BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 291
all his attention, and week after week he used to travel from Kinross to Edinburgh
(a distance of twenty-seven miles) to inquire about the progress of his
law-suit. Eay relates that when the Print was published in 1802, no fewer than
one hundred and sixteen subscribers were obtained among the gentlemen of the
legal profession-so well acquainted were they with the proprietor of the
middenstead.
The result of this appetite for law on the part of poor Andrew was the total
neglect of his business at Kinross. His affairs consequently went to ruin, and
the unfortunate litigant died in the jail of Cupar, in 1817, where he had been
incarcerated for debt,
No. CXIX.
THREE LEGAL DEVOTEES.
ANDREW NICOL, MARY WALKER, AND
JOHN SKENE.
THIS is allowed by some to be one of the best of Kay’s etchings. ANDREW
NICOL, whom we have noticed in the preceding page, may here be supposed
newly arrived from Kinross with the plan of his middenstead. His simple face
and genuine Lowland garb are well depicted ; and the credulous attention with
which he is listening to the Heckler is truly characteristic.
MARY WALKER, whose vacant countenance indicates insanity, was an
intolerable pest about the Parliament House. The object of her legal solicitude
was the recovery of a sum of money which she conceived to be due her by the
Magistrates of Edinburgh.
JOHN SKENE-the smart, consequential - looking personage in black,
engaged in expounding some knotty point to the Kinross litigant-was an individual
whose brains, to use the expression of Major Campbell, were pretty
considerably “ conglomerated.” He was a flax-dresser, hence his soubriquet of
the Heckler; but this plebeian avocation was with him a matter of secondary
consideration, as he conceived he was commissioned to hold two situations of
the highest importance in the country, viz.-Superintendent of the Court of
Session, and of the General Assembly. The way he found leisure to fulfil the
high duties he thus imposed on himself was not a little remarkable. He worked
nearly all night at the dressing of flax-only retiring to rest for an hour or two
towards morning. He then rose, and, having arrayed himself in the clerical
style represented in the Print, proceeded to the Parliament House, with all the