High Street.] THE QUACK DOCTOR?S ACROBATS. 201
an audience. Then he began to vend his drugs
at eightpence per packet. Nicoll admits that they
were both good and real, and describes the antics
of the assistants.
Upon a great rope, fixed from side to side of
the street, a man descended upon his breast with
~ ~ ~~~~
danced seven-score times, without intermission,
lifting himself and vaulting s k quarter high above
his own head and lighting directly upon the tow
(rope) as punctually as if he had been dancing on
the plain stones.?
Four years after a different scene was witnessed
THE NETHER BOW PORT, FROM THE CANONGATE. ( F m an Etcking6y Jams SKrrrc of RdGhw.)
his arms ?stretched out like the wings of a fowl,
to the admiration of many.? Nicoll adds that the
country chirurgeons and apothecaries, finding his
drugs both cheap and good, came to Edinburgh
from all parts of the realm, and bought them for
the purpose of retailing them at a profit. The
antics and rope-dancing were continued for many
days with an agility and nimbleness ?admirable
to the beholders; one of the dancers having
28
in the High Street, when, in 1666, after the battle
of the Pentland Hills-a victory celebrated by
the discharge of nearly as many guns from the
Castle as there were prisoners-the captives were
marched to the Tolbooth. They. were eighty
in number; and these poor Covenanters were
conveyed manacled in triumph by the victor,
with trumpets sounding, kettle-drums beating, and
banners displayed. And Crookshank records in
