Sir George Mackenzie—Lady Anne Dick.

In Catholic times several of the great dignitaries of the Church had houses in Edinburgh, as the Archbishop of St Andrews at the foot of Blackfriars Wynd, the Bishop of Dunkeld in the Cowgate, and the Abbot of Cambuskenneth in the Lawnmarket.[187] The Abbot of Melrose’s ‘lodging’ appears from public documents to have been in what is now called Strichen’s Close, in the High Street, immediately to the west of Blackfriars Wynd. It had a garden extending down to the Cowgate and up part of the opposite slope.

A successor of the abbot in this possession was Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, king’s advocate in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., and author of several able works in Scottish law, as well as a successful cultivator of miscellaneous literature. He got a charter of the property from the magistrates in 1677. The house occupied by Sir George still exists,[188] and appears to have been a goodly enough mansion for its time. It is now, however, possessed by a brass-founder as a place of business. From Sir George the alley was called Rosehaugh’s Close, till, this house falling by marriage connection into the possession of Lord Strichen, it got the name of Strichen’s Close, which it still bears. Lord Strichen was a judge of the Court of Session for forty-five years subsequent to 1730. He was the direct ancestor of the present Lord Lovat of the British peerage.

Mackenzie has still a place in the popular imagination in Edinburgh as the Bluidy Mackingie, his office having been to prosecute the unruly Covenanters. It therefore happens that the founder of our greatest national library,[189] one whom Dryden regarded as a friend, and who was the very first writer of classic English prose in Scotland, is a sort of Raw-head and Bloody-bones by the firesides of his native capital. He lies in a beautiful mausoleum, which forms a conspicuous object in the Greyfriars Churchyard, and which describes him as an ornament to his age, and a man who was kind to all, ‘except a rebellious crew, from whose violence, with tongue and pen, he defended his country and king, whose virulence he stayed by the sword of justice, and whose ferocity he, by the force of reason, blunted, and only did not subdue.’ This monument was an object of horror to the good people of Edinburgh, as it was almost universally believed that the spirit of the persecutor could get no rest in its superb but gloomy tenement. It used to be ‘a feat’ for a set of boys, in a still summer evening, to march up to the ponderous doors, bedropt with white tears upon a black ground, and cry in at the keyhole:—

after which they would run away as if some hobgoblin were in chase of them, probably not looking round till they were out of the churchyard.

Sir George Mackenzie had a country-house called Shank, about ten miles to the south of Edinburgh,[190] now a ruin. One day the Marquis of Tweeddale, having occasion to consult him about some law business, rode across the country, and arrived at so early an hour in the morning that the lawyer was not yet out of bed. Soliciting an immediate audience, he was admitted to the bedroom, where he sat down and detailed the case to Sir George, who gave him all necessary counsel from behind the curtains. When the marquis advanced to present a fee, he was startled at the apparition of a female hand through the curtains, in an attitude expressive of a readiness to receive, while no hand appeared on the part of Sir George. The explanation was that Sir George’s lady, as has been the case with many a weaker man, took entire charge of his purse.[191]

Several of the descendants of this great lawyer have been remarkable for their talents. None, perhaps, possessed more of the vivida vis animi than his granddaughter, Lady Anne Dick of Corstorphine (also granddaughter, by the father’s side, to the clever but unscrupulous ‘Tarbat Register,’ the first Earl of Cromarty).[192] This lady excited much attention in Edinburgh society by her eccentric manners and her droll pasquinade verses: one of those beings she was who astonish, perplex, and fidget their fellow-creatures, till at last the world feels a sort of relief when they are removed from the stage. She made many enemies by her lampoons; and her personal conduct only afforded them too good room for revenge. Sometimes she would dress herself in men’s clothes, and go about the town in search of adventures. One of her frolics ended rather disgracefully, for she and her maid, being apprehended in their disguise, were lodged all night in the Town Guard-house. It may be readily imagined that by those whom her wit had exasperated such follies would be deeply relished and made the most of. We must not, therefore, be surprised at Scandal telling that Lady Anne had at one period lain a whole year in bed, in a vain endeavour—to baffle himself.

Through private channels have oozed out at this late day a few specimens of Lady Anne’s poetical abilities; less brilliant than might be expected from the above character of her, yet having a certain air of dash and espiÈglerie which looks appropriate. They are partly devoted to bewailing the coldness of a certain Sir Peter Murray of Balmanno, towards whom she chose to act as a sort of she-Petrarch, but apparently in the mere pursuit of whim. One runs in the following tender strain:

In another, tired, apparently, of the apathy of this sweet youth, she breaks out as follows:

Her ladyship died, without issue, in 1741.