THE 
 
 LETTERS OF 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 AND 
 
 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE 
 
 TO 
 
 ROBERT CHAMBERS 
 
^^ S^^L0.A.o^^^ ^ 
 
THE LETTERS OF 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 
 
 AND 
 
 Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe 
 
 TO 
 
 Robert Chambers 
 1821-45 
 
 WITH ORIGINAL MEMORANDA OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 PRINTED FROM MANUSCRIPTS 
 
 IN THE POSSESSION OF 
 
 C. E. S. CHAMBERS, EDINBURGH 
 
 W. & R. CHAMBERS, Limited 
 1904 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The early life of Robert Chambers embracing 
 the period of his connection with Sir Walter 
 Scott has already been described by his brother 
 William in the Memoir of himself. But while 
 Dr William Chambers had access to many 
 early papers now in my possession, he made 
 little use of these, and printed no letters of 
 this period. The letters of Sir Walter Scott 
 printed in the Memoir of William and Robert 
 Chambers (1872) were written at a later date, 
 and have no reference to that subject which 
 first awakened in the great man sympathy for 
 a young and struggling literary aspirant. With 
 the exception of the above-mentioned letters, 
 any extracts now printed from Scott manu- 
 scripts belonging to me appear for the first 
 
 
 '1 
 
 247681 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 time. One of these papers, recently discovered, 
 is the first portion (incomplete) of a History of 
 the Canongate, and may have formed part 
 of that work on the antiquities of Edinburgh 
 which Scott, in collaboration with Mr Skene 
 of Rubislaw, had at one time intended to write. 
 After seeing the first two parts of Robert 
 Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, Scott's 
 original idea — as we are told by the author 
 in his Preface to the last revised edition — was 
 abandoned, and many of his notes handed on 
 to his youthful protege and friend. The same 
 Preface makes it no less clear that, besides 
 Sir Walter Scott, Robert Chambers was equally 
 indebted to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe for 
 much valuable information. The series of let- 
 ters from Mr Sharpe now printed, while slight 
 and unimportant in themselves, are at the 
 same time curious and original, besides being 
 typical of the man himself, as described by 
 contemporaries, Robert Chambers's account of 
 Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe is very striking, 
 and gives a better idea of this eccentric genius 
 than is to be found in any biography. It reads 
 as follows : 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 'Looking back from the year 1868, I feel 
 that C. K. S. has himself become, as it were, 
 a tradition of Edinburgh. His thin, effeminate 
 figure, his voice pitched in alt. — his attire, as 
 he took his daily walks on Princes Street : a 
 long blue frock-coat, black trousers (rather wide 
 below, and sweeping over white stockings and 
 neat shoes), something like a web of white cam- 
 bric round his neck, and a brown wig coming 
 down to his eyebrows — had long established 
 him as what is called a character. He had 
 recently edited a book containing many stories 
 of diablerie, and another in which the original 
 narrative of ultra-presbyterian Church History 
 had to bear a series of cavalier notes of the 
 most mocking character. He had a quaint, 
 biting wit, which people bore as they would 
 a scratch from a provoked cat. Essentially, he 
 was good-natured and fond of merriment. He 
 had considerable gifts of drawing, and one cari- 
 cature portrait by him, of Queen Elizabeth 
 dancing, "high and disposedly," before the 
 Scotch ambassadors, is the delight of every- 
 body who has seen it. In jest upon his own 
 peculiarity of voice, he formed an address- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 card for himself consisting simply of the fol- 
 lowing anagram : 
 
 quasi dicitiir C Sharp. He was intensely aris- 
 tocfatic, and cared nothing for the interests 
 of the great multitude. He complained that 
 one never heard of any gentlefolks committing 
 crimes nowadays, as if that were a disadvant- 
 age to them or the public. Any case of a 
 Lady Jane stabbing a perjured lover would 
 have delighted him. While the child of whim, 
 Mr Sharpe was generally believed to possess 
 respectable talents, by which, with a need for 
 exerting them, he might have achieved dis- 
 tinction. His ballad of the " Murder of Caer-i 
 laverock," in the Minstrelsy, is a masterly 
 production ; and the concluding verses haunt 
 one like a beautiful strain of music : 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To sweet Lincluden's haly cells 
 
 Fu' dowie I '11 repair ; 
 There Peace \vi' gentle Patience dwells, 
 
 Nae deadly feuds are there. 
 
 In tears I '11 wither ilka charm, 
 
 Like draps o' balefu' yew ; 
 And wail the beauty that cou'd harm 
 
 A knight, sae brave and true. 
 
 ' After what I had heard and read of Charles 
 Sharpe, I called upon him at his mother's house, 
 No. 93 Princes Street, in a somewhat excited 
 frame of mind. His servant conducted me to 
 the first floor, and showed me into what is 
 generally called amongst us the back drawing- 
 room, which I found carpeted with green cloth, 
 and full of old family portraits, some on the 
 walls, but- many more on the floor. A small room 
 leading off" this one behind was the place where 
 Mr Sharpe gave audience. Its diminutive space 
 was stuffed full of old curiosities, cases with 
 family bijouterie, &c. One petty object was 
 strongly indicative of the man — a calling-card 
 of Lady Charlotte Campbell, the once adored 
 beauty, stuck into the frame of a picture. He 
 
 must have kept it at that time about thirty 
 B 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 years. On appearing, Mr Sharpe received me 
 very cordially, telling me he had seen and been 
 pleased with my first two numbers. Indeed, he 
 and Sir Walter Scott had talked together of 
 writing a book of the same kind in company, 
 and calling it Reekiana, which plan, however, 
 being anticipated by me, the only thing that 
 remained for him was to cast any little matters 
 of the kind he possessed into my care. I ex- 
 pressed myself duly grateful, and took my 
 leave. The consequence was the appearance 
 of notices regarding the eccentric Lady Anne 
 Dick, the beautiful Susanna Countess of Eglin- 
 toune, the Lord Justice-Clerk Alva, and the 
 Duchess of Queensberry (the "Kitty" of Prior), 
 before the close of my first volume. Mr Sharpe's 
 contributions were all of them given in brief 
 notes, and had to be written out on an enlarged 
 scale with what I thought a regard to literary 
 effect as far as the telling was concerned.' 
 
 Dr Chambers has mentioned in the above 
 sketch that Mr Sharpe's collection of anti- 
 quities was very extensive ; and, after his death 
 in 185 1, his china, books, and prints were 
 disposed of by public auction in Edinburgh. 
 
INTR OD UC TION. 
 
 Among the many rarities may be mentioned a 
 set of chess-men of the twelfth century found 
 in 183 1 in the Island of Skye, and (with the 
 exception of the Charlemagne set) supposed to 
 be the oldest chess-men in existence. The col- 
 lection also included some gruesome curiosities, 
 such as the skull of William first Duke of 
 Queensberry, the coffin-plate of George fourth 
 Earl of Winton, and part of the shroud of 
 King Robert the Bruce. He also possessed 
 the brass - mounted tea-caddy used by Mrs 
 M'Lehose (Burns's Clarinda), and a copy of 
 Young's Night Thoughts presented by Burns 
 to Clarinda, with the following inscription : ' To 
 Mrs M'Lehose this poem, the sentiments of 
 the Heirs of Immortality told in the numbers 
 of Paradise, is respectfully presented by Robert 
 Burns.' A note in the handwriting of Clarinda 
 followed, presenting the volume to Mr Sharpe. 
 It would be interesting to know what became 
 of this volume, which, so far as I am aware, 
 has disappeared since the dispersal of Mr Sharpe's 
 library more than fifty years ago. 
 
 In addition to the letters and papers of 
 Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe now printed, the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 present writer has in his possession the original 
 manuscript of Robert Chambers's Popular 
 Rhymes of Scotlandy which contains many- 
 verses in Mr Sharpe's holograph. Writing in 
 the Scotsman for 20th March 185 1, John Hill 
 Burton says : 'It is to be feared that with 
 Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe — himself the type 
 of an obsolete generation — there has perished 
 a world of anecdote of the Scotch, noblesse 
 and gentry, of the last age. There is no hope 
 of his posthumous memoirs : one of the great 
 houses of the Row offered him a large sum 
 for his autobiography ; but, as might have 
 been expected, he spurned the temptation.' 
 
 While Robert Chambers's connection with Sir 
 Walter Scott is frequently referred to both in 
 his own writings and those of his brother 
 William, the following memoranda are interest- 
 ing, and have not hitherto been published. 
 They occur in a manuscript autobiography 
 commenced in 1832, and carried no farther than 
 that year. 
 
 In describing his life during the year 1822, 
 Dr Chambers records the following incident : 
 'Furnished with a letter of introduction from 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 Mr Constable, I proceeded to the poet's 
 residence in Castle Street, where I had the 
 good fortune to find him in his study. He 
 received me, as he received every one who 
 approached him, with a homely kindliness of 
 manner which at once placed me at my ease. 
 He made inquiry respecting my occupation ; 
 and, having been informed that I dealt partly 
 in old books, requested that I would let him 
 know when I happened to possess any of 
 particular rarity or value. After some further 
 conversation, I took my leave, astonished at 
 the gentle and easy manners of a man whom 
 I had been accustomed to regard as of a 
 superior order of beings, and delighted with 
 the reflection that I would even have it to 
 say, perhaps many years after he should be 
 dead and gone, that I had seen and talked 
 to him.' 
 
