[102] Afterwards Lord Eskgrove and Lord Justice-clerk.

[103] Alexander Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck, the author’s father—appointed to the bench in 1754; died 1782. This gentleman was a precise old Presbyterian, and therefore the most opposite creature in the world to his son, who was a cavalier in politics and an Episcopalian.

[104] Afterwards Lord Braxfield—appointed 1776; died 1800, while holding the office of Lord Justice-clerk. Lord Braxfield is the prototype of Stevenson’s Weir of Hermiston.

[105] Alexander Lockhart, Esq., decidedly the greatest lawyer at the Scottish bar in his day—appointed to the bench in 1774; died in 1782.

[106] Andrew Pringle, Esq.—appointed a judge in 1759; died 1776. This gentleman was remarkable for his fine oratory, which was praised highly by Sheridan the lecturer (father of R. B. Sheridan) in his Discourses on English Oratory.

[107] Henry Home, Esq.—raised to the bench 1752; died 1783. This great man, so remarkable for his metaphysical subtlety and literary abilities, was strangely addicted to the use of the coarse word in the text.

[108] Sir David Dalrymple—appointed a judge in 1766; died 1792. A story is told of Lord Hailes once making a serious objection to a law-paper, and, in consequence, to the whole suit to which it belonged, on account of the word justice being spelt in the manner mentioned in the text. Perhaps no author ever affected so much critical accuracy as Lord Hailes, and yet there never was a book published with so large an array of corrigenda et addenda as the first edition of the Annals of Scotland.

[109] George Brown, Esq., of Coalstoun—appointed 1756; died 1776.

[110] Alexander Fraser of Strichen—appointed 1730; died 1774.

[111] James Erskine, Esq., subsequently titled Lord Alva—appointed 1761; died 1796. He was of exceedingly small stature, and upon that account denominated ‘Lordie.’

[112] James Veitch, Esq.—appointed 1761; died 1793.

[113] Francis Garden, Esq.—appointed 1764; died 1793—author of several respectable literary productions.

[114] Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston—appointed 1760; died 1787.

[115] The bench being semicircular, and the President sitting in the centre, the seven judges on his right hand formed the east wing, those on his left formed the west. The decisions were generally announced by the words ‘Adhere’ and ‘Alter’—the former meaning an affirmance, the latter a reversal, of the judgment of the Lord Ordinary.

[116] The term of the summer session was then from the 12th of June to the 12th of August.

[117] Henry, first Viscount Melville, then coming forward as an advocate at the Scottish bar. When this great man passed advocate, he was so low in cash that, after going through the necessary forms, he had only one guinea left in his pocket. Upon coming home, he gave this to his sister (who lived with him), in order that she might purchase him a gown; after which he had not a penny. However, his talents soon filled his coffers. The gown is yet preserved by the family.

[118] ‘To See’ is to appoint the petition against the judgment pronounced to be answered.

[119] John Erskine of Carnock, author of the Institute of the Law of Scotland.

[120] Thomas Miller, Esq., of Glenlee—appointed to this office in 1766, upon the death of Lord Minto. He filled this situation till the death of Robert Dundas, in 1787, when (January 1788) he was made President of the Court of Session, and created a baronet, in requital for his long service as a judge. Being then far advanced in life, he did not live long to enjoy his new accession of honours, but died in September 1789.

[121] John Campbell, Esq., of Stonefield.

[122] James Burnet, Esq.—appointed 1767; died 1799.

[123] James Fergusson, Esq.—appointed 1761; died 1777. He always wore his hat on the bench, on account of sore eyes.

[124] Robert Bruce, Esq.—appointed 1764; died 1785.

[125] Alexander Tait, Clerk of Session.

[126] He was the grandson of Lord President Lockhart, who was shot by Chiesly of Dalry (see p. 75).

[127] Within the memory of an old citizen, who was living in 1833, the Post-office was in the first floor of a house near the Cross, above an alley which still bears the name of the Post-office Close. Thence it was removed to a floor in the south side of the Parliament Square, which was fitted up like a shop, and the letters were dealt across an ordinary counter, like other goods. At this time all the out-of-door business of delivery was managed by one letter-carrier. About 1745 the London bag brought on one occasion no more than a single letter, addressed to the British Linen Company. From the Parliament Square the office was removed to Lord Covington’s house, above described; thence, after some years, to a house in North Bridge Street; thence to Waterloo Place; and finally, to a new and handsome structure on the North Bridge.

[128] Lord Gardenstone erected the building (in the form of a Grecian temple) which encloses St Bernard’s Well, on the Water of Leith, between the Dean Bridge and Stockbridge. He also founded the town of Laurencekirk in Kincardineshire, which he hoped to make a manufacturing centre.

[129] Notes to Redgauntlet.

[130] Lord Grange, whose Diary of a Senator of the College of Justice was published in 1833.

[131] Lord Newton was known as ‘The Mighty.’ Lord Cockburn says it was not uncommon for judges on the bench to provide themselves with a bottle of port, which they consumed while listening to the case being tried before them.

[132] This story is told of John Clerk, who afterwards sat on the bench as Lord Eldin.

[133] It was very common for Scotch ladies of rank, even till the middle of the last century, to wear black masks in walking abroad or airing in a carriage; and for some gentlemen, too, who were vain of their complexion. They were kept close to the face by means of a string, having a button of glass or precious stone at the end, which the lady held in her mouth. This practice, I understand, did not in the least interrupt the flow of tittle-tattle and scandal among the fair wearers.

We are told, in a curious paper in the Edinburgh Magazine for August 1817, that at the period above mentioned, ‘though it was a disgrace for ladies to be seen drunk, yet it was none to be a little intoxicated in good company.’

[134] The principal oyster-parties, in old times, took place in Lucky Middlemass’s tavern in the Cowgate (where the south pier of the [South] bridge now stands), which was the resort of Fergusson and his fellow-wits—as witness his own verse:

At these fashionable parties, the ladies would sometimes have the oyster-women to dance in the ball-room, though they were known to be of the worst character. This went under the convenient name of frolic.

[135] The cry of ‘Gardy loo!’ at this hour was supposed to warn pedestrians; but, as Sir Walter Scott says, ‘it was sometimes like the shriek of the water-kelpie, rather the elegy than the warning of the overwhelmed passenger.’

