In the Canongate, nearly opposite to Queensberry House, is a narrow,
old-fashioned mansion, of peculiar form, having a coat-armorial
conspicuously placed at the top, and a plain slab over the doorway
containing the following inscriptions:
‘Cum victor ludo, Scotis qui proprius, esset,
Ter tres victores post redimitus avos,
Patersonus, humo tunc educebat in altum
Hanc, quæ victores tot tulit una, domum.’
‘I hate no person.’
It appears that this quatrain was the production of Dr Pitcairn, while
the sentence below is an anagram upon the name of JOHN PATERSONE. The
stanza expresses that ‘when Paterson had been crowned victor in a
game peculiar to Scotland, in which his ancestors had also been often
victorious, he then built this mansion, which one conquest raised
him above all his predecessors.’ We must resort to tradition for an
explanation of this obscure hint.
[Illustration: Golfers’ Land.]
Till a recent period, golfing had long been conducted upon the Links of
Leith.[251] It had even been the sport of princes on that field. We
are told by Mr William Tytler of Woodhouselee that Charles I. and the
Duke of York (afterwards James II.) played at golf on Leith Links, in
succession, during the brief periods of their residence in Holyrood.
Though there is an improbability in this tale as far as Charles is
concerned, seeing that he spent too short a time in Edinburgh to
have been able to play at a game notorious for the time necessary in
acquiring it, I may quote the anecdote related by Mr Tytler: ‘That
while he was engaged in a party at golf on the green or Links of Leith,
a letter was delivered into his hands, which gave him the first account
of the insurrection and rebellion in Ireland; on reading which, he
suddenly called for his coach, and leaning on one of his attendants,
and in great agitation, drove to the palace of Holyrood House, from
whence next day he set out for London.’ Mr Tytler says, regarding the
Duke of York, that he ‘was frequently seen in a party at golf on the
Links of Leith with some of the nobility and gentry. I remember in my
youth to have often conversed with an old man named Andrew Dickson, a
golf-club maker, who said that, when a boy, he used to carry the duke’s
golf-clubs, and run before him, and announce where the balls fell.’[252]
[Illustration: GOLFERS ON LEITH LINKS.