 In the same year Dr Chambers says that 
 literature and caligraphy were still his chief 
 employments. 'In the former department I 
 compiled a small volume which was published 
 in autumn 1822, entitled Illustrations of the 
 Aiithor of Waverley. . . . My connection with 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the southern district of Scotland to which Sir 
 Walter himself belonged, gave me a facility in 
 ascertaining the prototypes of many of his 
 characters . . . and I have since had the satis- 
 faction of learning from his notes to the uni- 
 form edition of the Waverley Novels, that I 
 was generally correct in my assumptions. In 
 August this year George the Fourth paid his 
 visit to Edinburgh, and Sir Walter Scott, as 
 president of the Royal Society, was able to 
 put some lucrative work in my way. The 
 address of that society, written by himself and 
 expressed with as much brevity as elegance, 
 was sent to me by his recommendation, to be 
 drawn up in my best style of penmanship. For 
 this duty, which occupied me two days, I was 
 paid five guineas. Three other societies, the 
 Wernerian, the Medical, and the Caledonian 
 Horticultural, hearing of me from some mem- 
 bers of the Royal Society, brought me their 
 addresses to write also ; and I cleared about 
 eighteen pounds in little more than a week. 
 To crown all, I was apprised that the King, 
 at a private inspection of the addresses in 
 Dalkeith Palace, was pleased to remark on 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 the curious neatness of hand with which mine 
 were written. It is, however, but justice to 
 myself to observe that, young as I was, I 
 never felt the least flattered by any compli- 
 ments paid to me on the score of my 
 caligraphic exhibitions. I not only entertained 
 a secret contempt for the accomplishment, but 
 believed that many others would have excelled 
 in it to as great a degree as myself if they 
 had only tried. ... I hated to be thought 
 only a cunning workman in the art of writing 
 when I was in reality ambitious of the moral 
 honours of the pen.' 
 
 A year later, and shortly after the Tradi- 
 tions of Edinburgh had been commenced, Dr 
 Chambers reports that he renewed his friend- 
 ship with Sir Walter Scott. ' He called upon 
 me one day with Mr Lockhart, whom I had 
 formerly seen ; and, sitting down on a form, 
 began to discourse familiarly about my publica- 
 tion, the subject of which was so much a 
 favourite with him that he had intended to 
 write upon it himself, in conjunction with Mr 
 Skene of Rubislaw. Having heard that Chas. 
 Kirkpatrick Sharpe was among the number of 
 
l6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 my informants (intelligence which I now con- 
 firmed) he concluded that part of the work was 
 written by that gentleman. ... Sir Walter 
 accordingly took up a copy of the newly 
 published volume ; and, saying to Mr Lockhart 
 he would show him a capital passage, read 
 aloud a somewhat droll account of the many 
 marriages of the Earl of Eglintoune. " I could 
 have told you," said he, laughing heartily, " that 
 that was Sharpe's, it is so very like him." The 
 passage was in reality my own writing . . . 
 and in a note which I had occasion to write 
 that evening to Mr Lockhart I mentioned the 
 mistake of his distinguished father-in-law, which 
 Mr L. answered me in reply he would take an 
 opportunity of explaining to Sir Walter.' 
 
 After 1824, as was perhaps almost inevitable, 
 Dr Chambers saw little of Sir Walter Scott, 
 although some correspondence passed between 
 them ; and various references are to be found 
 in Scott's last diaries to contemporary works 
 of Robert Chambers, copies of which were no 
 doubt sent to Abbotsford on publication. 
 
 Of Dr Chambers's career subsequent to the 
 death of Sir Walter Scott little need be said 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 here. Although no adequate biography has 
 yet been written, his name and memory are 
 bound up with the hterary history of the 
 nineteenth century. While his early labours 
 were helped and encouraged by the friendship 
 of Scott and many of his distinguished con- 
 temporaries, his middle-age, lightened by pros- 
 perity, was associated with the great advance 
 in cheap literature and educational progress. 
 During later life, whilst resident in London, he 
 found congenial work at the British Museum 
 and pleasant seclusion in the library of the 
 Athenaeum Club, at which latter resort he 
 enjoyed the society of many learned confreres 
 famous in their day, but now, like himself, 
 no longer with us. By nature an antiquary 
 and deeply versed in the civil and ecclesiastical 
 history of Scotland, he finally settled at St 
 Andrews, where he combined relaxation on 
 the golf-links with research into the history 
 and traditions of the ancient cathedral city. 
 Here he died in March 1871, and, as a 
 special mark of distinction, was interred within 
 the Tower of St Regulus, which forms a por- 
 tion of the ruins of that famous Cathedral. 
 C 
 
1 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To many of the present generation the 
 name of Robert Chambers conveys little sig- 
 nificance ; but his Traditions of Edinburgh — 
 associated with the name of Sir Walter Scott, 
 and crammed with eighteenth-century anecdote 
 and story — must always remain a standard 
 work, a delight to the student of history, and 
 a source of interest and amusement to the 
 tourist who visits the Metropolis of Scotland, 
 
 C. E. S. CHAMBERS. 
 
 Edinburgh, June 1903. 
 
19 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 Princes Street, 
 Wednesday Nighty — April 1824. 
 
 Sir, — I have laid my hands upon two 
 notices that may be of use to you : one from 
 the Somerville MS. — a portion never printed ; 
 the other from Hay's MSS. in the Advocates' 
 Library. You know that Sir Robert Gordon, 
 in his History of the Sutherlands, laughs 
 immoderately at the Sinclair puffs. 
 
 Apropos, there is a poem on the sad deaths 
 of Lord and Lady Sutherland in Evan's 
 Ballads. I think I have seen other poems on 
 the same subject. 
 
 I have to furnish you with notes on Lady 
 Stair's Close, on Queensberry House, on Lord 
 
20 CHARLES KIRKPA7RICK SHARPE. 
 
 Royston's house, and Mrs Smollett's. If I 
 forget any of these, remind me. I am not 
 well, and very blind. Don't forget Mary 
 King's Close, which makes such a figure in 
 Satan's hivisible World. I think you have 
 not mentioned the horrible murder committed 
 by a tutor upon his two pupils near where 
 this part of the town now stands. On second 
 thoughts, surely there will be no harm in 
 printing the poisoning story in Lady Lovat's 
 case. Whereabouts was it in the Old Town 
 that Mrs Macfarlane shot her lover .-' She is 
 the heroine in Peveril. I have a curious 
 letter with the whole story ; Pope alludes to 
 it in a letter to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 
 — Yours very truly, C. K. S. 
 
 Mem. — Dr Smollett's mother had a house near 
 the top of St John's St., a flat — she was very 
 fond of cards — an ill-natured looking woman, 
 with a high nose — but not of a bad temper 
 — a Lady, a near relation of mine, was in 
 her house one evening, when one of the 
 Edin : baillies who was a tallow-chandler, paid 
 her a visit — she said — come awa, baillie, and 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICJC SHARPE. 21 
 
 take a trick at the cards — troth, Madam, I 
 hae nae siller — Than let us play for a pound 
 of candles. When the Doctor resided with 
 her, on his last visit to Scotland, he was 
 afflicted with ill health (his constant mis- 
 fortune) and very peevish — he wore black 
 cloaths — a tall man — and extremely handsome 
 — no picture of him is known to be extant — 
 all that have been foisted on the public as 
 such his relations disclaim — this I know from 
 my aunt, Mrs Smollett, who was the wife 
 of his nephew ; and who resided with him in 
 Bath. Jerry Melford in Humphrey Clinker was 
 intended to represent his nephew (his sister's 
 son) Major Telfair — Liddy, his own daughter, 
 who was destined to be the wife of the 
 Major — but her death, to the deep sorrow 
 of her father, destroyed that plan — the Miss 
 
 R n, whom Jerry admired so much, in 
 
 Edin : was by Lady Elenora Renton, dr. of 
 John Renton of Lammerton by Lady Susan 
 Montgomerie, dr. of the Earl of Eglin- 
 toune — and sister to Mrs Smollett, the Doctor's 
 niece by marriage — Miss Renton was subse- 
 quently the wife of Charles Sharpe of Hoddam 
 
22 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPS. 
 
 — the common report of the day was that 
 Tabetha was intended for his own wife — but 
 without foundation — she was a silly woman, 
 and a fine lady — a dark complexion, rather 
 pretty — a Creole, as I think my aunt told me. 
 
 Miss Nicky Murray was a daughter of Lord 
 Stormont — an old maid, who long presided over 
 the Edinburgh Assembly, with a most dicta- 
 torial sway — when the happy dancers crowded 
 round Nicky's throne to beg that she would 
 prolong the ball, she would frequently not 
 vouchsafe even an answer — but rising up, prim 
 in maidenly mouth, and stately inconsequential 
 air, with one wave of her fan — the fiddlers 
 vanished : — 
 
 ' —quick from the summit of the grove they fell 
 and left it unharmonious.' 
 
 The Covenant was signed at the head of the 
 close — in third house right hand : — 
 
 The first edition of Peregrine Pickle is very 
 curious ; the author having greatly altered it 
 in the second — I have heard that the mistake 
 respecting the funeral of a Lady whom her 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 23 
 
 sons forgot, mentioned in Clinker, took place at 
 Billie — the Lady, Mrs Hume, was murdered by 
 Norman Ross, her servant. 
 
 Monday Evening, — April 1824. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have not, for many reasons, 
 been able to see you, but on no sinster 
 account. I could give you no light as to the 
 ring, though I believe there is no rule respect- 
 ing marriage, &c. But the jeweller may know 
 better. 
 
 I think you had better leave out the anec- 
 dote of the eagle in the MS. you formerly 
 sent, as it may displease the Abercairney 
 family, and can do nobody good. 
 
 I know nothing of the Quakeress but what 
 you know. But pray don't put in all you 
 have heard, as it will not only hurt the feel- 
 ings of her relations, but spoil the keeping of 
 a very interesting portrait. 
 
 Dolls — ladies who were not mad used to 
 dress dolls. From Mrs Thomson's Jewel Book 
 it appears that Queen Marie had dresses for 
 dolls, and a bed for them ; I suppose they 
 were French fashions. And not many years 
 
24 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 ago, ladies made likenesses of their friends in 
 the shape of dolls, and put them in glass 
 cases, with a landscape painted behind. I have 
 seen such things very prettily done. You will 
 find some things written as I went through 
 your book — which much amused me. Remind 
 me to send you an account of what our Nurse 
 Jenny called the Paddo Song.— Yours truly in 
 much haste, C. K. S. 
 
