Distinguished Inhabitants in Former Times—Story of a Burning—Morocco’s Land—New Street.

The Canongate, which takes its name from the Augustine canons of Holyrood (who were permitted to build it by the charter of David I. in 1128, and afterwards ruled it as a burgh of regality), was formerly the court end of the town. As the main avenue from the palace into the city, it has borne upon its pavement the burden of all that was beautiful, all that was gallant, all that has become historically interesting in Scotland for the last six or seven hundred years. It still presents an antique appearance, although many of the houses are modernised. There is one with a date from Queen Mary’s reign,[234] and many may be guessed, from their appearance, to be of even an earlier era. Previously to the Union, when the palace ceased to be occasionally inhabited, as it had formerly been, by at least the vicar of majesty in the person of the Commissioner to the Parliament, the place was densely inhabited by persons of distinction. Allan Ramsay, in lamenting the death of Lucky Wood, says:

and mentions in a note that this place was ‘the greatest sufferer by the loss of our members of parliament, which London now enjoys, many of them having had their houses there;’ a fact which Maitland confirms. Innumerable traces are to be found, in old songs and ballads, of the elegant population of the Canongate in a former day. In the piteous tale of Marie Hamilton—one of the Queen’s Maries—occurs this simple but picturesque stanza:

An old popular rhyme expresses the hauteur of these Canongate dames towards their city neighbours of the male sex:

Even in times comparatively modern, this faubourg was inhabited by persons of very great consideration.[235] Within the memory of a lady living in 1830, it used to be a common thing to hear, among other matters of gossip, ‘that there was to be a braw flitting[236] in the Canongate to-morrow;’ and parties of young people were made up to go and see the fine furniture brought out, sitting perhaps for hours in the windows of some friend on the opposite side of the street, while cart after cart was laden with magnificence.[237] Many of the houses to this day are fit for the residence of a first-rate family in every respect but vicinage and access. The last grand blow was given to the place by the opening of the road along the Calton Hill in 1817, which rendered it no longer the avenue of approach to the city from the east. Instead of profiting by the comparative retirement which it acquired on that occasion, it seemed to become the more wretchedly squalid from its being the less under notice—as a gentleman dresses the least carefully when not expecting visitors. It is now a secluded and, in general, meanly inhabited suburb, only accessible by ways which, however lightly our fathers and grandfathers might regard them, are hardly now pervious to a lady or gentleman without shocking more of the senses than one, besides the difficulty of steering one’s way through the herds of the idle and the wretched who encumber the street.

One of the houses near the head of the Canongate, on the north side of the street, was indicated to me by an old lady a few years ago as that which tradition in her young days pointed to in connection with a wild story related in the notes to Rokeby. She had often heard the tale told, nearly in the same manner as it has been given by Scott, and the site of the house concerned in the tragedy was pointed out to her by her seniors. Perhaps the reader will again excuse a quotation from the writings of our late gifted fellow-townsman: if to be related at all—and surely in a work devoted to Edinburgh popular legends it could not rightly be overlooked—it may as well be given in the language of the prince of modern conteurs:

‘About the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the large castles of the Scottish nobles, and even the secluded hotels, like those of the French noblesse, which they possessed in Edinburgh, were sometimes the scenes of strange and mysterious transactions, a divine of singular sanctity was called up at midnight to pray with a person at the point of death. This was no unusual summons; but what followed was alarming. He was put into a sedan-chair, and after he had been transported to a remote part of the town, the bearers insisted upon his being blindfolded. The request was enforced by a cocked pistol, and submitted to; but in the course of the discussion, he conjectured, from the phrases employed by the chairmen, and from some part of their dress, not completely concealed by their cloaks, that they were greatly above the menial station they assumed. After many turns and windings, the chair was carried upstairs into a lodging, where his eyes were uncovered, and he was introduced into a bedroom, where he found a lady, newly delivered of an infant. He was commanded by his attendants to say such prayers by her bedside as were fitting for a person not expected to survive a mortal disorder. He ventured to remonstrate, and observe that her safe delivery warranted better hopes. But he was sternly commanded to obey the orders first given, and with difficulty recollected himself sufficiently to acquit himself of the task imposed on him. He was then again hurried into the chair; but as they conducted him downstairs he heard the report of a pistol. He was safely conducted home; a purse of gold was forced upon him; but he was warned, at the same time, that the least allusion to this dark transaction would cost him his life. He betook himself to rest, and after long and broken musing, fell into a deep sleep. From this he was awakened by his servant, with the dismal news that a fire of uncommon fury had broken out in the house of ——, near the head of the Canongate, and that it was totally consumed; with the shocking addition that the daughter of the proprietor, a young lady eminent for beauty and accomplishments, had perished in the flames. The clergyman had his suspicions, but to have made them public would have availed nothing. He was timid; the family was of the first distinction; above all, the deed was done, and could not be amended. Time wore away, however, and with it his terrors. He became unhappy at being the solitary depositary of this fearful mystery, and mentioned it to some of his brethren, through whom the anecdote acquired a sort of publicity. The divine, however, had been long dead, and the story in some degree forgotten, when a fire broke out again on the very same spot where the house of —— had formerly stood, and which was now occupied by buildings of an inferior description. When the flames were at their height, the tumult which usually attends such a scene was suddenly suspended by an unexpected apparition. A beautiful female, in a nightdress extremely rich, but at least half a century old, appeared in the very midst of the fire, and uttered these tremendous words in her vernacular idiom: “Anes burned, twice burned; the third time I’ll scare you all!” The belief in this story was formerly so strong that on a fire breaking out, and seeming to approach the fatal spot, there was a good deal of anxiety testified, lest the apparition should make good her denunciation.’

A little way farther down the Canongate, on the same side, is an old-fashioned house called Morocco’s Land, having an alley passing under it, over which is this inscription[238]—a strange cry of the spirit of man to be heard in a street:

MISERERE MEI, DOMINE: A PECCATO, PROBRO,
DEBITO, ET MORTE SUBITA, LIBERA ME.

From whom this exclamation proceeded I have never learned; but the house, which is of more modern date than the legend, has a story connected with it. It is said that a young woman belonging to Edinburgh, having been taken upon a voyage by an African rover, was sold to the harem of the Emperor of Morocco, with whom she became a favourite. Mindful, like her countrymen in general, of her native land and her relations, she held such a correspondence with home as led to a brother of hers entering into merchandise, and conducting commercial transactions with Morocco. He was successful, and realised a little fortune, out of which he built this stately mansion. From gratitude, or out of a feeling of vanity regarding his imperial brother-in-law, he erected a statue of that personage in front of his house—a black, naked figure, with a turban and a necklace of beads; such being the notion which a Scottish artist of those days entertained of the personal aspect of the chief of one of the Mohammedan states of Africa. And this figure, perched in a little stone pulpit, still exists. As to the name bestowed upon the house, it would most probably arise from the man being in the first place called Morocco by way of sobriquet, as is common when any one becomes possessed by a particular subject, and often speaks of it.