L UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 191 .
occupied by John Rnox. Here also there was inscribed on a board, the rhymee preserved
by Scott in the “Heart of Midlothian,” which have been traced to an English
poet of the seventeenth century :-
A prison is a house of care,
A place where none can thrive,
A touchstone true to try a friend,
A grave for men alive.
Sometimes a place of right,
Sometimes a place of wrong,
Sometimes a place for jades and thieves,
And honest men among.
The room immediately above the common hall may be presumed to have been “ the
upper chamber of the Tolbooth,” in which James V. held his first council, after escaping,
in 1528, from his durance at Falkland Palace in the hands of the Douglas faction; its
latter use was as a dungeon for the worst felons, whose better security was insured by
an iron bar placed along the floor. Here also the condemned criminal generally spent
the last wretched hours of life, often chained to the same iron bar, and surrounded with the
reckless and depraved, whose presence forbade a serious thought. It was indeed among
the worst features of this miserable abode of crime, that its dimensions entirely precluded
all classification. It had no open ‘area attached to it, to which the prisoner might
escape for fresh air, or even a glimpse of the light of day, and no solitary cell whither
he might withdraw to indulge in the luxury of solitude and quiet reflection. Dante’s
memorable inscription for the gates of hell might have found no inappropriate place over
its gloomy portal :-
All hope abandon, ye who enter here !
We must refer the reader to Chambers’s “ Traditions,” for much that is curious and
amusing among the legends of the Tolbooth, gathered from the tales of its old inmates, or
the recollections of aged citizens. One of its most distinguishing traits, which it might be
supposed to retain as an heirloom of its former more dignified duties, was &.total suspension
of its retentive capabilities whenever any prisoner of rank was committed to the custody of
its walls.’ A golden key, doubtless, was sometimes effectual in unlocking its ponderous
bars ; but when this was provided against, other means were discovered for eliciting the
convenient facility of ‘(knowing those who ought to be respected on account of their rank.”
It is no less worthy of note, that occasions occurred in which the Tolbooth proved the only
effectual road to freedom for some of the most notorious offenders, when seeking to elude
the emissaries of justice. An old lady, to whose retentive memory we owe some interesting
recollections of former times,-when, as she was wont to say, she used to gather gowans on
the banks of the Nor’ Loch, and take a day’s ramble in Bearford’s Parks;-related the following
as a tradition she had heard in early youth :-When Mitchell, the fanatic preacher, who
Chambers’s Caledonia, vol. ii. p, 614.
* (‘ The Viscount of Frendracht (of the surname of Creightonn), his brother being priesoner in the Tolbuith of Edinburgh
for murther, and once pannelt befoir the Criminall Judge, eacapit, being clothed in ane womanes apperell, upone the
ellevint day of Junij [1664], being Settirday, about sex houris at evio, in fair day licht.”-Nicoll’s Diary, p. 414. ’ The site of George Street, and the adjoining parts of the New Town.