 Sunday Night, (— March 1824). 
 
 Dear Mr Chambers,— I enclose some notes 
 that may be of use to you. Pray insert the 
 remarks on our improvements, amplified as 
 much as you please, as they may be of much 
 use both to our love of antiquity and to our 
 purses. You need not care about affronting 
 the Town Council. You will do me a favour 
 if you insert these hastily written notices in 
 the first work you publish. In reward I 
 promise you Madame Macfarlane shortly, which 
 will be one of the most curious notices in your 
 book, as the story has all the requisites of 
 high tragedy.— Truly Yours, C. K. S. 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 25 
 
 In October 17 16 — Mrs M'Farlane, a Writer's 
 wife, shot Mr Cayley, one of the Commis- 
 sioners on the Forfeited Estates, with his 
 own pistols, in her house in Edinburgh. 
 She was a great beauty, and had carried on 
 an intrigue with him, as was said, for some 
 time — but he boasting of her favours, on pay- 
 ing court to another mistress, she resolved on 
 revenge, her husband borrowed his pistols — 
 and was in an ale house hard bye, when Cayley 
 called upon his wife — she took him into her 
 bed room, and fired off one pistol, which only 
 wounded him in the wrist; but the second 
 shot went through his heart — she then locked 
 the door of the bed room, and sent for her 
 husband, who gave her what money he had, 
 and she absconded — M'Farlane declared before 
 the Lords of Justiciary that he knew nothing 
 of the murder before hand — and here the affair 
 seems to have ended. 
 
 Among the MSS. in Advocates' Library is a 
 dull and very indecent poem, called 'the nynth 
 sett of lyrics on Mrs Macfarlane's intrigue with 
 Squire Kello.' 
 
 She was extremely beautiful — and I have 
 
26 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 heard that she hid herself for some time in 
 a gentleman's house on the border — where a 
 child going one morning unexpectedly into the 
 parlour, saw the most lovely figure she had 
 ever beheld, sitting at the breakfast table; 
 making tea — this reminds one of Lady Derby's 
 appearance from behind the pannel, in Peveril 
 of the Peak. 
 
 I have heard that Cayley was one of the 
 Commissioners for settling the forfeited estates, 
 sent down from England 17 15— the poem 
 mentioned above favours this tradition. 
 
 'Let them say I am romantic, so is every 
 one said to be, that either admires a fine 
 thing or does one. on my conscience, as the 
 world goes, 'tis hardly worth anybody's while 
 to do one for the honour of it: Glory, the 
 only pay of generous actions, is now as ill 
 paid as other just debts; and neither Mrs 
 Macfarlane for immolating her lover, nor you, 
 for constancy to your lord, must ever hope 
 to be compared to Lucretia or Portia.' — Pope 
 to Lady Mary W. Mojitagu. 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 27 
 
 Monday Night, — ( 1 824). 
 
 Dear Mr C, — I send some trifling notices 
 which you may make use of as you please. 
 Your fear of offending me as to my age made 
 me laugh extremely, as I never pretended to 
 be an Adonis even in my youth. I think you 
 may contrive to make the next number very 
 curious. — Yours truly, C. K. S. 
 
 An old lady of seventy-five tells me that 
 in her youth black velvet masks, covering the 
 whole face, were worn, when women travelled 
 in open carriages, or walked abroad in very 
 cold weather. They were kept on by a bead, 
 fixed by a string across the mouth of the mask ; 
 said bead being held in the wearer's mouth. 
 She says that this did not interrupt tittle-tattle 
 in the smallest degree. 
 
 THE DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 The Duchess of Monmouth was very crooked, 
 and had one leg shorter than the other. As 
 her husband had been invested with all the 
 dignities of a Prince of the Blood, she kept 
 up her state to the last, having only one 
 
28 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 seat in her room (and that generally under 
 a canopy) for herself; so her visitors were 
 compelled to stand. When Lady Margaret 
 Montgomery, daughter to Alexander 9th Earl 
 of Eglintoune, was at a boarding school near 
 London, she was frequently invited by the 
 Duchess to her house ; and because her great 
 grandmother, Lady Mary Lesley, was sister to 
 the Duchess's mother, she was allowed the 
 extraordinary privilege of a chair. It is said 
 that she made a rule of being served on the 
 knee, but this is not probable ; indeed some 
 letters of hers still extant, prove her to have 
 been a shrewd, benevolent woman, and exhibit 
 no traits whatever of a haughty Princess of 
 the Blood. 
 
 Wednesday Night, — ( 1 824). 
 
 Dear Mr Chambers, — I send you a cart- 
 load of remembrances, of which make what use 
 you please. I wrote so hastily that I dare say 
 both my grammar and spelling are wretched. 
 Pray, when you have made what you can of 
 the inclosed, send it back, all but the Elegy, 
 which I have written so that it may be torn 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 29 
 
 ofif, to save you trouble; and you will do me 
 a particular favour by printing it. I find my 
 memory so decayed, that these notes may help 
 it shortly ; and that is the reason for my wish 
 to have them again. Alter anything you please, 
 but matter of fact. You may depend upon the 
 truth of all I have sent, and so I wish you 
 good-night. C. K. S. 
 
 I wish you could contrive to get me a sight 
 at least of the songs you mentioned. Tell the 
 person who has them, that I don't print for 
 pay ; and that I may be able to help him 
 in other matters, if he oblige me in this. 
 
 The Wemyss family had a house in the 
 Parliament Close. After Po.rteous's affair the 
 girls, his sisters, tucked up this Lord Wemyss's 
 grandfather, then a boy, over a door, in imita- 
 tion of this strange scene ; he was black in 
 the face before he was cut down. 
 
 The stays were worn so long sixty years 
 ago that they touched the chair, both front 
 and rear, when a lady sat ; and were laced 
 so tight, that people held by the bed-post, 
 while the abigail was lacing their armour. A 
 
30 CHARLES KIRKPA TRICK SHARPE. 
 
 lady of high rank, about the year 1720, stinted 
 her daughters as to diet, on account of their 
 shapes. She went early to bed ; and her family, 
 having the cook in their interest, used to unlace 
 their stays at night, and make a hearty meal. 
 They were at last discovered from the smell of 
 a roast goose carried up to their bed-chamber 
 — as unluckily their lady mother took no snuff. 
 This was in Scotland. 
 
 The French silks worn fifty years ago (1775) 
 are beautiful ; the pattern so well drawn, and 
 superior to modern stuff. The dearest common 
 brocade was about a guinea a yard ; if of gold 
 or silver, considerably more. The lappets did 
 not come under the chin, but hung from 
 behind ; sometimes a smaller pair were brought 
 from behind, and tied as the court lappets 
 now. 
 
 Snuff-taking, among young women, was pre- 
 valent in our grandmother's time. Their flirts 
 used to present them with pretty snuff-boxes. 
 The shape of hoops was curious ; the pocket 
 hoop, worn in the morning, was like a pair 
 of small panniers, such as one sees on an ass. 
 I have one. The bell hoop was a sort of 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 31 
 
 thing made like a bell, a petticoat with cane, 
 and sometimes strong rope, not quite full-dress. 
 Then there was a straw petticoat, a sort of 
 hoop such as one sees in French prints. The 
 large evening hoop was so monstrous, that you 
 saw one half of it enter the room before the 
 wearer. 
 
 All women, high and low, wore an enormous 
 busk, generally with a heart carved at top. 
 In low life a common present from their sweet- 
 hearts, and artificially finished if they chanced 
 to be carpenters. 
 
 — June 1824. 
 Dear Mr C.,— Lady Wallace's * grandmother 
 was a daughter of Lord Eglintoune, not her 
 
 * My father, who knew these young gentlewomen well, told 
 me that the first time he ever saw the Duchess of Gordon, 
 she was riding astride upon a sow in the High Street, and 
 Lady Wallace thumping it on with a stick. You may print 
 this if you like, but don't quote my father. The Duchess's 
 grandmother, a daughter of Lord Eglintoune, was my mother's 
 
 aunt— an excellent woman. Her daughter. Miss Katty M , 
 
 went on the town and wrote her own memoirs — The Amours 
 
 and Adventures of Miss Katty M She was debauched 
 
 by a villain, Sir J H , who afterwards made a figure 
 
32 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 mother ; but I think you had better put it : 
 ' For Miss Betty read Miss Eglintoune,' and 
 add no more. I am glad that my information 
 was right as to Mrs Elphinstone after all. — 
 Yours truly, C. K. S. 
 
 Pray let me have the additional pages for 
 my two copies of your third number when they 
 are finished, 
 
 Thursday Night, — June 1824. 
 
 Dear Mr Chambers,— I am so kilt all 
 over with rheumatism, as Irishmen speak, that 
 I can scarcely hold a pen ; but here are my 
 criticisms, which I send in a hurry, lest your 
 credit should be spilt about Lady Stair. You 
 say that she went on a gossiping visit to 
 Holyrood House. Now, it is twenty times 
 repeated in the proofs, that she desired an 
 
 at law for ill-treating his wife, a daughter of Lord Cathcart. 
 . . . This is a hoiTor which should not be mentioned, so 
 I only tell it to you. [Mr George Seton informs me that 
 Lady Jane Maxwell, granddaughter of the Duchess of Gordon, 
 was half-aunt to Mr Sharpe's mother, and that her third daughter 
 Catherine was evidently the person alluded to in the above 
 memorandum. — Ed.] 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 33 
 
 audience, having heard of her accusation. As 
 most people who are hkely to read your book 
 have the Douglas cause at their fingers' ends, 
 and these anecdotes may make other persons 
 peep at them, I beg you to beware ; for the 
 chief merit of a book like this is accuracy, 
 and if you are blown up in that quarter, 
 ' Good-night to Marmion.' 
 
