by yon outlet rode Grahame of Claverhouse and his thirty
dragoons, with the town beating to arms behind their
horses' tails - a sorry handful thus riding for their
lives, but with a man at the head who was to return in a
different temper, make a dash that staggered Scotland to
the heart, and die happily in the thick of fight. There
Aikenhead was hanged for a piece of boyish incredulity;
there, a few years afterwards, David Hume ruined
Philosophy and Faith, an undisturbed and well-reputed
citizen; and thither, in yet a few years more, Burns came
from the plough-tail, as to an academy of gilt unbelief
and artificial letters. There, when the great exodus was
made across the valley, and the New Town began to spread
abroad its draughty parallelograms, and rear its long
frontage on the opposing hill, there was such a flitting,
such a change of domicile and dweller, as was never
excelled in the history of cities: the cobbler succeeded
the earl; the beggar ensconced himself by the judge's
chimney; what had been a palace was used as a pauper
refuge; and great mansions were so parcelled out among
the least and lowest in society, that the hearthstone of
the old proprietor was thought large enough to be
partitioned off into a bedroom by the new.


CHAPTER II.
OLD TOWN - THE LANDS.


THE Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief