• The Esplanade or Castle Hill • Castle Banks • The Celtic Crosses • The Secret Passage and Well-house Tower • The Reservoir • The House of Allan Ramsay • Executions for Treason, Sorcery • The Master of Forbes • Lady Jane Douglas • Castle Hill Promenade • Question as to the Proprietary of the Esplanade and Castle Hill •

THE Castle Hill," says Dr. Chambers, " is partly an esplanade, serving as a parade ground for the garrison, and partly a street, the upper portion of that vertebral link which, under the names of Lawnmarket, High Street, and Canongate, extends to Holyrood Palace ;" but it is with the Esplanade and banks we have chiefly to deal at present.

Those who now see the Esplanade, a peace-ful open space, 510 feet in length by 300 in breadth, with the squads of Highland soldiers at drill, or the green bank that slopes away to the north, covered with beautiful timber, swarm-ing in summer with lit-tle ones in care of their nurses, can scarcely realise that thereon stood the ancient Spur, before which so many men have perished sword in hand, and that it was the arena of so many revolting executions by the axe and for treason, heresy, and sorcery.

It lay in a rough state till 1753 when the earth taken from the foundations of the Royal Exchange was spread over it, and the broad flight of forty steps which gave access to the drawbridge was buried. The present ravelin before the half-moon was built in 1723; but alterations in the level must have taken place prior to that, to judge from" Archeeologia Scotica," which contains an " Elegie on the great and famous Blew Stone which lay on the Castle Hill, and was interred there." On this relic, probably a boulder a string of verses form the doggerel elegy :-

" Our old Blew Stone, that's dead and gone,
His marrow may not be;
Large, twenty feet in length he was,
His bulk none e'er did ken;
Dour and dief, and run with grief,
When he preserved men
Behind his back a batterie was,
Contrived with packs of woo,
Let's now think on, sin he is gone
We're in the Castle's view."

The woolpacks evidently refer to the siege of 1689.
The Esplanade was improved in 1816 by parapet and railing on the north, and a few years after by a low wall on the south, strengthened by alternate towers and turrets. A bronze statue of the Duke of York and Albany, KG., holding his marshal's baton, was erected on the north side in 1839~ and a little lower down are two Celtic memorial crosses of remarkable beauty. The larger and more ornate of them was erected in 1862 by the officers and soldiers of the 78th Ross-shire Highlanders, to the memory of their comrades who fell during the revolt in India in 1857-8; and the smaller cross was raised, " In memory of Colonel Kenneth Douglas Mackenzie, C.B. who served for forty-two years in the 92nd Highlanders--who saw much of service in the field, and deserved well of his country in war and in peace. . . . Died on duty at Dartmoor, 24h August, 1873."

On the green bank behind the duke's statue is a very curious monumental stone, which, however, can scarcely be deemed a local antiquity--though of vast age. It was brought from the coast of Sweden by Sir Alexander Seton, of Preston, many years ago. On it is engraved a serpent encircling a cross, and on the body of the former is an inscription in runes, signifying--

ARI ENGRAVED THIS STONE IN MEMORY
O F H IALM H I S FATHER.
GOD HELP HIS SOUL !

Two relics of great antiquity remain on this side of the Castle bank-a fragment of the secret passage, and the ruins of the Well-house tower, which, in 1450, and for long after, guarded the pathway that led under the rock to the church of St. Cuthbert. Within the upper and lower portion of this tower, a stair, hewn in the living rock, was found a few years ago, buried under a mass of rubbish, among which was a human skull, shattered by concussion on a step.

Many human bones lay near it, with various coins, chiefly of Edward I. and Edward III. ; others were Scottish and foreign. Many fragments of exploded bombs were found among the upper layer of rubbish, and in a breach of the tower was found imbedded a 48-pound shot. At certain seasons, woodcock, snipe, and water-ducks are seen hovering near the ruins, attracted by the dampness of the soil, where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet eastward of the tower there was found in the bank, in 1820, a large coffin of thick fir containing three skeletons, a male and two females, supposed to be those of a man named Sinclair and his two sisters, who were all drowned in the loch in 1628 for a horrible crime.

Eastward of this tower of the 15th century are the remains of a long, low archway, walled with rubble, but arched with well-hewn stones, popularly known as " the lion's den," and which has evidently formed a portion of that secret escape or covered way from the Castle (which no Scottish fortress was ever without), the tradition concerning which is of general and very ancient belief; and this idea has been still further strengthened by the remains of a similar subterranean passage being found below Brown's Close, on the Castle Hill. At the highest part of the latter stood the ancient barrier gate of 1450, separating the fortress from the city. This gate was temporarily replaced on the occasion of the visit of George IV. in 1822, and by an iron chevaux de frise--to isolate the 82nd Regiment and garrison generally--during the prevalence of Asiatic cholera, ten years subsequently.