[136] This highly appropriate popular sobriquet cannot be traced beyond the reign of Charles II. Tradition assigns the following as the origin of the phrase: An old gentleman in Fife, designated Durham of Largo, was in the habit, at the period mentioned, of regulating the time of evening worship by the appearance of the smoke of Edinburgh, which he could easily see, through the clear summer twilight, from his own door. When he observed the smoke increase in density, in consequence of the good folk of the city preparing their supper, he would call all the family into the house, saying: ‘It’s time now, bairns, to tak’ the beuks, and gang to our beds, for yonder’s Auld Reekie, I see, putting on her nicht-cap!’

[137] This gentleman, the ‘revered defender of beauteous Stuart,’ and the surviving friend of Allan Ramsay, had an unaccountable aversion to cheese, and not only forbade the appearance of that article upon his table, but also its introduction into his house. His family, who did not partake in this antipathy, sometimes smuggled a small quantity of cheese into the house, and ate it in secret; but he almost always discovered it by the smell, which was the sense it chiefly offended. Upon scenting the object of his disgust, he would start up and run distractedly through the house in search of it, and not compose himself again to his studies till it was thrown out of doors. Some of his ingenious children, by way of a joke, once got into their possession the coat with which he usually went to the court, and ripping up the sutures of one of its wide, old-fashioned skirts, sewed up therein a considerable slice of double Gloster. Mr Tytler was next day surprised when, sitting near the bar, he perceived the smell of cheese rising around him. ‘Cheese here too!’ cried the querulous old gentleman; ‘nay, then, the whole world must be conspiring against me!’ So saying, he rose, and ran home to tell his piteous case to Mrs Tytler and the children, who became convinced from this that he really possessed the singular delicacy and fastidiousness in respect of the effluvia arising from cheese which they formerly thought to be fanciful.

[138] The dress of the Edinburgh Defensive Band was as follows: a cocked hat, black stock, hair tied and highly powdered; dark-blue long-tailed coat, with orange facings in honour of the Revolution, and full lapels sloped away to show the white dimity vest; nankeen small-clothes; white thread stockings, ribbed or plain; and short nankeen spatterdashes. Kay has some ingenious caricatures, in miniature, of these redoubted Bruntsfield Links and Heriot’s Green warriors. The last two survivors were Mr John M’Niven, stationer, and Robert Stevenson, painter, who died in 1832.

[139] One of the panes is now (1847) destroyed, the other cracked. [The tavern is now out of existence.]

[140] Souters’ clods and other forms of bread fascinating to youngsters, as well as penny pies of high reputation, were to be had at a shop which all old Edinburgh people speak of with extreme regard and affection—the Baijen Hole—situated immediately to the east of Forrester’s Wynd and opposite to the Old Tolbooth. The name—a mystery to later generations—seems to bear reference to the Baijens or Baijen Class, a term bestowed in former days upon the junior students in the college. Bajan or bejan is the French bejaune, ‘bec jaune,’ ‘greenbill,’ ‘greenhorn,’ ‘freshman.’

[141] The fullest account yet published of this extraordinary coterie is that of Mr H. A. Cockburn in The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, vol. iii. Creech refers to it in ironical terms as ‘the virtuous, the venerable and dignified Wig who so much to their own honour and kind attention always inform the public of their meetings.’ The reputation of the club was very different.

[142] The following were other eighteenth century Edinburgh clubs:

The Poker Club originated in a combination of gentlemen favourable to the establishment of militia in Scotland, and its name, happily hit on by Professor Adam Ferguson, was selected to avoid giving offence to the Government. A history of the club is given in Dugald Stewart’s Life, and also in Carlyle’s Autobiography, where he says: ‘Dinner was on the table soon after two o’clock, at one shilling a head, the wine to be confined to sherry and claret, and the reckoning called at six o’clock.’ The minutes of this interesting club are preserved in the University Library.

The Mirror Club, formed by the contributors to the periodical of that name. It had really existed before under the name of ‘The Tabernacle.’ ‘The Tabernacle,’ or ‘The Feast of Tabernacles,’ as Ramsay of Ochtertyre calls it, was a company of friends and admirers of Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville.

The Easy Club, founded by Allan Ramsay the poet, consisted of twelve members, each of whom was required to assume the name of some Scottish poet. Ramsay took that of Gawin Douglas.

The Capillaire Club was ‘composed of all who were inclined to be witty and joyous.’

The Facer Club, which met in Lucky Wood’s tavern in the Canongate, was perhaps not of a high order. If a member did not drain his measure of liquor, he had to throw it at his own face.

The Griskin Club also met in the Canongate. Dr Carlyle and those who took part with him in the production of Home’s Douglas at the Canongate playhouse formed this club, and gave it its name from the pork griskins which was their favourite supper dish.

The Ruffian Club, ‘composed of men whose hearts were milder than their manners, and their principles more correct than their habits of life.’

The Wagering Club, instituted in 1775, still meets annually. An account of this club is given in The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, vol. ii.

Others may be mentioned by name only: The Diversorium, The Haveral, The Whin Bush, The Skull, The Six Foot, The Assembly of Birds, The Card, The Borached, The Humdrum, The Apician, The Blast and Quaff, The Ocean, The Pipe, The Knights of the Cap and Feather, The Revolutionary, The Stoic, and The Club, referred to in Lockhart’s Life of Scott.

Of a later period than those mentioned above were The Gowks Club; The Right and Wrong, of which James Hogg gives a short account; and The Friday Club, instituted by Lord Cockburn, who also wrote an interesting history of it, recently printed by Mr H. A. Cockburn, in vol. iii. of The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club.

[143] The Scottish peers on occasions of election of representatives to the House of Lords frequently brought their meetings to a close by dining at Fortune’s Tavern.

[144] See note, p. 157.

[145] ‘The wags of the eighteenth century used to tell of a certain city treasurer who, on being applied to for a new rope to the Tron Kirk bell, summoned the Council to deliberate on the demand; an adjournment to Clerihugh’s Tavern, it was hoped, might facilitate the settlement of so weighty a matter, but one dinner proved insufficient, and it was not till their third banquet that the application was referred to a committee, who spliced the old rope, and settled the bill!’—Wilson’s Memorials of Old Edinburgh.

[146] Since this was written, the whole group of buildings has been taken down, and new ones substituted (1868).

[147] The ‘White Horse’ is introduced in The Abbot—it was the scene of Roland GrÆme’s encounter with young Seton.

