![canongate.] ROXBURGH HOUSE. 15
~~ House, there stood in those days the mansion of
the Earls of Roxburgh, surrounded by a beautiful
As a set-off against these items, we have the following,
in 1660-1, when Argyle?s fate came :-
To Alexander Davidson for a new axe to ye
Maiden, and is to maintain it all ye days of his
life . . . . . * . . . . p 12 o
To 4 Drummers when ArgyZe and Swzjtton were
brought from Leith . . . . . 14 8 o
To 17 extra Drummers, a days, when Montrose
was buried and Argyle executed . . , 21 12 o
The marquis was interred amid great pomp in
the Church of St. Giles at the Restoration; but
when a search was made for his remains in the
Chepman aisle, in April, 1879, no trace of them
whatever could be found there.
Amid the gloom and?horror of scenes such as
these executions, and the general events of the wars
of the Covenant, all traces of gaiety, and especially
of theatrical entertainments, disappeared in Edinburgh,
as forbidden displays; but in January,. 1659,
the citizens were regaled with the sight of a travelling
dromedary, the first that had ever been in
Scotland. Nicoll describes it as ?ane heigh great
beast, callit ane dummodary, quhilk being keepit
clos in the Canongate, none had a sight of it, without
three pence the person. . . . . It was
very big, and of great height, cloven futted like
unto a kow, and on the bak ane saitt, as it were
a sadill to sit on. Thair was brocht in with it ane
lytill baboun, faced lyke unto an aip.?
In 1686 the public attendance at mass by some
of the officers of state excited a tumult in the city,
and many persons of rank were insulted on returning
therefrom by the rioters. One of these, a
journeyman baker, was, by order of the Privy
Council, whipped through the Canongate, and
ultimately the Foot Guards had to fire on the mob
that assembled.
In that year an Act of Parliament empowered
the magistrates to impose a tax of A500 sterling
yearly, for three years, to cleanse the town and
Canongate, and free both from beggars ; and in 1687
the whole members of the College of Justice voluntarily
offered to bear their full share of this tax,
and appointed two of their body to be present when
it was levied.
In 1692 we find an instance in the Canongate
of one of the many troubles which in those days
arose from corporation privileges, by which the
poor and industrious tradesman was made the
victim of monopoly.
In the open ground which now surrounds Milton
I which performs the whole journey in thirteen days,
I without any stoppage (if God permit), having eighty
Fepairs in this house, when Thomas Kinloch, Dea-
:on of the Wrights in the Canongate, came with
Jthers, and violently carried off all the tools of
Somerville and his workmen, on the plea that they
were not freemen of the burgh; and when the
tools were demanded formally, two days after,
they were withheld.
Robert, Earl of Roxburgh (who afterwards died
m his travels abroad), was then a minor, but his
curators resented the proceedings of Kinloch, and
sued him for riot and *oppression. Apparently, if
the Roxburgh mansion had been subject to the
jurisdiction of the Canongate, the Privy Council
would have given no redress ; but when the earl?s
ancestor, in 1636, had given up the superiority
of the Canongate, as he reserved his house to be
holden of the Crown, it was found that the local
corporation had no right to interfere with his
workmen, and Somerville?s tools were restored to
him by order of the Council.
Earl Robert was succeeded in this house by his
brother John, fifth Earl and first Duke of Roxburgh,
K.G., who sold his Union vote for LSOO,
became Secretary of State for Scotland in 1716,
and died in 1741.
Long ere that time the effect of the Union had
done its worst upon the old court burgh. Maitland,
writing in 1753, says :-?This place has suffered
more by the inion of the kingdoms than all the
other parts of Scotland : for having, before that
period, been the residence of the chief of the
Scottish nobility, it was thqn in a flourishing condition
; but being deserted by them, many of their
houses are fallen down, and others in a ruinous
condition ; it is in a piteous case ! ?
Five years after the Union we find a London
coach announced as starting from the Capongate,
the advertisement for which, with regard to expedition,
comfort, and economy, presents a curious contrast
to the announcements of to-day, and is worth
giving at length, as we find it in the NkwcastZe
Cau~unt of October, I 7 I 2.
? Edinburgh, Berwick, Newcastle, Durham, and
London Stage-coach begins on Monday, 13th
October, 1712. All that desire to pass from
Edinbro? to London, or from London to Edinbro?,
or any place on that road, let them repair to Mr.
