APPENDIX OF NOTES. 545 



" A party of us had supped in the rooms of a Dr Parry, the 

 brother of the circumnavigator. After supper, as we were crossing 

 the South Bridge, we chanced to be witness of a very disgraceful 

 scene a mob of idle scoundrels (most of them bakers) beating an 

 unfortunate woman with a brutal ferocity. It was impossible to 

 stand by and not make some attempt towards her deliverance. 

 The tumult, in place of abating by our interference, grew frightful. 

 All the watchmen within hail were about our ears in an instant, 

 and, in return for our chivalry, lodged us all fast in the watch- 

 house. The Chancellor possibly never found himself in a position 

 less congenial to his taste and habits ; but even here a mind so 

 avaricious of knowledge was not to be unemployed. Among our 

 associates in this vile prison, which was filled with the refuse of 

 both sexes, an old soldier sat cowering over the embers of a fire 

 that ' taught light to counterfeit a gloom.' He had campaigned it 

 in the American war ; and with this hero our embryo candidate 

 for the Woolsack picked up an acquaintance, and continued 

 during the whole space of our durance extracting all he could 

 on the favourite theme of his martial exploits the names of the 

 several officers under whom he served, the amount of the forces 

 opposed to each other in particular engagements, the scene of 

 battles, position of the combatants, skill of the manoeuvres, ad- 

 vantages, reverses ; in short, everything that was likely or not 

 likely to come within the veteran's ken was asked and responded 

 to. So passed our night, until it pleased Aurora to leave her saffron 

 couch ; when, by Brougham's interference, we were set at large by 

 a sort of general jail delivery." I. 246, 247. 



XI. (p. 91.) 



There is an amusing confirmation of this incident in the local 

 literature of the day. The author of the condemned play made a 

 frantic appeal to the world against the condemnation, with no 

 better effect than to confirm the justice of the sentence and widen 

 its publicity. In the collection of some of the curious in literature 

 there may be found a small volume, with the title, ' St Kilda in 

 Edinburgh, or News from Camperdown ; a Comic Drama in Two 

 Acts, with a Critical Preface. Edinburgh, 1798.' The piece de- 

 serves all that is said against it in the text, and more. According 

 VOL. I. 2 M 



