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Kay's Originals Vol. 2

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. IS7 were, neither by birth, education, nor former habits, trained to endure with much patience the insulta of the rabble, or the provoking petulance of truantboys and idle debauchees of all descriptions, with whom their occupation brought them into contact. On the contrary, the tempers of the poor old fellows were soured by the indignities with which the mob distinguished them on many occasions, and frequently might have required the soothing strains of the poet just quoted :- “ 0 soldiers ! for your ain dear sakes, For Scotland’s love-the land 0’ cakes, Gie not her bairns sic deadly paiks, Wi’ firelock or Lochaber axe, Nor be sae rude, As spill their blude.” “ On all occasions-when holiday licenses some riot or irregularity-a skirmish with these veterans was a favourite recreation with the rabble of Edinburgh.” The recollection of many of our readers will enable them to appreciate the truth of this quotation from the Heart of Mid-Luthian. The “ Town Rats,” when annually mustered in front of the Parliament House- “ Wi’ powdered POW an’ shaven beard,” to do honour to the birth of his Majesty, by a feu de joie-were subject to a species of torture, peculiarly harassing-dead cats, and every species of “ clarty unction,” being unsparingly hurled at their devoted heads : “ ’Mang them fell mony a gawsey snout, Has gusht in birth-day wars, Wi‘ blude that day.” The last vestige of the Town Guard disappeared about the year 1817-a period particularly fatal to many of the most ancient characteristics of the Old Town. “ Of late,”) continues the Author of Waverley, “ the gradual diminution of these civic soldiers reminds one of the abatement of King Lear’s hundred knights. The edicts of each set of succeeding Magistrates have, like those of Gonerill and Regan, diminished this venerable band with the similar question- & What need we five-and-twenty ?-ten 1-r five 9’ And it is now nearly come to-‘ What need we one 1’ A spectre may indeed here and there still be seen of an old grey-headed and grey-bearded Highlander, with war-worn features, but bent double by age : dressed. in an old-fashioned cocked hat, bound with white tape instead of silver lace ; and in coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of a muddycoloured red, bearing in his withered hand an ancient weapon, called a Lochaber axe, namely, a long pole with an axe at the extremity, and a hook at the back of the hatchet. Such a phantom of former days still creeps, I have been informed, round the statue of Charles the Second, in the Parliament Square, as if the image of a Stuart were the last refuge for any memorial of our ancient The “Heart of Mid-Lothian” was published in 1817.
Volume 9 Page 251
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