[148] The Corsican patriot whose acquaintance Boswell made on his tour abroad. Johnson characterised him as having ‘the loftiest port of any man he had ever seen.’

[149] Peter Ramsay was a brother of William Ramsay of Barnton, the well-known sporting character of the early part of the nineteenth century.

[150] A punning friend, remarking on the old Scottish practice of styling elderly landladies by the term Lucky, said: ‘Why not?—Felix qui pot——’

[151] The following curious advertisement, connected with an inn in the Canongate, appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant for July 1, 1754. The advertisement is surmounted by a woodcut representing the stage-coach, a towering vehicle, protruding at top—the coachman a stiff-looking, antique little figure, who holds the reins with both hands, as if he were afraid of the horses running away—a long whip streaming over his head and over the top of the coach, and falling down behind—six horses, like starved rats in appearance—a postillion upon one of the leaders, with a whip:

‘The Edinburgh Stage-Coach, for the better accommodation of Passengers, will be altered to a new genteel two-end Glass Machine, hung on Steel Springs, exceeding light and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter; to set out the first Tuesday in March, and continue it from Hosea Eastgate’s, the Coach and Horses in Dean Street, Soho, London, and from John Somerville’s in the Canongate, Edinburgh, every other Tuesday, and meet at Burrowbridge on Saturday night, and set out from thence on Monday morning, and get to London and Edinburgh on Friday. In the winter to set out from London and Edinburgh every other [alternate] Monday morning, and to go to Burrowbridge on Saturday night; and to set out from thence on Monday morning, and get to London and Edinburgh on Saturday night. Passengers to pay as usual. Performed, if God permits, by your dutiful servant,

Hosea Eastgate.

‘Care is taken of small parcels according to their value.’

[152] The pillar was restored to Edinburgh, and for some years stood within an enclosed recess on the north side of St Giles’. When Mr W. E. Gladstone rebuilt the Cross in 1885, a little to the south of its former site, between St Giles’ Church and the Police Office, the original pillar was replaced in its old position.

[153] Bishop Forbes inserts in his manuscript (which I possess) a panegyrical epitaph for Ned Burke, stating that he died in Edinburgh in November 1751. He also gives the following particulars from Burke’s conversation:

‘One of the soles of Ned’s shoes happening to come off, Ned cursed the day upon which he should be forced to go without shoes. The Prince, hearing him, called to him and said: “Ned, look at me”—when (said Ned) I saw him holding up one of his feet at me, where there was de’il a sole upon the shoe; and then I said: “Oh, my dear! I have nothing more to say. You have stopped my mouth indeed.”

‘When Ned was talking of seeing the Prince again, he spoke these words: “If the Prince do not come and see me soon, good faith I will go and see my daughter [Charles having taken the name of Betty Burke when in a female disguise], and crave her; for she has not yet paid her christening money, and as little has she paid the coat I ga’e her in her greatest need.”’

[154] ‘Upon the 26th of February [1617], the Cross of Edinburgh was taken down. The old long stone, about forty footes or thereby in length, was to be translated, by the devise of certain mariners in Leith, from the place where it had stood past the memory of man, to a place beneath in the High Street, without any harm to the stone; and the body of the old Cross was demolished, and another builded, whereupon the long stone or obelisk was erected and set up, on the 25th day of March.’—Calderwood’s Church History.

[155] See Domestic Annals of Scotland, ii. 436.

[156] Waverley Annotations, i. 435.

[157] What is said to be the original Blue Blanket is still preserved in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland.

[158] Scots Magazine, June 1767.

[159] The skeleton of this singular being exists entire in the class-room of the professor of anatomy in the College.

[160] Notes to Waverley.

[161] Waverley Annotations, i. 70.

[162] The buildings in this alley are now demolished.

[163] He is said to have been a nobleman of considerable talent, and a great underhand supporter of the exiled family; see the Lockhart Papers. George Lockhart had married his daughter Euphemia, or Lady Effie, as she was commonly called. In the Edinburgh Annual Register there is preserved a letter from Lord Eglintoune to his son, replete with good sense as well as paternal affection.

[164] The earl was forty-nine and Miss Kennedy twenty.

[165] The anecdote which follows is chiefly taken from The Tell-tale, a rare collection, published in 1762.

[166] Notes by C. K. Sharpe in Stenhouse’s edition of the Scots Musical Museum, ii. 200.

[167] As a specimen of the complimentary intercourse of the poet with Lady Eglintoune, an anecdote is told of her having once sent him a basket of fine fruit; to which he returned this stanza:

The love of raillery has recorded that on this being communicated by Ramsay to his friend Eustace Budgell, the following comment was soon after received from the English wit:

[168] An old gentleman told our informant that he never saw so beautiful a figure in his life as Lady Eglintoune at a Hunters’ Ball in Holyrood House, dancing a minuet in a large hoop, and a suit of black velvet, trimmed with gold.

[169] Snuff-taking was prevalent among young women in our grandmothers’ time. Their flirts used to present them with pretty snuff-boxes. In one of the monthly numbers of the Scots Magazine for the year 1745 there is a satirical poem by a swain upon the practice of snuff-taking; to which a lady replies next month, defending the fashion as elegant and of some account in coquetry. Almost all the old ladies who survived the commencement of this century took snuff. Some kept it in pouches, and abandoned, for its sake, the wearing of white ruffles and handkerchiefs.

[170] A gown then required ten yards of stuff.

[171] This verse appears in a manuscript subsequent to 1760. The name, however, is Sleigh, not Lee. Mrs Mally Sleigh was married in 1725 to the Lord Lyon Brodie of Brodie. Allan Ramsay celebrates her.

[172] James Erskine on ascending the bench first took the title of Lord Tinwald, from his estate in Dumfriesshire. That of Lord Alva he assumed when he purchased the family estate of Alva, in Clackmannanshire, from his eldest brother, Sir Charles Erskine.

[173] The site of Mylne Square is now occupied by the block of buildings directly opposite the north front of the Tron Church.

[174] The first of this name was made ‘master-mason’ to the king in 1481, and the position descended in regular succession in the family till 1710, when they adopted the style of architect.

[175] Lady Glenorchy built a chapel, which was named after her, on the low ground to the south of the Calton Hill. The chapel was swept away, along with that of the fine Gothic building Trinity College Church, for the convenience of the North British Railway. The lady’s name is still preserved in Lady Glenorchy’s Established Church in Roxburgh Place and Lady Glenorchy’s United Free Church in Greenside.

