where he spent many a jovial hour with Willie
Xcol and Allan Masterton. ?? Three blyther
lads? never gladdened the old place; and so
associated did it become with Burns, that, according
to a writer in the ?Year Book,? ?his name
was assumed as its distinguishing and alluring cognomen.
Until it was finally closed, it was visited
nightly by many a party of jolly fellows. . . . .
Few strangers omitted to call in to gaze upon the
? coftin ? of the bard-this was a small, dark room,
which would barely accommodate, even by squeezing,
half a dozen, but in which Burns used to sit.
ROBERT GQURLAY?S HOUSE.
Here he composed one or two of his best songs,
and here were preserved to the last the identical
seats and table which had accommodated him.?
In his edition of Scottish songs published in 1829,
five years before the demolition of the tavern,
Chambers notes that in the ale-house was sung that
sweetest of all Bums?s love songs :-
?I 0, poortith cauld, and restless love,
Ye wreck my peace between ye ;
Yet poortith a? I could forgie,
An ?twere M for my Jeanie.
?I Oh, why should fate sic pleasure have,
Life?s dearest bonds untwining ?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
Depend on fortune?s shining? ?
The moment the clock of St. Giles?s struck
midnight not another cork would Johnnie Dowie
draw. His unvarying reply to a fresh order was,
?Gentlemen, it is past twelve, and time to go
home.? In the same corner where Burns sat
Christopher North has alluded to his own pleasant
meetings with Tom Campbell. A string of eleven
verses in honour of his tavern were circulated
among his customers by Dowie, who openly ascribed
them to Bums. Two of these will suffice, as what
was at least a good imitation of the poet?s
style :-
I( 0 Dowie?s ale ! thoa art the thing
That gars us crack and gars us sing,
Cast by our cares, our wants a? fling
Thou e?en mak?st passion tak the wing,
Frae us wi? anger ;
Or thou wilt hang her.
I? How blest is he wha has a groat,
To spare upon the cheering pot ;
He may look blythe as ony Scot
Gie?s a? the like, but wi? a coat,
?Now these men are all gone,?
wrote one, who, alas ! has followed
them; ?their very habits are becoming
matters of history, while, as
for their evening haunt, the place
which knew it once knows it no
more, the new access to the Lawnmarket,
by George IV. bridge,
passing over the area where it
stood.?
Liberton?s Wynd is mentioned
io far back as in a charter by
James III., in 1477, and in a more
subsequent time it was the last
permanent place of execution, after
the demolition of the old Tolbooth.
Here at its head have scores of unhappy
wretches looked their last
upon the morning sun-the infamous Burke, whom
we shall meet again, among them. The socket
of the gallows-tree was removed, like many other
objects of greater interest, in 1834.
Before quitting this ancient alley we must not
omit to note that therein, in the house of his father
Dr. Josiah Mackenzie (who died in 1800) was
born in August, 1745, Henry Mackenzie, author
of the ?? Man of Feeling,? one of the most illustrious
names connected with polite literature in
Scotland. He was one of the most active members
of the Mirror Club, which met sometimes at Clenheugh?s
in Writers? Court; sometimes in Sonier?s,
opposite the Guard-house in the High Street;
sometimes in Stewart?s oyster-house, in the old