John Baillie?s, at the Coach and Horses at the head
of the Canongate, every Saturday, or the Black
Swan in Holborn, every other Monday, at both of
which places they may be received in a stagexoach](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p027.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 15")
... ROXBURGH HOUSE. 15
~~ House, there stood in those days the mansion of
the Earls of Roxburgh, ...
Book 3 p. 15
(Score 0.2)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Coltbridge;.
from Inverleith Row, and a third from the narrow
lane leading to East ...
Book 5 p. 102
(Score 0.2)
... of Belhaven, the Earl Marischal, after having
opposed the Union in all its stages, refused to be
present at ...
Book 1 p. 67
(Score 0.19)
... RIT. ITO. CELIO. HADKIANO
ANTONINOA.U G. Pro. PATRIP. ATRIB.
Although the Roman military ...
Book 1 p. 10
(Score 0.19)
![Waniston.] LORD WARRISTON. 99
family, the Laird of Dunipace ; but, owing to some
alleged ill-treatment, she grew estranged from him,
and eventually her heart became filled with a
deadly hatred.
An old and attached nurse began to whisper of
a means of revenge and relief from her married
thraldom, and thus she was induced to tamper
with a young man named Robert Weir, a servant
or vassal of her father at Dunipace, to become her
instrument.
At an early hour in the morning of the 2nd of
July, Weir came to the place of Warriston, and
being admitted by the lady to the chamber of her
husband, beat him to death with his clenched fists.
He then fled, while the lady and her nurse remained
at home. Both were immediately seized,
subjected to a summary trial of some kind before
the magistrates, and sentenced to death ; the lady
to have ? her heade struck frae her bodie ? at the
Canongate Cross.
In the brief interval between sentence and execution,
this unfortunate young girl, who was only
twenty-one, was brought, by the impressive discourse
of a good and amiable clergyman, from a
state of callous indifference to a keen sense of
her crime, and also of religious resignation. Her
case was reported in a small pamphlet of the day,
entitled, ?Memorial of the Conversion of Jean
Livingston (Lady Waniston), with an account of
her carriage at her execution ?-a dark chapter of
Edinburgh social history, reprinted by Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe. ?She stated, that on Weir
assaulting her husband, she went to the hall, and
waited till the deed was done. She thought she
still heard the pitiful cries uttered by her husband
while struggling with his murderer.? She tried to
. weep, but not a tear could she shed, and could
only regard her approaching death as a just expiation
of her crime.
Deeply mortified by the latter and its consequences,
her relations used every effort to secure
as much privacy as was possible for the execution;
hence it was arranged that while her nurse
was being burned on the Castle Hill at four o?clock
in the morning, thus attracting the attention of
all who might be out of bed at that time, Lady
Waniston should be taken to the Girth Cross, at
the east end of the town, and there executed by
the Maiden.
?The whole way as she went to the place,?
says the pamphlet referred to, ? she behaved herself
so cheerfully as if she was going to her
wedding, and not to her death. When she came
to the scaffold, and was carried up upon it, she
looked up to the Maiden with two longsome looks,
for she had never seen it before.
of her, to which all that saw her will bear record,
that her only countenance moved [sic, meaning
that its expression alone was touching], although
she had not spoken a word; for there appeared
such majesty in her countenance and visage, and
such a heavenly courage in gesture, that many
said, ?That woman is gifted with a higher spirit
than any man or woman?s! ??
She read an address to the spectators at the four
corners of the scaffold, and continued to utter
expressions of devotion till the swift descent of
the axe decapitated her. Balfour, in his ?Annals,?
gives the year 1599 as the date of this tragedy.
Four years after Weir was taken, and on the
26th January, 1606, was broken on the wheel, a
punishment scarcely ever before inflicted in Scotland.
In the year 1619 Thomas Kincaid of Wamston
was returned heir to his father Patrick Kincaid of
Warriston, in a tenement in Edinburgh. This was
probably the property that was advertised in the
Couranf of 1761, as about to be sold, ?that
great stone tenement of land lying at the head of
the old Bank Close, commonly called Warriston?s
Land, south side of the Lawn Market, consisting
of three bedchambers, a dining-room, kitchen, and
garret.? There is no mention of a drawing-room,
such apartments being scarcely known in the Edinburgh
of those days.
In 1663 another proprietor of Warriston came
to a tragic end, and to him we have already referred
in our account of Waniston?s Close.
