[6] She had been once a lodger in Log’s house.
[7] On examining the animal, the knackers found that many old sores become hollows had been filled up with tow, and then plastered over with a thin skin.
[8] They are fully described, for the first time we believe, in “Curiosities of Crime in Edinburgh.”
[9] We adopt this version in preference to another, which substitutes Burke.
[10] It was never believed that the cases confessed to by Burke exhausted the real list. One in particular, that of a little Italian boy, Ludovico, who went about with white mice, was a favourite story which could not be doubted, when it was known that the people of Tanner’s Close saw, for years afterwards, the two little animals haunting the dark recesses, where their young master had been sacrificed. And many other visions were seen there besides those of the white mice. But, apart from these superstitions, it is certain that there was found in Hare’s house a cage with the mice’s turning-wheel in it, which clearly had belonged to one of these Italian wanderers. The silence of Burke on the subject is of no importance, for his confessions did not agree, and, besides, it was properly asked, might not poor Ludovico have been the subject which Hare managed “on his own hook” unknown to Burke? Like the others, he would be mourned, but it would be far away in some little hamlet among the Apennines.
[11] A subscription was raised for Gray. He had saved the lives of probably a score of men and women; but so poorly was he remunerated, that he did not get a pound a head for these lives, or a tenth of that got by Burke for his bodies.
[12] The fury against the doctors ran so high not only in Edinburgh, but in Dumfries, that they were exposed to the risk of the fate they experienced under Cato the Censor:—“Romani quondam, sub Catone Censorio, medicos omnes et urbe tota et tota Italia pepulerunt eorum funesta mendacia crudelitatemque aversati.”—Agrippa de Van. Scien. cap. 83. See, too, Montaigne:—“Les Romains avaient este six cens ans avant que de recevoir la médecine; mais après l’avoir essayée, ils la chassèrent de leur ville par entremise de Caton le Censeur.” This proscription of doctors lasted to the time of the first emperors; but even if they had been tolerated, the national reverence for the dead would have been an effectual bar to such practices as Scotland groaned under for centuries. We are not left to wonder how they contrived to keep the body right in these ancient times, for we know that Cato purged his household; and Horace lets us up to the knowledge the old women had of simples.
[13] The allusion is to Knox. His house was afterwards surrounded by a furious mob, who smashed his windows, and he was obliged to secrete himself for a time.
[14] The entire Parliament Square rang as by the echoes of a jubilee.
[15] The story that the cancerous affection arose from the saliva of Daft Jamie, communicated by a bite, was resolutely held to by the people.