ken down, and a modern structure, much inferior in architectural beauty, was reared on its site. Of the chapel of Loretto, to which pilgrimages were made on foot by kings, nothing remains but a small burial vault; and a thick grove now usurps the bank, where votaries knelt at the shrine of Mary Magdalene. The mill granted to the monks of Dunfermline by David I. stood at the top of the Shire-haugh, and had its hereditary miller attached to it.* It was burned down in 1827; and its site, with the banks of the Esk upward on the eastern side, was sold in the following year by the magistrates of Musselburgh to the present Duke of Buccleuch. The mill itself lay on the slope of the bank by the road side, and an ancient bridge of one arch spanned the mill-lead. To the north of it was the miller's house, a pleasant mansion of two stories, and at either side of it were minor domiciles for his assistants. A parapet of stone enclosed the whole, together with their gardens; and some venerable ashes and elms spoke of bygone centuries. The boundary walls of Dalkeith park now encircle the spot, and no vestiges of the buildings remain. When the plough was first here employed in agriculture, we have no authentic record, but most assuredly this took place previous to 1070,-the commencement of the Scoto-Saxon dynasty. The greater proportion by far, however, of the district was covered with woods, affording shelter and pasturage for flocks and herds, besides multitudes of wild game; and from the MS. Monast. Scotia, we learn, that Alexander II. granted a free warren to the monks of Dunfermline through their lands of Musselburgh, prohibiting any one from hunting or trespassing there, under a penalty of L. 10. In those ages it was an established right of the clergyman to enjoy common of pasturage throughout his own parish. We have already mentioned the Roman roads traversing the parish of Inveresk; and these seem to have continued long there, and throughout the country, as the only public means of communi *In the Inquis. Special xv. 69, we find that, in June 1636, Thomas Smith was served heir to his father, a burgess of Musselburgh, in two oxgates of the lands of Inveresk, two and a-half acres in the moor at Inveresk, and a tenement in Inveresk, together with the office of hereditary miller of the mill called the shire mill, within the limits of Inveresk; with the mill acre; also to the sixth part of the four corn-mills of Musselburghshire; and to the sixth part of the haugh, near the said shire mill. The present sea-mill of Musselburgh was one of the earliest works of that celebrated engineer, the late Sir John Rennie. † Chalmers's Caledonia, Vol. ii. p. 725. cation; but, by the charter of David I., already more than once referred to, and which was afterwards confirmed by a Bull of Pope Gregory IX. in 1234, the magistrates of Musselburgh had the right given them of levying a toll at the western extremity of the parish, for the purpose of upholding the Roman bridge over the Esk, and repairing the streets of Musselburgh. This toll is only exigible on beasts of burden, flocks and herds, and is at this moment in operation at Magdalen Bridge, under the name of the Gentes custom. How this appellation was acquired, tradition saith not, unless we lean to the vague report that the first tackswoman was named Janet, and that familiarity afterwards changed the same from Janet to Janety, and thence more remotely to Gente. We all remember the old ballad of " The Bonny Hynd." From this it is They call me Jack when I'm abroad; But when I'm in my father's bower evident, that wheel-carriages were not in common use at this period, either here or elsewhere in Scotland; yet are these mentioned not only by the same illustrious King in his charter of Holyrood, but repeatedly for the next century, in the chartularies of the different monasteries. From the same curious sources, we learn, that, during the ScotoSaxon period, king's highways were formed in various parts of the country. Gervaise, the Abbot of Newbottle, mentions a certain road, which was called Derstrette, near Colden, in the district of Inveresk; and under Alexander III. Sir Hugh Riddel alludes to the Regia Via, leading from Ford to the same monastery. The king's highway from Newbottle to Edinburgh is mentioned in a charter of 1253.§ The celebrated chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Loretto, stood beyond the eastern gate of Musselburgh, and on the margin of the links; but we have no authentic accounts as to the time of its erection. Pilgrimages from all parts of the country were performed to this shrine. According to Keith, (280,) it was connected with the Nunnery of Sciennes, in the south wing of Edinburgh ; and Gough, the antiquarian, says regarding it, that pregnant-women sent handsome presents of money accompanying their child-bed * In 1597 the Parliament of Scotland passed an act for repairing the brig of Musselburgh. It is unprinted. There was also another in 1661" for an imposition at the brig of Musselburgh.' + See Border Mintrelsy, Vol. iii. p. 310, last edition. Chart. Newbottle, 163. § Idem, 16. * linen, which latter was consecrated to promote their safe and easy recovery. The celebrity of the place was upheld by the residence. of a hermit, who inhabited a cell adjoining the chapel, and by the pretended performance of miracles. So well for a time did the jugglery succeed, that at the commencement of the sixteenth century, it was one of the most noted shrines in Scotland; and we learn from Lesley, (442,) that in August 1530, James V. performed a pilgrimage from Stirling to it, on foot, before setting sail for France, to woo and win a partner for his throne. Time, however, brought out, that the fervour of religious zeal was here often alloyed by the admixture of baser feelings, and the satiric lash of "Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, Lord Lion King at Arms," was directed with his usual pith and power, against the profanations, which it is to be feared often took place here, from the unrestrained meetings of the young of both sexes.+ + In 1544, the English army under the Earl of Hertford, which had come down by sea to Leith, returned home by land; and the account of the late expedition given by "a frende of Hys" concludes by adding the names of the chiefe borrowghes, castelles, and tounes, brente and desolated by ye King's army, beynge late in Scotlande, besydes a great numbre of villages, pyles, and stedes, which I cannot name." The fifth entry in this precious list is as follows. "Parte of Musskelborowe towne, we the chapel of our Lady of Lauret." In this conflagration the council hall and jail of the burgh were laid in ruins, and the ancient charters of David I. and Pope Gregory IX. were destroyed. The spire alone seems to have escaped, the dial-plate of its ancient and primitive clock still bearing the inscription of 1496.