This was Sir Archibald Johnston, who was known
as Lord Warriston in his legal capacity. He wag
an advocate of 1633. In 1641 he was a Lord of
Session. He was made Lord Clerk Register by
Cromwell, who also created him a peer,under the title
of Lord Wamston, and as such he sat for a time
in the Upper House in Parliament. After the
Restoration he was forfeited, and fled, but was
brought to Edinburgh and executed at the Marke
Cross, as we have recorded in Chapter XXV. ct.
Volume I.
Wodrow, in his ?History of the Church of
Scotland,? states that Wamston?s memoirs, in his
handwriting, in the form of a diary, are still extant ;
if so, they have never seen the light. His character,
admirably drawn in terse language by his nephew,
Bishop Burnet, is thus given in the U History of his
Own Times,? Vol. 1.:-
? Waniston was my own uncle. He was a man of
great application ; could seldom sleep above three
hours in the twenty-four. He studied the law
carefully, and had a great quickness of thought,
This I may say ,
.
*](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p110.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 99")
... LORD WARRISTON. 99
family, the Laird of Dunipace ; but, owing to some
alleged ill-treatment, she grew ...
Book 5 p. 99
(Score 0.19)
![Burghmuir.] GOLF ON BRUNTSFIELD LINKS. 31
Lord High Treasurer, under James IV., the following
entries are found :-
In virtue of a bet in 1798, Mr. Scales of Leith,
and Mr. Smellie, a printer, were selected to perform
..
King , . . . . . . . ixs.
1503, Feb. 22. Item, xij Golf Balls to the King iiijs.
1506. Item, the 28th day of Julii for ij Golf Clubbes to the
King . . . . . . . ijs.
During the reign of James VI. the business of
club making had become one of some importance,
and by a letter, dated Holyrood, 4th April, 1603,
William Mayne, Bowyer, burgess of Edinburgh, is
appointed maker of bows, arrows, spears, and clubs
to the king. From thenceforward the game took a
firm hold of the people as a national pastime, and
it seems to have been a favourite one with Henry,
Duke of Rothesay, and with the great Marquis of
Montrose, as the many entries in his ?? Household
Book ? prove. ?? Even kings themselves,? says a
writer in the Sots Magazine for 1792, ?did not
decline the princely sport; and it will not be
displeasing to the Society of Edinburgh Golfers to
be informed that the two last crowned heads that
ever visited this country (Charles I. .and James
VII.) used to practise golf on the Links of Leith,
now occupied by the society for the same purpose.?
In 1744 the city gave a silver club, valued at
LIS, to be played for on the 1st of April annually
by the Edinburgh Company of Golfers, the victor
to be styled captain for the time, and to append
a gold or silver -medal to the club, bearing his
name and date of victory. The Honourable Company
was incorporated by a charter froni the
magistrates in 1800, and could boast of the most
illustrious Scotsmen of the day among its members.
Until the year 1792 St. Andrews had a species of
monopoly in the manufacture of golf balls. They
are small and hard, and of old were always stuffed
with feathers. The clubs are from three to four
feet long. ?The heads are of brass,? says Dr.
Walker, in a letter to the famous Dr. Carlyle of
Inveresk ; ?? and the face with which the ball is
struck is perfectly smooth, having no inclination,
such as might have a tendency to raise the ball
from the ground. The game may be played by
any number, either in parties against each other,
or each person for himself, and the contest is to
hole the course in the fewest strokes.?
?Far!? or ?Fore!? is the signal cry before the ball
is struck, to warn loiterers or spectators; and
?Far and Surc !? is a common motto with golf clubs.
.
the Erle of Bothwile . . . . xlijs
Feb. 4- Item to Golf? Clubbes and Ballis to the
the church. They were allowed the use of six
balls each. These? all went considerably higher
than the vane, and were found in the Advocate?s
Close, on the north side of the High Street.
Duncan Forbes, the Lord President, was so fond
of golf that he was wont to play on the sands of
Leith when the Links were covered with snow.
Kay gives us a portrait of a famous old golfer,
Andrew McKellar, known as the ?Cock o? the
Green,? in the act of striking the ball. This enthusiast
spent entire days on Bruntsfield Links,
club in hand, and was often there by night too,
playing at the ?short holes? by lantern light
Andrew died about 1813.
Bruntsfield Links and those of Musselburgh are
the favourite places yet of the Edinburgh Club ;
but the St. Andrews meetings are so numerously
attended that the old city by the sea has been
denominated the MefropoZis of golfing.
In a miscellaneous collection, entitled ? Mistura
Curiosa,? a song in praise of golf has two verses
? I love the game of golf, my boys, though there are folks in
Who, when upon the Links they walk, delight to run it
But then those folks who don?t love golf, of coursc, can?t
The fond love that exists between the golfer and his friend.
