, who now flocked around him in great numbers with mingled feelings of ccriosity and admiration. Loud huzzas came from the crowd, and many of the enthusiastic Jacobites knelt down and kissed his hand. He then mounted his horse-a fine bay gelding, presented to him by the Duke of Perth-and rode slowly towards the palace. On arriving in front of Holyrood he alighted, and was about to enter the royal dwelling, when a cannon ball fired from the Castle struck the front of Jarnes V.?s tower, and brought down a quantity of rubbish into the court-yard. No injury was done, however, by this gratuitous act of annoyance, and the Prince, passing in at the outer gate, and proceeding along the piazza, and the quadrangle, was about to enter the porch of what are called the Duke of Hamilton?s apartments, when James Hepburn of Keith, who had takeii part in the rising of 1715, ?a model of ancient simplicity, manliness, and honour,? stepped from the crowd, bent his knee in token of homage, and then drawing his sword, raised it aloft, and marshalled the way before Charles up-stairs.? On this day Charles wore a short tartan coat, with the star of St- Andrew, a blue velvet bonnet, and white cockade, a blue ribbon over his shoulder, scarlet breeches, and military boots, Tall, handsome, fair, and noble in aspect, he excited the admiration of all those fearless Jacobites, the ladies especially. ?All were charmed with his appearance,? says Home; ?they compared him to Robert Bruce, whom he resembled, they said, in his figure and fortune. The Whigs looked upon him with other eyes; they acknowledged that he was a goodly person, but observed that even in that triumphant hour, when about to enter the palace of his fathers, the air of his countenance was languid and melancholy; that he looked like a gentleman and man of fashion, but not like a hero or conqueror.? He adds, however, that he was greeted with acclaim by the peasantry, who, whenever he went abroad, sought to kiss his hand3 and even to touch his clothes. At one o?clock on the same day a body of the Cameron clansmen was drawn up around the ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11745. -the identical vehicle in which the deputies had returned from Gray?s Mill, and ...

Book 2  p. 326
(Score 0.51)

334 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11746. b ONE of the most important events in the annals of Edinburgh was the erection of the North Bridge, by means of which, in spite of years of opposition, the long-suggested plan for having a his just and honourable cause.?? His wife pleaded for his pardon at the feet of George 11. in vain, and, like the others, ?he died with his last breath imploring a blessing on Prince Charles.? Lord Arundel of Wardour relates the following anecdote :-? Many years after the Stuart rising, the Duke of Cumberland being present at a ball at Bath, indicated as a person with whom he would like to dance, a beautiful girl, the daughter of Major Macdonald who was executed at Carlisle, and the circumstances of whose last moments supplied Sir Walter Scott with the incidents of M?Ivor?s execution in ? Waverley.? The lady rose in deference to the prince, but replied in a tone which utterly discomfited his Royal Highness, ? NO, sir, I will never dance with the murderer yf my father/ ? ? The Duke, with an army overwhelming in numbers, as contrasted with that of Charles, passed through Edinburgh on the ~ 1 s t of February, 1746, not marching at the head of his troops, like the latter, but travelling in a coach-and-six presented to him by the Earl of Hopetoun; and on being joined by 6,000 Hessians, who landed under the Landgrave at Leith, he proceeded to obliterate ? all memory of the last disagreeable affair ? as the rout at Falkirk was named. As he passed up the Canongate and High Street he is said to have expressed great surprise at the .number of broken windows he saw ; but when informed that this was the result of a recent illumination in his honour, and that a shattered casement indicated the residence of a Jacobite, he laughed heartily, remarking, ?that he was better content with this explanation, ill as it omened to himself and his family, than he could have been with his first impression, which ascribed the circumstance to poverty or negligence.? A vast mob followed his coach, which passed through the Grassmarket, and quitted the city by new and enlarged city, beyond the walls an& barriers of the old one, was eventually and successfully developed to an extent far beyond what its enthusiastic and patriotic projectors caul$. the West Port, en route to Culloden, and ?at midnight on Saturday the 19th of April Viscount Bury, colonel of the 20th Regiment, aide-de-camp. to the Duke of Cumberland, reined up his jaded horse at the Castle gate, bearer of a despatch t e the Lieutenant-General, announcing the victory ;. and at two o?clock on the morning of Sunday a. salute from the batteries informed the startled and anxious citizens that, quenched in blood on the. Muir of Drummossie, the star of the Stuarts had sunk for ever.? The standard of Charles, which Tullybardine. unfurled in Glenfinnan, and thirteen others belonging to chiefs, with several pieces of artillery and a quantity of arms, were brought to the Castle and lodged in the arsenal, where some of the latter still remain; and one field-piece, which was placed on abattery to the westward, was long an object of interest to the people. With a spite that seems. childish now, by order of Cumberland those standards, whose insignia were all significant ot high descent and old achievement, were camed ia procession to the Cross. The common hangmall. bore that of Charles, thirteen Tronmen, or sweeps,. bore the rest, and all were flung into a fire, guarded by the 44th Regiment, while the heralds proclaimed the name of each chief to whom they belonged-hchiel, Clanranald, Keppoch, Glengarry, and so forth ; while the crowd looked on in silence. By this proceeding, so petty in its character, Cumberland failed alike to inflict an injuryon the character of the chiefs or their faithful followers, among whom, at that dire time, the bayonet, the gibbet, the torch, and the axe, were everywhere at work; and, when we consider his. blighted life and reputation in the long years that followed, it seems that it would have been well had the Young Chevalier, the ?bonnie Prince Charlie ? of so much idolatry, found his grave on the Moor of Culloden. . . ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11746. b ONE of the most important events in the annals of Edinburgh was the erection ...

