These extracts are rather curious than important; for it is presumed, that any who are interested in acquiring further knowledge, will consult the statutes “at large.” They are set forth in “The Life of George Heriot,” published at Edinburgh in 1822, from whence the preceding particulars of the hospital and its founder are derived. They especially provide for the strict religious instruction of the boys—“while in the hospital the greatest care is bestowed on them in regard to morals and health; they have certain hours allowed them daily for exercise; and their amusements generally partake of a manly character.”
It may be quoted as an amusing incident in the annals of the establishment, that “a singular occurrence took place with the boys of Heriot’s hospital in 1681-2, the year in which the earl of Argyle was tried, and convicted of high treason, for refusing the test oath without certain qualifications. We extract the following account of it from Lord Fountainhill’s Chronological Notes of Scottish Affairs, just published: ‘Argyle was much hated for oppressing his creditors, and neither paying his own nor father’s debts, but lord Halifax told Charles II. he understood not the Scots law, but the English law would not have hanged a dog for such a crime.’ Every lawyer of common sense, or ordinary conscience, will be of the same opinion. Lord Clarendon, when he heard the sentence, blessed God that he lived not in a country where there were such laws, but he ought to have said such judges. The very hospital children made a mockery of the reasoning of the crown lawyers. The boys of Heriot’s hospital resolved among themselves, that the house-dog belonging to the establishment held a public office, and ought to take the test. The paper being presented to the mastiff, he refused to swallow the same unless it was rubbed over with butter. Being a second time tendered, buttered as above mentioned, the dog swallowed it, and was next accused and condemned, for having taken the test with a qualification, as in the case of Argyle!”
The Dog of Heriot’s Hospital.
There is “An Account of the Arraignment, Tryal, Escape, and Condemnation of the DOG of Heriot’s Hospital in Scotland, that was supposed to have been hang’d, but did at last slip the halter.”
From this exceedingly rare folio paper of two pages, “Printed for the author, M. D. 1682,” now before the editor of the Every-Day Book, he proceeds to extract some exponences in the case of “the dog of Heriot’s hospital,” by which “the reasoning of the crown lawyers,” in the case of the duke of Argyle, was successfully ridiculed.
Its waggish author writes in the manner of a letter, “to show you that the act, whereby all publick officers are obleadged to take the Test is rigorously put in execution; and therby many persons, baith in Kirk and State, throughout the haill Kingdome, by reasone they are not free to take the said Test, are incontinently turned out of their places.”
He then relates that this severity occasioned “the loune ladds belonging to the hospittal of Hariot’s Buildings in Edenbrough, to divert themselves with somewhat like the following tragi-commedy.”