 Item, I wish you would alter 'more like a 
 trooper.' It is a colloquial phrase that sounds 
 very vulgar in print. But this is of little 
 import, as Edinburgh people don't know the 
 difference. 
 
 The arrangement of Lord Kaimes's epitaph 
 I don't like. The thing is ill written at best. 
 But I think it should, in justice to the author, 
 be printed as he composed it, and as I trans- 
 mitted it to you. However, take your own 
 way — it will be tiresome to alter the types. 
 
 Once more I thank you for your undeserved 
 comphment to me. But I don't understand 
 the inverted commas at ' ingenious and in- 
 defatigable,' as I am not aware of the source 
 from whence the quotation is taken. 
 
 I had a curious little book sent to me 
 E 
 
34 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPS. 
 
 lately by Sir W. Scott, in which is a very 
 minute account of the riding of the Parlia- 
 ment, which may be of use to you. Of course 
 it is at your service. 
 
 I forgot in the hurry of my last to tell 
 you that I believe Lord Lovat always wore 
 a wig. Hogarth painted him in one, and 
 another portrait I have seen has the same. 
 He was too old latterly to have much hair 
 of his own — and I am too old to be able to 
 write more, so good-night ! C. K. S. 
 
 Sunday Night, — June 1824. 
 
 Dear Mr Chambers, — You will see one 
 thing to be altered, which everybody would 
 have detected, I inclose the Paddo Song* 
 written very slovenly — for I am at present 
 tormented with a bad eye. As to the cor- 
 rections, I would advise you, now, not to say 
 a word about Mally, for it will do much harm ; 
 and as nobody sees the book now lent to me, 
 and I can keep that secret, and the new 
 verses may be from a different copy, the thing 
 
 * See Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1826). 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 35 
 
 will probably pass. At all events, run the 
 risk ; but don't get into peril any more — 'tis 
 'going to the deil wi' a dishclout, &c.' There 
 is a great error in one of your early numbers, 
 which you can easily correct. The President 
 Lockhart was murdered in a close, which after- 
 wards took its name from him, and was pulled 
 down when those odious new buildings were 
 erected near the jail. This, I think, appears 
 from Arnot's Criminal Trials, and I have 
 always been aggrieved of it. If you behave 
 well, I promise you for your next volume 
 a chapter on Scotch costumes, with original 
 tailors' bills, and another on Scotch portraits 
 and painters. Item, I cannot find the note 
 about the Pudding Sommervilles, but am sure 
 that I have it somewhere, and that I shall dis- 
 cover it shortly. Good-night. C. K. S. 
 
 Lord Gardenstone had a predilection for pigs 
 — one, in its juvenile years, took a particular 
 fancy for him — it followed him wherever he 
 went, like a dog, and reposed in the same 
 bed — when it became a large sow, this, of 
 course, was inconvenient — so my Lord, when 
 
36 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 he undressed, left his clothes on the floor for 
 the sow to lie upon — he said he liked it, as 
 this kept his clothes warm till the morning. 
 You may add much more of him. 
 
 Doctor Grahame, the mountebank, who wrote 
 so much, and invented the Celestial bed, would 
 make an excellent article — he resided at one 
 time in Edin : and sold his library here. 
 
 When Mrs Bellamy came hither, she was 
 a red faced woman, given to drink — she lived 
 with Digges, in a most extravagent manner, 
 she gave a man ten guineas to carry her 
 favourite canary birds to Glasgow, in cages 
 in his hands — her acting was formal ; she had 
 a peculiar sweetness of voice — the play house 
 was then in the old town. 
 
 Digges was the darling of all Play fre- 
 quenters, and sought after by all the young 
 men of fashion of that time — he was supposed 
 to be the natural son of a nobleman — very 
 handsome — when he performed Captain Macheath 
 all the ladies \vere in ecstasies — he came to 
 some tragical conclusion — I forget what. 
 
 In a 4to book published by a man of the 
 name of Campbell, is an account of the female 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. yj 
 
 intellectual club — enquire about this, as it will 
 be a peg to hang verses upon. 
 
 Friday Evenifig, May 6, 1825. 
 
 Dear Mr Chambers, — I am much obliged to 
 you for the dedication, in which I have made 
 one slight alteration — kindness and kind coming 
 too close — and I think, anyhow, the castration 
 is an improvement. 
 
 I inclose some notices ; and will send more 
 when I have leisure. In the meantime, let 
 me have again the paper which the Miss 
 Campbells of Newfield gave me. I like to 
 retain such documents. N.B. — I wish you 
 would put at the end of the volume, the 
 date of the sale of their estate, as they seemed 
 anxious to have that particular inserted. 
 
 Item, you printed an English mutch, in place 
 of the, in your extract from Lady D's song, 
 which hurts the thing ; the English mutch 
 must have been some peculiar mutch of that 
 day. I have now a genuine copy of Sally 
 Lee ; and am sorry you put such a deal of 
 your own to it. Indeed, whispers are now 
 rife as to authenticity, and an author who is 
 
38 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 once convicted, nay, suspected, is never believed 
 in anything. This has not been owing to my 
 advice, as you well know. Miss Sally was a 
 country beauty, and probably never in Edin- 
 burgh in her life ; moreover, May Drummond 
 never wore a black velvet tippet ; and no 
 mortal ever saw Princess Dashkoff with a black 
 star on her back, except your friend the old 
 gentleman, who may be the black old gentle- 
 man for anything I know, 
 
 I think the scrap you inclosed is very well, 
 but not old ; yet people have harped so long 
 on love and cruelty, that nothing very new 
 can be said on such subjects. After twenty, 
 I became weary of such effusions, — Yours very 
 truly, C. K. S. 
 
 Lady Lockhart, wife of Sir William Lock- 
 hart, so infamously remarkable for his cruelties 
 in the Highlands after the rebellion, being the 
 person who put in execution General Hawley's 
 order, written on the ten of diamonds, hence 
 called the curse of Scotland, for burning a 
 number of Highlanders in a barn, resided in 
 a house at Toulbriggs, 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 39 
 
 I remember Lord Monboddo on the bench. 
 He was like an old stuffed monkey, in a 
 judge's gown. I have heard (but I don't believe 
 it) that he was so much convinced of his own 
 favourite system as to tails, that when a child 
 was born in his house, he would watch and 
 see it in its first state. He had a notion that 
 the midwives pinched off the infants' tails. 
 
 Hugo Arnot was so thin, that he resembled 
 a cloathed skeleton — he married his cook maid 
 whom he had imbued with his irreligious 
 principles — when she sat at the head of his 
 dinner table, she used to shock his Philo- 
 sophic guests by talking of— 'we Atheists' — 
 his daughter drowned herself for love of some 
 soldier, at the black rocks at Portobello— a sad 
 example of the fruits of her father's doctrine— 
 (I can give you a diverting note to this). 
 
 Edinburgh is surely now happy, in being free 
 from such nuisances as Hume, Arnot &c. The 
 young men of their day became free thinkers 
 from fashion; they took no time to examine 
 the truth of the doctrines most conducive to 
 happiness both here and hereafter, but pinned 
 their faith upon the sleeves of a set of meta- 
 
40 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 physical mountebanks, who for gain, or from 
 vanity, vended their poisonous trash (and dull 
 vulgar trash it was — Hume's Essays &c. &c. far 
 inferior to the arsenic of the French Encyclo- 
 pedists, for there there is wit, and language to 
 gild the destructive pill) and imagined that they 
 were men of genius, because they laughed at 
 all religions — the horrors of the French Revolu- 
 tion put an end to this — I well remember the 
 change — now a days, few people have to pro- 
 fess such principles openly — if they do, they 
 are thought fools for their pains, both by those 
 who hold their own creed, and by persons of a 
 better persuasion. 
 
 There is no series of books so dull as that 
 of Scottish Metaphysics — harmless, or offensive 
 — as with all our fanaticism we never produced 
 one standard book on religion, so with all our 
 scepticism we have never put forth a philo- 
 sophical work that is at all worth the trouble 
 of a perusal. 
 
 Lady Maxwell of Monreith, mother of the 
 Duchess of Gordon and Lady Wallace, resided, 
 when a widow, in a flat in Foulis's Close — 
 with a dark passage. You passed the kitchen 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 41 
 
 door going to the parlour. There were gene- 
 rally in said passage the fineries of her 
 beautiful daughters, hung on a screen after 
 washing. Lady Wallace used to be sent to 
 the Fountain Well with the tea-kettle, for 
 water for tea. — Miss Jeanie Elliot, the authoress 
 of the Fioiuers of the Forest, resided in Brown's 
 Square, in the first house, left hand, after you 
 pass through the coach entry. I have often 
 visited her there. She was very agreeable, with 
 a fund of anecdote. She had never been hand- 
 some. 
 
 In the same square resided Mr George Muir, 
 writer to the Signet, father of the present Sir 
 Alexander Muir Mackenzie, Bart. 
 
 In the Horse Wynd stands Galloway House, 
 with urns at top — the old Lady Galloway used 
 to go out to tea in her coach and six — when 
 she drank tea in the Wynd, the leaders were 
 sometimes at the door of the house she was 
 going to, when she was stepping into the 
 carriage. — the house afterwards belonged to Sir 
 
 Moncrieff, and the Galloway family had 
 
 a house near the head of the West Bow. 
 
 The entrance to Minto House was from that 
 
42 CHARLES KIRKPA TRICK SHARPE. 
 
 Wynd ; an arched gate way — I remember it — 
 over, or on one side, I forget which, was Lord 
 Minto's Study, the stair was forgot, till after 
 the house was built. 
 
