The unique site of the Scottish capital, embosomed in hills and looking out upon the sea, furnishes many charming nooks for suburban residence to its denizens; but among such the Nelsons’ home stood in some respects unrivalled. Salisbury Green, a jointure house of the Prestonfield family, when purchased in 1770 by Lady Dick Cunningham, had, according to the traditions of the family, a ghost as its sole tenant; and notwithstanding the genial hospitalities, and all the brightness and beauty of its home-life in later years, the venerable ghost, a lady of grim visage, in antique coif and farthingale, continued to flit at rare intervals about her old haunts, and drew the curtains of fair young dreamers who had invaded her precincts. It was a plain old-fashioned house, though already graced with some of the undesigned picturesqueness due to additions of various dates, when William Nelson acquired the property in 1860. But, with his keen eye for beauty, he discerned at once the capabilities of the place, embosomed in stately trees, and commanding a view of almost unmatched grandeur and beauty. Under his tasteful care, the old house was renovated, assuming externally the picturesque features of the domestic architecture of Scotland in the sixteenth century; and in accordance with the practice of the age of the Reformation, he carved round the entablature this apt motto, from the third chapter of Hebrews, “EVERY HOUSE IS BUILDED BY SOME MAN; BUT HE THAT BUILT ALL THINGS IS GOD.” Internally the drawing-room, an addition of its earlier proprietors, was a reproduction, in style and proportions, of that of Barley Wood, the charming abode of the amiable and gifted Hannah More. The house, so familiar to many strangers from other lands as well as to the citizens of Edinburgh, by reason of its hospitalities, was enriched in later years, by the accumulated acquisitions of its owner, with choice works of art and _virtu_, and especially with a valuable collection of bronzes and antique ceramic ware, not displayed for purposes of show, but scattered over the mantel-shelves and cabinets, or disposed about in every available nook and corner of the old house, as natural and fitting adjuncts of the tasteful owner’s home.