![The Lawnmarket] DR. JOHNSON. 95
years, his house was rented by Dr. Blair ; but amid
the gaieties of Pans his mind would seem to have
reverted to his Scottish home. ?I am sensible
that I am misplaced, and I wish twice or thrice
aday for my easychair, and my retreat in James?s
Court:? he wrote to his friend Dr. Ferguson;
then he added, as Burton tells us, Never think,
dear Ferguson, that as long as you are master of
your own fireside and your own time, you can be
unhappy, or that any other circumstance can add
to your enjoyment.? ?Never put a fire in the
south room with the red paper,? he wrote to Dr.
Blair ; ? it is so warm of itself, that all last winter,
which was a very severe one, I lay with a single
blanket, and frequently, upon coming in at midnight
starving with cold, I have sat down and read for
an hour as if I had a stove in the room.? One
of his most intimate friends and correspondents
while in France was Mrs. Cockburn of Ormiston,
authoress of one of the beautiful songs called U The
Flowers of the Forest,? who died at Edinburgh,
1794. Some of her letters to Hume are dated in
1764, from Baud?s Close, on .the Castle Hill.
About the year 1766, when still in Paris, he began
to think of settling there, and gave orders to sell
his house in James?s Court, and he was only prevented
from doing so by a mere chance. Leaving
the letter of instruction to be posted by his Parisian
landlord, he set out to pass his Christmas with
the Countess de Boufflers ai L?Isle Adam ; but a
snow storm had blocked up the roads. He returned
to Paris, and finding that his letter had not
yet been posted, he changed his mind, and
thought that he had better retain his flat in James?s
Court, to which he returned in 1766. He soon
after left it as Under-Secretary of State to General
Conway, but in 1769, on the resignation of that
Minister, he returned again to James?s Court, with
what was then deemed opulence-AI,ooo per annuni-
and became the head of that brilliant circle
of literary men who then adorned Edinburgh. ?I
am glad to come within sight of you: he wrote to
Adam Smith, then busy with ?The Wealth of
Nations? in the quietude of his mother?s house,
$? and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from mywindows ;
but I wish also to be on speaking terms with you.?
In another letter he speaks of ??my old house in
James?s Court, which is very cheerful and very
elegant, but too small to display my great talent
for cookery, the science to which I intend to addict
the remaining years of my life.?
Elsewhere we shall find David Hunie in a more
fashionable abode in the new town of Edinburgh,
and on his finally quitting James?s Court, his house
there was leased by Tames Boswell, whose character
is thus summed up by Lord Macaulay :-? Servile
and impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a bigot and
a sot, bloated with family pride, and eternally blustering
about the dignity of a born gentleman, yet
stooping to be a talebearer, an eavesdropper, a
common butt in the taverns of London ; so curious
to know everybody who was talked about that,
Tory and High Churchman though he was, he
rnanceuvred for an introduction to Tom Paine ; so
vain of the most childish distinctions, that when he
had been to Court he drove to the office where
his book was printing, without changing his clothes,
and summoned all the printer?s devils to admire
his new rufRes and sword. Such was this man,
and such he was content to be.?
He was the eldest son of Alexander Boswell, one
of the Judges of the Court of Session, a sound
scholar, a respectable and useful country gentleman,
an able and upright judge, who, on his
elevation to the Bench, in compliance with the
Scottish custom, assumed the distinctive title of
Lord Auchinleck, from his estate in Ayrshire.
His mother, Eupham Erskine, a descendant of the
line of Alloa, from the House of Mar, was a woman
of exemplary piety. To James?s Court, Boswell,
in -4ugust, 1773, cohducted Dr. Johnson, from the
White Horse Hostel, in ,St. Mary?s Wynd, then
one of the principal inns of Edinburgh, where he
found him storming at the waiter for having sweetened
his lemonade without using the sugar-tongs, ,
~Johnson and I,? says Boswell, walked arm-inarm
up the High Street to my house in James?s
Court, and as we went, he acknowledged that the
breadth of the street and the loftiness of the buildings
on each side made a noble appearance.? ?My
wife had tea ready for him,? he adds, ?? ail we sat
chatting till nearly two in the morning.? It would
appear that before the time of the visit-which
lasted over several days-Boswell had removed
into a better and larger mansion, immediately
below and on the level of the court, a somewhat
extraordinary house in its time, as it consisted of
two floors with an internal stair. Mrs. Boswell,
who was Margaret Montgomery, a relation of the
Earl of Eglmton, a gentlewoman of good breeding
and brilliant understanding, was disgusted with the
bearing and manners of Johnson, and expressed
her opinion of him that he was ?a great brute !?
