[300] See Marmion, note in the Appendix on Canto V., Stanza 25.
[301] Letters from Edinburgh, p. 28.
[302] Guy Mannering, ii. 101.
[303] Letters from Edinburgh, p. 233. The young Englishman, perhaps, in this account does not aim at the strictest accuracy. The large prayer-books were, I suppose, psalm-books or Bibles.
[304] “To go up streets” is an Edinburgh phrase for “to go up the street.”—Scotticisms by Dr. Beattie (published anonymously), p. 82.
[305] Arnot’s History of Edinburgh, p. 223. I assume that “the Prince’s colours” mentioned by Arnot was the flag described in Waverley, ii. 139.
[306] Letters from Edinburgh, pp. 58-62.
[307] According to Arnot, for many years preceding 1763, the average number of executions for the whole of Scotland was only three. There were four succeeding years in which the punishment of death was not once inflicted. By 1783, however, the English severity seems to have crept in, for in that year, in Edinburgh alone, in one week there were six criminals under sentence of death.—History of Edinburgh, p. 670.
[308] The guard consisted of seventy-five private men.—Ib. p. 506.
[309] Arnot’s History of Edinburgh, pp. 502, 658, and Letters from Edinburgh, pp. 355-60. By the year 1783, says Arnot, in his second edition, p. 658, their number and their character had greatly sunk. See also Humphry Clinker, ii. 240.