One of the pious in the seventeenth century, going
to pass his TRIALS (examinations as we now say) for the
Scottish Bar, beheld the Parliament Close open and had a
vision of the mouth of Hell. This, and small wonder, was
the means of his conversion. Nor was the vision
unsuitable to the locality; for after an hospital, what
uglier piece is there in civilisation than a court of
law? Hither come envy, malice, and all uncharitableness
to wrestle it out in public tourney; crimes, broken
fortunes, severed households, the knave and his victim,
gravitate to this low building with the arcade. To how
many has not St. Giles's bell told the first hour after
ruin? I think I see them pause to count the strokes, and
wander on again into the moving High Street, stunned and
sick at heart.

A pair of swing doors gives admittance to a hall
with a carved roof, hung with legal portraits, adorned
with legal statuary, lighted by windows of painted glass,
and warmed by three vast fires. This is the SALLE DES
PAS PERDUS of the Scottish Bar. Here, by a ferocious
custom, idle youths must promenade from ten till two.
From end to end, singly or in pairs or trios, the gowns
and wigs go back and forward. Through a hum of talk and
footfalls, the piping tones of a Macer announce a fresh
cause and call upon the names of those concerned.
Intelligent men have been walking here daily for ten or
twenty years without a rag of business or a shilling of
reward. In process of time, they may perhaps be made the
Sheriff-Substitute and Fountain of Justice at Lerwick or