And well might she think so, if Macaulay?s description
of him be correct. ?He could fast,
but when he did not fast he tore his dinner like
a famished wolf, With the veins swelling in his
forehead, and the perspiration running down his
cheeks; he scarcely ever took wine; but when
he drank it, he drank it greedily and in large
.
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p111.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 99")
... Lawnmarket] DR. JOHNSON. 95
years, his house was rented by Dr. Blair ; but amid
the gaieties of Pans his mind ...
Book 1 p. 99
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
likely to have arisen. It happened by accident
that the Earl of ...
Book 2 p. 210
(Score 0.25)
... tradition, and in song. Professor Aytoun
finely reproduces the feeling of anguish in his ...
Book 1 p. 38
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
the postage to England was lowered to 4d. ; and
to zd. for a single ...
Book 2 p. 354
(Score 0.25)
... 437
airmy, wer all present. Thair wes a gaird, also, of the maist able burgwis of the bun, quha did ...
Book 10 p. 476
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
The first volume of the ?? Parochial Records ?
begins in January, 1605, a year ...
Book 6 p. 254
(Score 0.25)
... AND NEW EDINEURGH. [South Bridge.
. . .~ 374
in 1765, and two ancient thoroughfares, the Wynds
of Marlin and ...
Book 2 p. 374
(Score 0.25)
... West Chum.: MR. ROBER?T PONT. 13x1
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CHURCH OF ST. CUTHBERT.
Iiirtory and Antiquity-Old ...
Book 3 p. 131
(Score 0.25)
![Craigcrook.] HISTORY OF CRAIGCROOK. 107
summer residence of Lord Jeffrey-deeply secluded
amid coppice.
The lands of Craigcrook appear to have belonged
in the fourteenth century to the noble family of
Graham. By a deed bearing date 9th April, 1362,
Patrick Graham, Lord of Kinpunt, and David
Graham, Lord of Dundaff, make them over to
John de Alyncrum, burgess of Edinburgh. He
in turn settled them on a chaplain officiating at
?Our Lady?s altar,? in the church of St. Giles,
and his successors to be nominated by the magistrates
of Edinburgh.
John de Alyncrum states his donation of those
lands of Craigcrook, was ? to be for the salvation
of the souls of the late king and queen (Robert
and Elizabeth), of the present King David, and of
all their predecessors and successors ; for the salvation
of the souls of all the burghers of Edinburgh,
their predecessors and successors ; of his own father
and mother, brothers, sisters, etc. ; then of himself
and of his wife; and, finally, of all faithful souls
deceased.?
The rental of Craigcrook in the year 1368 was
only A6 6s. 8d. Scots per annum; and in 1376 it
was let at that rate in feu farm, to Patrick and
John Lepars.
At an early period it became the property of
the Adamsons. William Adamson was bailie of
Edinburgh in 1513, and one of the guardians of
the city after the battle of Flodden, and Williim
Adamson of Craigcrook, burgess of Edinburgh
(and probably son of the preceding), was killed at
the battle of Pinkie, in 1547 ; and by him or his
immediate successors, most probably the present
castle was built-an edifice wbich Wood, in his
learned ?? History of Cramond Parish,? regards
as one of the most ancient in the parish.
In consequence of the approaching Reformation,
the proceeds of the lands were no longer required
for pious purposes, and the latter were made over by
Sir Simon Prestonof Craigmillar, when Provost, to Sir
Edward Marj oribanks, styled Prebend of Craigcrook.
They were next held for a year, by George Kirkaldy,
brother of Sir James Kirkaldy of Grange in
Fifeshire, Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, who
engaged to pay for them A27 6s. 8d. Scots.
