6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
porch of the Parliament House, '' for she has stood lang i' the outside, and it mad
be a treat for her to see the inside, like other strangers !'I
He was of a kindly and inoffensive disposition, and, in keeping with this
character, was extremely fond of children, and of those young persons generally
who treated him with becoming respect. For these he always carried about with
him in his pocket a large supply of tops, peerks, and tee-totums, of his own
manufacture, which he distributed liberally amongst them ; while to adults
he was equally generous in the articles of snuff and tobacco, giving these freely
to all who chose to enter into conversation with him. The Laird was thus a
general favourite with both young and old.
He resided on the Castlehill, and was most frequently to be seen there, and
in the Grassmarket, Lawnmarket, and Bow-head.
He wore a cocked Highland bonnet, as represented in the picture, which is
an admirable likeness, was handsome in person, and possessed of great bodily
strength. He retained to his dying hour his allegiance
to the House of St,uart ; and, about two years before his demise, gave a decisive
instance of it, by creating a disturbance at Bishop Abernethy Drummond's
chapel, in consequence of the reverend gentleman and his congregation, who
had previously been Nonjurants, praying for King George 111,
He died in J d y 1790.
JOHN DHU, the centre figure on the Print,'was, in the days of Mr. Kay, a
distinguished member of the Town-Guard, a band of civic militia, or armed
police, which existed in Edinburgh till 1817, and of which some notice will be
subsequently presented. John, a Highlander by birth, was conspicuous for his
peculiarly robust and rough appearance, which was of itself as effectual in keeping
the younger and more mischievous part of the population in awe, as any ten
Lochaber axes in the corps. The Author of Waverley speaks of him somewhere
as one of the fiercest-looking fellows he had ever seen. In facihg the unruly
mobs of those days, John had shown such a degree of valour as to impress the
Magistrates with a high sense of his utility as a public servant. That such an
image of military violence should have been necessary at the close of the
eighteenth century, to protect the peace of a British city, presents us with a
singular contrast of what we lately were, and what we have now become. On
one occasion, about the time of the French Revolution, when the Town-Guard
had been signalising the King's birthday by firing in the Parliament Square,
being unusually pressed and insulted by the populace, this undaunted warrior
turned upon one peculiarly outrageous member of the democracy, and, with one
blow of his battle-axe, laid him lifeless on the causeway.
With all this vigour in the execution of his duty, John Dhu is represented
as having been, in reality, a kind-hearted man, exceedingly gentle and affectionate
to his wife, and of so obliging a disposition, that he often did the duty of
lis brethren as well as his own, thereby frequently exposing himself to an
amount of fatigue that few men could have borne.