There stood on the north side of the Castle Hill an ancient church, some vestiges of which were visible in Maitland's time, in 1753, and which he supposed to have been dedicated to St. Andrew the patron of Scotland, and which he had seen referred to in a deed of gift of twenty merks yearly, Scottish money, to the Trinity altar therein, by Alexander Curor, vicar of Livingstone, 20th December, 1488. In June, 1754~ when some workmen were levelling this portion of the Castle Hill, they discovered a subterranean chamber fourteen feet square, wherein lay a crowned image of the Virgin, hewn of very white stone, two brass altar candlesticks, some trinkets, and a few ancient Scottish and French coins.

By several remains of burnt matter and two large cannon balls being also found there, this edifice was supposed to have been demolished during some of the sieges undergone by the Castle since the invention of artillery. And in December, 1849 when the Castle Hill was being excavated for the new reservoir, several finely-carved stones were found in what was understood to be the foundation of this chapel or of Christ's Church, which was commenced there in 1637, and had actually proceeded so far that Gordon of Rothiemay shows it in his map with a high-pointed spire, but it was abandoned, and its materials used in the erection of the present church at the Tron. Under all this were found those pre-historic human remains referred to in our first chapter.

This was the site of the ancient water-house. It was not until 1621 that the citizens discovered the necessity for a regular supply of water beyond that which the public wells with their water-carriers afforded. It cannot be supposed that the stagnant fluid of the north and south lochs could be fit for general use, yet, in 1583 and 1598, it was proposed to supply the city from the latter. Eleven years after the date above mentioned, Peter Brusche, a German engineer, contracted to supply the city with water from the lands of Comiston, in a leaden pipe of three inches' bore, for a gratuity of £50. By the year 1704 the increase of population rendered an addi-tional supply from Liberton and the Pentland Hills necessary. As years passed on the old water-house proved quite inadequate to the wants of the city. It was removed in 1849 and in its place now stands the great reservoir, by which old and new Edinburgh are alike supplied with water unexampled in purity and drawn chiefly from an artificial lake in the Pentlands, nearly seven miles distant.

On the outside it is only one storey in height, with a tower of 40 feet high; but within it has an area 110 feet long, 90 broad, and 30 deep, containing two millions of gallons of water, which can be distributed through the entire city at the rate of 5,000 gallons per minute, Apart from the city, embosomed among trees-- and though lower down than this reservoir, yet perched high in air--upon the northern bank of the Esplanade, stands the little octagonal villa of Allan Ramsay, from the windows of which the poet would enjoy an extensive view of all the fields, farms, and tiny hamlets that lay beyond the loch below, with the vast panorama beyond--the Firth of Forth, with the hills of Fife and Stirling. " The sober and industrious life of this exception to the race of poets having resulted in a small competency, he built this oddly-shaped house in his latter days, designing to enjoy in it the Horatian quiet he had so often eulogised in his verse.

The story goes," says Chambers in his " Traditions," " that, showing it soon after to the clever Patrick Lord Elibank, with much fussy interest in its externals and accom-modation, he remarked that the wags were already at work on the subject--they likened it to a goose -pie ( owing to the roundness of the shape). "Indeed, Allan," said his lordship, "now I see you in it I think the wags are not far wrong"

Ramsay, the author of the most perfect pastoral poem in the whole scope of British literature, and a song writer of great merit, was secretly a Jacobite, though a regular attendant in St. Giles's Church. Opposed to the morose manners of his time, he delighted in music and the theatre, and it was his own advanced taste and spirit that led him, in 1725 to open a circulating library for the diffusion of fiction among the citizens of the time. Three years subsequently, in the narrow-minded spirit of "the dark age" of Edinburgh the magistrates were moved to action, by the fear this new kind of reading might have on the minds of youth, and actually tried, but without effect, to put his library down. Among the leaders of these self- constituted guardians of morality was Erskine Lord Grange, whose life was a scandal to the age. In 1736 Allan Ramsay's passion for the drama prompted him to erect a theatre in Carubber's Close; but in the ensuing year the act for licensing the stage was passed, and the magistrates ordered the house to be shut up. By this speculation he lost a good deal of money, but it is remarked by his biographers that this was perhaps the only unfortunate project in which he ever engaged.

His constant cheerful-ness and great conversational powers made him a favourite with all classes; and being fond of children he encouraged his three daughters to bring troops of young girls about his house, and in their sports he mingled with a vivacity singular in one of his years, and for them he was wont to make dolls and cradles with his own hands. In that house on the Castle bank he spent the last twelve years of a blameless life. He did not give up his shop--long the resort of all the wits of Edinburgh, the Hamiltons of Bangour, and Gilbert-field, Gay, and others--till 1755.