In June, 1542, they reverted again to Sir Edward
Majoribanks, who assigned them in perpetual feufarm
to William Adamson before-named. This
wealthy burgess had acquired much property in
the vicinity, including Craigleith, Cammo, Groat
Hall, Clermiston, Southfield, and part of Cramond
Regis. After Pinkie he was succeeded by his son
William, and Craigcrook continued to pass through
several generations of his heirs, till it came into
~~
the hands of Robert Adamson, who, in 1656, sold
to different persons the whole of his property.
Craigcrook was purchased by John Muir, merchant
in Edinburgh, whose son sold it to Sir John
Hall, Lord Provost of the city in 1689-92. He was
created a baronet in 1687, and was ancestor of the
Halls of Dunglass, on the acquisition of which, in
East Lothian, he sold Craigcrook to Walter Pringle,
advocate, from whose son it was purchased by John
Strachan, clerk to the signet.
When the latter died in 1719, he left the whole
of his property, with North Clermiston and the
rest of his fortune, both in land and movables
(save some small sums to his relations) ?? mortified
for charitable purposes,?
The regulations were that the rents should be
given to poor old men and women and orphans ;
that the trustees should be ?two advocates, two
Writers to the Signet, and the Presbytery of Edinburgh,
at the sight of the Lords of Session, and any
two of these members,? for whose trouble one
hundred merks yearly is allowed.
There are also allowed to the advocates, poor
fifty merks Scots, and to those of the writers to the
signet one hundred merks ; also twenty pounds
annually for a Bible to one of the members of the
Presbytery, beginning with the moderator and
going through the rest in rotation.
This deed is dated the 24th September, 1712.
The persons constituted trustees by it held a meeting
and passed resolutions respecting several
points which had not been regulated in the will. A
clerk and factor, each with a yearly allowance of
twenty pounds, were appointed to receive the
money, pay it out, and keep the books.
They resolved that no old person should be
admitted under the age of sixty-five, nor any orphan
above the age of twelve; and that no annuity
should exceed five pounds.
Among the names in a charter by William
Forbes, Provost of the Collegiate Church of St.
Giles, granting to that church a part of the ground
lying contiguous to his manse for a burial-place,
dated at Edinburgh, 14th January, 1477-8, there
appears that of Ricardus Robed, jrebena?anks de
Cragmk mansepropie (? Burgh Charters.?)
Over the outer gate of the courtyard a shield
bore what was supposed to have been the arms of
the Adamsons, and the date 1626 ; but Craigcrook
has evidently been erected a century before that
period. At that time its occupant was Walter
Adamson, who succeeded his father Willian~
Adamson in 1621, and whose sister, Catharine,
married Robert Melville of Raith, according to
the Douglas Peerage.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p118.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 107")
... HISTORY OF CRAIGCROOK. 107
summer residence of Lord Jeffrey-deeply secluded
amid coppice.
The lands ...
Book 5 p. 107
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [~dpUCd.
proper exertions been made for their repair and
preservation, particularly by ...
Book 3 p. 58
(Score 0.25)
![THE PRECEPTORY OF ST. ANTHONY. 215 Leith]
not making any deliberate assault ; but a pistol
shot was heard, and in a few minutes the Sieur de
la Roche lay dead, with a sword thrust in his body,
while Isaac had a finger nearly hewn OK
The guard now came on the scene, and Mowat
was found under an outer stair, with a bent sword
in his hand, bloody from point to hilt, his hand
wounded, and the sleeves of his coat stained with
blood. On seeing the dead body, he viewed it
without emotion, and merely remarked that he
wondered who had slain him.
The Master, Mowat, and James Sinclair the writer,
were all tried for the murder of Elias Poiret before
the Court of Justiciary, but the jury brought in a
verdict of not proven. The whole affair might
have been easily explained, but for heat of temper,
intemperance, and the ready resort to arms so usual
in those days. The three Frenchmen concerned in
it were Protestant refugees who were serving as
privates in the Scottish Life Guards. The Mastet
of Tarbet became Earl of Cromarty in 1714 and
survived the death of Poiret forty years. Two of
his sons, who were officers in the Scots-Dutch
Brigade, perished at sea, and his eldest, the third
and last Earl of Cromarty, was nearly brought to
Tower Hill in 1746 for his loyalty to the House of
Stuart.
