‘JEREMIAH and SARAH BENTHAM, 1768.’
Could this be the distinguished jurist and codificator, on a journey to Scotland in company with a female relation?[151]
[THE CROSS—CADDIES.]
The Cross, a handsome octagonal building in the High Street, surmounted by a pillar bearing the Scottish unicorn, was the great centre of gossip in former days. The principal coffee-houses and booksellers’ shops were close to this spot. The chief merchants, the leading official persons, the men of learning and talents, the laird, the noble, the clergyman, were constantly clustering hereabouts during certain hours of the day. It was the very centre and cynosure of the old city.
During the reigns of the first and second Georges, it was customary for the magistrates of Edinburgh to drink the king’s health on his birthday on a stage erected at the Cross—loyalty being a virtue which always becomes peculiarly ostentatious when it is under any suspicion of weakness. On one of these occasions the ceremony was interrupted by a shower of rain, so heavy that the company, with one consent, suddenly dispersed, leaving their entertainment half-finished. When they returned, the glasses were found full of water, which gave a Jacobite lady occasion for the following epigram, reported to me by a venerable bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church:
‘In Cana once Heaven’s king was pleased
With some gay bridal folks to dine,
And then, in honour of the feast,