He died in 1757~ in his seventy-second year, and was buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where a tomb marks his grave. " an elderly female told a friend of mine," says Chambers, " that she remembered, as a girl, living as an apprentice with a milliner in the Grassmarket, being sent to Ramsay Garden, to assist in making dead-clothes for the poet. She could recall, however, no particulars of the same, but the roses blooming in the death-chamber."

The house of the poet passed to his son, Allan , an eminent portrait painter, a man of high culture, and a favourite in those circles wherein Johnson and Boswell moved. He inherited a considerable literary taste from his father, and was the founder of the " Select Society" of Edinburgh, in 1754 of which all the learned men there were members. By the interest of Lord Bute he was introduced to George III., when Prince of Wales, whose portrait he painted. He enlarged the house his father built, and also raised the additional large edifices to the eastward, now known as Ramsay Garden.

The biographers of the painter always assert that he made a romantic marriage. In his youth, when teaching drawing to the daughters of Sir Alexander Lindesay, of Evelick, one of them fell in love with him, and as the consent of the parents was impossible then, they were secretly united in wedlock. He died at Dover in 1784 after which the property went to his son, General John Ramsay (latterly of the Chasseurs Brittaniques), who at his death-in 1845~ left the property to Murray of Hen-derland, and so ended the line of the author of " The Gentle Shepherd.''

Having thus described the locality of the Espla-nade, we shall now relate a few of the terrible episodes--apart from war and tumult of which it has been the scene.

In the reign of James V the Master of Forbes was executed here for treason. He and his father had been warded in the Castle on that charge in 1536 By George Earl of Huntly, who bore a bitter animosity to the house of :Forbes, the former had been accused of a design to take the life of the king, by shooting him with a hand-gun in Aberdeen, and also of being the chief instigator of the mutiny among the Scottish forces at Jed-burgh, when on the march for England. Pro-testing his innocence, the Master boldly offered to maintain it in single combat against the earl, who gave a bond for 30,000 merks to make good his charge before the 31st of July, 1537. But it was not until the 11th of the same month in the fol-lowing year that the Master was brought to trial, before Argyle, the Lord Justice General, and Huntly failed not to make good his vaunt.

Though the charges were barely proved, and the witnesses were far from exceptionable, the luckless Master of Forbes was sentenced by the Com-missioners of Justiciary and fifteen other men of high rank to be hanged, drawn, beheaded, and dis-membered as a traitor, on the Castle Hill, which was accordingly done, and his quarters were placed above the city gates. The judges are supposed to have been bribed by Huntly, and many of the jury, though of noble birth, were his hereditary enemies. His father, after a long confinement, and under-going a tedious investigation, was released from the Castle
.
But a more terrible execution was soon to follow --that of Lady Jane Douglas, the young and beau-tiful widow of John Lord Glammis, who, with her second husband, Archibald Campbell of Skipness her son the little Lord Glammis, and John Lyoln an aged priest, were all committed prisoners to the Castle, on an absurd charge of seeking to compass the death of the king by poison and sorcery. "Jane Douglas," says a writer in "Miscellanea Scotica," " was the most renowned beauty in Britain at that time. She was of ordinary stature, but her mien was majestic; her eyes full, her face oval, her complexion delicate and extremely fair; heaven designed that her mind should want none of those perfections a mortal creature can be capable of; her modesty was admirable, her courage above what could be expccted from her sex, her judgement solid, and her carriage winning and affable to her inferiors."

One of the most ardent of her suitors, on the death of Glammis, was a man named William Lyon, who, on her preferring Campbell of Skipness, vowed by a terrible oath to dedicate his life to revenge. He thus accused Lady Jane and the three others named, and though their friends were inclined to scoff at the idea of treason, the artful addition of " sorcery " was suited to the growing superstition of the age, and steeled against them the hearts of many.

Examined on the rack, before the newly-constituted Court of Justiciary, extremity of agony compelled them to assent to whatever was asked, they were thus condemned by their own lips. Lady Jane was sentenced to perish at the stake on the Castle Hill. Her son, her husband, and old friar were all replaced in David's Tower, w ere the first remained a prisoner till 1542.

Mercy was implored in vain, and on the 17th July--three days after the execution of the Master of Forbes--the beautiful and unfortunate Lady Jane was led from the Castle gates and chained to a stake. " Barrels tarred, and faggots oiled, piled around her, and she was burned to ashes within view of her son and husband, who beheld the terrible scene from the tower that overlooked it."

On the following night Campbell, frenzied by grief and despair, attempted to escape, but fell over the rocks, and was found next morning dashed out of all human shape at the foot of the cliff. James V was struck with remorse on hearing all this terrible story. He released the friar; but, singular to say William Lyon was merely banished the kingdom while a man named Mackie, by whom the alleged poison was said to be prepared, was shorn of his ears.