No. 141 Kirkgate was long the place of business
of Mr. Alexander Watson, who is chiefly remarkable
as being the nephew and close correspondent
of a very remarkable man, who frequently resided
with him-Robert Watson, who was made Principal
of the Scots College at Paris by the Emperor
Napoleon I., an office which he held for six years.
It was to his nephew at Leith, after his escape to
Rome (having been tried at the Old Bailey as
President of a Corresponding Society), he confided
his discovery of a large mass of correspondence
known as ? The Stuart Papers,? which he
purchased (as stated in the Courunt for 1819.)
In one of his letters, dated London, 6th April,
1818, he states that they consist ofhalf a million of
pieces, and are valued at ~300,000. ?? The Pope,
however, took military possession of them, under
the protest that they were of too much importance
to belong to a private individual. I protested
against the arbitrary proceedings of his Holiness.
The Prince Regent sent two ships of war to Civita
Vecchia to bring them to London, and they are
now in Carlton House.?
To his nephew in the Kirkgate he subsequently
wrote that a Royal Commissiolr under the Great
Seal (including Sir James Mackintosh) was a p
pointed to examine these valuable papers ; and in
1824 he wrote that amongst other things of some
value which have fallen into my possession, are the
carriage and tent-bed of Bonaparte, taken at the
battle of Waterloo. Further events will decide
to what purposes I may apply it (the carriage),
though it is probable I shall keep it for my own
use.?
This singular person committed suicide in 1838,
by strangling himself in a London tavern, in the
ninety-second year of his age--?a case of suicide,?
it was said, ?unparalleled in the annals of sorrow.?
On the east side of the Kirkgate, to take the
edifices in succession there, there was founded by
Robert Logan of Restalrig, in 1435, a preceptory
for the canons of St. Anthony, the only establkhment
of the kind in Scotland.
Arnot, in his history, unthinkingly mentions ?? the
monastery of Knights Templars of St. Anthony?
at Leith. These canons, says Chalmers, ? seem to
have been an order of religious knights, not
Templars. The only document in which they are
called Templars is a charter of James VI. in 1614,
giving away their establishment and revenues; and
this mistake of an ignorant clerk is wildly repeated
by Arnot.?
Their church, burying-ground, and gardens were
in St. Anthony?s Wynd, an alley off the Kirkgate ;
and the first community was brought from St
Anthony of Vienne, the seat of the order in France
They were formed in honour of St. Anthony, the
patriarch of monks, who was born at Coma, a
village of Heraclea on the borders of Arcadia, in
A.D.?z~I, and whose sister was placed in the first
convent that is recorded in history. A hermit by
habit, he dwelt long in the ruins of an old castle
that overlooked the Nile; and after his death (said
to have been in 356) his body was deposited in the
church of La Motte St. Didier, at Vienne, when,
according to old traditions, those labouring under
the pest known as St. ,4nthony?s Fire-a species of
erysipelas-were miraculously cured by praying at
his shrine.
Gaston, a noble of Vienne, and his son Gironde,
filled with awe, we are told, by these wonderful
cures, devoted their lives and estates to found a
hospital for those who laboured under this disease,
and seven others joined them in their attendance
on the sick; and on these Hospitaller Brethren
Boniface VIII. bestowed the Benedictine Priory
of Vienne, giving them the rules of St. Austin, and
declaring the Abbot General of this new orderthe
Canons Regular of St, Anthony. The superiors
of the subordinate preceptones were called commanders,
says Alban Butler, ? and their houses are
called commandenes, as when they were Hospitallers?
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p034.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 215")
... PRECEPTORY OF ST. ANTHONY. 215 Leith]
not making any deliberate assault ; but a pistol
shot was heard, and in ...
Book 6 p. 215
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
less than eight feet of this loose earth between his
shovels and the ...
