James’s Court, a well-known pile of building of great altitude at
the head of the Earthen Mound, was erected about 1725-27 by James
Brownhill,[40] a joiner, as a speculation, and was for some years
regarded as the _quartier_ of greatest dignity and importance in
Edinburgh. The inhabitants, who were all persons of consequence in
society, although each had but a single floor of four or five rooms and
a kitchen, kept a clerk to record their names and proceedings, had a
scavenger of their own, clubbed in many public measures, and had balls
and parties among themselves exclusively. In those days it must have
been quite a step in life when a man was able to fix his family in one
of the _flats_ of James’s Court.
Amongst the many notables who have harboured here, only two or three
can be said to have preserved their notability till our day, the chief
being David Hume and James Boswell.
[Illustration: Riddel’s Land, Lawnmarket.]