?For on the green the new command, that ye love one
Is, as a rule, kept better by a golfer than a brother;
For if he?s struck, a brother?s rage is not so soon appeased,
But the harder that Zhit my friend, the better he is pleased.?
Until the Royal Park at Holyrood was opened
up, levelled, and improved, at the suggestion of the
late Prince Consort, Bruntsfield Links was the
invariable place for garrison reviews and field days
by the troops ; but >neither they nor any one else
can interfere with the vested rights of the golfers
to play over any part of the open ground at all
times.
On the summit of the green slope now crowned
by the hideous edifice known as Gillespie?s Hospital,
a picturesque mansion of very great antiquity,
quadrangular in form, striking in outline, with its
peel-tower, turrets, crowstepped gables and gablets,
thus :-
town
down ;
comprehend
another,
1 east corner of the Parliament Square over the
weathercock of St. Giles?s, 161 feet from the base of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p042.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 31")
... GOLF ON BRUNTSFIELD LINKS. 31
Lord High Treasurer, under James IV., the following
entries are found ...
Book 5 p. 31
(Score 0.19)
... Captain Matthew, 252
Bailie, 214
Qeorge, 192
Henry L of England, 377,378
.II. of England, ...
Book 10 p. 504
(Score 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
Soon after, Mr. Ross advertised that he found
?? the general voice ...
Book 2 p. 342
(Score 0.19)
... 431
TmoBa.--The Corporation of Tailors, a more ancient fraternity, claiming, indeed, as their founder ...
Book 10 p. 470
(Score 0.19)
... THE SCOTTISH TEMPLARS. 51
ances of the order from the Master of England,
who received them from the ...
Book 3 p. 51
(Score 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket:
houses which were inhabited by this gang were
well chosen for the ...
Book 4 p. 230
(Score 0.19)
![Arlhur?s Seat.] DR. JOHN BELL 303
sity of Edinburgh that the Medical Society has
contributed much to the prosperity and reputation
of this school of physic.?
Such are still the objects of the Royal Medical
Society, which has now, however, quitted its old
hall and chambers for newer premises in 7 Melbourne
Place. Its staff consists of four presidents,
two honorary secretaries, curators of the library
and museum, with a treasurer and sub-librarian.
Many old citizens of good position had residences
in and near the High School yards and
Surgeon Square. Among these was Mr. George
Sinclair of Ulbster, who married Janet daughter of
Lord Strathmore, and who had a house of seven
rooms in the yard, which was advertised in the
Courant of 1761. His son was the eminent agriculturist,
and first baronet of the family.
In 1790 a theatre for dissections and an anatomical
museum were erected in Surgeon Square
by Dr. John Bell, the eminent anatomist, who was
born in the city on the 12th May, 1763, and who
most successfully applied the science of anatomy
to practical surgery-a profession to which, curiously
enough, he had from his birth been devoted by
his father. The latter,about a month before the
child?s birth, had-when in his 59th yea-undergone
with successapainful surgicaloperation, and his gratitude
led him tovowhe would rear his son John to the
cause of medicine for the relief of mankind ; and
after leaving the High School the boy was duly
apprenticed to Mr. Alexander Wood, surgeon, and
soon distinguished himself in chemistry, midwifery,
and surgery, and then anatomy, which had been
somewhat overlooked by Munro.
In the third year after his anatomical theatre
had been opened in the now obscure little square,
he published his ? Anatomy of the Human Body,?
consisting of a description of the action and play
of the bones, muscles, and joints. In 1797 appeared
the second volume, treating of the heart
and arteries. During a brilliant career, he devoted
himself with zeal to his profession, till in 1816 he
was thrown from his horse, receiving a shock from
which his constitution never recovered.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
AKTHUR?S SEAT AND ITS VICINITY.
The Sanctuary-Geology of the Hill-Origin of its Name, and that of the Craigs-The Park Walls, 2554-A Banquet alfrrsc6The Pestilence
-A Duel-?The Guttit Haddie?-Mutiny of the Old 78th Regiment-Proposed House on the Summit-bfuschat and his Cairn-
Radical Road Formed-May Day-Skeletons found at the Wells 0? Wearic-Park Improvements-The Hunter?s Bog-Legend of the
Hangman?s big-Duddingston-The Church-Rev. J. Thomson-Robert Monteith-The Loch-Its Sw-ans-Skatcrs--The Duddingston
Thoro-The Argyle and Abercorn FamilisThe Earl of Mob-Lady Flon. HastingsCnuvin?s Hospica-Parson?s Grecn-St.