Book 2 p. 338
(Score 0.25)
![Leith] SH EKIFF BRAE. 247
Leith by the rebels of Mary Queen of Scots, the
Earl of Lennox opened his council in the chambers
of the old tenement referred to, on the Coal Hill,
and it is, says Robertson, decorated with a rosethe
emblem of his connectian with Henry VIII. of
England-and the thistle for Scotland. Then
followed that war to which Morton?s ferocity imparted
a character so savage that ere long quarter
was neither given nor taken. And amidst it, in
connection with some private feud, some of the
followers of Sir William Kirkaldy, although they
had been ordered merely to use their batons, slew
Henry Setoun on the Shore of Leith, while his feet
were tripped up by an anchor. In escaping to
Edinburgh, one of them was taken and lodged in
the Tolbooth there ; but Kirkaldy came down from
the Castle with a party of his garrison, beat in the
doors, and rescued him, after which he seized ?? the
victualls brought into Leith from the merchants,
and (did} provide all necessarie furniture to endure
a long siege, till supplie was sent from forrane
nations.? (Calderwood.)
On the death of Lennox, John, Earl of Mar, was
made Regent, and fixed his head-quarters in the
same old tenement at the Coal Hill, Morton being
again chief lieutenant.
From the presence of these peers here, it is
probable that the adjacent gloomy, and now filthy,
court, so grotesquely called Parliament Square, obtained
its name, which seems to have been formerly
the Peat Neuk. The old Council House has been
doomed to perish by the new improvement scheme.
In December, 1797, it was ordered by the Lord
Provost, Magistrates, and Council of Edinburgh,
through the deputy shore-master at Leith, that every
vessel coming into the port with coals for public
sale, was to have a berth immediately on her arrival
off the Coal Hill, and that all other vessels were to
unmoor for that purpose, while no shore duties
were to be charged for coal vessels. (HeyaZd and
ChyonicZe, No. 1,215.)
The adjacent Peat Neuk, for years during the
last century and the beginning of the present,
afforded a shelter to those reckless and abandoned
characters who abound in every seaport ; while in
that portion of the town between the Coal Hill and
the foot of the Tolbooth Wynd were a number of
ancient and ruinous houses, the abode of wandering
outcasts, from whom no rent was ever derived
or expected. It was further alleged, in the early
part of the nineteenth century, to be the favourite
haunt of disembodied spirits, whose crimes or
sufferings in life compelled them to wander ; so,
every way, the Coal Hill seems to have been an
unpleasant, as it is still an unsavoury, locality.
From thence, another quarter known as the
Sheriff, or Shirra Brae, extends in a south-westerly
direction, still abounding in ancient houses. Here,
facing the Coal Hill, there stood, till 1840, a very
fine old edifice, described as having been the residence
of a Logan of Restalrig. The dormer
windows, which rose high above the eaves, were
elaborately sculptured with many dates and quaint
devices. Some of these have been preserved in
the north wall of the manse of St. Thomas?s Church.
One of them displays a shield charged with a heart,
surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, with the initials 1.L
and the date 1636 ; another has the initials I.L.,
M.C., with the date 24 Dec., 1636; a third has
the initials M.C., with a shield; while a fourth
gablet has the initials D.D., M.C., and the comparatively
recent date I 734
The supposed grandsoq of the luckless Logan
of the Gowrie conspiracy married Isabel Fowler,
daughter of Ludovic Fowler of Burncastle (says
Robertson), the famous ? Tibbie Fowler ? of
Scottish song, and here she is said to have resided ;
but her husband has been otherwise said to have
been a collateral of the ancient house of Restalrig,
as it is recorded, under date 12th June, 1572-
Majestro Joanne Logan de Shireff Braye,? who
poitpones the case of Christian Gudsonne, wife of
Andrew Burne in Leith, ?dilatit of the mutilation
of Willkm Burne, burgess of Edinburgh, of his
foremost finger be byting thereof.?
In the chartulary, says Robertson, we have also
John Logane of the Coatfield (Kirkgate), and George
Logane of Bonnington Mills is repeatedly alluded
to; ?? and we believe,? he adds, that these branches
?existed as early as the charter of King David.?
