moving to London, that of Edinburgh and its fortunes he was careless. Yet, shrewd observer as he was of men and manners, he must have noticed how the tide of fashion had already begun to set from the Old Town, and was threatening to leave the ancient homes of the noble and the wealthy like so many wrecks behind. In many people there was a great reluctance to make a move. To some the old familiar life in a fiat was dear, and the New Town was built after the English fashion, in what was known as "houses to themselves." "One old lady fancied she should be lost if she were to get into such an habitation; another feared being blown away in going over the New Bridge; while a third thought that these new fashions could come to nae gude."[1] Nevertheless, in spite of all these terrors, the change came very swiftly. So early as 1783, "a rouping-wife, or saleswoman of old furniture," occupied the house which not many years before had been Lord President Craigie's, while a chairman who had taken Lord Drummore's house had "lately left it for want of accommodation."[2] There were men of position, however, who, fashion or no fashion, clung to their old homes for many years later. Queensberry House, nearly at the foot of the Canongate, which in later years was turned into a Refuge for the Destitute, so late as 1803 was inhabited by the Lord Chief Baron Montgomery. Lord Cockburn remembered well the old judge's tall, well-dressed figure in the old style, and the brilliant company which gathered round him in that ancient but decayed quarter.[3]
It was full five years before Johnson's arrival that Dr. Robertson, pleading the cause of his poverty-stricken University, pointed out how the large buildings that were rising suddenly on all sides, the magnificent bridge that had been begun, and the new streets and squares all bore the marks of a country growing in arts and in industry.[4] It was in 1765 that the foundations were laid of the bridge which was to cross the valley that separates the Old and New Town. It was not till 1772 that "it was made passable."[5] In 1783 the huge mound was begun which now so conveniently joins the two hills. The earth of .which it is formed was dug out in making the foundations of the new houses. Fifteen hundred cartloads on an average were thrown in daily for the space of three