 Princess Daskoff, the young murderess, who 
 had so great a hand in the slaughter of the 
 Emperor Peter, after she lost the favour of 
 Katharine, came to Edinburgh and resided in 
 what is now Gibbs's Hotel in St Andrew's 
 Square she gave her parties in the large room 
 there — she afterwards paid a long visit to Mr 
 Daniel Campbell, M.P. at Woodhall, where are 
 still two portraits of her — a miniature on ivory 
 and an oil painting the last well done and very 
 characteristic — she was supposed to have an 
 amour with him ; and contrived to fleece him 
 out of all the family diamonds. Lady Stafford 
 told me that when a girl, she went with her 
 grandmother Lady Alva — to meet the Princess 
 at tea at Mrs Greenfield's, in Middleton's 
 Entry — Mrs Greenfield's son was tutor to the 
 Princess's son — the Russian was quite covered 
 with costly furs and diamonds, and came with 
 her guards. 
 
 The Justice Clerk Lord Alva's house was in 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 43 
 
 Miln Square, the second door from the Bridge 
 Stairs, a flat. There was what was called a 
 pin, or risp, at the door. Ladies Sutherland 
 and Glenorchy, the daughters of Lady Alva 
 by her first husband, were married in Lord 
 Alva's house there. He bought Drumsheugh, 
 and built the drawing room, which is still one 
 of the best rooms in Edinburgh. 
 
 September 20, 1825. 
 Dear Mr C, — I return the sheet with some 
 corrections which you may adopt as you 
 please; only be sure to insert nobleman, as that 
 is matter of fact. I should not have scrawled 
 over your proofs so very unmercifully, had I 
 not lately heard some animadversions on the 
 style of the last numbers of the Traditions, 
 and of the Walks. But then I am the worst 
 judge in the world of such matters. If you 
 have any English friend at hand, you should 
 get him to revise your MSS. You have not 
 mentioned the Female Intellectual Club, which, 
 I think, Campbell in his quarto book about 
 Scottish poetry and music (I forget its proper 
 title) talks of. — Yours very truly, C. K. S. 
 
44 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 The principal Oyster Parties in old times 
 took place in a house in the Cowgate. The 
 ladies would sometimes have the oyster wenches 
 to dance in the ballroom, tho' they were known 
 to be of the worst character. This went under 
 the convenient name of frolic. A woman of 
 reputation who can find pleasure in such orgies, 
 is ten thousand times more depraved than the 
 unhappy creatures with whom she consolidates, 
 I have heard that said wenches were always 
 excellent dancers. The fine gentlemen of the 
 period had frequently balls in the oyster 
 taverns where they were the only females. 
 How much* Edinburgh is improved in some 
 particulars. 
 
 In one of the early numbers of Constables 
 Magazine is a notice about the tippling of 
 Scotch ladies in an account of old Scotch 
 manners — very curious. 
 
 Lady Elizabeth Howard, Duchess of Gordon, 
 Dr of the Duke of Norfolk, by Lady Anne 
 Somerset, Dr of the Marquis of Worcester, 
 celebrated for the disturbance she occasioned 
 by the medal sent to the Dean and Faculty 
 of Advocates, died at the Abbey hill — 1732 — 
 
ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 From an unpublished Daguerreotype by I). O. Ililb K.S.A. 
 
 (about 1845). 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 45 
 
 I suppose in that house which latterly belonged 
 to Baron Norton ; it was previously Baron 
 Mure's. Could that be the house Lord Airth 
 mentions ? it seems old. 
 
 From Pitcairn's Assembly it appears that 
 Lady Murray's yards were a fashionable Mall 
 of the time — I suppose the garden in the 
 Canongate. Lord Wemyss told me that he 
 remembered this Duke of Gordon's mother 
 residing in the house. 
 
 Queensberry House was built by the first 
 duke on ground purchased from the Lauderdale 
 family. It is in Dumfriesshire — you know that 
 circumstance. Duke James's eldest son, Lord 
 Drumlanrig, was an idiot, and early grew to 
 a great height — I have seen his coffin at 
 Durrisdeer, very long, and unornamented with 
 the heraldic follies, which bedizen the violated 
 remains of his relatives. When the family were 
 in Edinburgh he was confined in the right hand 
 wing as you enter Queensberry House, on the 
 ground floor. Some years ago the boards still 
 remained by which the windows were darkened 
 halfway up, to prevent him from looking out or 
 being seen. The day the Union was passed, his 
 
46 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 keeper joined the whole household, who flocked 
 to the Parliament House, and left the fool 
 alone, a boy remaining in the Kitchen to turn 
 the spit. When the Duke returned from his 
 triumph, it was discovered that the idiot had 
 broken loose, and got to the kitchen, where he 
 was found devouring the boy, whom he had 
 spitted and roasted. The common story is that 
 the Duke immediately ordered him to be 
 smothered; but from letters in my possession, 
 I know that he survived his father, and died 
 in England. The honours, by act of Parlia- 
 ment, devolved on his brother Charles. It was 
 said that this catastrophe was a judgment on 
 the Duke for his odious share in the Union. 
 
 The present Lord Douglas told me that he 
 remembered residing in Queensberry House with 
 his aunt the Duchess of Douglas — they had one 
 half, and Lord Glasgow the other. 
 
 The Abbey of Holyroodhouse, which must 
 have been very extensive, was the richest in 
 Scotland. The rents are mentioned, as I think, 
 in Pennant. There is a fragment of the old 
 cloister, on the right hand side of the way, after 
 crossing the Abbey strand. 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. in 
 
 When the King of France resided in the 
 Abbey Madame Polistron, his favourite, dwelt 
 in a small white washed house, on the left 
 of the Chapel, looking into the Park. Her son 
 by him, Louis Polistron, was at Madame 
 Rossignol's Dancing school — a very handsome 
 youth — he died young. 
 
 I remember many fragments of the royal 
 bodies shown in the chapel ; and a Countess 
 of Roxburgh entire, saving one hand. The 
 woman went into the vault, and threw out 
 the body on the grass — like a blackamoor's ; 
 with one white tooth, which gave an undescrib- 
 able horror to the face — it used to make 
 children squall prodigiously. In later times, I 
 once paid a visit to the chapel with some 
 friends after the royal vault had been shut 
 up. The woman who showed the place made 
 a sad lament — ' O, gentlemen, if ye had cam 
 here a while syne, I cud hae showed ye muckle 
 mair in this place — King James the Fifth's 
 shuther [shoulder] and Lord Darnley's thie 
 banes ; and a gude bit o' the Earl o' Buchan's 
 back — but there cam a French hizzie that deid 
 here — sae first they pat her in a lead coffin; 
 
48 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 and than in a wooden ane ; and set her up on 
 four stoops — and closed up the door— they say 
 she's to gang back to France whan the King 
 gets there again — but I think she'll lie here 
 till the Day o' joodgement.' This in a very 
 peevish tone. The Lady was Madame de 
 Guiche, wife to the present Duke de Gramont, 
 who died at Holyroodhouse of a disease prin- 
 cipally proceeding from her journey by sea from 
 London to Edinburgh. 
 
 From a letter written by Randolph (Ellis's 
 original Letters) concerning Marie's marriage 
 with Darnley, it appears that besides the 
 Chapel Royal at Holyrood, she had also a 
 private Chapel there. 
 
 When Cromwell and Lambert came to Edin- 
 burgh they lodged in the Canongate, at the 
 Lady Home's lodging.— //■?>/. of the family of 
 Gordon. \ 
 
 Lord Dundee left his party of 30 or 40 
 horse in the Long-gate beneath the Castle, 
 when he had his conference with the Duke of 
 Gordon at the Postern-Gate.— //^/a'^;;/. 
 
 ' Upon Saturday at night, near unto 3 of 
 the clock, the King conveyeth himself, the 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 49 
 
 Lord Ruthen, George Douglas, and two other, 
 therowe his own chamber, by the previe stayers, 
 up to the Queen's chamber, going to which 
 there is a Cabinet about 12 feet square, in 
 the same a Httle low reposing bed, and a 
 table, at the which there were sitting at the 
 supper the Queen, the Lady Argyle, and David 
 with his cap upon his head/ — E. of Bedford 
 and Randolph to the Privy Cotmcil of England. 
 Ellis s Letters. 
 
 When the Queen returned to Edinburgh after 
 the Murder, they say — ' she lodgeth not in the 
 Abbey, but in a house in the town in the 
 Hye street, and yesterday removed to one 
 nearer the Castle and larger' — probably that 
 on the Castle Hill. 
 
 Marie in her letter to Elizabeth on her 
 landing at Workington asserts that Rizzio 
 was murdered in her presence. It is prob- 
 able that he was slain going down the 
 stairs out of the Presence Chamber, as Lord 
 Bedford and Randolph have it. — N.B. the 
 boards on which his blood is now shown are 
 too modern. 
 
 In the MS. Life of King James the sext, 
 G 
 
so CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 mention is made of a part of the Abbey- 
 called the Traitor's Tower. 
 
 The Provost's Lodgings where Marie was 
 confined for a night and a day were ' foment 
 the Croce, upon the north side of the gait' 
 
 Bassintene's house was on the South Side 
 of the way, Endmylls Well. The Queen had 
 a garden on the south side of the Abbey. 
 
 From French Paris's deposition it appears 
 that The High Church was a place where 
 people resorted as a promenade. From the 
 same quarter it would appear that there were 
 open corridors at Holyroodhouse — at least I 
 take that to be the sense of galleries. 
 
 Bothwell at one time lodged in the chamber 
 above the Councel chamber. 
 
 The Laird of Ormiston lodged in Black 
 Friars Wynd. 
 
 March 31, 1831. 
 
 Dear Mr Chambers, — You know well 
 enough that I always wish to be of use to 
 you when I can, but I fancy Ed Macdonald 
 did not exactly tell you what I said to him 
 — namely, that I was certain I should not 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 51 
 
 know almost anybody at the ball— my principal 
 reason for not going myself in a fancy dress. 
 