On the last day of February, 1539, Thomas Forret, Vicar of Dollar, John Keillor and John Beveridge, two black-friars, Duncan Simpson priest, and a gentleman named Robert Forrester were all burned together on the Castle Hill on a charge of heresy; and it is melancholy to know that a king so good and so humane as James V. was a spectator of this inhuman persecution for religion and that he came all the way from Linlithgow Palace to witness it, whither he returned on the 2nd of March. It is probable that he viewed it from the Castle walls.

Again and again has the same place been the scene of those revolting executions for sorcery which disgraced the legal annals of Scotland. There, in 1570, Bessie Dunlop " was worried " at the stake for simply practising as a "wise woman'' ill curing diseases and recovering stolen goods. Several others perished in 1590-1; among others, Luphemie M'Calzean, for consorting with the devil, abjuring her baptism, making waxen pictures to be enchanted, raising a storm to drown Anne of Denmark on her way to Scotland, and so forth. In 1600 Isabel Young was "woryt at a stake" for laying sickness on various persons, " and thereafter burnt to ashes on the Castle Hill.

Eight years after, James Red, a noted sorcerer, perished in the same place, charged with prac-tising healing by the black art, " whilk craft," says one authority, " he learned frae the devil, his master, in Binnie Craigs and Corstorphine, where he met with him and consulted with him divers tymes, whiles in the likeness of a man, whiles in the likeness of a horse." Moreover, he had tried to destroy the crops of David Liberton by putting a piece of enchanted flesh under his mill door, and to destroy David bodily by making a picture of him in wax and melting it before a fire, an ancient superstition--common to the Western Isles and in some parts of Rajpootana to this day.

So great was the horror these crimes excited, that he was taken direct from the court to the stake. During the ten years of the Commonwealth executions on this spot occurred with appalling frequency.* On the 15th October, 1656, seven culprits were executed at once, two of whom were burned; and on the 9th March, 1659, there were says Nicoll, "fyve wemen, witches, brint on the Castell Hill, all of them confessand their covenanting with Satan, sum of thame renunceand thair baptisme, and all of them oft tymes dancing wit the devell."

During the reign of Charles I., when the Earl Stirling obtained permission to colonise Nova Scotia, and to sell baronetcies to some 200 supposed colonists, with power of pit and gallows over their lands, the difficulty of enfeoffing them in possessions so distant was overcome by a royal mandate, converting the soil of the Castle Hill for the time being into that of Nova Scotia; and between 1625 and 1649 sixty-four of these baronets took seisin before the archway of the Spur.

When the latter ·was fairly removed the hill became the favourite promenade of the citizens and in June, 1709, we find it acknowledged by the town council, that the Lord's Day " is profaned by people standing in the streets, and vaguing (sic) to fields, gardens, and the Castle Hill." Denounce all these as they might, human nature never could be altogether kept off the Castle Hill ; and in old times even the most respectable people promenaded there in multitudes between morning and evening service. In the old song entitled "The Young Laird and Edinburgh Katie," to which Allan Ramsay added some verses, the former addresses his mistress:-

" Wat ye wha I met yestreen,
Coming doon the street, my jo ?
My,mistress in her tartan screen,
Fu, bonny, braw, and sweet, my jo !
My dear,' quo I, ' thanks to the night,
That never wished a lover ill,
Since ye're out o' your mother's sight,
Let's tak' a walk up to the Hill

In 1858 there ensued a dispute between the magistrates of Edinburgh and the Crown as to the proprietary of the Castle Hill and Esplanade. The former asserted their right to the whole ground claimed by the board of ordnance, acknowledging no other boundary to the possessions of the former than the ramparts of the Castle. This extensive claim they made in virtue of the rights conferred upon them by the golden charter of James VI in 1603, wherein they were gifted with "all and whole, the loch called the North Loch, lands pools, and marisches thereof, the north and south banks and braes situated on the west of the burgh near the Castle of Edinburgh, on both sides of the Castle from the public highway, and that part of the said burgh situated under the Castle Hill towards the north, to the head of the bank, and so going down to the said North Loch," &c.
This right of proprietary seems clear enough yet Lord Neaves decided in favour of the Crown and found that "all the ground adjacent to the Castle of Edinburgh, including the Esplanade and the north and south banks or braes," belonged, "jure coronoe, to Her Majesty as part and pertinent of the said Castle."

• Dr, Guthrie's Original Ragged School • Old Houses in the Street of the Castle Hill • Duke of Gordon's House • Blairs Close--Webster's Close • Dr. Alex. Webster • Boswell's Court • Hyndford House • Assembly Hall • Houses of the Marquis of Argyle • Sir Andrew Kennedy • the Earl of Cassillis • the Laird of Cockpen • Lord Semple's House • Lord Semple Palace of Mary of Guise •

Its Fate, On the north side of this thoroughfare-which, within 150 years ago, was one of the most aristocratic quarters of the old city--two great breaches have been made: one when the Free Church College was built in 1846 and the other, a little later, when Short's Observatory was built in Ramsay Lane, together with the Original Ragged School, which owes its existence to the philan-thropic efforts of the late Dr. Guthrie, who, with Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, took so leading a part in the non-intrusion controversy, which ended in the disruption in 1843 and the institution of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1847 Guthrie's fervent and heart-stirring appeals on behalf of the homeless and destitute children, the little street Arabs of the Scottish capital, led to the establishment of the Edinburgh Original Ragged Industrial School, which has been productive of incalculable benefit to the children of the poorer classes of the city, by affording them the blessing of a good common and Christian education, by train-ing them in habits of industry, enabling them to earn an honest livelihood, and fitting them for the duties of life.

