Arthur's Seat

Henry Cockburn, in his “Memorials of his Time” provides a glimpse of Edinburgh around 1815, and of one of its characters, Dr. Andrew Duncan, who ascended Arthur’s Seat on May 1^st of each year.

‘The extension of the city gave rise in 1815 to the New Town Dispensary.  Any such institution seems at least harmless; yet this one was assailed with a degree of

bitterness which is curious now. It was a civic war.

Two of its principles were, that medicines and medical advice, including obstetrical aid, 

were to be administered to patients at their own homes…The Lying-in Hospital was eloquent

on the danger and the vice of delivering poor women at their own houses. 

The Old Town Dispensary, which did not then go to such patients as could not come

to it, demonstrated the beauty of the sick poor being obliged to swallow their doses

at a public office. Subscribers choose managers ! Impracticable,and dangerously popular !...

The most conspicuous opponent of this charity was Dr. Andrew Duncan, senior,

one of our professors and physicians, and the great patron of the Old Dispensary; 

one of the curious old Edinburgh characters. He was a kind-hearted and excellent man;

but one of a class which seems to live and be happy, and get liked, by its mere 

absurdities. He was the promoter and the president of more innocent and foolish

clubs and societies than perhaps any man in the world, and the author of 

pamphlets, jokes, poems, and epitaphs, sufficient to stock the nation; all amiable,

all dull, and most of them very foolish. But they made the author happy; 

and he was so benevolent and so simple, that even those who were suffering 

under his interminable projects checked their impatience and submitted.

Scientific ambition, charitable restlessness, and social cheerfulness made him

thrust himself into every thing throughout a long life. Yet, though his patronage

was generally dangerous, and his talk always wearisome, nobody could 

ever cease to esteem him. He was even the president of a bathing club;

and once at least every year did this grave medical professor conduct as many 

of the members as he could collect to Leith, where the rule was, that their respect 

for their chief was to be shown by always letting him plunge first from the machine into the 

water. He continued, till he was past eighty, a practice of mounting to the summit 

of Arthur's Seat on the first of May, and celebrating the feat by what he called a poem.’

Arthur’s Seat was obviously a prominent part of Sir Walter Scott’s life as well.  Scott begins Chapter 7 of “The Heart of Mid-Lothian” there.

                    Arthur's Seat shall be my bed,

                    The sheets shall ne'er be pressed by me,

                    St. Anton's well shall be my drink,

                    Sin' my true-love's forsaken me.

                                               Old Song.

If I were to choose a spot from which the rising or setting sun could be seen to the greatest possible advantage, it would be that wild path winding around the foot of the high belt of semicircular rocks, called Salisbury Crags, and marking the verge of the steep descent which slopes down into the glen on the south-eastern side of the city of Edinburgh. The prospect, in its general outline, commands a close-built, high-piled city, stretching itself out beneath in a form, which, to a romantic imagination, may be supposed to represent that of a dragon; now, a noble arm of the sea, with its rocks, isles, distant shores, and boundary of mountains; and now, a fair and fertile champaign country, varied with hill, dale, and rock, and skirted by the picturesque ridge of the Pentland mountains. But as the path gently circles around the base of the cliffs, the prospect, composed as it is of these enchanting and sublime objects, changes at every step, and presents them blended with, or divided from, each other, in every possible variety which can gratify the eye and the imagination. When a piece of scenery so beautiful, yet so varied,--so exciting by its intricacy, and yet so sublime,--is lighted up by the tints of morning or of evening, and displays all that variety of shadowy depth, exchanged with partial brilliancy, which gives character even to the tamest of landscapes, the effect approaches near to enchantment. This path used to be my favourite evening and morning resort, when engaged with a favourite author, or new subject of study. It is, I am informed, now become totally impassable; a circumstance which, if true, reflects little credit on the taste of the Good Town or its leaders.*
* A beautiful and solid pathway has, within a few years, been formed around these romantic rocks; and the Author has the pleasure to think, that the passage in the text gave rise to the undertaking.

Edinburgh Improvements

Lord Henry Cockburn's "Memorials of his Time" contains a reference to a dinner on April 5th, 1825.  The subject of improvements in Edinburgh was discussed.  As will be seen in the note at the bottom, the improvements include the area around the Scott Monument.

'Jeffrey presided at the Fox dinner on the 24th of January, 1825 : Moncreiff was croupier. It was a new position for Jeffrey ; but he adorned it by great thought, and great beauty of diction. This, I think, was the last of these festivals. They were never meant to be perpetual ; but were only resorted to for political union and excitement during the stage that we had now passed through. Public meetings of all kinds soon became so common that, as substantive events, they are not worth recording. These Fox dinners did incalculable good.   They animated, and instructed, and consolidated the Whig party with less trouble and more effect than a thing else that could have been devised. A kind: gathering upon a larger Scale was held on the 5th of April, 1825, when a public dinner was given Brougham upon his first return to Edinburgh. eight hundred and fifty were present ; being more, I believe, than had ever attended a public political dinner in Scotland….it was, on the whole, a successful and impressive meeting.

