The book of Edinburgh anecdote

The Parliament House has always had a reputation for good anecdote. There are solid reasons for this. It is the haunt of men, clever, highly educated, well off, and the majority...

There are many picturesque incidents in the history of the old Scots Church in Edinburgh; chief of them are the legends that cling round the memory of St. Margaret. Her husband,...

The official title of the University of Edinburgh is _Academia Jacobi Sexti_. So “our James,” as Ben Jonson calls him, gave a name to this great seat of learning, and in the for...

The physicians, the surgeons, the medical schools of Edinburgh have long and famous histories. A few facts may assist the reader to understand the anecdotes which fill this chap...

A difficulty meets you in making Kings the subject of anecdote; the “fierce light” that beats about a throne distorts the vision, your anecdote is perhaps grave history. Again,...

George Buchanan is the first in time as he is one of the first in eminence of Scots men of letters. Many wrote before him; among the kings, James I. certainly, James V. possibly...

To turn to some lesser figures. Hugo Arnot, advocate, is still remembered as author of one of the two standard histories of Edinburgh. No man better known in the streets of the...

St. Margaret, Queen of Malcolm Canmore, has been ingeniously if fancifully claimed as the earliest of Scots artists. At the end of her life she prophesied that Edinburgh Castle...

Anecdotes of the women of Edinburgh are mainly of the eighteenth century. The events of an earlier period are too tragic for a trivial story or they come under other heads. Is i...

Perhaps the sharpest contrast between old Scotland and the Scotland of to-day is the decline of belief in the supernatural. Superstitions of lucky and unlucky things and days an...

I collect here a few anecdotes of life on the streets, and among the people of old Edinburgh. The ancient Scots lived very sparely, yet sumptuary laws were passed, not to enable...

I continue the subjects of my last chapter, though this deals rather with things under cover and folk of a better position than the common objects of the street. I pass as brief...