Andrew Crosbie

He was a close friend and companion of James Boswell and with him co-wrote the legal song The Justiciary Opera, sung by generations of Scottish advocates.

In 1769, together with James Boswell, he helped to fund the Corsican rebels fighting under Pasquale Paoli.

Around 1770, he began building his own house on St Andrews Square at the east end of the then first phase of Edinburgh's New Town.

An office-bearer ('Assassin') of The Poker Club, and a friend of Boswell and Johnson, Crosbie was the basis of the character Councillor Pleydellin Sir Walter Scotts's novel Guy Mannering.

[4] Popular despite being an acknowledged alcoholic (not helped by his financial ruin), he died in impoverished circumstances in rented accommodation,[5] probably of liver disease, on 25 February 1785, and was interred in a now unmarked grave at Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh.