as the procession moved up the Canongate, "for they liked not the Bobbies with a natural antagonism, so near the Netherbow lock-up, although the true 'Heart of Mid-Lothian,' the Tolbooth, had long ago perished up in the Lawn Market, nearer the Castle. Sir Robert Peel.'Gie him Peals!' 'Gie him Peelers!' shouted the rabble."
Ebsworth was hot against the repeal of the Corn Laws, and ridiculed the phrase "the hungry forties." He "despised" Cobdenism, and I could never induce him to look kindly upon the writings of Ebenezer Elliott; but although he was angry with Peel for what he styled his "turncoatism," he had a love for him "as a generous man in private life, good Christian and unostentatious, whose help extended to Benjamin Robert Haydon was nobly given, but frustrated by the despairing suicide of that luckless man … What a thrill of sympathetic affection shot like an earthquake through London while Peel lay dying!"
Ebsworth becomes an art student.At the early age of fourteen Ebsworth was admitted as a student for a course of years at the School of the Board of Trustees of Arts and Manufactures. He began in the Ornamental and Architectural Department, under the instruction of Charles Heath Wilson; he remained there for two years, when he was transferred to "my loved teacher and helper, Sir William Allen, President of the Royal Scottish Academy," who invited his pupil to come to him for the human figure and the sculpture gallery. Afterwards he had for his David Scott, R.S.A. instructor David Scott, R.S.A., for whom Ebsworth preserved the warmest affection. This great artist died on the 5th of March, 1849, and Ebsworth in his 'Karl's Legacy' dedicates several poems to his memory, including ' The Grave of the Master.' The anniversary of his funeral was always remembered by him, and I have a letter of last year from Ebsworth dated "Sunday, 10th of March, 1907, anniversary of David's Scott's funeral at Edinburgh Dean Cemetery, 1849."
Exhibits at the Scottish Academy.The same year that Scott died Ebsworth had his first exhibit at the Scottish Academy. This consisted of four large watercolour views of Edinburgh, made from the Scott Monument, north, south, east, and west.Views of Edinburgh. The north view is looking towards Fife, across St. Andrew's Square; the south view looks towards the old town and the Pentland Hills; the east view to Calton Hill, Arthur's Seat, and Holyrood; while the view to the west is where the Castle stands boldly aloft on its rock, with the country stretching towards Glasgow. Ebsworth wrote to me respecting these that they "were executed wholly from the one uppermost gallery of stone, topmost of four, day by day 200 feet above the level of Princes Street. In that narrow and windy nook, whatever weather prevailed, unflinchingly against cold, but sometimes baffled by rain, these were wrought out in 1845, totally unaided by spyglass or photograph. In fact, the public photographing of portraits at that very epoch, in a singularly