[176] The Canongate seems to have been paved about the same time. In 1535 the king granted to the Abbot of Holyrood a duty of one penny upon every loaded cart, and a halfpenny upon every empty one, to repair and maintain the causeway.

[177] George Lockhart of Carnwath lived here in 1753. Afterwards he resided in Ross House, a suburban mansion, which afterwards was used as a lying-in hospital. The park connected with this house is now occupied by George Square. While in Mr Lockhart’s possession Ross House was the scene of many gay routs and balls.

The Lords Ross, the original proprietors of this mansion, died out in 1754. One of the last persons in Scotland supposed to be possessed by an evil spirit was a daughter of George, the second last lord. A correspondent says: ‘A person alive in 1824 told me that, when a child, he saw her clamber up to the top of an old-fashioned four-post bed like a cat. In her fits it was almost impossible to hold her. About the same time, a daughter of Lord Kinnaird was supposed to have the second-sight. One day, during divine worship in the High Church, she fainted away; on her recovery, she declared that when Lady Janet Dundas (a daughter of Lord Lauderdale) entered the pew with Miss Dundas, who was a beautiful young girl, she saw the latter as it were in a shroud gathered round her neck, and upon her head. Miss Dundas died a short time after.’

[178] Both facts from Moyses’s Memoirs.

[179] In the house to the north of this was a shop kept by an eccentric personage, who exhibited a sign bearing this singular inscription:

ORRA THINGS BOUGHT AND SOLD—

which signified that he dealt in odd articles, such as a single shoe-buckle, one of a pair of skates, a teapot wanting a lid, or perhaps, as often, a lid minus a teapot; in short, any unpaired article which was not to be got in the shops where only new things were sold, and which, nevertheless, was now and then as indispensably wanted by householders as anything else.

[180] The present article is almost wholly from original sources, a fact probably unknown to a contemporary novelist, who has made it the groundwork of a fiction without any acknowledgment. Some additional particulars may be found in Tales of the Century, by John Sobieski Stuart (Edinburgh, 1846). In the Spalding Miscellany, vol. iii., are several letters of Lord Grange, containing allusions to his wife; and a production of his, which has been printed under the title of Diary of a Senator of the College of Justice (Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1833), is worthy of perusal.

[181] Here and elsewhere a paper in Lord Grange’s own hand is quoted.

[182] ‘Then, and some time before and after, there was a stage-coach from hence to England.’ So says his lordship; implying that in 1751, when he was writing, there was no such public conveniency! It had been tried, and had failed.

[183] If we could believe Lord Lovat, however, he personally was innocent, and regretted he was innocent, of any association with the abduction of Lady Grange. ‘They said it was all my contrivance, and that it was my servants that took her away; but I defyed them then, as I do now, and do declare to you upon honour, that I do not know what has become of that woman, where she is or who takes care of her, but if I had contrived and assisted, and saved my Lord Grange from that devil, who threatened every day to murder him and his children, I would not think shame of it before God or man.’—Letter of Lord Lovat’s quoted in Genealogie of the Hayes of Tweeddale.

[184] About four gallons.

[185] Named after John Cant, a pious citizen of the sixteenth century, who, with his wife, Agnes Kerkettle, was a contributor to the foundation of the Convent of St Catherine of Siena on the south side of the Meadows. The district is now known as Sciennes—pronounced Sheens.

[186] Only fragments of the ancient buildings remain in Cant’s and Dickson’s Closes.

[187] At the head of the Old Bank Close, to the westward; burned down in 1771.

[188] Only a small portion of this building now remains.

[189] The Advocates’ Library.

[190] In the parish of Borthwick.

[192] Cromarty, at seventy, contrived to marry ‘a young and beautiful countess in her own right, a widow, wealthy, and in universal estimation. The following distich was composed on the occasion:

C. K. Sharpe, Notes to Law’s Memorials, p. xlvii.

[193] This historic building was demolished many years ago. Its main front faced the Cowgate, and to the north and east were extensive gardens.

[194] In this house, too, Queen Mary was entertained at a banquet given by the citizens. ‘Upon the nynt day of Februar at evin the Queen’s grace come up in ane honourable manner fra the palice of Holyrudhouse to the Cardinal’s ludging in Blackfriars Wynd, ... and efter supper the honest young men in the town come with ane convoy to her,’ and escorted her back to Holyrood.—Diurnal of Occurrents.

Before the opening of the original High School in the grounds of the Blackfriars’ Monastery the pupils were temporarily accommodated in Beaton’s palace.

[195] The title ‘Ambassador Keith’ is usually applied to Sir Robert’s father, who, after several minor diplomatic appointments on the Continent, was the representative of Great Britain at the court of St Petersburg. An interesting sketch of him, under the title of ‘Felix,’ by Mrs Cockburn, is appended to the volume of that lady’s Letters, edited by Mr T. Craig Brown. Miss Keith, known to Edinburgh society as ‘Sister Anne,’ was Scott’s ‘Mrs Bethune Balliol’ of the Chronicles of the Canongate. This gentleman was absent from Edinburgh about twenty-two years, and returned at a time when it was supposed that manners were beginning to exhibit symptoms of great improvement. He, however, complained that they were degenerated. In his early time, he said, every Scottish gentleman of £300 a year travelled abroad when young, and brought home to the bosom of domestic life, and to the profession in which it might be his fate to engage, a vast fund of literary information, knowledge of the world, and genuine good manners, which dignified his character through life. But towards the year 1770 this practice had been entirely given up, and in consequence a sensible change was discoverable upon the face of good society. (See the Life of John Home, by Henry Mackenzie, Esq.).

