A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain III

A TOUR THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN III

pieces of painting, but the family pieces are particular, and very remarkable, some for their antiquity, and the antient dress of the age they were wrought in, and others, for the fineness of the workmanship; as especially that of the old Marquess of Tweedale, and his fifteen children, done after the manner of that of King Charles I. and his royal family, which formerly stood at the upper end of the long gallery, at Whitehall. So this stands at the upper end of a large room, fill’d up with other family pieces, and takes up one whole square of the room.

I cannot dwell upon the rest of the fine paintings here; it must surfice to add, here are a great many, and very good. Here are also three very fine altar pieces, with others of that kind, suppos’d to belong to private Oratories in Popish times, with Passion pieces, and others of that kind also.

From hence we have but four miles to Edinburgh. But, before I go thither, I must dip so far into story, as to observe that here it was the famous Battle of Musclebro was fought between the English, under the Duke of Somerset, in the time of King Edward VI. of England, and the Scots royal army under the Regent, which was afterwards call’d, the English way of wooing: The quarrel was to obtain the young Queen of Scots for a wife to King Edward, which the Scots Popish Party, back’d by the French, were obstinately against; and that so much, that tho’ the English won the battle, yet they lost the prize, for the young queen was privately embarqu’d, carry’d away into France, and there marry’d to the dauphin.

I say this battle was fought here, tho’ we call it the Battle of Musclebro: And some Scots gentlemen, who rode out with us afterwards to shew us the place, particularly mark’d out ev-

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ery step to us, where the action was both begun and ended, as well the fight as the pursuit; and we agreed that the Scots are in the right, who call it the Battle of Pinkie, not of Musclebro. ’Tis none of my business to give an account of battles and sieges; besides, the English being victors, I shall not mingle any of our trophies and triumphs with my account of Scotland; that would not be using the Scots fairly. I shall speak freely of those where they were victors, but not throw the English, as it were, in their faces; that would be to act the very part which I blame the Scots writers for, namely to be always crying up my own country, and my own people. Certain it is, the Scots’ great error at this battle, as it was afterwards at the Battle of Dunbar, was want of unanimity among themselves; for we must always blush when we pretend to say the Scots ever wanted courage in the field, let the cause, or the time, or the government be what, when, and how they will.

Another mistake of the Scots, at this fight, was that they ventur’d to engage so near the sea, as to be within reach of the cannon from the English men of war, in the road of Musclebro, who, very much to their damage, flank’d their army, and kept firing on the left wing all the while of the battle, till the troops were so mingled with one another, that they could not, from the ships, distinguish their enemies from their friends. This was a great disadvantage to their whole army, and especially discourag’d and disorder’d their infantry, and was owing to the inadvertency of the general officers, not want of courage or bravery in their men; and it would have been the same to the English had the case been theirs.

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I am now at the gates of Edinburgh; but before I come to describe the particulars of that city, give me leave to take it in perspective, and speak something of its situation, which will be very necessary with respect to some disadvantage which the city lyes under on that account.

When you stand at a small distance, and take a view of it from the east, you have really but a confus’d idea of the city, because the situation being in length from east to west, and the breadth but ill proportion’d to its length, you view under the greatest disadvantage possible; whereas if you turn a little to the right hand towards Leith, and so come towards the city, from the north you see a very handsome prospect of the whole city, and from the south you have yet a better view of one part, because the city is encreased on that side with new streets, which, on the north side, cannot be.

The particular situation then of the whole is thus. At the extremity of the east end of the city stands the palace or court, call’d Haly-Rood House; and you must fetch a little sweep to the right hand to leave the palace on the left, and come at the entrance, which is call’d the Water Port, and which you come at thro’ a short suburb, then bearing to the left again, south, you come to the gate of the palace which faces the great street. From the palace, west, the street goes on in almost a straight line, and for near a mile and a half in length, some say full two measur’d miles, thro’ the whole city to the castle, including the going up the castle in the inside; this is, perhaps, the largest, longest, and finest street for buildings and number of inhabitants, not in Britain only, but in the world.

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From the very palace door, which stands on a flat, and level with the lowest of the plain country, the street begins to ascend; and tho’ it ascends very gradually at first, and is no where steep, yet ’tis easy to understand that continuing the ascent for so long a way, the further part must necessarily be very high; and so it is; for the castle which stands at the extremity west, as the palace does east, makes on all the three sides, that only excepted, which joins it to the city, a frightful and impassable precipice.

Together with this continued ascent, which, I think, ’tis easy to form an idea of in the mind, you are to suppose the edge or top of the ascent so narrow, that the street, and the row of houses on each side of it, take up the whole breadth; so that which way soever you turn, either to the right, or to the left, you go down hill imediately, and that so steep, as is very troublesome to those who walk in those side lanes which they call Wynds, especially if their lungs are not very good: So that, in a word, the city stands upon the narrow ridge of a long ascending mountain.