We were now in a pretty keen conflict about the Edinburgh Improvements, a subject which blazed for a good many years after this. It all related to the creation of the new southern access by George the Fourth's Bridge, and of the new western access by the west approach along the Castle Hill. There were three parties — 1st. Those who would be taxed for nothing.   2d. Those who, being personally interested, insisted to have themselves and everybody else taxed to any extent.   3d. Those (of whom I took the lead) who were willing to be taxed, provided new statutory securities were given for the perpetual openness of Princes-street and the Mound.

This last party finally prevailed: and had it not been for its efforts, Edinburgh would have

been destroyed. These statutory precautions may possibly be all disregarded hereafter. This will be the loss and the disgrace of the people themselves, of whom, from their ordinary apathy about the beauty of their city, I certainly forebode no good. But meanwhile we did our duty, by both giving them the means of new improvement, and of saving what excellence they already have.* Some people let their picturesque taste get so sickly that they sigh over the destruction of every old nuisance or incumbrance. But they never try to live among these fragments, nor think of the human animals who burrow there.. it is also true that the south approach might have been joined to the New Town at a better level, and in a far more handsome manner. But still what we got was better than nothing.

* Scott's Monument has since been erected on Princes-street; and the Art Galleries are rising on the Mound ; and a railway pollutes the valley. But the last of these perfidies was irresistible; and the other two abatements of the strict exemption that was obtained were consented to, and were quite right.'

On the North Bridge

One of the New York City area news stories today involves a man who sawed through cell tower cables to disrupt transmission, and thereby express his dissatisfaction with a newly built cell tower in his neighborhood.  Others in this man's neighborhood complained that the cell tower had sprung up virtually overnight, with no public hearings concerning its construction.   Development issues are nothing new, and Lord Henry Cockburn records in his memoirs that on December 2^nd, 1817, a public hearing was held concerning the erection of the North Bridge Buildings in Edinburgh.  Per Cockburn’s history, public meetings were not common at that point.

‘The new street along the southern side of the Calton Hill disclosed some glorious prospects, or at least exhibited them from new points. One of these was the view westward, over the North Bridge. But we had only begun to perceive its importance, when its interception by what are now called the North Bridge Buildings raised our indignation; and we thought that the magistrates, who allowed them to be set agoing in silence, had betrayed ns. We were therefore very angry, and had recourse to another of these new things called public meetings, which we were beginning to feel the power of. It was held on the 2d of December 1817. Professor Playfair presided; this being, I suppose, the only time in his life on which that unobtrusive and gentle philosopher permitted himself to be placed in such a position. James Stuart of Dunearn explained the matter in a clear and sensible speech. Old Henry Mackenzie made his first appearance at such a meeting, saying that, though no speaker, it was impossible to submit in silence to the destruction of the town, and that “facit indignatio versum." Resolutions were passed, a subscription opened, and we went to law, where we got an ornate speech from Cranstoun, who recited " my own romantic town" to the Court. But this was all we got. For while the judges were looking rather favourable, our funds ebbed, and of course our ardour cooled. Then persons of taste began to hint that we were all wrong, and that the position of the buildings was beautiful; and at last another meeting was held in May 1818, when we struck our colours. So we lost about £1000; the magistrates got a fright; and the buildings stand. But much good was done by the clamour. Attention was called nearly for the first time, to the duty of maintaining the beauty of Edinburgh. A respectable and organized resistance of municipal power was new here, and the example was not lost, though the immediate object of the battle was.’

North Bridge was, of course, a familiar site to Walter Scott.  J.G. Lockhart mentions in his “Memoirs of the life of Sir Walter Scott” an instance of Scott mulling over poetry while on the bridge:

‘…Not long before this piece began to be handed about in Edinburgh, Thomas Campbell had made his appearance there, and at once seized a high place in the literary world by his 'Pleasures of Hope.' Among the most eager to welcome him had been Scott; and I find the brotherbard thus expressing himself concerning the MS. of Cadyow :—

'' The verses of Cadyow Castle are perpetually ringing in my imagination—

'Where mightiest of the beasts of chase

That roam in woody Caledon,
Crashing the forest in his race,
The mountain bull comes thundering on—'

and the arrival of Hamilton, when

'Reeking from the recent deed,

He dashed his carbine on the ground.'

I have repeated these lines so often on the North Bridge that the -whole fraternity of coachmen know me by tongue as I pass. To be sure, to a mind in sober, serious street-walking humour, it must bear an appearance of lunacy when one stamps with the hurried pace and fervent shake of the head, which strong, pithy poetry excites."