The building at the east end of the Luckenbooths proper had a front
facing down the High Street, and commanding not only a view of the busy
scene there presented, but a prospect of Aberlady Bay, Gosford House,
and other objects in Haddingtonshire. The shop in the east front was
that of Mr Creech, a bookseller of facete memory, who had published
many books by the principal literary men of his day, to all of whom he
was known as a friend and equal. From this place had issued works by
Kames, Smith, Hume, Mackenzie, and finally the poems of Burns. It might
have been called the Lounger’s Observatory, for seldom was the doorway
free of some group of idlers, engaged in surveying and commenting on
the crowd in front; Creech himself, with his black silk breeches and
powdered head, being ever a conspicuous member of the corps. The flat
above had been the shop of Allan Ramsay, and the place where, in 1725,
he set up the first example of a circulating library known in Scotland.