All children are excluded who attend regular day-schools, whose parents have a regular income, or who receive support or education from the paro-chial board; and the Association consists of all sub-scribers of 10s. and upwards per annum, or donors of £5 and upwards; and the general plan upon which this ragged school and its branch establish-ment at Leith Walk, are conducted is as follows, viz:--" To give children an adequate allowance of food for their daily support; to instruct them in reading, writing, and arithmetic; to train them in habits of industry, by instructing and employing them in such sorts of work as are suited to their years; to teach them the truths of the Gospel, making the Holy Scriptures the groundwork of instruction. On Sabbath the children shall receive food as on other days, and such religious instruction as shall be arranged by the acting committee," which Consists of not less than twelve members.

To this most excellent institution no children are admissible who are above fourteen or under five years of age, and they must either be natives of Edinburgh or resident there at least twelve months prior to application for admission, though, in special cases, it may be limited to six None are admitted or retained who labour under infectious disease, or whose mental or bodily constitution renders them incapable of profiting by the institution All must attend church on Sunday, and no formula or doctrine is taught to which their parents may object; and children are excused from attendance at school or worship on Sunday whose parents object to their attendance, but who undertake that the children are otherwise religiously instructed in the tenets of the communion to which they belong, provided they are in a condition to be entrusted with the care of their children.

Such were the broad, generous, and liberal views of Dr Guthrie, and most ably have they been carried out
According to the Report for 1879--which may be taken as fairly typical of the work done in this eminently useful institution--there was an average attendance in the Ramsay Lane Schools of 216 boys and 89 girls. The Industrial Department comprises carpentry, box-making, shoemaking, and tailoring, and the net profits made by the boys in these branches amounted to £182 14s. 5d Besides this the boys do all the washing, help the cook, make their beds, and wash the rooms they occupy twice a week. The washing done by boys was estimated at £130, and the girls, equally industrious, did work to the value (including the washing) of £I09 7s

Full of years and honour, Dr. Thomas Guthrie died 24th February, 1873.
Memories of these old houses that have passed away, yet remain, while on the opposite side of the street some are unchanged in external aspect since the days of the Stuarts.

On the pediment of a dormer window of the house that now forms the south-west angle of the street, directly facing the Castle, and overlooking the steep flight of steps that descend to Johnston Terrace, we find a date 1630, with the initials A. M.--M. II., and in the wall below there still remains a cannon ball, fired from the half-moon during the blockade in 1745. Through this build-ing there is a narrow alley named Blair's Close--so narrow indeed, that amid the brightest sunshine there is never in it more than twilight--giving access to an open court, at the first angle of which is a handsome Gothic doorway, surmounted by an ogee arch, within which, is a large coronet, supported by two deerhounds, well known features in the Gordon arms. Local tradition universally affirms this mansion to have been the residence of the duke of that title, which was bestowed on the house of Huntly in 1684 ; but the edifice in question evidently belongs to an anterior age; and the old tradition was proved to be correct, when in a disposition (now in possession of the City Improvement Commission) by Sir Robert Baird to his son William, dated 1694, he describes it as "all and hail, that my lodging in the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, formerly possessed by the Duchess of Gordon."

The latter was Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk and wife of Duke George, who so gallantly defended the Castle against the troops of William of Orange; during the lifetime of the duke she retired to a Belgian convent, but afterwards returned to the old mansion in Edinburgh, where she frequently resided till her death, which took place at the abbey in 1732, sixteen years after that of the duke at Leith. The internal fittings of the mansion are in many respects unchanged since its occupation by the duchess. It is wood-panelled throughout, and one large room which overlooks the Esplanade is decorated with elaborate carvings, and with a large painting over the mantelpiece the production of Norrie, a famous house-decorator of the eighteenth century, whose genius for landscapes entitles him to a place among Scottish painters. An explosion of gunpowder which took place in the basement of the house in 1811, attended with serious loss of life, destroyed utterly the ancient Gothic fireplace, which was very beautiful in its design.