[196] It is curious to observe how, in correspondence with the change in our manners and customs, one trade has become extinct, while another succeeded in its place. At the end of the sixteenth century the manufacture of offensive weapons predominated over all other trades in Edinburgh. We had then cutlers, whose essay-piece, on being admitted of the corporation, was ‘ane plain finished quhanzear’ or sword; gaird-makers, whose business consisted in fashioning sword-handles; Dalmascars, who gilded the said weapon; and belt-makers, who wrought the girdles that bound it to the wearer’s body. There were also dag-makers, who made hackbuts (short-guns) and dags (pistols). These various professions all became associated in the general one of armourers, or gunsmiths, when the wearing of weapons went into desuetude—there being then no further necessity for the expedition and expediency of the modern political economist’s boasted ‘division of labour.’ As the above arts gave way, those which tended to provide the comforts and luxuries of civilised life gradually arose. About 1586 we find the first notice of locksmiths in Edinburgh, and there was then only one of the trade, whose essay was simply ‘a kist lock.’ In 1609, however, as the security of property increased, the essay was ‘a kist lock and a hingand bois lock, with an double plate lock;’ and in 1644 ‘a key and sprent band’ were added to the essay. In 1682 ‘a cruik and cruik band’ were further added; and in 1728, for the safety of the lieges, the locksmith’s essay was appointed to be ‘a cruik and cruik band, a pass lock with a round filled bridge, not cut or broke in the backside, with nobs and jamb bound.’ In 1595 we find the first notice of shearsmiths. In 1609 a heckle-maker was admitted into the Corporation of Hammermen. In 1613 a tinkler makes his appearance; Thomas Duncan, the first tinkler, was then admitted. Pewterers are mentioned so far back as 1588. In 1647 we find the first knock-maker (clock-maker), but so limited was his business that he was also a locksmith. In 1664 the first white-iron man was admitted; also the first harness-maker, though lorimers had previously existed. Paul Martin, a distressed French Protestant, in 1691, was the first manufacturer of surgical instruments in Edinburgh. In 1720 we find the first pin-maker; in 1764, the first edge-tool maker and first fish-hook maker.

[197] The Highland appellative of Lord Lovat, expressing the son of Simon.

[198] Quarterly Review, vol. xiv. p. 326.

[199] First door up the stair at the head of the wynd, on the west side. The house was burnt down in 1824, but rebuilt in its former arrangement.

[200] [The window-tax was first imposed in 1695, and repealed in 1851.]

[201] An old domestic of her ladyship’s preserved one of her shoes as a relic for many years. The heel was three inches deep.

[202] [The view of the famous ‘Douglas Cause,’ affirmed in the House of Lords in 1771.]

[203] Mrs Grant of Laggan held another opinion of General Simon Fraser. A pleasing exterior covered a large share of the paternal character—‘No heart was ever harder, no hands more rapacious than his.’

[204] Myln’s Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld. Edinburgh, 1831.

[205] Originally the name was the ‘Wynd of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Fields,’ as being the approach to the collegiate church so named which stood on the site of the University—the ‘Kirk o’ Field’ of the Darnley tragedy.

[206] Now Chambers Street.

[207] A small ‘bit’ of College Wynd, ending in a cul de sac, is all that remains of this once leading thoroughfare between the city and the ‘Oure Tounis Colledge.’

[208] When it became an unfashionable place of residence it was dubbed by the fops of the town ‘Cavalry Wynd.’ The northern end of Guthrie Street is the site of the old Horse Wynd.

[209] Macgill was King’s Advocate to James VI., and is said to have died of grief when his rival, Thomas Hamilton, was preferred for the presidentship.

[210] Most of the traditionary anecdotes in this article were communicated by Charles, eighth Earl of Haddington, through conversation with Sir Walter Scott, by whom they were directly imparted to the author.

[211] Near by is the Magdalen Chapel, a curious relic of the sixteenth century, belonging to the Corporation of Hammermen. It was erected immediately before the Reformation by a pious citizen, Michael Macquhan, and Jonet Rhynd, his widow, whose tomb is shown in the floor. The windows towards the south were anciently filled with stained glass; and there still remain some specimens of that kind of ornament, which, by some strange chance, had survived the Reformation. In a large department at the top of one window are the arms of Mary of Guise, who was queen-regent at the time the chapel was built. The arms of Macquhan and his wife are also to be seen. In the lower panes, which have been filled with small figures of saints, only one remains—a St Bartholomew—who, by a rare chance, has survived the general massacre. The whole is now very carefully preserved. When the distinguished Reformer, John Craig, returned to Scotland at the Reformation, after an absence of twenty-four years, he preached for some time in this chapel, in the Latin language, to a select congregation of the learned, being unable, by long disuse, to hold forth in his vernacular tongue. This divine subsequently was appointed a colleague to John Knox, and is distinguished in history for having refused to publish the banns between Queen Mary and Bothwell, and also for having written the National Covenant in 1589. Another circumstance in the history of this chapel is worthy of notice. The body of the Earl of Argyll, after his execution, June 30, 1685, was brought down and deposited in this place, to wait till it should be conveyed to the family burying-place at Kilmun.

[212] The amateurs who took the lead as choristers were Gilbert Innes, Esq. of Stow; Alexander Wight, Esq., advocate; Mr John Hutton, papermaker; Mr John Russel, W.S.; and Mr George Thomson. As an instrumentalist, we could boast of our countryman the Earl of Kelly, who also composed six overtures for an orchestra, one of which I heard played in the hall, himself leading the band.

[213] See a different account of this custom, p. 147.

[214] [‘John M. Giornovicki, commonly known in Britain under the name of Jarnowick, was a native of Palermo. About 1770 he went to Paris, where he performed a concerto of his famous master Lolli, but did not succeed. He then played one of his own concertos, that in A major, and became quite the fashion. The style of Giornovicki was highly elegant and finished, his intonation perfect, and his taste pure. The late Domenico Dragonetti, one of the best judges in Europe, told me that Giornovicki was the most elegant and graceful violin-player he had ever heard before Paganini, but that he wanted power. He seems to have been a dissipated and passionate man; a good swordsman too, as was common in those days. One day, in a dispute, he struck the Chevalier St George, then one of the greatest violin-players and best swordsmen in Europe. St George said coolly: “I have too much regard for his musical talent to fight him.” A noble speech, showing St George in all respects the better man. Giornovicki died suddenly at St Petersburg in 1804.’—G. F. G.]

[215] G. T., it may now be explained, was George Thomson, the well-known and generally loved editor of the Melodies of Scotland. He might rather have described himself as Nonogenarius, for at his death, in 1851, he had reached the age of ninety-four, his violin, as he believed, having prolonged his life much beyond the usual term.

