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Updated: May 2, 2025
The chief gate of the city, the Netherbow, lay midway up the High Street, dividing the real borough of Edinburgh from the Canongate; on each side of this gate the wall descended sharply down hill, running along Leith Wynd on the north side and St. Mary's Wynd on the south. The houses of the latter Edinburgh houses numbering their ten or twelve stories were actually built on to the wall.
I suppose that I, the Chronicler of the Canongate, will have to take up my residence in the Sanctuary for a week or so, unless I prefer the more airy residence of the Calton Jail, or a trip to the Isle of Man. These furnish a pleasing choice of expedients. It is to no purpose being angry at Ehud or Ahab, or whatever name he delights in.
The quarrel in the Canongate between the Leslies and Seytons, in Scott's 'Abbot, represents the same temper; and marks also, what Shakspeare did not so distinctly, because it would have interfered with the domestic character of his play, the connection of these private quarrels with political divisions which paralyzed the entire body of the State.
Such is the ancient motto attached to the armorial bearings of the Canongate, and which is inscribed, with greater or less propriety, upon all the public buildings, from the church to the pillory, in the ancient quarter of Edinburgh which bears, or rather once bore, the same relation to the Good Town that Westminster does to London, being still possessed of the palace of the sovereign, as it formerly was dignified by the residence of the principal nobility and gentry.
Quitting the Abbey and the Palace, we turned into the Canongate, and passed thence into High Street, which, I think, is a continuation of the Canongate; and being now in the old town of Edinburgh, we saw those immensely tall houses, seven stories high, where the people live in tiers, all the way from earth to middle air.
We went through the Sanctuary, up the Canongate, in by the Nether Bow, and straight to Prestongrange's door, talking as we came, and arranging the details of our affair. The footman owned his master was at home, but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private business, and his door forbidden.
And near to the stone flows a little river which has been named the Goblin Brook, for by its banks it was believed that Thomas the Rhymer used to talk with little men from the land of Elf. In the fair city of Edinburgh there lived many many years ago a beautiful maiden named Lizzie Lindsay. Her home was in the Canongate, which is now one of the poorest parts of the city.
Cadell is most anxious on the subject. He thinks that two years hence £10,000 may be made of a new edition. For description of bounds see Chronicles of the Canongate, p. 7. By the author of Waverley, etc. SIC ITUR AD ASTRA, motto of Canongate arms. In two vols. The Two Drovers, The Highland Widow, The Surgeon's Daughter. Edinburgh, printed for Cadell and Co., and Simpkin Marshall. London 1827.
Immediately below, in the Canongate churchyard, lies Robert Fergusson, Burns's master in his art, who died insane while yet a stripling; and if Dugald Stewart has been somewhat too boisterously acclaimed, the Edinburgh poet, on the other hand, is most unrighteously forgotten.
It seemed enough to the assailants to hold the gates and the summit of the eastern slopes, where probably there must already have been some clusters of huts or rough half-fortified dwellings descending from the Castle Hill, foreshadowing a Lawnmarket at least if not yet a Canongate. No one would seem to have thought of the possibility of any descent on the other side from that perpendicular rock.
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