|| Gough's Camden's Britannia, fol. Vol. iii. p. 310. That the Hermit of Loretto was a notable man in his day is evident from the circumstance of his having a satire addressed to him by Alexander, Earl of Glencairn, exposing the hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic clergy. It is entitled, "Ane Epistill direct fra the halie Hermeit of Alareit, to his Brethren, the Gray Friars," and thus begins, "I, Thomas Hermeit in Lareit, Sanct Francis Ordour do hairtilie greit," &c. See as quoted in Knox's History of Reformation, fol. 24-25, Edin. 1732. § We are enabled to form some idea of the devastation committed by this army on its march to England, from the following extract from Hayne's State Papers, p. 43: "Towns, towers, stedes, barnekyns, paryshe-churches, bastel-houses, cast down or burnt, 192; Scots slain, 403; prisoners taken, 816; nolt, 10,386; sheep, 12,492; nags and geldings, 1296; goats, 200; bolls of corn, 850; insight gear, i. e. household furniture, not reckoned." The clock is said to have been a present to the town from the States of Holland, on account of the extent of trade transacted with that country. A brass plate, notiEDINBURGH. S The chapel of Loretto underwent a speedy repair, but what war and wasting fire had spared was soon destined to utter demolition in the zeal of the Reformation; and in 1590, the materials of that edifice, to which so many thousand pilgrimages had for centuries been made, were carried away for the construction of the present Tolbooth, adjoining the more modern Town-hall and Assembly Room. Dr Carlyle remarks that "this is said to have been the first religious house in Scotland whose ruins were applied to an unhallowed use, for which the good people of Musselburgh are said to have been annually excommunicated, till very lately, at Rome." Of this building, which must have been of considerable dimensions, no vestige now remains, save a cell measuring 12 feet by 10, covered by a circular wooded mount. In the roof is inserted a strong iron bar, with an oaken pulley attached, but for what purpose seems doubtful. In 1831, the present proprietor of the villa of Loretto, the Rev. Thomas Langhorne, caused part of the earthen floor to be dug up, when a number of human skulls were discovered, some of which were in complete preservation, and remain so. Over the entrance is an antique carved stone, but from the date on it, 1634, it must have been placed there at a period subsequent to the destruction of "the chapelle of Lauret." The present villa of Loretto, which is extensive and commodious, appears to have been built during the last century, and is surrounded by delightful gardens and orchards. The great Randolph, Earl of Murray, the compatriot and bosom friend of Douglas, so celebrated in his history as "the good Lord James," and the second in command under Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn, died in a house near the East Port of the town, on the south side of the street. It consisted of two rooms on the ground floor, with arched roofs. Each of these apartments was 14 feet square, and the arch 8 feet from the floor. This venerable domicile, which existed at the era of the last Statistical Account, was demolished about thirty years ago, and its site is now occupied by the Aitcheson's Haven Operative Masonic Lodge.† fying this circumstance, and attached to the work, was stolen away a good many years ago, supposed to be by the person who had the charge of cleaning the machinery. The work is still in good preservation. Vide former Statistical Account, Vol. xvi. p. 6. Morrison's Haven is situated immediately boyond the eastern boundary of the parish, and its history, as Chalmers says, may be given in a few words: “ In 1526, James V. empowered the monks of Newbottle, the discoverers of coal in the same vicinity, to construct a port within their own lands of Prestongrange. They erected Three years after Lord Hertford's expedition, Scotland was again invaded by the Duke of Somerset, the Lord Protector of England, during the minority of Edward VI. In the centre of a circle of trees, at the eastern extremity of the grounds of Eskgrove, and opposite to Pinkie burn, a square pillar, surmounted by an antique stone, representing a fleur de lis, marks the spot where the royal tent was pitched, and bears the following inscription : "The Protector, Duke of Somerset, 1547." The late Lord Eskgrove caused to be erected near the same spot a metallic statue, emblematic of England. This was much destroyed by idle boys, and has since been removed. In the church-yard of Inveresk there is a mound standing, which would afford ample field for antiquarian disquisition, but our limits restrict us to a few brief remarks. Its position is to the northwest of the church, and during last century a similar mound to the north-east was removed. What was the origin of these mounds, whose antiquity is indisputable? From having been traditionally named "Oliver's Mounts" by the common people, Mr Robert Chambers, in his laborious and excellent Gazetteer of Scotland, sets them down in the article "Inveresk," as having been thrown up by Cromwell, who was known to have used the church of St Michael as a cavalry station. This, however, is disproved by our finding them marked in the rude diagrams in Patten's account of the Duke of Somerset's Expedition, and it will not do to quarrel with his placing them on the south side of the church; (he places the chapel of Loretto to the west of the river instead of to the east) as he distinctly mentions them as "the mounds in the church-yard." By this is evidently implied, that they were there, when he reached the place; and although the Duke afterwards used them to defend the river at the thoroughfare by the bridge, which they commanded, no mention is made by Patten of his having thrown them up, although he is most circumstantial in all his details. The fact is, that he could not have done so, as the English army, which a harbour which was called Newhaven; and this name was changed to Aitcheson's Haven, and afterwards obtained the name of Morrison's Haven, from the succeeding proprietors at the commencement of the seventeenth century." The estates of Gosford and Gulane, as well as the lands in the neighbourhood of this port, belonged to the family of Aitcheson, which afterwards went over to Ireland. tive is Earl Gosford, the late Governor of Lower Canada. to be localized in Musselburgh is doubtful. Its present representa- |