[JOHN PATERSON THE GOLFER.]
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.
Golfers’ Land.