The old house at Bmnington still shows a curious
doorway, surmounted by a carefully sculptured
tablet bearing a shield, with a chevron and three
fleurs-de-lis; crest, a ship with sails furled. The
motto and date are obliterated.
. Another writer supposes that if the old house on
the Sheriff Brae was really the residence of George
Logan, it may have been acquired by marriage,
? seeing that the forfeiture of the family possessions
occurred so shortly before ; and this in itself affords
some colour to the tradition that he was the successhl
wooer of Tibbie Fowler.?
In support of this, the historian of Leith says :-
?f We think it not improbable that it was Tibbie?s
tocher that enabled Logan, who was ruined by the
attainder of 1609, to build the elegant mansion on
the Sheriff Brae. The marriage contract between
Logan and Isabella Fowler (supposed to be the
Tibbie of the song) is now in possession of a
gentleman in Leith.?](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p066.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 247")
... SH EKIFF BRAE. 247
Leith by the rebels of Mary Queen of Scots, the
Earl of Lennox opened his council in ...
Book 6 p. 247
(Score 0.25)
... 1 MARRIAGE OF MARY AND BOTHWELL. 71
dragged through the bed-room to the door of the
presence-chamber, where the ...
Book 3 p. 71
(Score 0.25)
... HALL. 319 Riccar&&l
He was at once-for some reasons known at the
time-accused of having ...
Book 6 p. 319
(Score 0.25)
![Restalrig.] CAPTAIN MACRAE.? ?39
frewshire Sketches, styles ? a Goth who committed
a most barbarous deed by demolishing the great
and splendid castle (of Houston) in 1780, and
applied the stones to the building of a new village
for lappet weavers.?
During his occupation of Marionville, his tastes
and family being gay and fashionable, the house
was the scene of constant festivities and private
theatricals, of which, many such notices appear in
the papers of the time, like the following from the
Advertiser of April, I 7 89 :-
?On Tuesday last, the tragedy of Yen12 Presmed was
performed before a genteel and select company at Mr.
Macrae?s Private Theatre at Marionville. The following
were the principal Dram&> Persane :-
Priuli . . . . Mrs. Hunter.
Pierre . . . . Captain Mackewan.
Jaffier . . , . Mr. Macrae.
Renault . . . Mr. Welwood.
Bedamar , . . Mr. Dowling.
Duke of Venice . . Mr. Justice.
Belvidera . . . Mrs. Macrae.
Mrs. Macrae and
Captain Mackewan, in particular, performed in a style ol
superior excellence.?
The play gave very great satisfaction.
Captain Macrae, in addition to being a man of
fortune, was well-connected, and was a cousin of
that good Earl of Glencairn who was the friend
and patron of Buyns, while through his mother he
was nearly related to Viscount Fermoy and the
famous Sir Boyle Roche. He was a man of a
generous and warm disposition, but possessed a
somewhat lofty and imperious sense of what he
deemed due to the position of a gentleman; and
being yet young, he was about to return to the
army when the catastrophe occurred which caused
his ruin. All allowed him to be a delightful companion,
yet liable to be transported beyond the
bounds of reason at times by trivial matters.
? Thus,? says Chambers, ? a messenger of the law
having arrested the Rev. Mr. Cunningham, a brother
of the Earl of Glencairn, far debt, as he was passing
with a party from the drawing-room to the
dining-room of Drumsheugh House, Macrae threw
the man over the stairs. He was prompted to this
act by indignation at the affront which he conceived
his cousin, as a gentleman, had received
from a common man. But soon after, when it was
represented to him that every other means of
inducing Mr. Cunningham to settle his debt had
failed, and when he learned that the messenger had
suffered severe injury, he went to him, made him a
hearty apology, and agreed to pay 300 guineas by
way of compensation.?
His wife was Maria Cecilia le Maitre, daughter of
the Baroness Nolken, wife of the Swedish ambassador.
While resident occasionally with her cousin
in Paris M.adame de la Briche, the private theatricals
they saw at her magnificent house in the
Marais led to the reproduction of them at Marionville.
There the husband and wife both took
character parts, and Sir David Kinloch and the Mr.