His house is mentioned in the " Diurnal of Occurrents" as being, in 1570~ the residence of Patrick Edgar; and after it passed from the Gor-dons it was possessed by the family of Newbyth, who resided in it for several generations, and therein, on the 6th December, 1757, was born the gallant Sir David Baird, Bart., the hero of Seringapatam and conqueror of Tippoo Saib; and therein he was educated and brought up. Re-turning years after, he visited the place of his birth, which had long since passed into other hands. Chambers relates that the individual then occupy-ing the house received the veteran hero with great respect, and, after showing him through it, ushered him into the little garden behind, where some boys were engaged in mischievously throwing cabbage stalks at the chimneys of the Grassmarket.

On going plump down a vent they set up a shout of joy. Sir David laughed, and entreated the father of the lads 'not to be too angry; he and his brothers" he added with some emotion, "when living here at the same age, had indulged in pre-cisely the same amusement, the chimneys then, as now, being so provokingly open to attacks, that there was no resisting the temptation." From the Bairds of Newbyth the house passed to the Browns of Greenbank, and from them, Brown's Close, where the modern entrance to it is situated, derives its name.

On the same side of the street Webster's Close served to indicate the site of the house of Dr. Alexander Webster, appointed in 1737 to the Tolbooth church. In his day one of the most popular men in the city, he was celebrated for his wit and social qualities, and amusing stories are still told of his fondness for claret. With the assistance of Dr.Wallace he matured his favourite scheme of a perpetual fund for the relief of widows and children of the clergy of the Scottish Church; and when, in 1745 Edinburgh was in possession of the Jacobite clans, he displayed a striking proof of his fearless character by employ-ing all his eloquence and influence to retain the people in their loyalty to the house of Hanover. He had some pretension to the character of a poet, and an amatory piece of his has been said to rival the effusions of Catullus. It was written in allu-sion to his marriage with Mary Erskine. There is one wonderfully impassioned verse, in which, after describing a process of the imagination, by which he comes to think his inamorata a creature of more than mortal purity, he says that at length he clasps her to his bosom and discovers that she is but a woman after all !

" When I see thee, I love thee, but hearing adore,
I wonder and think you a woman no more,
Till mad with admiring,, I cannot contain,
And, kissing those lips, find you woman again ! "

He died in January, 1784.
Eastward of this point stands a very handsome old tenement of great size and breadth, presenting a front of polished ashlar to the street, surmounted by dormer windows. Over the main entrance to Boswell's Court (so named from a doctor who resided there about the close of the last century) there is a shield, and one of those pious legends so peculiar to most old houses in Scottish burghs. O . LORD . 1N . THE. . IS . AL . Ml . TRAIST. And this edifice uncorroborated tradition asserts to have been the mansion of the Earls of Bothwell.

A tall narrow tenement immediately to the west of the Assembly Hall forms the last ancient build-ing on the south side of the street. It was built in 1740 by Mowbray of Castlewan, on the site of a venerable mansion belonging to the Countess Dowager of Hyndford (Elizabeth daughter of John Earl of Lauderdale), and from him it passed, about 1747, into the possession of William Earl of Dumfries, who served in the Scots Greys and Scots Guards, who was an aide de camp at the battle of Dettingen, and who succeeded his mother, Penelope, countess in her own right, and afterwards, by the death of his brother, as Earl of Stair. He was suc-ceeded in it by his widow, who, within exactly a year and day, of his death, married the Hon. Alexander Gordon (son of the Earl of Aberdeen), who, on his appointment to the bench in 1784 assumed the title of Lord Rockville.

He was the last man of rank who inhabited this stately old mansion; but the narrow alley which gives access to the court behind bore the name of Rockville Close. Within it, and towards the west there towered a tall substantial edifice once the residence of the Countess of Hyndford, and sold by her, in 1740, to Henry Bothwell of Glen-corse, last Lord Holyroodhouse, who died at his mansion in the Canongate in 1755.

The corner of the street is now terminated by, the magnificent hall built in 1842-4, at the cost of £16, for the accommodation of the General Assembly, which sits here annually in May, pre-sided over by a Commissioner, who is always a Scottish nobleman, and resides in Holyrood Palace, where he holds royal state, and gives levées in the gallery of the kings of Scotland. The octagonal spire which surmounts the massive Gothic tower at the main entrance rises to an altitude of 240 feet, and forms a point in all views of the city.

Many quaint closes and picturesque old houses were swept away to give place to this edifice, and to the hideous western approach, which weakened the strength and destroyed the amenity of the Castle in that quarter. Among these, in Ross's Court, stood the house of the great Marquis of Argyle, which, in the days of Creech, was rented by a hosier at £12 per annum. In another, named Kennedy's Close--latterly a mean and squalid alley --there resided, until almost recent times, a son of Sir Andrew Kennedy of Clowburn, Bart., whose title is now extinct; and the front tenement was alleged to have been the town residence of those proud and fiery Earls of Cassillis, the " kings of Carrick," whose family name was Kennedy, and whose swords were seldom in the scabbard. Here, too, stood a curious old timber-fronted " land," said to have been a nonjurant Episcopal chapel, in which was a beautifully sculptured Gothic niche with a cusped canopy, and which Wilson supposes to have been one of the private oratories that Arnot states to have been existing in his time, and in which the baptismal fonts were then remaining.