[216] The earl was the leader of the amateur orchestra of St Cecilia’s Hall, which included Lord Colville, Sir John Pringle, Mr Seton of Pitmedden, General Middleton, Lord Elcho, Sir Gilbert Elliot, Mrs Forbes of Newhall, and others of the aristocracy. General Middleton was credited with ‘singing a song with much humour,’ which he sometimes accompanied with a key and tongs. Sir Gilbert Elliot, who played the German flute, was the first to introduce that instrument to a Scottish audience. St Cecilia’s Hall has passed through many vicissitudes since then, and is now a bookbinder’s warehouse, but its fine ceiling and the orchestral balcony at the southern end are still preserved as memorials of its early days.

[217] About seventy paces to the east of the site of the Prebendaries’ Chamber, and exactly opposite to the opening of Roxburgh Place, was a projection in the wall, which has been long demolished and the wall altered. Close, however, to the west of the place, and near the ground, are some remains of an arch in the wall, which Malcolm Laing supposes to have been a gun-port connected with the projection at this spot. It certainly has no connection, as Arnot and (after him) Whitaker have supposed, with the story of Darnley’s murder. [This relic of the Flodden wall is now removed, but a portion of the wall itself still stands behind the houses at the north-east junction of Drummond Street and the Pleasance. Another portion was recently discovered at the east end of Lothian Street, between that street and the Royal Scottish Museum. Another part forms the north side of a cul de sac at Lindsay Place, and at the Vennel is the largest part of this old wall, with one of its few towers, forming the western boundary of the grounds of Heriot’s Hospital.]

[218] Hose in those days covered the whole of the lower part of the person.

[219] This indicates pretty nearly the site of the house of Bassendyne, the early printer. It must have been opposite, or nearly opposite, to the Fountain Well.

[220] Now removed and the site built over. There was also a Cunyie House in Candlemaker Row, which was used as the Mint during the regency of Mary of Guise.

[221] The Assembly Room, afterwards occupied by the Commercial Bank, was in Bell’s Wynd, to which place it was removed in 1756 from the older room in Assembly Close. A scallop-shell above the entrance to Bell’s Wynd long commemorated the site of the Clamshell Turnpike, the lodging of the Earl of Home, to which Queen Mary, accompanied by Darnley, retreated on their return from Dunbar in 1566, rather than enter Holyrood so soon after the murder of Rizzio.

[222] It must have been after Miss Nicky Murray’s day that an Edinburgh Writer to the Signet, describing the unruliness of an assembly, writes: ‘I saw an English lady stand up at the head of a sett with a ticket No. 1 of that sett. By-and-bye my namesake, Miss Mary ——, came up, hauling after her a foolish-looking young man, who did as he was bid, and with all the ease in the world placed herself above the stranger, No. 1. The lady politely said there must be some mistake, for she had that place. “No,” said Miss Mary, “I can’t help your ticket, for I have the Lady Directress’s permission to lead down the sett!” The lady had spunk, and scolded, for which I liked her the better; only she dealt her sarcasms about Scotch politeness, Edinburgh manners, and so forth, rather too liberally and too loudly.’

[223] [The right of this house to be called ‘John Knox’s House’ has been strenuously disputed; several other houses in which Knox actually lived have been identified by Robert Miller, F.S.A. Scot., Lord Dean of Guild of Edinburgh, in John Knox and the Town Council of Edinburgh, with a Chapter on the so-called ‘John Knox’s House’ (1898). For the genuineness of the tradition, said not to be older than 1806, see Lord Guthrie’s John Knox and John Knox’s House (1898).]

[224] The following advertisement, inserted in the Edinburgh Courant of August 1, 1754, illustrates the above in a striking manner: ‘If any person has lost a LARGE SOW, let them call at the house of Robert Fiddes, gardener to Lord Minto, over against the Earl of Galloway’s, in the Horse Wynd, where, upon proving the property, paying expenses and damages done by the said sow, they may have the same restored.’

[225] Lord Lindsay’s Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 190.

[226] ‘During this peaceable time [1668-1675], he [John, Earl of Tweeddale] built the park of Yester of stone and lime, near seven miles about, in seven years’ time, at the expense of 20,000 pound; bought a house in Edinburgh from Sir William Bruce for 1000 pound sterling, and ane other house within the same court, which, being rebuilt from the foundation, the price of it and reparations of both stood him 1000 sterling.’—Father Hay’s Genealogie of the Hayes of Tweeddale (Edinburgh, 1835), p. 32.

[227] The notes are thus described in the Hue and Cry: £1300 in twenty-pound notes of Sir W. Forbes and Company; £1000 in twenty-pound notes of the Leith Banking Company; £1400 in twenty, ten, and five pound notes of different banks; 240 guinea and 440 pound notes of different banks—in all, £4392.

[228] It was in this part of the High Street also that Robert Lekprevick, the Scottish printer, lived before he removed to St Andrews in 1571.

[229] ‘—— deliure a Jacques le tailleur deux chanteaux de damas gris broches dor pour faire vne robbe a vne poupine;’ also ‘trois quartz et demi de toille dargent et de soze blanche pour faire vne cotte et aultre chose a des poupines.’—Catalogues of the Jewels, Dresses, Furniture, &c. of Mary Queen of Scots, edited by Joseph Robertson. Edinburgh, 1863, p. 139.

[230] A skull represented as Buchanan’s has long been shown in the College of Edinburgh. It is extremely thin, and being long ago shown in company with that of a known idiot, which was, on the contrary, very thick, it seemed to form a commentary upon the popular expression which sets forth density of bone as an invariable accompaniment of paucity of brain. The author of a diatribe called Scotland Characterised, which was published in 1701, and may be found in the Harleian Miscellany, tells us that he had seen the skull in question, and that it bore ‘a very pretty distich upon it [the composition of Principal Adamson, who had caused the skull to be lifted]—the first line I have forgot, but the second was:

[231] [Dr David Hay Fleming has shown that the contemporary evidence is all in favour of the Covenant’s having been signed in the Greyfriars’ Church, and not in the churchyard; see a chapter by him in Mr Moir Bryce’s Old Greyfriars’ Church, Edinburgh (1912). And in the same book Mr Moir Bryce has proved that the small strip of ground long erroneously believed to be the Covenanters’ prison was not separated off till 1703-4, and that the Covenanters were interned on a much larger area to the east, now built over.]

[232] The Back Stairs, built on the site of St Giles’ Churchyard, gave direct communication between the Cowgate and Old Parliament Square. It was by this way that Robertson the smuggler escaped from the Tolbooth Church, where he and his accomplice Wilson had been taken, as was usual with condemned prisoners, the Sunday before their execution. It was Porteous’s behaviour at the execution of Wilson that led to the riot and his own death in the Grassmarket.

