And tho' he blest in wond'rous haste,
Should tie them most securely fast."
Thoughts, 1780.
In Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, there is a slight allusion to these Canongate marriages:
"The White Horse Inn," says he, "in a close in the Canongate, is an exceedingly interesting old house of entertainment. It was also remarkable for the runaway couples from England, who were married in its large room."
The White Hart, in the Grass-market, appears to have been another of these Gretna Green houses.
A curious fellow, well known in Edinburgh at the period referred to, was the high priest of the Canongate hymeneal altar. I need hardly say this was the famous "Claudero, the son of Nimrod the Mighty Hunter," as he grandiloquently styled himself: otherwise James Wilson, a disgraced schoolmaster, and poet-laureate to the Edinburgh canaille. In the large rooms of the above inns, this comical fellow usually presided, and administered relief to gallant swains and love-sick damsels, and a most lucrative trade he is said to have made of it:—
"Claudero's skull is ever dull,
Without the sterling shilling:"
in allusion to their being called half-merk or shilling marriages.