On the north side of the street, most quaint was the group of buildings partly demolished to make way for Short's Observatory. One was dated 1621; another was very lofty, with two crow stepped gables and four elaborate string mouldings on a smooth ashlar front. The first of these, which stood at the corner of Ramsay Lane, and had some very ornate windows, was universally alleged to be the town residence of that personage so famous in Scottish song, the Laird of Cockpen, whose family name was Ramsay (being a branch of the noble family of Dalhousie) and from whom some affirm the lane to have been called, long before the days of the poet. By an advertisement in the Edinburgh Courant for January, 1761, we find that Lady Cockpen was then resident in a house " in the Bell Close," the north side of the Castle Hill, the rental of which was £14 1Os.
The last noble occupants of the old mansion were two aged ladies, daughters of the Lord Gray of Kinfauns.

The house adjoining bore the date as mentioned, 1621; and the one below it was a fine specimen of the wooden-fronted tenements, with the oak timbers of the projecting gable beauti-fully carved. During the early part of the 18th century this was the town mansion of David third Earl of Leven, who succeeded the Duke of Gor-don as governor of the Castle in 1689 and belied his race by his cowardice at Killiecrankie. " No doubt," wrote an old cavalier at a later period, " if Her Majesty Queen Anne had been rightly in-formed of his care of the Castle, where there were not ten barrels of powder when the Pretender was on the coast of Scotland, and of his courteous behaviour to ladies--particularly how he horsewhipped the Lady Mortonhall--she would have made him a general for life." 1 Close by this edifice there stands, in Semple's Close, a fine example of its time, the old family mansion of the Lords Semple of Castlesemple. Large and substantially built, it is furnished with a projecting octagonal turnpike stair, over the door to which is the boldly-cut legend--

PRAISED BE THE LORD MY GOD, MY STRENGTH AND MY REDEEMER.
ANNO DOM. 1638.

Over a second doorway is the inscription--Sedes,. Manet optima Coelo, with the above date repeated, and the coat of arms of some family now unknown. Hugh eleventh Lord Semple, in 1743 purchased the house from two merchant burgesses of Edin-burgh, who severally possessed it, and he converted it into one large mansion. He had seen much military service in Queen Anne's wars, both in Spain and Flanders. In 1718 he was major of the Cameronians; and in 1743 he commanded the Black Watch, and held the town of Aeth when it was besieged by the French. In 1745 he was colonel of the 25th or Edinburgh Regiment, and commanded the left wing of the Hanoverian army at the battle of Culloden.

Few families have been more associated with -Scottish song than the Semples. Prior to the acquisition of this mansion their family residence appears to have been in Leith, and it is referred to in a poem by Francis Semple, of Belltrees, written about 1680. The Lady Semple of that day, a daughter of Sir Archibald Primrose of Dalmeny (ancestor of the Earls of Rosebery), is tradition-ally said to have been a Roman Catholic. Thus, her house was a favourite resort of the priesthood then visiting Scotland in disguise, and she had a secret passage by which they could escape to the fields in time of peril.

Anne; fourth daughter of Hugh Lord Semple, was married in September, 1754, to Dr. Austin, of Edinburgh, author of the well-known song, " For lack of gold," in allusion to Jean Drummond, of Megginch, who jilted him for the Duke of Athol.

" For lack of gold she left me, O!
And of all that's dear bereft me, O!
For Athol's Duke
She me forsook,
And to endless care has left me, O ! "

The Doctor died in 1774 in his house at the north-west corner of Brown Square; but his widow survived him nearly twenty years. Her brother John, twelfth Lord Semple, in 1755 sold the family mansion to Sir James Clerk of Penicuik, well-known in his time as a man of taste, and the patron of Runciman the artist.

An ancient pile of buildings, now swept away, but which were accessible by Blyth's, Tod's, and Nairne's Closes, formed once the residence of Mary of Lorraine and Guise, widow of James V., and Regent of Scotland from 1554 to 1560. It is conjectured that this palace and oratory were erected immediately after the burning of Holyrood and the city by the English in 1544 when the widowed queen would naturally seek a more secure habitation within the walls of the city, and close to the Castle guns. In this edifice it is supposed that Mary, her daughter, after succeeding in de-taching the imbecile Darnley from his party, took up her residence for a few days after the murder of Rizzio, as she feared to trust herself within the blood-stained precincts of the palace. Over its main doorway there was cut in old Gothic letters the legend Laus honor Deo, with I. R., the initials of King James V., and at each end were shields having the monograms of the Saviour and the Virgin. The mansion, though it had been sorely changed and misused, still exhibited some large and handsome fireplaces, · with beautifully clustered pillars, and seven elaborately sculptured stone recesses, with much fine oak carving in the doors and panels that are still preserved. Over one of the former are the heads of King James V., with his usual slouched bonnet, and of his queen, whose well-known beauty certainly cannot be traced in this instance