 There were two very perfect figures — Miss 
 Anstruther (Mrs General Anstruther's daughter) 
 as Miss Harriet Byron, and Mr Anstruther 
 as Sir Charles Grandison. Miss's apron of 
 old point lace, her jewels and patches, were 
 exactly according to the costume of the novel, 
 and the whole very becoming. Mrs Maxwell, 
 in a Spanish dress, looked better than any- 
 body; the Messrs Gregory, as Dr Faustus and 
 Mephistopheles, were excellent. There were 
 ma y Turks, as fine as paste and beads could 
 make them, that added to the brilliancy of 
 the scene. The Highlanders were all as they 
 should be. Mr Archibald E. Macdonald's dress 
 was much admired, particularly his antique 
 brooch. Miss Jarman, the actress, also was 
 one of the company, and looked very well. 
 In my life I never saw such a squeeze as 
 getting into the supper-room presented ; but 
 the supper was really good. I, like many 
 others, came not home till six ; and I have 
 scarcely an eye left to help me in writing 
 this. The fact is the ball was composed of 
 
52 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 very many nameless people. Lord Buchan was 
 the only peer I saw. This will be of little 
 service, but I have done my best. — Your sincere 
 friend, C. K. S. 
 
 28 Drummond Place, Monday, 
 about 1840. 
 
 Dear Mr Chambers,— I send you the stuff 
 you desired, having read it only once over, 
 and that once made me sick. Among a thou- 
 sand faults, it wants uniformity of spelling, 
 which I cannot well correct. I advise you to 
 throw it into the fire, and am yours very 
 sincerely, CHARLES KiRKPATRiCK Sharps. 
 
 28 Drummond Place, 
 Monday, Jatiuary 5, 1845. 
 
 Dear Mr Chambers, — At your desire (better 
 late than never) I write what follows. Lord 
 Holyroodhouse's mansion between the Cowgate 
 and Brown's Square belongs to a brewer of the 
 name of Usher, who has the title-deeds. You 
 can have a magnificent bird's-eye view of the 
 premises from the east side of the new bridge. 
 
 I wish you could discover whether or not 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 53 
 
 Sir Thomas Hope's house still remains in the 
 Cowgate. I find from his diary that there 
 died Dame Marie Stewart, Countess of Mar, 
 of ' a brash ; ' her favourite son had married the 
 
 d d old Whig's daughter. 
 
 Ancnt my Lady Cassilis — there is a recent 
 book called The Ballads and Songs of Ayrshire, 
 in which you are mentioned as being wrong 
 respecting her legend; and a curious letter 
 of the cuckold printed, to prove his affection 
 for Madam. Now, about two years ago a 
 person told me that there was a tradition in 
 Ayrshire, that Lord C. took a sudden qualm 
 of conscience, or a silly fit of returning love, 
 and released his bird from her cage, replaced 
 her in his bosom ; and when she died, paid 
 her coffin some peculiar honours, of which my 
 informant had forgotten the particulars. 
 
 With many thanks for the sketches you 
 sent me, and the worst cold in my head 
 that I ever had in my life, yours faithfully, 
 
 CHAS. KIRKPATRICK ShARPE. 
 
REMARKS ON DISFIGUREMENT OF 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 By Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. 
 
 It is a melancholy truth, tho' much more 
 apparent to strangers who visit the metropolis 
 of Scotland, than to the natives, that the 
 public buildings, and almost everything which 
 has been lately contrived to beautify Edinburgh 
 have been planned with so singular a want of 
 taste, as to furnish matter of mirth to eyes 
 of no uncommon discernment. Lord Melville's 
 Monument is a gigantic candlestick, with a 
 bee hive at top ; Lord Nelson's monument 
 on the Calton hill resembles a churn ; while 
 the gate of Bridewell, facing the stranger as 
 he enters the town, is so small that it reminds 
 one of the gate of Macbeth's Castle in the 
 Theatre, only the rules of architecture are not 
 quite so accurately observed as in the paste- 
 board prototype. 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 55 
 
 After the new approach had been made, at 
 great expense, the beautifiers of the city, 
 afraid that the eye would be too much dazzled 
 by the view of the whole of Princes' St. &c. 
 at once, kindly erected a sort of skreen on 
 the north bridge ; which gives a tasteful inter- 
 ruption to the prospect, take it how you please. 
 I am utterly at a loss to understand the 
 position of that strange building fronting the 
 High Kirk — before which it seemeth to sink, 
 as a penitent sinner before the grim visage 
 of a Preacher. Was it put into that hole to 
 hide its uncouth style of architecture ? 
 
 It was lately proposed to fall foul on the 
 said High Kirk ; and that the wretched inhabi- 
 tants of the town were to pay thirty thousand 
 pounds to have this venerable pile, the resort 
 of their ancestors for so many ages, bedizzined 
 all around by the taste of Provosts and Pastry 
 cooks. The plan, I have heard, was that the 
 whole outside of the Kirk was to be new cased 
 of course, with the wonted, meretricious frippery 
 of modern architecture, which is nothing but 
 casting the riding skirt of the woman of Babel 
 over our sober mother church. Happily, how- 
 
S6 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 ever, this odious plan seems to have miscarried, 
 at least for the present. It is indeed plain, that 
 St Giles's requires some repairs ; but it is also 
 as plain, what these repairs should be. Let the 
 mullions be restored to the windows, and the 
 windows now built up, to the walls ; let the 
 tracery round the top of the building of which 
 enough remains for a pattern, be replaced. Let 
 these walls and doors which were made to 
 fashion a police office, thereby turning the 
 holy temple to a den of thieves, be cast down, 
 and then we shall have our old Kirk as it 
 was in the days of our ancestors, and when it 
 held higher men, by wonderfully many degrees, 
 than it doth now. Nay, refreshed in this man- 
 ner, it will, I contend, look handsomer than 
 were it erected over by Messrs Montgomery 
 and Davidson. And I appeal to every architect 
 in London who may not have a prospect of 
 being employed to draw the projected plan, as 
 to the truth of this assertion. 
 
 It is certainly natural enough for Provosts 
 and Baillies to have no taste. If they judge 
 properly how to arrange their goods in their 
 shop windows in the best picturesque manner. 
 
CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 57 
 
 and to adjust the devices on their signs, they 
 should be thankful to providence and rest con- 
 tented—but no such thing is the case; am- 
 bitious of fame 'that last infirmity of noble 
 minds,' they impose taxes upon their slaves 
 for the time, these unhappy townsmen, to de- 
 molish the old and interesting remains of the 
 city, and rear monuments to their own delicate 
 gusto in flights of steps up to the Castle, after 
 the style of the grand stair case at Persepolis. 
 In buildings as that lately erected on the Mound, 
 from which, by the way, there is speedily to 
 be a tail of one storey high shops, which will 
 not only render that beautiful object, the Mound, 
 still more remarkable, as obscuring the castle 
 rock, but furnish the freshest smoke to the 
 whole of Princes St., a proper incense to the 
 altar of dulness with which the Mound is al- 
 ready adorned &c. &c. &c. 
 
 'O Man weak man clothed with a little lively authority 
 most ignorant of what he's' 
 
 The late plan for improving the city was 
 admirably calculated to destroy some of the 
 most interesting remains of antiquity here ; and 
 
S8 CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE. 
 
 I think that was its principal merit. As to 
 opening up the town, a wag remarked that 
 the town had too many openings already, for 
 none of them was ever filled with Coach, Cart, 
 or foot passenger. And it is very true — the 
 Calton hill road is a melancholy proof of it. 
 
59 
 
 NOTES BY SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 FOR THE 'TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH,' 
 BY ROBERT CHAMBERS (1824). 
 
 The present Sir Alexander Keith was not 
 born in his grandfather's house at the head of 
 the College Wynd, but in a separate house 
 consisting of two flats above Mr Keith's, which 
 belonged to my father, Mr Walter Scott, W.S., 
 and where I had the chance to be born, 
 15 August 1 77 1. My father, soon after my 
 birth, migrated to George Square, and let the 
 house in the College Wynd, first to Mr Dundas 
 of Philipstoun, and afterwards to Mr William 
 Keith, father to Sir Alexander Keith. It was 
 purchased for the public, together with Mr 
 Keith's, and pulled down to make way for 
 the new college* 
 
 I think that in the Culloden papers there 
 is evidence of Lovat being pretty active instead 
 
 * Traditions of Edinburgh, first edition, vol. ii. p. 68 (1825). 
 
6o SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 of being bedfast in the years 1743, 1744- As 
 to his character, he was too cunning to be 
 really wise or sagacious. Much of his vice may 
 be charitably ascribed to a strain of madness 
 which was in his family. 
 
 Boarding school in Blackfriars wynd for 
 young Ladies. This was kept in the middle 
 of the last century by a well known lady 
 Mrs Effie Sinclair of the family of Longfor- 
 macus in Berwickshire and connected with some 
 of the most ancient Houses in Scotland. My 
 late mother was bred with this respectable 
 Lady and in the same seminary was the 
 beautiful Miss Duff afterwards Countess of 
 Dumfries and Stair, and by a recent marriage 
 Lady of the Honble. Alexr. Gordon Lord 
 Rockville. She was sister of Sir William 
 Duff Bart, British Consul at Cadiz. Also the 
 late amiable and excellently well informed Mrs 
 Murray Keith sister of Sir Robert Murray 
 Keith commonly called Ambassador Keith from 
 his diplomatic services — Also two Miss Humes 
 of Linthill — All these ladies continued to be 
 great friends during life and used to speak 
 with the utmost respect of Mrs Effie to whom 
 
5/ff WALTER SC0T7. 6 1 
 
 by the by they were all Scottish cousins. And 
 to judge by the proficiency of her scholars 
 although much of what is called accomplish- 
 ment might be then left untaught, she must 
 have been possessed of uncommon talents for 
 education. All these ladies had well cultivated 
 minds were fond of reading and wrote and 
 spelled admirably, were acquainted with history 
 and with belles lettres without neglecting the 
 more homely labour of the needle and the 
 accompt book. Two of them were women of 
 extraordinary talents and all of them were 
 perfectly well bred in society. 
 
