Page:Footsteps of Dr. Johnson.djvu/109

Rh him to Johnson, saying that it was for the sight of his bear, and here Lord Auchinleck, seeing the great man enter, whispered to one of his brethren on the Bench that it was Ursa Major. In the Outer Hall had once sat the ancient Parliament of Scotland. Here it was that Lord Belhaven, at perhaps its last meeting, made that pathetic speech which drew tears from the audience. Here every day during term time there was a very Babel of a Court of Justice. Like Westminster Hall of old it was the tribunal of many judges, as well as the gathering ground of advocates, solicitors, suitors, witnesses, and idlers in general. Here it was that "the Macer shouted with all his well-remembered brazen strength of lungs: "Poor Peter Peebles versus Plainstanes, per Dumtoustie et Tough:—Maister Da-a-niel Dumtoustie." Here it was that a famous but portly wag of later days, "Peter" Robinson, seeing Scott with his tall conical white head passing through, called out to the briefless crowd about the fire-place, "Hush, boys, here comes old Peveril—I see the Peak." Scott looked round and replied, "Ay, ay, my man, as weel Peveril o' the Peak ony clay as Peter o' the Painch" (paunch). Here Thomas Carlyle, a student of the University, not yet fourteen years old, on the afternoon of the November day on which he first saw Edinburgh, "was dragged in to a scene" which he never forgot:

Here every year, on the evening of the King's birthday, there was a scene of loyal riot. At the cost of the city funds, some fifteen hundred guests, on the invitation of the magistrates, "roaring,