A portion of this building, accessible by a stair near the head of the close, contained a hall, with other apartments, all remarkable for the great height and beauty of their ceilings, on all of which were coats armorial in fine stucco. In the de-corated chimney of the former were the remains of one of those chains to which, in Scotland, the poker and tongs were usually attached, to prevent their being used as weapons in case of any sudden quarrel. One chamber was long known as the queen's Deld-room, where the individuals of the royal establishment were kept between their death and burial. In 1828 there was found walled up in the oratory an infantine head and hand in wax, being all that remained of a bambino, or figure of the child Jesus, and now preserved by the Society of Antiquaries. The edifice had many windows on the northern side, and from these a fine view must have been commanded of the gardens in the immediate foreground, sloping downward to the loch, the opposite bank, with its farm-houses, the Firth of Forth, and Fifeshire. " It was inter-esting," says the author of "Traditions of Edin-burgh," "to wander through the dusky mazes of .this ancient building, and reflect that they had been occupied three centuries ago by a sovereign princess, and of the most illustrious lineage. Here was a substantial monument of the connection between Scotland and France.

She, whose ancestors owned Lorraine as a sovereignty, who had spent her youth in the proud halls of the Guises in Picardy, and had been the spouse of a Lon-gueville, was here content to live--in a close in Edinburgh ! In these obscurities, too, was a government conducted, which had to struggle with Knox, Glencairn, James Stewart, Morton, and many other powerful men, backed by a popular sentiment which never fails to triumph. It was the misfortune of Mary (of Guise) to be placed in a position to resist the Reformation. Her own character deserved that she should have stood in a more agreeable relation to what Scotland now venerates, for she was mild and just, and sincerely anxious for the welfare of her adopted country. It is also proper to remember on the present occasion that in her Court she maintained a decent gravity nor would she tolerate any licentious practices therein. Her maids of honour were always busied in commendable exercises, she herself being an example to them in virtue, piety, and modesty.

When all is considered, and we further know that the building was strong enough to have lasted many more ages, one cannot but regret that the palace of Mary de Guise, reduced as it was to vile-ness, should not now be in existence. The site having been purchased by individuals connected with the Free Church, the buildings were removed in 1846 to make room for the erection of an aca-demical institution, or college, for that body."

The demolition of this mansion brought to light a concealed chamber on the first floor, lighted by a narrow loophole opening into Nairne's Close. The entrance had been by a movable panel, affording ac-cess to a narrow flight of steps wound round in the wall of the turnpike stair. The existence of this mysterious chamber was totally unknown to the va-rious inhabitants, and all tradition has been lost of those to whom it may have afforded escape or refuge.

The Duke of Devonshire possesses an undoubted portrait of Mary of Guise. It represents her with a brilliantly fair complexion, with reddish, or auburn hair. This is believed to be the only authentic one in existence. That portrait alleged to be of her in the Trinity House at Leith is a bad copy, by Mytens, of that of her daughter at St. James's. Some curious items connected with her Court are to be found in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, among them are the following:--
At her coronation in 1540, "Item, deliverit to ye French telzour, to be ane cote to Serrat, the Queen's fule," &c. Green and yellow seems to have been the Court fool's livery; but Mary of Guise seems to have had a female buffoon and male and female dwarfs::-" 1562. Paid for ane cote, hois, lyning and making, to Jonat Musche, fule, £4 5s. 6d.; 1565, for green plaiding to make ane bed to Jardinar the fule, with white fustione fedders," &c.; in 1566~ there is paid for a garment of red and yellow, to be a gown " for Jane Colqu-houn, fule;" and in 1567, another entry, for broad English yellow, " to be cote, breeks, also sarkis, to James Geddie, fule."

The next occupant of the Guise palace, or of that portion thereof which stood in Tod's Close, was Edward Hope, son of John de Hope, a French-man who had come to Scotland in the retinue of Magdalene, first queen of James V., in 1537.
It continued in possession of the Hopes till 1691, when it was acquired by James, first Viscount Stail; for 3,000 guilders, Dutch money, probably in con-nection with some transaction in Holland, from whence he accompanied William of Orange four years before. In 1702 it was the abode and pro-perty of John Wightlllan of Mauldsie, afterwards Lord Provost of the city. From that period it was the residence of a succession of wealthy burgesses --the closes being then, and till a comparatively recent period, exclusively occupied by peers and dignitaries of rank and wealth. Since then it shared the fate of all the patrician dwellings in old Edin-burgh, and became the squalid abode of a host of families in the most humble ranks of life.