[233] The pistols belonged to Mr Cayley himself, having been borrowed a few days before by Mr Macfarlane.

[234] A little below the church.

[235] Subjoined is a list of persons of note who lived in the Canongate in the early days of the late Mr Chalmers Izett, whose memory extended back to 1769:

• ‘DUKES.
• Hamilton.
• Queensberry.

• EARLS.
• Breadalbane.
• Hyndford.
• Wemyss.
• Balcarras.
• Moray.
• Dalhousie.
• Haddington.
• Mar.
• Srathmore.
• Traquair.
• Selkirk.
• Dundonald.
• Kintore.
• Dunmore.
• Seafield.
• Panmure.

• COUNTESSES.
• Tweeddale.
• Lothian.

• LORDS.
• Haddo.
• Colvill.
• Blantyre.
• Nairn.
• Semple.
• A. Gordon.
• Cranstoun.

• L. OF SESSION.
• Eskgrove.
• Hailes.
• Prestongrange.
• Kames.
• Milton.
• Montgomery.
• Bannatyne.

• BARONETS.
• Sir J. Grant.
• Sir J. Suttie.
• Sir J. Whiteford.
• Sir J. Stewart.
• Sir J. Stirling.
• Sir J. Sinclair, Glorat.
• Sir J. Halkett.
• Sir James Stirling.
• Sir D. Hay.
• Sir B. Dunbar.
• Sir J. Scott, Ancrum.
• Sir R. Anstruther.
• Sir J. Sinclair, Ulbster.

• COMMANDERS-IN-CHIEF.
• General Oughton.
• General Skene.
• Lord A. Gordon.
• Lord Moira.

• EMINENT MEN.
• Adam Smith.
• Dr Young.
• Dugald Stewart.
• Dr Gardner.
• Dr Gregory.

• BANK.
• Douglas, Heron, and Company.

• LADIES’ BOARDING-SCHOOL.
• Mrs Hamilton, Chessels’s Court.

• PRINCIPAL INNS.
• Ramsay’s, St Mary’s Wynd.
• Boyd’s, Head of Canongate.

‘Two coaches went down the Canongate to Leith—one hour in going, and one hour in returning.’

[236] Removal.

[237] ‘At a former period, when the Canongate of Edinburgh was a more fashionable residence than at present, a lady of rank who lived in one of the closes, before going out to an evening-party, and at a time when hairdressers and peruke-makers were much in demand, requested a servant (newly come home) to tell Tam Tough the hairdresser to come to her immediately. The servant departed in quest of Puff, but had scarcely reached the street before she forgot the barber’s name. Meeting with a caddy, she asked him if he knew where the hairdresser lived. “Whatna hairdresser is ’t?” replied the caddy. “I ha’e forgot his name,” answered she. “What kind o’ name wus ’t?” responded Donald. “As near as I can mind,” said the girl, “it was a name that wad neither rug nor rive.” “The deil ’s in ’t,” answered Donald, “but that’s a tam’d tough name.” “Thank ye, Donald, that’s the man’s name I wanted—Tam Tough.”’—[From an Edinburgh Newspaper.]

[238] The inscription is now removed.

[239] With the exception of Lord Kames’s house, all the others referred to have been swept away by the North British Railway and the Corporation Gasworks, which at one time occupied the eastern side of the street.

[240] Although it was outside the wall, the city authorities claimed jurisdiction over the Canongate as far as St John’s Cross, notwithstanding that the Canongate was a separate burgh, which it continued to be till the middle of the nineteenth century. Proclamations were made at St John’s Cross as well as at the Mercat Cross in the High Street, and at it the Canongate burgh officials joined the city fathers when paying ceremonial visits to Holyrood.

[241] Strap in Roderick Random was supposed to represent one Hutchinson, a barber near Dunbar. The man encouraged the idea as much as possible. When Mr [Warren] Hastings (governor of India) and his wife visited Scotland, they sent for this man, and were so pleased with him that Mr Hastings afterwards sent him a couple of razors, mounted in gold, from London.

[242] For many years the Practising School for Teachers under the management of the Free Church of Scotland, now the Training College for Teachers under the Provincial Council of Education.

[243] The terraces have long since been deprived of their last semblance of the old gardens; but while recent excavations were being made for an extension of the educational buildings, the statue of the boy was discovered underground in the lowest terrace. The statue is preserved, and forms a connecting link between ‘My Lady Murray’s Yards’ and the ‘Yards’ of the modern school.

[244] On the north side of the High Street, opposite the Tron Church. The site is now covered by the opening of Cockburn Street.

[245] I was indebted to my friend Dr John Brown (HorÆ SubsecivÆ, p. 42) for drawing my attention to a quotation of Seneca by Beyerlinck (Magn. Theatr. Vit. Human., tom. vi. p. 60), involving this fine expression. Some one, however, has searched all over the writings of Seneca for it in vain.

[246] The close entering by the archway at the east end of the house, now called ‘Bakehouse Close,’ was formerly ‘Hammermen’s Close.’

[247] ‘The Speaking House’ is now recognised as a town mansion of the Huntly family. It is said to be associated with the first marquis, who killed the ‘Bonnie Earl of Moray’ at Donibristle, and died in 1636 at Dundee on his way north to Aberdeenshire. His son, the second marquis, who was beheaded in 1649, was residing in this house ten years prior to his execution, and in it his daughter Lady Ann was married to Lord Drummond, third Earl of Perth.

[248] Which he named Gosford, after the estate in East Lothian, which was acquired by Sir Archibald’s ancestor, a wealthy burgess in the reign of Queen Mary. The Viscounts Gosford take their title from the Irish estate.

[249] In his MS. Diaries in the Advocates’ Library.

[250] In an advertisement in a Jacobite newspaper, called The Thistle, which rose and sank in 1734, the house is advertised as having lately been occupied by the Duchesses of Gordon and Perth. [1868. It is in the course of being taken down to make way for a railway.]

[251] In 1864 this favourite Scottish pastime was resuscitated on Leith Links, and is now enjoyed with a relish as keen as ever.

[252] ArchÆologia Scotica, i.

