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disposition, and he was unquestionably a warm patron of literature. He was the friend of Dryden, and the founder of the Advocates' Library. None of these things, however, could mitigate the detestation in which he was held by the common people as the instrument of the hated English Government—a detestation which found vent in the unpleasant nickname of Bluidy Mackenzie.' It is said that he looked on his wife with much the same mixture of fear and detestation with which he himself was regarded by the Covenanters. His house was on the left-hand side at the foot of the close. The last man to give his name to the close was Alexander Fraser of Strichen, afterwards Lord Strichen. Besides these, a host of interesting people lived in Strichen's Close -among them Walter Chepman.

Next to Strichen's Close is Blackfriars Street, which has many historical associations. It derives its name from the Dominican or Black Friars belonging to the monastery founded by Alexander II. in 1230. Ecclesiastical dwellers were not lacking even in later days. At the south end near the Cowgate stood the palace of James Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, afterwards inhabited by his better-known nephew the Cardinal. Another Archbishop of St. Andrews, who, like Cardinal Beaton, was murdered by his political enemies, is connected with Blackfriars Street. Archbishop Sharp was just getting into his coach at the head of the Wynd when a fanatic called Mitchell-a friend, by the way, of the notorious Major Weir-fired at the Archbishop and missed him, but dangerously wounded Honeyman, Bishop of Orkney. The turbulent Earl of BothwellFrancis Stewart-stabbed Sir William Stewart here, and here the Hamiltons gathered together for the 'bruilzie' of 'Cleanse the Causey.' The Regent Morton had a house in Blackfriars Wynd, and here lived William St. Clair, Earl of Orkney, who founded Roslin Chapel. The state he kept was more royal'

than that of many of the Scottish kings. We are told Castlethat he used dishes of gold and silver, and that his hill, the wife, Margaret Douglas, had seventy-five gentlewomen, Lawnfifty-three of these being daughters of Scottish nobles; market, and all, says Hay, 'cloathed in velvets and silks, and and with their chains of gold and other pertinents, togither High with two hundred rideing gentlemen who accompanied Street her in all her journeys. She had carried before her, when she wente to Edinburgh, if it were darke, eighty lighted torches. Her lodgeing was att the foot of Blackfriar Wynde, so that in a word, none matched her in all the countrey, save the Queen's Majesty.' Lord Home, who received Mary and Darnley in the Clamshell Turnpike, had also a house in Blackfriars Wynd, and to it he retired when he was released in 1575. The Diurnal of Occurrents states: Upon the secund day of Junij Alexander Lord Home was relevit out of the Castell of Edinburgh and wardit in his awne lugeing in the heid of the Frier Wynd, quha was caryt thairto in ane bed, be ressone of his great infirmitie of seiknes.' Perhaps the fact we dwell on most as we stand in this once quaint, now modern, street, is that Queen Mary passed up it on her way back to Holyrood after visiting Darnley at the Kirk o' Field, while Bothwell only avoided meeting her by hastening down a neighbouring close.

On the north side of the street stands Carrubber's Close, which has curiously mixed associations. It was used as a meeting-place for Jacobite Episcopalians who refused to include the names of the Elector of Hanover and his family in their prayers. In this close lived Captain Matthew Henderson, who was described by Burns as a gentleman who held the patent for his honours immediately from Almighty God.' In Carrubber's Close Allan Ramsay attempted to start his theatre, which was, however, closed by order of the magistrates. This theatre was named in derision 'St. Andrew's Chapel,' and has been attended by people of various

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persuasions. A speculative club called the Pantheon met there in 1775. In 1778 Dr. Wyse lectured on Natural Philosophy, and among the various sects represented there are Bereans' (founded by Mr. John Barclay), Rowites, Irvingites, Secession, Relief, and Roman Catholics—a curious mixture even for a theatre! Carrubber's Close Mission Hall is not situated in Carrubber's Close proper. It is a house very considerably to the east, with several intervening closes-North Gray's Close, Morrison's Close, Bailie Fyfe's Close, Paisley Close, and Chalmers' Close being among the number. The foundation-stone was laid by D. L. Moody. It must be confessed that the architecture is somewhat out of harmony with the houses of Old Edinburgh. Just east of Carrubber's Close is Bishop's Close, where Henry Dundas, Lord Melville, was born. It derived its name from John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St. Andrews, who seems to have lived there in his later years. Another resident was Lady Jane Douglas, who lived there while the Douglas Case was in progress, and was visited there in 1752 by the Lord Advocate, Lord Prestongrange, so well known to readers of Catriona. It is said that in old days no one lived in Bishop's Land who did not keep liveried servants. Tempora mutantur! North Gray's Close has some interesting old carvings.

On the same side of the High Street are several closes of only moderate interest. The thistle above Morrison's Close seems to be quite modern, but there is an old coatof-arms above the entrance to Bailie Fyfe's Close which repays investigation. Paisley Close has no special historical interest, but there is a curious tale connected with the Heave awa" Coffee and Public-House (No. 99 High Street) close beside it. In 1861 the house on this site fell and killed over thirty people. One young man who feared that the rescue party might think it useless to persevere, exclaimed, 'Heave awa', chaps, I'm no deid yet!'

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A little to the east of this, on the south side, is South CastleGray's Close, where the Earl of Buchan lived, and where hill, the Lord Erskine and his brother, the Dean of Faculty, were Lawnborn, and the Earls of Selkirk had their town-house. market, Here lived that Lord Daer whose revolutionary and and litigious tendencies seem to have been equally extreme.

High Far more interesting is Hyndford's Close. The Earls of Street Stirling lived here. The close might also claim the Earls of Selkirk as residents, for their house had two entrances-one from South Gray's Close, and one from Hyndford's Close; and the town-house of the Earls of Hyndford gave its name to the close. Among the residents were Lady Maxwell of Monreith and her three daughters, Catherine, Jane, and Eglantine (or Eglintoun, -called after the beautiful Susannah). So little accommodation was there in Old Edinburgh that their laces and best clothes' were hung up to dry in the passage outside the dining-room door, while plainer things were hung on a pole outside the window-a fashion which is still followed in that neighbourhood, though not by ladies of quality. Lady Maxwell's daughters were known as 'the three romps of Monreith.' In the Traditions of Edinburgh we find an interesting account of their doings. 'So easy and familiar were the manners of the great, fabled to be so still and decorous, that Miss Eglantine, afterwards Lady Wallace, used to be sent across the street to the Fountain Well for water to make tea. Lady Maxwell's daughters were the wildest romps imaginable. An old gentleman who was their relation, told me that the first time he saw these beautiful girls was in the High Street, when Miss Jane (afterwards Duchess of Gordon) was riding upon a sow, while Miss Eglantine thumped lustily behind with a stick!' The same high spirit which prompted this unconventional amusement led in later days to the raising of the Gordon Highlanders. That, and the fact that she was the hostess of Burns, are, even more than her beauty, the Duchess's titles to fame.