Book 2  p. 334
(Score 0.51)

CHAPTER VIII. ST LEONARDS, ST MARY’S WYND, AND THE COWGATE. HE date of erection of the first houses in the ancient thoroughfare of the Cowgate may be referred, without hesitation, to the reign of James III., when the example of the King, who, as Drummond relates, “was much given to buildings, and trimming up of chnppels, halls, and gardens,” was likely to encourage his courtiers in rearing elegant and costly mansions ; and when, at the same time, the frequent assembling of the Parliament and the presence of the Court at Edinburgh, were calculated to drive them beyond the recently-built walls of the capital. Evidence, indeed, derived from some early charters, seems to prove the existence of buildings beyond the range of the first wall, prior to its erection, but these were at most one or two isolated and rural dwellings, and cannot be considered as having formed any part of the street. The whole southern slope of the Old Town, on which the steep closes extending between the High Street and the Cowgate have since been reared, must then have formed a rough and unencumbered bank, surmounted by the massive wall and towers erected by virtue of the charter of James 11. in 1450, and skirted at its base by the open roadway that led from the Abbey of Holyrood to the more ancient Church of St Cuthbert, below the Castle rock. It requires, indeed, a stretch of the imagination to conceive this crowded steep, which has rung for centuries with the busy sounds of life and industry, a rugged slope, unoccupied save by brushwood and flowering shrubs ; yet the change effected on it in the fifteenth century was only such another extension as many living can remember to have witnessed on a greater scale over the downs and cultivated fields now occupied by VIGNETTE-Ancient Doorway, foot of Horse Wynd, Cowgate. ... VIII. ST LEONARDS, ST MARY’S WYND, AND THE COWGATE. HE date of erection of the first houses in the ...

Book 10  p. 338
(Score 0.5)

THE CAiVONGA TE ANB ABBE Y SANCTUAR Y. Earl, who took an active share in promoting the Union. He was soon after elevated to a dukedom in the British Peerage, and successively filled the offices of Keeper of the Privy Seal and Secretary of State for Scotland. At the head of Reid’s Close stands the ancient and picturesque stone tenement, designated in the accompanying engraving Nisbet of Dirleton’s House, which appears by the date on it to have been erected in the year 1624. Its basement story is substantially arched with stone, in accordance with the fashion of that age, when a citizen’s mansion had occasionally to be made his castle, in a very different sense from that which is now maintained as the theory of Britis& law. This edifice, which was probably reared by eome courtier of note and influence at that period, afterwards became the residence of Sir John Nisbet, who waa promoted to the Bench in 1664, under the title of Lord Dirleton, and was the last who held the office of Lord Advocate conjointly with that of a Judge. He was the predecessor of Sir George Mackenzie as Lord Advocate, and is accused, both by Kirkton and Wodrow, of making himself the tool of the Bishops. The latter relates a curious instance of his zeal in persecuting the unfortunate Covenanters. Robert Gray having been brought before the Council, and examined a8 to his knowledge of the hiding places of some of the leaders of that party, withvut their succeeding in obtaining from him the desired information, Sir John took a ring from the man’s finger and sent it to Mrs Gray by a trusty messenger, who informed her that her husband had told all he knew of the Whigs, and that he sent this ring to her in token that she might do the same. Deceived by this ingenious fraud, the poor woman revealed their places of concealment; but her husband was so affected that he sickened and died a few days after. The south front of the house &ppears in the engraving of Reid’s Close, and is singularly A little further to the eastward, on the same side, is the huge mansion erected by William, first Duke of Qneensberry, the builder of Drumlanrig Castle, who exercised almost absolute power in Scotland during the latter years of the reign of Charles II., and presided as High Commissioner in the first Parliament of James VII. He afterwards took an active share in the revolution that placed the Prince of Orange on the throne ; a step which did not prove sufficient to redeem him from the hatred of the Presbyterian party, against whom his power had been used in a very cruel and arbitrary manner. Ee died in the Canongate in 1695. His character was made up of the strangest contradictions ; a great miser, yet magnificent in buildings and pleasure grounds ; illiterate, yet a collector of books, and commanding in his letters-which he dictated to a secretarya style that is admirable.‘ Hia son, the active promoter of the union, and the Lord High Commissioner under whose auspices it was accomplished, kept court here during that stormy period, and frequently found his huge mansion surrounded by the infuriated mob who so pertinaciously pursued every abettor of that hated measure.’ But the most - picturesque, and somewhat unique in its character. - , A collection of his lettem now in the possassion of C. E. Sharpe, Esq., would form a curious and valuable acquisition to the liter.ary world if published. ’ A myaterioua and horrible story is related in the “ Traditions of Edinburgh,” comerning the Duke’s eldest son, Lord Drumlanrig, an idiot, who, being deaerted by his keeper on the day the union was passed-the whole household having gone off, with the exception ol a little kitehen boy-escaped from his confinement, murdered the boy, and was found roasting him at the fire when the domestics returned in triumph b o r n the Parliament Close. The dreadful tale soon became known, and it waa universally regarded as a judgment on the Duke for hia ahare in the union. ... CAiVONGA TE ANB ABBE Y SANCTUAR Y. Earl, who took an active share in promoting the Union. He was soon after ...