On the right side, or north side of the city, and from the very west end of it, where the castle stands, is a lough, or lake of standing water; there is, indeed, a small brook runs thro’ it, so that it cannot be said to be quite standing water. And we were told, that in former days there was another lough on the south side of it, which, being now fill’d up, is built into a street, tho’ so much lower than the high street, or ridge, that, as I said before, the lanes or wynds between them are very steep.

It is easy to conclude, that such a situation as this could never be pick’d out for a city or town, upon any other consider-

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ation than that of strength to defend themselves from the suddain surprizes and assaults of enemies: And, tho’ the building is so antient, that no history has recorded the foundation, either when, or by who, or on what occasion it was built; yet, I say, it seems most natural to conclude, that it was built for a retreat from the outrages and attempts of the Picts or Irish, or whatever other enemies they had to fear.

On the top of the ridge of a hill, an impregnable castle and precipice at one end, a lough, or lake of water on either side; so that the inhabitants had nothing to defend but the entrance at the east end, which it was easy to fortify.

If this was not the reason, what should have hinder’d them from building the city in a pleasant, delightful valley, with the sea flowing up to one side, and a fresh water river running thro’ the middle of it; such as is all that space of ground between the city, as it now stands, and the sea, or Firth, and on the south shore, whereof the town of Leith now stands?

Here they had had a noble, a pleasant, and a most useful situation, a very fine harbour for their trade, a good road in the Firth for their ships of burthen, a pleasant river, which, with small art or charge, might have been so drawn round the city as to have fill’d its ditches, and made its fortifications as impregnable as the two loughs did the city, and as the French, when they fortify’d Leith, found easy to do. Or had they gone to the south side of the city, beyond the deep lough, which, they say it was, and which is now call’d the Cowgate, and extended the city towards Libertoun, and towards Good-Trees, where now stands the delightful seat of Sir James Stuart, late Lord Advocate of Scotland, and the antient seat of

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Craigmiller, the seat of Sir Alexander – of Craigmiller. Here had been a plain large enough to have contain’d a second London, and water’d on the south part with a pleasant brook, sufficient, by the help of pipes, to have carried water into every street, and every house.

These things they did not foresee, or understand in those days; but, regarding immediate safety, fix’d on the place as above as a sure strength, form’d by Nature, and ready at their hand. By this means the city suffers infinite disadvantages, and lies under such scandalous inconveniences as are, by its enemies, made a subject of scorn and reproach; as if the people were not as willing to live sweet and clean as other nations, but delighted in stench and nastiness; whereas, were any other people to live under the same unhappiness, I mean as well of a rocky and mountainous situation, throng’d buildings, from seven to ten or twelve story high, a scarcity of water, and that little they have difficult to be had, and to the uppermost lodgings, far to fetch; we should find a London or a Bristol as dirty as Edinburgh, and, perhaps, less able to make their dwelling tolerable, at least in so narrow a compass; for, tho’ many cities have more people in them, yet, I believe, this may be said with truth, that in no city in the world so many people live in so little room as at Edinburgh.

On the north side of the city, as is said above, is a spacious, rich, and pleasant plain, extending from the lough, which as above joins the city, to the river of Leith, at the mouth of which is the town of Leith, at the distance of a long Scots mile from the city: And even here, were not the north side of the hill, which the city stands on, so exceeding steep, as hardly, (at

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least to the westward of their flesh-market) to be clamber’d up on foot, much less to be made passable for carriages. But, I say, were it not so steep, and were the lough fill’d up, as it might easily be, the city might have been extended upon the plain below, and fine beautiful streets would, no doubt, have been built there; nay, I question much whether, in time, the high streets would not have been forsaken, and the city, as we might say, run all out of its gates to the north.

This might have been expected, if the city had been in a state of encrease, for the trade having flourished, as was reasonably expected upon the Union, the inhabitants had likewise encreas’d; whereas, there being reason to doubt that this is not the case, but rather the contrary, we cannot talk of this as prospect in hope.

Having thus consider’d the city in its appearance, and in its present situation, I must look next into its inside, where we shall find it under all its discouragements and disadvantages, (and labouring with whatever inconveniences) a large, populous, noble, rich, and even still a royal city. The main street, as above, is the most spacious, the longest, and best inhabited street in Europe; its length I have describ’d; the buildings are surprizing both for strength, for beauty, and for height; all, or the greatest part of free-stone, and so firm is every thing made, that tho’ in so high a situation, and in a country where storms and violent winds are so frequent, ’tis very rare that any damage is done here. No blowing of tiles about the streets, to knock people on the head as they pass; no stacks of chimneys and gable-ends of houses falling in to bury the inhabitants in their ruins, as we often find it in London, and other of our pa-

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per built cities in England; but all is fix’d, and strong to the top, tho’ you have, in that part of the city call’d the Parliamentclose, houses, which, on the south side, appear to be eleven or twelve story high, and inhabited to the very top.