 Mrs Nicky Murray was tolerably, or perhaps 
 intolerably aristocratic. Seeing a person at an 
 assembly, who was born in a low condition, 
 and raised by wealth acquired in some 
 mechanical profession, Mrs Nickey, without 
 paying the slightest respect to a very fine 
 laced coat, walked up to him, taxed him with 
 presumption for coming there, and fairly turned 
 him out of the room. On the other hand, some 
 remained without in the lobby, who were cer- 
 tainly well entitled to be in the room. Such 
 was Lord Kirkcudbright who literally sold 
 
62 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 gloves in the Lobby — except on the day of 
 the Peers election which concluded with a ball. 
 Lord K : reversing the freemasons song 
 
 Great King & Dukes & Lords 
 Have laid by their swords, 
 
 did on the contrary on that sole festival assume 
 his sword, lay aside his apron and became one 
 of the company whom he usually served with 
 gloves. Goldsmith in a letter from Edinburgh 
 writes in some such style as this. 
 
 'One day happening to step into Lord Kil- 
 colrys — don't be surprised his Lordship is only 
 
 EARL AND COUNTESS OF SUTHERLAND. 
 
 Some little conjugal familiarities having 
 passed between this amiable couple as they 
 outstripped the pace of their attendants and 
 carriages in walking up Cairn O'Mont, were 
 celebrated by some conscious Miss who should 
 have held her tongue if she could not shut her 
 eyes on the occasion, in verses to the tune of 
 the Highland Laddie. 
 
S/J? WALTER SCOTT. 63 
 
 Coming ower the Cairn O'Mont 
 
 And doun amang the blooming heather &c. 
 
 'Your Wellcome heartily' to the tune of the 
 wedding of 'Old Ballimore.' There are more 
 verses but not worth preserving. 
 
 There was a masking vat for brewing ale 
 brought from Holyrood House where it had 
 been used to brew ale for Prince Charles 
 Edward during his abode there. The Hano- 
 verians, in scorn, made it long serve as a lining 
 for the watering trough near Jocks Lodge. 
 I remember it there perfectly. 
 
 The Duchess of Buccleugh and Monmouth 
 was the last lady in Scotland who had pages 
 in the proper acceptation of the word, that 
 is young gentlemen of good birth who learned 
 their breeding in attending on persons of quality. 
 The last of her attendants of this sort, died 
 a general officer, I forget his name. If a 
 letter was delivered the domestic gave it to 
 the page the page to the waiting gentlewoman 
 (always a lady) and she at length to the 
 Duchess. She kept a tight hand over her 
 clan and tenants but was on the whole beloved. 
 Her lameness was not so visible as your 
 
64 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 informer mentions. She was however plain, as 
 appears from her portraits, one of which I 
 have, and what is more even Dryden who 
 inscribes a play to her, talks much of her 
 wit in the dedication but not a word of her 
 beauty which shows the case was desperate. 
 She was supposed to have been courted by 
 James II. but his Majesty chose such ugly 
 mistresses as induced his brother to say his 
 Confessor had assigned them for penances. I 
 never heard there was anything improper in 
 her intimacy with the King which certainly 
 saved her own estate from forfeiture on the 
 Duke of Monmouth's rebellion. She was buried 
 on the same day with the too much celebrated 
 Colonel Charteris. At the funeral of Henry 
 Duke of Buccleugh ten or twelve years since, 
 I was shown an old man who had been at 
 the Duchess of Monmouth's funeral & Char- 
 teris's also. He could still walk to Edinburgh 
 yet must have been near lOO years old. He 
 said the day was most dreadfully stormy which 
 all the world agreed was owing to the Devil 
 carrying off Charteris. The mob broke in upon 
 the mourners threw cats, dogs, packs of cards, 
 
S//? WALTER SCOTT. 65 
 
 &c., upon the coffin. The gentlemen drew their 
 swords & cut away among the rioters, and in 
 the confusion one little man was pushed into 
 the grave, and the Sextons who of course were 
 somewhat rapid in the discharge of their office, 
 began to shovel the earth in upon the quick & 
 the dead. My Grandfather by the mother's 
 side was present, his wife Jean Swinton of 
 Swinton being a cousin of the Charteris family. 
 He was much hurt, & I have heard my 
 mother describe the terror of the family when 
 he came home with his clothes bloody & 
 his sword broken. 
 
 I knew the Miss Ramsays of Viewfield 
 who were very good ladies and I think by 
 no means likely to behave in the absurd way 
 here mentioned. A sort of Cupola on the 
 house caused it to be called Flycap Hall. 
 They themselves called it Viewforth — and Capt. 
 Macrae named it Marionville. 
 
 The estate of Lochore was twice sold 
 after the Malcolms parted with it before it 
 was purchased by my daughter-in-law's late 
 father. 
 
 Dugald Gedd had been a silversmith but 
 
 I 
 
66 S//? WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 in his opinion his red coat had made him 
 completely military. Seeing a lady without a 
 beau at the door of the assembly room he 
 offered his services ' if the arm of an old 
 soldier could be of any use.' * Hoot awa 
 Dougal,' said the lady accepting his assistance 
 however, 'an auld tinker you mean.' — Capt. 
 Gordon once of Gordonstoun in Berwickshire 
 one of the oldest families in Scotland found 
 himself obliged at a later period to accept of 
 this situation. 
 
 Miss Jeanie Elliot. She was the sister of 
 Commodore Elliot and of course of the late 
 Lord Minto. She certainly wrote some part, 
 or the greater part, of the verses to the tune 
 of the Flowers of the Forest which are sung 
 as ancient beginning 
 
 I 've heard a lilting at our ewe's milking 
 
 but the other set beginning 
 
 I 've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling 
 
 was written by Mrs Cockburn born Miss 
 Rutherford of Fairnalie & married to Cockburn 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 67 
 
 of Ormistoun son to Lord Justice Clark. She 
 was an exceedingly clever woman & being 
 a relation and intimate with my mother, I 
 knew her very well. 
 
 Princess Dashkofif made a great sensation in 
 Edinr. The people here annexed our British 
 ideas of preeminence to the title of princess, 
 though on the continent it is inferior to that 
 of Duchess. Princess Dashkofif took advantage 
 of this mistake to take precedence of the 
 present Duchess of Buccleugh who not much 
 pleased at this breach of ceremony determined 
 on the next occasion to take her own rank 
 and walk first out of the room. The Princess 
 guessed what she was about to do and just 
 as they were going to move came up to 
 the Duchess took hold of her familiarly 
 with 'Allans, ma chere diichesse, point de 
 ceremonie! 
 
 Poor May Drummond made a bad end of 
 it. She took to picking and stealing. I have 
 somewhere a copy of tolerably good elegiac 
 verses written on a picture of May Drummond 
 in the character of Winter the following two 
 stanzas I recollect 
 
68 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Full rightly hath the artist placed 
 
 In Winters guize thy furrowed brow 
 And rightly raised thy feeble breast 
 Above the elemental glow. 
 
 Not only on thy tottering frame 
 Thy withered cheek and deafened ear, 
 
 But on thy fortune and thy fame 
 Relentless winter frowned severe. 
 
ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1870. 
 
69 
 
 THE ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH * 
 
 By Dick Tinto. 
 
 Oh Canigate puir elrich hole, 
 
 What loss, what crosses does thou thole ! 
 
 London (and death) gars thee look droll, 
 
 An' hing thy head ; 
 Wow but thou has e'en a cauld coal 
 
 To blaw indeed. 
 Allan Ratasay— Lucky Wood's Elegy. 
 
 'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, 
 Each step from splendor to disgrace. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 It is well known that the Canongate, the 
 Cowgate. the High Street, and the various 
 lanes and closes of the more ancient part of 
 the Scottish Capital, though now only inhabited 
 by the middle and lower ranks, were in former 
 
 * [This manuscript is in the holograph of Sir Walter Scott, 
 and was no doubt given by him to Robert Chambers, with 
 other memoranda to be found in the preceding pages. The 
 nom de plume Dick Tinto belongs to one of the characters 
 described in the Introduction to the Bnde of Lammermoor, but 
 why it was used in this instance there is no evidence to show.] 
 
70 S/J? WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 times the mansions of the nobility and higher 
 classes of Ecclesiastics, as also the French 
 Ambassadors, who were the constant visitors 
 of the Scottish Court before the Reformation. 
 Many of the houses in the lowest obscurities 
 of the Old Town, at present the resorts of 
 infamy and vice, were once the abodes of the 
 chaste Nuns of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries. The religious houses erected at the 
 instigation of remorse or penitence by the 
 Scottish Kings and Nobles, being finally plun- 
 dered of all their valuable furniture at the 
 Revolution, were converted into dwellings for 
 the plebeians ; and the still more splendid 
 palaces of the nobility were condemned to the 
 same fate, a (qw years thereafter, when forsaken 
 by their possessors at the Union of the King- 
 doms and departure of the Parliament. It is 
 this incident which Allan Ramsay, who wit- 
 nessed it, so feelingly deplores in the Motto. 
 
 The Cowgate continued to be the residence 
 of the Senators of the College of Justice till 
 the erection of the New Town, when Ancient 
 Edinburgh was finally deserted by all the 
 higher ranks and left to the possession of 
 
S/J? WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 tradesmen, and such as preferred a residence 
 there for convenience or for cheapness. This 
 fatal spirit of migration has continued in force 
 even to our own days ; for of late several of 
 the public offices have been removed to the 
 northern part of the city ; and it is not im- 
 probable that in the course of another century, 
 Edinburgh may have altogether changed the 
 seat of its empire to the other side of the 
 North Loch. 
 
