My mistress in her tartan screen,
Fu’ bonny, braw, and sweet, my jo.
“My dear,” quoth I, “thanks to the night,
That never wished a lover ill,
Since ye’re out o’ your mother’s sight,
Let’s tak’ a walk up to the hill.”’
A memory of these Sunday promenadings here calls me to introduce what I have to say regarding a man of whom there used to be a strong popular remembrance in Edinburgh.
HUGO ARNOT.
The cleverly executed History of Edinburgh, published by Arnot in 1779, and which to this day has not been superseded, gives some respectability to a name which tradition would have otherwise handed down to us as only that of an eccentric gentleman, of remarkably scarecrow figure, and the subject of a few bon-mots.