Anlhonfs Chapel and Well-The Volunteer Renew before the Queen.
TAKING up the history of the districts of the city
in groups as we have done, we now come to Arthur?s
Seat, which is already well-nigh surrounded, especially
on the west and north, by streets and
mansions.
Towering to the height of 822 feet above the
Forth, this hill, with the Craigs of Salisbury, occupies
the greater portion of the ancient Sanctuary of
Holyrood, which included the royal park (first
enclosed and improved from a condition of natural
forest by James V. and Queen Mary), St. Anne?s
Yard and the Duke?s Walk (both now obliterated),
the Hermitage of St. Anthony, the Hunter?s Bog,
and the southern parks as far as Duddingston, a
tract of five miles in circumference, in which persons
were safe from their creditors for twenty-four
hours, after which they must take out a Protectim,
as it was called, issued by the bailie of the abbey ;
the debtors were then at liberty to go where they
pleased on Sundays, without molestation j but later
legal alterations have rendered retirement to the
Sanctuary to a certain extent unnecessary.
The recent formation of the Queen?s Drive
round the hill, and the introduction of the rifle
ranges in the valley to the north of it, have destroyed
the wonderful solitude which for ages
reigned there, even in the vicinity of a busy and
stormy capital. Prior to these changes, and in
some parts even yet, the district bore the character
which Arnot gave it when he wrote :-? Seldom are
human beings to be met in this lonely vale, or any
creature to be seen, but the sheep feeding on the
mountains, or the hawks and ravens winging their
flight among the rocks?: The aspect of the lionshaped
mountain and the outline of the craig
are known to every one. There is something certainly
grand and awful in the front of mighty slope
and broken rock and precipice, which the latter
present to the city. Greenstone, which has been
upheaved through strata surfaced with sandstone](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p123.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 303")
... Seat.] DR. JOHN BELL 303
sity of Edinburgh that the Medical Society has
contributed much to the ...
Book 4 p. 303
(Score 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
Wllliam, who had property in Broughton, after his
death, none bore even ...
Book 3 p. 50
(Score 0.19)
![Leith] THE GLASS WORKS. 2 3 9
fashion that the hamlet near Craigmillar was namec
?Little France? from the French servants o
Mary.
U In a small garden attached to one of the house:
in Little London,? says a writer, whose anecdote
we give for what it is worth, ? there was a flowerplot
which was tended with peculiar care long
after its original possessors had gone the way 01
all flesh, and it was believed that the body of a
young and beautiful female who committed suicide
was interred here. The peculiar circumstances
attending her death, and the locality made choice
of for her interment, combined to throw romantic
interest over her fate and fortunes, and
her story was handed-down from one generation
to another.?
In Bernard Street, a spacious and well-edificed
thoroughfare, was built, in 1806, the office of the
Leith Bank, a neat but small edifice, consisting of
two floors ; a handsome dome rises from the north
front, and a projection ornamented with four Ionic
columns, and having thin pilasters of the same.
decorates the building. It is now the National
Bank of Scotland Branch.
Since then, many other banking offices have been
established in the same street, including that of
the Union Bank, built in 1871 after designs by
James Simpson, having a three-storeyed front in the
Italian style, with a handsome cornice and balustrade,
and a telling-room measuring 34 feet by 32 ;
the National Bank of Scotland ; the Clydesdale
and British Linen Company?s Banks; many insurance
offices; and in No. 37 is the house of the
Leith Merchants? Club.
Bernard Street joins Baltic Street, at the southeast
corner of which is the spacious and stately
Corn Exchange, which is so ample in extent as to
be frequently used as a drill-hall by the entire
battalion of Leith Rifle Volunteers.
North of Baltic Street are the old Glass Works
The Bottle House Company, as it was named,
began to manufacture glass vessels in North Leith
in 1746, but their establishment was burnt down
during the first year of the partnership. Thus, in
1747 the new brick houses were built on the sands
of South Leith, near the present Salamander Street,
and as ~e demand for bottles increased, they
built an additional one in 1764, though, according
to Bremner, glass was manufactured in Leith so
early as 1682.
Seven cones, or furnaces, were built, but in later
years only two have been in operation. In the
year 1777 CO less -than 15,8834 cwts. were made
here in Leith, the Government duty on which
amounted to A2,779 odd ; but as there are now
many other bottle manufactories in Scotland, thetrade
is no longer confined to the old houses that.
adjoin Baltic and Salamander Streets.