Justice already mentioned were among their best
male performers ; and often Mrs. Macrae herselc
The chief lady was Mrs. Carruthers, of Dormont,
in Dumfries-shire, a daughter of Paul Sandby, the
eminent artist, and founder of the English school
of water-colour painting, who died in 1809.
Marionville was quite the centre of fashionable
society ; but, manners apart-alternately stately
and rough-how strange to-day seems what was
fashionable then in Edinburgh ! the ladies with
head-dresses so enormous that at times they had to
sit on the carriage floor ; the gentlemen with bright
coloured coats, with tails that reached to their
heels, breeches so tight that to get them on or off
was a vast toil; waistcoats six inches long; large
frilled shirts and stiff cravats ; a watch in each fob,
with a bunch of seals, and wigs with great side
curls, exactly as Kay shows Macrae when in the
act of levelling a pistol.
In the visiting circle at Marionville were Sir
George Ramsay, Bart., of Banff House, and hiq
lady, whose maiden name was Eleanor Fraser, and
they and the Macraes seem to have been very intimate
and warmly attached friends, till a quarrel
arose between the two husbands about a rather
trivial cause.
On the evening of the 7th April, 1790, Captain
Macrae was handing a lady out of the box-lobby
of the old theatre, and endeavoured to get a sedan
for $er conveyance home. Seeing two chairmen
approach with one, he asked if it was disengaged,
and both replied distinctly in the affirmative.
Macrae wasabout to hand the lady into it, a footman
came forward in a violent manner, and seizing one
of the poles insisted that it was engaged for his
mistress, though the latter had gone home some
time before ; but the man, who was partly intoxicated,
knew not that she had done so.
Macrae, irritated by the valet?s manner, gave him
a rap over the knuckles with his cane, to make hini
quit his hold of the pole ; on this the valet called
him a scoundrel, and struck him on the breast.
On being struck over the head, the man became
more noisy and abusive ; Macrae proceeded to
chastise him, on which several bystanders took
part with the valet ; a general brawl seemed about
to ensue; another chair was got for the terrified
lady, and she was carried away. The details of
this brawl are given in the ? Life of Peter Bumef
?
As -](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p150.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 139")
... CAPTAIN MACRAE.? ?39
frewshire Sketches, styles ? a Goth who committed
a most barbarous deed by ...
Book 5 p. 139
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
Close was seized, and a battery erected on the
summit thereof to assail ...
Book 2 p. 278
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bmughton.
superiority of Broughton was yielded by the
Crown, partly in payment of ...
Book 3 p. 182
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
So difficult was it to induce people to build in a
spot so sequestered and far apart ...
Book 3 p. 118
(Score 0.25)
... OLD AED NEW EDINBURGH. [Hanover Street.
in yhich David Hume died the Bible Society oi
Edinburgh was many ...
Book 3 p. 162
(Score 0.25)
![Restalrig.] LHL LA31 UP THE LOGANS. I35 -_7n T I?-
,
sible eyrie, Fast Castle, there to await the orders
of Elizabeth or the other conspirators as to the disposal
of his person.
Logan?s connection with this astounding treason
remained unknown till nine years after his death,
when the correspondence between him and the
Earl of Gowrie was discovered in possession of
Sprott, a notary at Eyemouth, who had stolen
them from a man named John Bain, to whom
they had been entrusted. Sprott was executed,
and Logan?s bones were brought into court to
havea sentence passed upon them, when it was
ordained ?that the memorie?and dignitie of the
said umqle Robert Logan be extiiict and abolisheit,?
his arms riven and deleted from all books
of arms and all his goods escheated.
The poor remains of the daring old conspirator,
were then retaken to the church of St. Mary at
Leith and re-interred j and during the alterations
in that edifice, in 1847, a coffin covered with the
richest purple velvet was found in a place where
no interment had taken place for years, and the
bones in it were supposed by antiquaries to be
those of the turbulent Logan, the last laird of
Restalrig.
His lands, in part, with the patronage of South
Leith, were afterwards bestowed upon James
Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino ; but the name still
lingered in Restalrig, as in 1613 we find that
John Logan a portioner there, was fined LI,OOO
for hearing mass at the Netherbow with James of
Jerusalem.