[253] A newspaper, giving an account of Lord Palmerston’s visit to Edinburgh in 1865, mentions that his lordship, during his stay in the city, was made aware that an aged woman of the name of Peggie Forbes, who had been a servant with Dugald Stewart, well remembered his lordship when under the professor’s roof in early days. Interested in the circumstance, Lord Palmerston took occasion to pay her a visit at her dwelling, No. 1 Rankeillor Street, and expressed his pleasure at renewing the acquaintance of the old domestic. Dr John Brown had discovered the existence of this old association, and with it a box of tools which were the property of ‘young Maister Henry’ of those days. The sight of them called up within the breast of the Premier further associations of days long bygone.

[254] Robertson, in his Rural Recollections (Irvine, 1829), says: ‘The earliest evidence that I have met with of potatoes in Scotland is an old household book of the Eglintoune family in 1733, in which potatoes appear at different times as a dish at supper.’ They appear earlier than this—namely, in 1701—in the household book of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, where the price per peck is intimated at 2s. 6d.—See Arnot’s History of Edinburgh, 4to, p. 201.

[255] A noted brewer, much given to preaching. Of him Claudero says:

[256] This thriving parliamentary burgh originated in a cottage built, and long inhabited, by a retired seaman of Admiral Vernon’s squadron, who gave it this name in commemoration of the triumph which his commander there gained over the Spaniards in 1739. There must have been various houses at the spot in 1753, when we find one ‘George Hamilton, in Portobello,’ advertising in the Edinburgh Courant that he would give a reward of three pounds to any one who should discover the author of a scandalous report, which represented him as harbouring robbers in his house. The waste upon which Portobello is now partly founded was dreadfully infested at this time with robbers, and resorted to by smugglers; see Courant. [Portobello, while remaining one of the ‘Leith burghs’ for parliamentary purposes, was municipally incorporated with Edinburgh in 1896. Claudero’s ‘Frigate Whins’ are better known as the ‘Figgate Whins.’]

[257] Claudero could have little serious expectation that several of these predictions would come to pass before he had been forty years in his grave.

[258] A celebrated and much-esteemed fishing-rod maker, who afterwards flourished in the old wooden land at the head of Blackfriars Wynd. He survived to recent times, and was distinguished for his adherence to the cocked hat, wrist ruffles, and buckles of his youth. He was a short, neat man, very well bred, a great angler, intimate with the great, a Jacobite, and lived to near a century. He had fished in almost every trouting stream in the three kingdoms, and was seen skating on Lochend at the age of eighty-five.

[259] This seems to bear some reference to the seizure of young Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart at Lesmahagow in 1745.

[260] Introduction to Law’s Memorials, p. lxxx.

[261] See letters of Gay, Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot, in Scott’s edition of Swift.

[262] In a letter from Gay to Swift, dated February 15, 1727-8, we find the subject illustrated as follows: ‘As to my favours from great men, I am in the same state you left me; but I am a great deal happier, as I have expectations. The Duchess of Queensberry has signalised her friendship to me upon this occasion [the bringing out of the Beggar’s Opera] in such a conspicuous manner, that I hope (for her sake) you will take care to put your fork to all its proper uses, and suffer nobody for the future to put their knives in their mouth.’

In the P.S. to a letter from Gay to Swift, dated Middleton Stoney, November 9, 1729, Gay says: ‘To the lady I live with I owe my life and fortune. Think of her with respect—value and esteem her as I do—and never more despise a fork with three prongs. I wish, too, you would not eat from the point of your knife. She has so much goodness, virtue, and generosity, that if you knew her, you would have a pleasure in obeying her as I do. She often wishes she had known you.’

[263] Record of that Society.

[264] The date over the exterior gateway of the Tailors’ Hall, towards the Cowgate, is 1644; but it is ascertained that the corporation had its hall at this place at an earlier period. An assembly of between two and three hundred clergymen was held here on Tuesday the 27th of February 1638 in order to consider the National Covenant, which was presented to the public next day in the Greyfriars Church. We are informed by the Earl of Rothes, in his Relations of the transactions of this period, in which he bore so distinguished a part, that some few objected to certain points in it; but being taken aside into the garden attached to this hall, and there lectured on the necessity of mutual concession for the sake of the general cause, they were soon brought to give their entire assent.

[265] The announcements of entertainments given at this fashionable place of amusement in the eighteenth century make amusing reading to-day. ‘February 17, 1743. We hear that on Monday 21st instant, at the Tailors’ Hall, Cowgate, at the desire of several ladies of distinction, will be performed a concert of vocal and instrumental music. After which will be given gratis Richard the Third, containing several historical passages. To which will be added gratis “The Mock Lawyer.” Tickets for the Concert (on which are [sic] printed a new device called Apology and Evasion) to be had at the Exchange and John’s Coffee-houses, and at Mr Este’s lodgings at Mr Monro’s, musician in the Cowgate, near Tailors’ Hall. As Mrs Este’s present condition will not admit a personal application, she hopes the ladies notwithstanding will grace her concert.’

[266] Among the audience on the first night of the performance of Douglas were the two daughters of John and Lady Susan Renton, one of whom, Eleanor, was the mother of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, to whom the author in his ‘Introductory Notice’ expresses his indebtedness for assistance on the first appearance of this work. And it was for attending one of the performances that the minister of Liberton Church brought himself under sentence of six weeks’ suspension by the Presbytery of Edinburgh—a sentence modified in consideration of his plea that though he attended the play, ‘he concealed himself as well as he could to avoid giving offence.’

[267] Maitland, in his History of Edinburgh, 1753, says that the encouragement given to the diversions at the house ‘is so very great, ’tis to be feared it will terminate in the destruction of the university. Such diversions,’ he adds, ‘are noways becoming a seat of the Muses.’

[269] Letter of Captain Amory, MS.

[270] The north and south sides only of this square now remain. The west was removed to make a thoroughfare—Marshall Street, connecting Nicolson Square and Potterrow.

[271] The site was midway between Edinburgh and Leith, now represented by Shrub Place.

[272] Sir Walter’s brother Thomas was married to a sister of Mr M’Culloch.

[273] It was also along this road that the anxious citizens, watching on the Castle esplanade, saw the royalist cavalry retiring at full gallop from Coltbridge on the approach of Prince Charlie and his Highland army.

[274] In Mr Lockhart’s clever book, Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, the murderer is called Gabriel. A work called Celebrated Trials (6 vols. 1825) gives an erroneous account of the murder, styling the murderer as the Rev. Thomas Hunter.

[275] See Domestic Annals of Scotland, i. 407.