A writer in the Bet, an old extinct &dinburgh,
periodical, writing in 1792, says that about thirty
years before there was only one glass company in.
Scotland, the hands working one-half the year in
Glasgow, and the other half at Leith, and adds :-
?NOW there are six glass-houses in Leith alone,.
besides many others in different parts of the
tountry. At the time I mention nothing else
than bottles of coarse green glass were made there,
and to that article the Glass House Company in
Leith confined their efforts, till about a dozen yearsagoI
when they began to make fine glass for phials.
and other articles of that nature. About four yearsago
they introduced the manufacture of crown
glass for windows, which they now make in great
perfection, and in considerable quantities. After
they began to manufacture white glass, they fzll
into the way of cutting it for ornament and engraving
upon it. In this last department they havereached
a higher degree of perfection than it hasperhaps
anywhere else ever attained. A young
man who was bred to that business, having discovered
a taste in designing, and an elegance of
execution that was very uncommon, the proprietors
of the works were at pains to give him every aid in
the art of drawing that this place can afford, and
he has exhibited some specimens of his powers in
that line that are believed to be unrivalled. It is.
but yesterday that this Glass House Company (who
are in a very flourishing state), encouraged by their
success in other respects, introduced the art of
preparing glass in imitation of gems, and of cutting
it in facets, and working it into elegant fomis for
chandeliers and other ornamental kinds of furniture.
In this department their first attempts have
been highly successful, and they have now executed
some pieces of work that they need not be ashamed
to compare with the best that can be procured
elsewhere.?
The works of the Glass House Company at
Leith were advertised as for sale in the Courani
of 1813, which stated that they were valued at
~40,000, with a valuable steam-engine of sixteen
horse power, valued at E2 1,000.
Quality Street, and the fine long thoroughfare
named Constitution Street, open into Bernard
Street. Robertson gives us a drawing of an old and
richly-moulded doorway of a tenement, in the
rorrner street, having on its lintel the initials P. P.,
E. G., and the date 1710. At the corner of Quality
Street stands St. John?s Free Church, which was
built in 1870-1, at a cost of about A7,500, and](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p058.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 239")
... THE GLASS WORKS. 2 3 9
fashion that the hamlet near Craigmillar was namec
?Little France? from the French ...
Book 6 p. 239
(Score 0.19)
... Arbuthnot, who twice held the chair in
1815, and again in 1821. He was created a
baronet by the King in ...
Book 4 p. 284
(Score 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Water of Leith
name doesnot appear in the Baronage) was Sheriff and
Provost of ...
Book 5 p. 62
(Score 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [High Street.
? arms, and took her by boat across the loch that
rippled at the foot of ...
Book 2 p. 228
(Score 0.19)
... HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ISLAND. 29T
~~~~~ ~ ~~
land harbour, was repulsed in an attempt upon
St. ...
Book 6 p. 291
(Score 0.19)
... monarchs-a new era began in its history,
and it took a stahding as the chief burgh in
Scotland, the ...
Book 1 p. 27
(Score 0.19)
... Grange.! GRANGE HOUSE. 49
?The chapel of St. Roque,? says Wilson, ?? has
not escaped the notice of the Lord ...
Book 5 p. 49
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![High Street.] THE POKER CLUB. a31
The only publication of sterling merit which enlivened
the occasion that called it forth was ?? The
History in the Proceedings of Margaret, commonly
called Peg,? written in imitation of Dr. Arbuthnot?s
?History of John Bull.? In the memoirs of Dr.
Carlyle of Inveresk an amusing account is given
of the Poker Club, of which he was a zealous and
constant attender. About the third or fourth meeting
of the club, after 1/62, he mentions that members
were at a loss for a name for it, and wished one
that should be of uncertain meaning, and not so
directly offensive as that of Militia Club, whereupon
Adam Fergusson, the eminent historian and moral
philosopher, suggested the name of Poker, which
the members understood, and which would ?be
an enigma to the public.?
It comprehended all the Ziterati of Edinburgh
and its neighbourhood, most of whom-like Robertson,
Hair, and Hume-had been members of the
select society (those only excepted who were enemies
to the Scottish militia scheme), together with a
great many country gentlemen whose national and
Jacobite proclivities led them to resent the invidious
line drawn between Scotland and England.
Sir William Pulteney Johnston was secretary of
the Poker Club, with two members, whom he was
to consult anent its publications in a laughing hour.