Logan was forfeited in 1609, but his lands had
been lost to him before his death, as Nether Gogar
was purchased from him in I 596, by Andrew Logan
of Coatfield, Restalrig in 1604 by Balmerino, who
was interred, in 1612, in thevaulted mausoleum beside
the church ; ?and the English army,? says
Scotstarvit, ? on their coming to Scotland, in 1650,
expecting to have found treasures in that place,
hearing that lead coffins were there, raised up his
body and threw it on the streets, because they
could get no advantage or money, when they expected
so much.?
In 1633 Charles I. passed through, or near,
Restalrig, on his way to the Lang Gate, prior to
entering the city by the West Port.
William Nisbet of Dirleton was entailed in the
lands of Restalrig in 1725, and after the attainder
and execution of her husband, Arthur Lord Balmerino,
in I 746, his widow-Elizzbeth, daughter
of a Captain Chalmers-constantly resided in the
village, and there she died on the 5th January, 1767.
Other persons of good position dwelt in the
village in those days; among them we may note
?
Sir James Campbell of Aberuehill, many years a
Commissioner of the Customs, who died there 13th
May, 1754, and was buried in the churchyard ; and
in 1764, Lady Katharine Gordon, eldest daughter
of the Earl of Aboyne, whose demise there is
recorded in the first volume of the Edinburgh
Adverhjer.
Lord Alemoor, whose town house was in Niddry?s
Wynd, was resident at Hawkhill, where he died in
1776 ; and five years before that period the village
was the scene of great festal rejoicings, when
Patrick Macdowal of Freugh, fifth Earl of Dumfries,
was married to Miss Peggy Crawford, daughter of
Ronald Crawford, Esq., of Restalng.?
From Peter Williamson?s Directory it appears
that Restalrig was the residence, in 1784, of Alexander
Lockhart, the famous Lord Covington. In
the same year a man named James Tytler, who had
ascended in a balloon from the adjacent Comely
Gardens, had a narrow escape in this quarter. He
was a poor man, who supported himself and his
family by the use of his pen, and he conceived the
idea of going up in a balloon on the Montgolfier
principle ; but finding that he could not carry a firestove
with him, in his desperation and disappointment
he sprang into his car with no other sustaining
power than a common crate used for packing
earthenware; thus his balloon came suddenly
down in the road near Restalrig. For a wonder
Tytler was uninjured; and though he did not
reach a greater altitude than three hundred feet,
nor traverse a greater distance than half a mile, yet
his name must ever be mentioned as that of the
first Briton who ascended with a balloon, and who
was the first man who so ascended in Britain.?
It is impossible to forget that the pretty village,
latterly famous chiefly as a place for tea-gardens
and strawbemy-parties, was, in the middle of the
last century, the scene of some of the privations
of the college life of the fine old Rector Adam of
the High School, author of ?Roman Antiquities,?
and other classical works. In 1758 he lodged
there in the house of a Mr. Watson, and afterwards
with a gardener. The latter, says Adam, in some
of his MS. memoranda (quoted by Dr. Steven),
was a Seceder, a very industrious man, who had
family worship punctually morning and evening,
in which I cordially joined, and alternately said
prayers. After breakfast I went to town to attend
my classes and my private pupils. For dinner I
had three small coarse loaves called baps, which I
got for a penny-farthing. As I was now always
dressed in my best clothes, I was ashamed to buy
these from a baker in the street. I therefore went
down to a baker?s in the middle of a close. I put](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p146.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 135")
... LHL LA31 UP THE LOGANS. I35 -_7n T I?-
,
sible eyrie, Fast Castle, there to await the orders
of ...
Book 5 p. 135
(Score 0.25)
... Hospital.1 WALTER BALCANQU.-II,L. 367
Waucllop Thesauer,? is ordained ? to take down
the stonewark of ...
Book 4 p. 367
(Score 0.25)
... - OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
mode of procedure, made no resistance; and so
.active were the workmen ...
Book 3 p. 138
(Score 0.25)
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