From the palace gate, westward, this street is call’d the Can- non-Gate, vulgarly the Canni-gate, which part, tho’ a suburb, is a kind of Corporation by itself, as Westminster to London; and has a toll-booth, a prison, and a town-guard by itself, tho’ under the government of the provost and bailiffs of Edinburgh as Leith itself also is. In this part of the street, tho’ otherwise not so well inhabited as the city itself, are several very magnificent houses of the nobility, built for their residence when the court was in town, and on their other occaasions, just as was the case in the Strand between London and Whitehall, before the encrease of the city prompted the building those fine houses into streets. Of those the Duke of Queensberry’s, the Earl of Wintoun’s, the Duke of Roxburgh’s, and the Earl of Murray’s are the chief; the first and last are very magnificent, large and princely buildings, all of free-stone, large in front, and with good gardens behind them, and the other are very fine buildings, too many to be describ’d.

At the upper, or west end of this street, and where it joins to the city, is a gate which, just as Ludgate, or Temple-Bar, stands parting the city itself from the suburb, but not at all discontinuing the street, which rather widens, and is more spacious when you are thro’ the gate than before. This gate, or Bow, is call’d the Nether-Bow, or, by some, the Nether-Bow port.

Just at this port, on the outside, turn away two streets, one goes south to a gate or port which leads out of the city into

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the great road for England, by the way of Kelso, and is call’d St. Mary Wynde; and, on the right hand of it, another port turns away west, into the low street, mention’d before, where was a lough formerly fill’d up, and is call’d the Cowgate, because, by this street, the cattle are driven to and from the great marketplace, call’d the Grass-market, where such cattle are bought and sold, as also where is a horse-market weekly, as in Smithfield. This street, call’d the Cowgate, runs parallel with the high street, but down in a bottom, as has been said. But to go back to the Nether-Bow Port, as this turning is on the left hand going into the city, so on the right hand goes another street, which they call Leith Wynd, and leads down to a gate which is not in the city wall immediately, but adjoining to a church call’d the College-Kirk, and thro’ which gate, a suburb runs out north, opening into the plain, leads to Leith; and all along by the road side, the road itself pav’d with stones like a street, is a broad causeway, or, as we call it, a foot way, very firm, and made by hand at least 20 foot broad, and continued to the town of Leith. This causeway is very well kept at the publick expence, and no horses suffer’d to come upon it.

At the turning down of this street, without the NetherBow port, which they call the head of the Cannon-gate, there stood a very great pile of building which went both ways, part made the east side of the turning call’d Leith Wynd, and part made the north side of the Cannon-gate; the whole was built, as many such are, for private dwellings, but were stately, high, and very handsome buildings, seven or eight stories: But great part of this fine pile of building was very unhappily burnt a few years ago; whether they are yet fully rebuilt, I cannot say.

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We now enter the city, properly so call’d; in almost the first buildings of note on the north side of the street, the Marquess of Tweedale has a good city house, with a plantation of lime-trees behind it, instead of a garden, the place not allowing room for a large garden; adjoining to which are very good buildings, tho’ in the narrow wynds and alleys, such as if set out in handsome streets, would have adorn’d a very noble city, but are here crouded together, as may be said, without notice.

Here the physicians have a hall, and adjoining to it a very good garden; but I saw no simples in it of value, there being a physick garden at the palace which furnishes them sufficiently: But they have a fine Musæum, or Chamber of Rarities, which are worth seeing, and which, in some things, is not to be match’d in Europe. Dr. Balfour, afterwards knighted, began the collection. Sir Robert Sibbald has printed a catalogue of what was then deposited in his time. The physitians of Edinburgh have preserved the character of able, learned, and experienc’d, and have not been outdone by any of their neighbours: And the late Dr. Pitcairn, who was the Ratcliff of Scotland, has left large testimonies of his skill in nature and medicine to the world.

It must not be expected I can go on to describe all the buildings of the city; I shall therefore only touch at such things, and go on. From the Nether-Bow, you have an open view up the high street. On the south side is the trone kirk, and a little farther, in the middle of the street the guard house, where the town guard does duty every night. These are in the stead of our watchmen; and the town maintains two full companies of them, cloth’d and arm’d as grenadiers.

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