?? Andrew Crosbie, advocate, was appointed assassin
to the club, in case any service of that sort should
be needed ; but David Hume was named for his
assistant, so that between the plus and minus there
was no hazard of much bloodshed.?
After a time the club removed its meetings to
Fortune?s Tavern, at the Cross K$, in the Stamp
Office Close, where the dinners became so showy
and expensive that attendance began to decrease,
and new members came in ?who had no title to be
there, and were not congenial? (the common fate
of all clubs generally) ?and so by death and desertion
the Poker began to dwindle away, though
a bold attempt was made to revive it in 1787 by
some young men of talent and spirit.? When Cap.
tain James Edgar, one of the original Pokers, was
in Paris in 1773, during the flourishing time of the
club, he was asked by D?Alembert to go with him
to their club of literati, to which he replied with
something of bluntness, I? that the company 01
literati was no novelty to him, for he had a club at
Edinburgh composed, he believed, of the ablest
men in Europe. This? (adds Dr. Carlyle, whose
original MS. Lord Kames quoted) ?was no singular
opinion ; for the most enlightened foreigners
had formed the same estimate of the literary society
of Edinburgh at that time. The Princess Dashkoff,
disputing with me one day at Buxton about the
superiority of Edinburgh as a residence to most of
the cities of Europe, when I had alleged various
particulars, in which I thought we excelled, ? No,?
said she, ?but I know one article you have not
mentioned in which I must give you clearly the
precedence, which is, that of all the societies of nieii
of talent I have met with in n;y travels, yours is the
first in point of abilities.? ?
A few steps farther down the street bring us
to the entrance of the Old Stamp Office Close,
wherein was the tavern just referred to, Fortune?s,
one in the greatest vogue between 1760 and 1770.
?The gay men of the city,?? we are told, the
scholarly and the philosophical, with the common
citizens, all flocked hither; and here the Royal
Commissioner for the General Assembly held his
leve?es, and hence proceeded to church with his
co~tt!gz, then- additionally splendid fiom having ladies
walking in it in their court dresses, as well as
gentlemen.?
Thz house occupied by this famous tavern had
been in former times the residence of Alexander
ninth Earl of Eglinton, and his Countess Susanna
Kennedy of the house of Colzean, reputed the most
beautiful woman of her time.
From the magnificent but privately printed
Memorials of the hfontgomeries,? we learn many
interesting particulars of this noble couple, who
dwelt in the Old Stamp Office Close. Whether
their abode there was the same as that stated, of
which we have an inventory, in the time of ?
Hugh third Earl of Eglinton, ?at his house in
Edinburgh, 3rd March, 1563,? given in the ? Memorials,?
we have no means of determining. . Earl
Alexander was one of those patriarchal old Scottish
lords who lived to a great age. He was thrice
married, and left a progeny whose names are interspersed
throughout the pages of the Douglas
peerage. His last Countess, Susanna, was the
daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy, a sturdy old
cavalier, who made himself conspicuous in the
wars of Dundee. She was one of the co-heiresses
of David Leslie Lord Newark, the Covenanting
general whom Cromwell defeated at Dunbar.
She was six feet in height, extremely handsome,
with a brilliantly fair complexion, and a face of
? the most bewitching loveliness.? She had many
admirers, Sir John Clerk of Penicuick among
others; but her friends had always hoped she
would marry the Earl of Eglinton, though he was
more than old enough to have been her father,
and when a stray hawk, with his iordship?s name
on its bells, alighted on her shoulder as she was
one day walking in her father?s garden at Colzean.
it was deemed an infallible omen of her future.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p051.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 231")
... Street.] THE POKER CLUB. a31
The only publication of sterling merit which enlivened
the occasion that called ...
Book 2 p. 231
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... New Haileal LORI) HAILES.
made condemnation seem just as the doom of
Providence to the criminals themselves, ...
Book 6 p. 367
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
Watt and Downie, they were brought to trial respectively
in August and ...
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![Univmity,] THE MUSEUMS. 27
brated cavalier-poet, bequeathed his entire library
to the University, and the gift is deemed a valuable
one, from the rare specimens of our early literature
which enriches the collection. Among the chief
donors whose gifts are extensive and valuable
may be named Principal Adamson, Dr. Robert
Johnston, the Rev. James Nairne of Wemyss, Dr.
John Stevenson, who held the chair of Logic and
Metaphysics from 1730 till 1774, Dr. William
Thomson, Professor of Anatomy at Oxford ; and
in 1872 the library received a very valuable
donation from J. 0. Halliwell, the eminent Shaksperian
critic, a collection of works relating to
Shakspere, and formed by him at great cost.