 When I myself first emigrated from Gander- 
 cleugh to the Metropolis, I amused myself 
 much with taking sketches of the principal 
 old buildings — preparatory to a projected work 
 illustrative of the 'Antiquities of the Canon- 
 gate,' but which never had the good fortune 
 to be published. During the course of my pro- 
 gress in this enthusiastic work, at which I 
 wrought a whole twelvemonth at the incessant 
 rate of a dose a-week, I had many oppor- 
 tunities of collecting traditions concerning the 
 former noble inhabitants, with which I had 
 intended to enliven my imagined quarto (it 
 would be a shame to paint Antiquarian litera- 
 ture — even in idea — in any form less respect- 
 
72 S/J? WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 able ;) so that scarce an antique window or 
 gigantic chimney top could rear its tall form 
 through the dim noon day smoke, without 
 suggesting its tale of former magnificence or 
 former crime. 
 
 In the course of these my researches, my 
 labour was not always attended with equal 
 success or pleasure. I could narrate a very 
 facetious misadventure I met with, in endeav- 
 ouring to displace the placard of a midwife, in 
 order to come at a curious inscription over 
 the door of an ancient building in Lady Fyfe's 
 close, originally intended as a charm to pre- 
 vent the intrusion of evil spirits.* But that 
 would be beneath the dignity of an Antiquary. 
 
 Neither, however, was this pursuit unattended 
 with a good moral effect on my inner man. It 
 was a sermon of most impressive eloquence to 
 contemplate a city of princely edifices, which 
 had not only, like all the inanimate work of 
 
 * The Lintel-charm always consisted of a quotation from 
 Scripture, in which one of the titles of the Deity was an 
 essential desideratum. Every genuine old house in Edinburgh 
 is blessed with one of these. That of John Knox is at present 
 hid under the sign of a barber. Heu, profanmn ! 
 
S//i WALTER SCOTT. 73 
 
 man's hands, survived the frail being of their 
 founders; but remained to be profaned, when 
 their owners' names had become strange to the 
 ears of posterity, by sheltering the base-born 
 plebeian, to whom the antiquity of his habita- 
 tion and the recollection of its former inhabit- 
 ants were equally indifferent. The tide of 
 magnificence had rolled back and left them 
 on the black beach, wrecked, despoiled and 
 overgrown with the mould of age and habitual 
 debasement. At windows where Countesses 
 formerly sate, washerwomen hung over their 
 mean clothes to dry. The armorial bearings 
 of the proud Seaton were plaistered over with 
 the sign of a retailer of * Porter from the butt! 
 In the house of one of the episcopal prelates 
 of Edinburgh in the reign of Charles I., I 
 found the principal room converted into the 
 shop of a bookbinder, the finely carved roof 
 adorned with alto relievo figures of Christ and 
 his apostles daubed over with the obscurity of 
 twenty coats of coarse whitening, while the 
 sideral crown of the principal figure displayed 
 its starry points blackened over with the dirt 
 of half a century of fly-seasons. Altogether an 
 J 
 
74 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 awful lesson of mutability of mortal grandeur ! 
 Even the house of John Knox does not 
 seem more revered by the posterity for whose 
 religious liberty he more than fought, than 
 those of his prouder contemporaries. His kitchen 
 is at present occupied as a tap room of the 
 lowest rank, and in other parts of his mansion, 
 an umbrella-maker, a barber, and a retailer 
 of potatoes exercise their various vocations. 
 His pulpit-bust was lately daubed over by sub- 
 scription. 
 
 Many more of the ancient houses of Edin- 
 burgh, consecrated by their connexion with 
 Scottish history and polluted with the crimes 
 of a fierce and lawless aristocracy, have 'fallen 
 from their high estate' to a lowness equally 
 astonishing. The palace of Cardinal Beatoun, 
 at the foot of Blackfriars Wynd, once the 
 invested seat of more than princely splendor, is 
 now divided into a number of mean tenements 
 for the lowest class of tradesmen. It was in 
 this noble mansion that the Earl of Arran held 
 council with the crafty priest, when Gavin 
 Douglas, in behalf of his nephew the Earl of 
 Angus, the rival of Arran, came to beseech the 
 
S/I? WALTER SCOTT. 75 
 
 Cardinal to interpose his influence in appeasing 
 the differences of the hostile nobles ; and it 
 was from this mansion that the partizans of 
 Arran issued, after Douglas's unsuccessful inter- 
 cession, and after fighting their way through 
 the streets of Edinburgh, were finally beaten 
 by the opposite faction ; while the Prelate who, 
 it seems, had fought with them, retired for 
 shelter to the altar of the neighbouring church 
 of Blackfriars. In this Wynd also stands the 
 lodging of the Countess of Roslin, a lady who 
 was second in dignity to only the Queen, who 
 never travelled without eighty maids of honour, 
 fifty-three of whom were the daughters of 
 noblemen, dressed in velvet and gold ; besides 
 as many torch bearers, if she chose to travel 
 by night. The titles of her husband were so 
 numerous that they fill half a quarto page, and 
 prove too many for even the faithful memory 
 of the old man who shows his tomb in the 
 Chapel of Roslin. Blackfriars Wynd is now 
 proverbial as the meanest street in the metro- 
 polis, for which see Arnot. The private house 
 of the unfortunate Mary standing on the north 
 side of the Netherbow, second from that of 
 
76 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 John Knox, which seems to have been one of 
 the most elegant of all the ancient buildings 
 of the metropolis, has undergone the same 
 degradation. It must have been an unusually 
 splendid structure in its best days, and from 
 the light and airy elegance which the multi- 
 tude of its windows and other peculiarities 
 display, we may almost conclude it to have 
 been erected after the Queen's own taste — a 
 taste which all historians agree to have been 
 exquisite. The Brazier who now inhabits the 
 lower story, seems to have followed in an 
 improving degree, the elegant French taste of 
 the original possessor ; for he has thrown the 
 whole front of his shop into one universal win- 
 dow. This relic, as it may be reckoned, of the 
 genius as well as magnificence of Scotland's 
 fairest Queen, has been adorned with her 
 own arms carved in stone on the front of the 
 third story, now painted over with the sign 
 of a Carver of Chimney pieces and Giran- 
 doles. Among the numberless specimens of 
 the decayed splendor of the ancient Scottish 
 aristocracy, I shall only mention another ; 
 namely the mansion 
 
S//? WALTER SCOTT. TJ 
 
 [The manuscript ends abruptly at this 
 point. — Ed.] 
 
 The letters which follow belong to the latest 
 period of Scott's life, and, with the exception 
 of a brief note dated Abbotsford, Feb. 14th, 
 183 1, are all that have come into my pos- 
 session. Between Sir Walter Scott and Robert 
 Chambers personal intercourse had ceased, for 
 the great novelist was a confirmed invalid at 
 Abbotsford ; but, as already said, letters passed 
 between them, sometimes in reference to 
 literary matters, and on other occasions con- 
 cerning the introductions of strangers. A Miss 
 MacLaughlin, with musical acquirements, having 
 visited Edinburgh, besought an introduction to 
 Sir Walter, which being granted, the following 
 letter was afterwards received, dated from 
 Abbotsford, March 7, 1831 : 
 
 ' My dear Mr Chambers,— I was quite 
 happy to see Miss MacLaughlin, who is a 
 fine enthusiastic girl, and very pretty withal. 
 They — that is, her mother and she — break- 
 fasted with me, though I had what is unusual 
 
78 S//? WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 at Abbotsford, no female assistance. However, 
 we got on very well; and I prepared the 
 young lady a set of words to the air of 
 Crochallan. But although Miss M. proposed to 
 leave me a copy of the Celtic harmonies, I 
 suppose the servant put it in her carriage. 
 Purdie is the publisher. Will you get me a 
 copy of the number containing Crochallati, with 
 a prose translation by a competent person, and 
 let me know the expense.!* 
 
 *I fear I cannot be of use to you in the 
 way you propose, though I sincerely rejoice in 
 your success, and would gladly promote it ; 
 but Dr Abercrombie threatens me with death 
 if I write so much. I must assist Lockhart a 
 little, for you are aware of our connection, and 
 he has always shewn me the duties of a son ; 
 but except that, and my own necessary work 
 at the edition of the Waverley Novels as they 
 call them, I can hardly pretend to be a con- 
 tributor, for, after all, that same dying is a 
 ceremony one would put off as long as he 
 could. ... I am, dear Mr Chambers, very faith- 
 fully yours, Walter Scott.' 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 79 
 
 The next letter bears a melancholy record 
 of Sir Walter's growing bodily weakness : 
 
 'Abbotsford, August 2, 1831. 
 
 'Dear Mr Chambers,— I received your 
 letter through Mr Cadell. It is impossible for 
 a gentleman to say no to a request which 
 flatters him more than he deserves. But even 
 although it is said in the newspapers, I actually 
 am far from well. I am keeping my head as 
 cool as I can, and speak with some difficulty ; 
 but I am unwilling to make a piece of work 
 about nothing, and instead of doing so, I ought 
 rather to receive the lady as civilly as I can, 
 I am much out, riding, or rather crawling about 
 my plantations in the morning, when the 
 weather will permit; but a card from Miss 
 Eccles will find me at home, and happy to 
 see her, although the effect is like to be dis- 
 appointment to the lady. I am your faithful, 
 humble servant. 
 
 ' I have owed you a letter longer than I 
 intended ; but I write with pain, and generally 
 use the hand of a friend. I sign with my 
 
8o SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 initials, as enough to represent the poor half 
 of me that is left, but am still much yours, 
 
 'W. S.' 
 
 This appears to have been the last letter 
 received by Robert Chambers from Sir Walter 
 Scott. 
 
 Edinbiugh : Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited. 
 
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