One of the Company’s earliest movements of any importance was the acquiring of a hall; but I regret to say this was not, as might be supposed, a movement of a purely dignified nature—the great object was to get a place of their own, in which they could deposit the goods taken from unfreemen, it having been found hitherto, that such goods taken to private houses were often disposed of clandestinely: in short, the Company got little good of them. In 1691, the Master, Bailie Robert Blackwood, intimated that there was a suitable house to be had in the Cowgate—namely, a large lodging belonging to Viscount Oxenford, and the price would be about twelve thousand merks, or six hundred and seventy pounds sterling. A subscription was immediately entered into to defray the cost, and the house was purchased. It was a large quadrangular building, surrounding a court-yard, and had been the residence of the celebrated lawyer of a hundred years before, who finally became the first Earl of Haddington—popularly called, from his locality, _Tam o’ the Cowgate_. Even now, the widow of the cavalier Sir Thomas Dalyell of Binns, and one or two other persons of quality, had lodgment in some of its apartments. There was one large room which was to be devoted to the purposes of a hall; but it was sadly out of order. Presently comes forward a liberal member of the Company, Bailie Alexander Brand, who had some time before established a manufactory of what was called _Spanish leather_, for the ornamenting of rooms—namely, skins stamped with gold. It was a pretty style of hangings, once in great favour in Scotland; a few examples may still be seen in old country-houses; one I remember in the house of Gartsherrie in Lanarkshire. The bailie undertook to hang the hall in this manner, and only charge what was due over and above his own contribution of a hundred and fifty pounds Scots. Ten years afterwards, when accounts came to be settled with the then Sir Alexander Brand—for it will be observed prompt settlements were by no means among the commercial virtues of our predecessors—it appeared that a hundred and nineteen skins of gold leather, with a black ground, had been used, at a total expense of two hundred and fifty-three pounds Scots, including the manufacturer’s contribution. There was also much concernment about a piece of waste ground behind; but the happy thought occurred of converting it into a bowling-green, for the use of the members in the first place, and the public in the second. Many years after, we find Allan Ramsay making joyous Horatian allusions to this place of recreation, telling us that now, in winter, douce folk were no longer seen wysing ajee the biassed bowls on Tamson’s Green (Thomson being a subsequent tenant). It is not unworthy of notice that, from the low state of the arts in Scotland, the bowls required for this green had to be brought from abroad. It is gravely reported to the Company on the 6th of March 1693, that