The average collection of the university extends
to about 150,000 volumes, and 700 volumes of
MSS. The university possesses above seventy
valuable portraits and busts of ancient and modern
alumni, most of which are kept in the Senate Hall
and librar).. The latter possesses a fine copy of
Fordun?s Sotichronicon (on vellum) in folio, from
which Goodall?s edition of 1775 was printed.
The Museum of Natural History was established
in 1812, in connection Kith the university, and
contains a most valuable zoological, geological,
and mineralogical collection, the greater portion of
which was formed by the exertions of Professor
Robert Jamieson, who was fifty years Professor of
Natural History (from 1804 to 1854) and Regius
keeper of the museum. In 1854 it was transferred
by the Town Council (at that time patrons of the
university) to Government, under whose control it
has since remained. The whole of the collections
have been now removed to the Natural History
department of the adjoining museum of Science
and Art ; but are available for the educational purposes
of the university, and are freely accessible to
the students of the natural history class.
The Anatomical Museum was founded in 1800
by Dr. Alexander Monro secz~~zdus, who presented
his own anatomical collection and that of his
father to the University, ? to be used by his future
successors in office, for the purpose of demonstrating
and explaining the structure, physiology,
and diseases of the human body.?
In 1859 Sir David Monro, M.D., presented a
considerable collection of anatomical preparations,
formed by his talented father, Dr. Alexander
Monro teyfiw. Many valuable additions have been
made since then ; among them, some by the late
John Goodsir, Professor of Anatomy, 1846-1867,
more especially iii the comparative department ;
and since his death the Senatus purchased from his
representatives his private museum and added it
to the collection, which now contains many thousand
specimens illustrative of human anatomy,
both normal and pathological, and of comparative
anatomy.
There are minor museums in connection with
the classes of natural philosophy, midwifery, materia
medica and botany, and one was recently constructed
by Professor Geikie for the use of the
geological class.
In October, 1881, nearly the whole of the great
anatomical collection referred to here, including
the skeletons of the infamous Burke and one of
his victims known as ?? Daft Jamie,? was removed
from the old to the new University buildings at
huriston.
REFERENCES TO THE PLAN ON PAGE 21.
A, Entrance ; B E, Passages ; c c, Stairs to Divinity Class and Janitors?
Houses ; D D, Porters? Lodges ; E, Faculty Room or Senatus Academicus
; F, Professor?s House ; c, Principal?s House ; H, Professo<s How :
J, Professor?s House : K, Chemistry Class: L, Preparation Room:
H, Professor of Chemistry?s House; N, Stairs to Gallery and Upper
Preparation Room of Chemistry Class ; 0, Royal Society ; P, Lobby to
Royal Society : Q, Camage-way to Great Court : R, Arcades for footpassengers
: s s s s, Corridors of Communication : T T, Lobby and
Class for Practice of Physick : U, Civil Law Class Room ; w, Preparation
Room or Anatomical Museum; xx, Anatomical Theatre and
Lobby ; Y Y U, Painting Rooms and private m m : z, Great Hall for
Graduations, Lc., with Loggia and two staircases to the Galleries above;
a, Class for the Theory of Physick ; b, Mathematical Class, Professor?s
Room, Instrument Room, Lobby, &c. ; c, Universal History and Antiquity
Class, with the Professor?s Room: d, Class and Lobby for the
Professor of Humanity ; e, Museum for Natural History ; f, Class for
Natural History ; g, Guard Hall and Lobby : h, Librarian?s House ;
i, Professor?s How; k, Profe.swr df Divinity?s House. The Houses
marked F, H, J, and i arc to be possessed by the Professors of Humanity,
Greek, Hebrew, and Mathematics
CHAPTER 111.
THE DISTRICT OF THE BURGHMUIR.
The Muster by James 111.-Burghmuir feued by James lV.-Muster before Flodden-Relics thereof-The Pest-The Skirmish of Lowsie Low-
A Duel in 17zz-Valleyfield House and Leven Lodge-Barclay Free Church-Bruntsfield Links and the Golf Clubs.
THE tract of the Burghmuir, of which the name
alone remains, and which extended from the water
of the South loch on the north, to the foot of the
almost unchanged Braid Hills on the south ; from
Dalry on the west, to St. Leonard?s Craigs on the
east, formed no inconsiderable portion of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p038.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 27")