Book 10  p. 326
(Score 0.5)

The Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267 dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In the dexter canton, a saltire argent, under the imperial crown, surmounted by a thistle j and in base a castle argent, masoned sable, within a border, charged with instruments used by the society. To the surgeons. were added the apothecaries. James IV., one of the greatest patrons of art and science in his time, dabbled a little in surgery and chemistry, and had an assistant, John the Leeche, whom he brought from the Continent. Pitscottie tells us that James was ?ane singular guid chirurgione,? and in his daily expense book, singular entries occur in 1491, of payments made to people to let him bleed them and pull their teeth :- ?Item, to ane fallow, because the King pullit furtht his twtht, xviii shillings. ?Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for tua teith drawin furtht of his hed be the King, xvci sh.? The barbers were frequently refractory, and brought the surgeons into the Court of Session t e adjust rights, real or imagined. But after the union of the latter with the apothecaries, they gave up the barber craft, and were formed into one corporation by an Act of Council, on the 25th February, 1657, as already mentioned in the account of the old Royal College of Surgeons. The first admitted after the change, was Christopher Irving, recorded as ?? ane free chmgone,? without the usual words ?and barber,? after his name. He was physician to James VII., and from him the Irvings of Castle Irving, in .Ireland, are descended. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SOCIETY. The Candlemaker Row--The ? Cunzie Nook?-Tbe of Charles 1.-The Candlemakers? Hall--The Afhk of Dr. Symons-The Society, IS+ Brown Square-Proposed Statue to George III., x~-Di&nguished Inhabitants-Si IsIay Campbell-Lard Glenlec-Haigof Beimerside --Si John Lerlie-Miss Jeannie Elliot-Argyle Square-Origin of it-Dr. Hugh Bkit-The Sutties of that Ilk-Trades Maiden Hospital- -Mint0 House and the Elliots-New Medical School-Baptist Church-Chambers Strect-Idustrial Museum of Sdence and Art-Its Great Hall and adjoining Halls-Aim of the Architect-Contents and Models briefly glanced at-New Watt Institution and School of ArtsPhrenoloEical Museum-New Free Tron Church-New Tiainiing College of the Church of Scotland-The Dental Hospita-The . Theatre ofvari.&s. THE Candlemaker Row is simply the first portion of the old way that led from the Grassmarket and Cowgate-head, where Sir John Inglis resided in 1784, to the lands of Bnsto, and thence on to Powburn ; and it was down this way that a portion of the routed Flemings, with Guy of Namur at their head, fled towards the Castle rock, after their defeat on the Burghmuir in 1335. In Charles I.?s time a close line of street with a great open space behind occupied the whole of the east side, from the Greyfriars Port to the Cowgatehead. The west side was the boundary wall of the churchyard, save at the foot, where two or three houses appear in 1647, one of which, as the Cunzie Nook, is no doubt that referred to by Wilson as a curious little timber-fronted tenement, surmounted with antique crow-steps ; an open gallery projects in front, and rude little; shot-windows admit the light to the decayed and gloomy chambers therein.? This, we presume, to be the Cunzie Nook, a place where the Mint had no doubt been estab Cshed at some early period, possibly during some of the strange proceedings in the Regency of Mary of Guise, when the Lords of the Congregation ?past to Holyroodhous, and tuik and intromettit With the ernis of the Cunzehous.? On the west side, near the present entrance to the churchyard of the Greyfriars, stands the hall of the ancient Corporation of the Candlemakers, which gave its name to the Row, with the arms of the craft boldly cut over the doorway, on a large oblong panel, and, beneath, their appropriate motto, . Omnia man;jesfa Zuce. Internally, the hall is subdivided into many residences, smaller accommodation sufficing for the fraternity in this age of gas, so that it exists little more than in name. In 1847 the number of its members amounted to only fhw, who met periodically for various purposes, connected with the corporation and its funds. Edgar?s plan shows, in the eighteenth century, the close row of houses that existed along the whole of the west side, from the Bristo Port to the foot, and nearly till Forrest Road was opened up in a linewith the central Meadow Walk. Humble though this locality may seem now, Sir James Dunbar, Bart., of Dum, rented No. ZI in 1810, latterly a carting office. In those days the street was a place ?of considerable bustle; the Hawick dilligence started twice weekly from Paterson?s Inn, a well-known hostel in its time, ... Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267 dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In the dexter canton, a saltire ...

Book 4  p. 267
(Score 0.5)

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