authorities would never have issued any "cleansing edicts," and the still easier-going inhabitants would never have obeyed them. It was these dark, tortuous wynds and closes, nevertheless, that made up the Court End of Old Edinbro'; for some one writes in 1530, "Via vaccarum in quâ habitant patricii et senatores urbis" (The nobility and chief senators of the city dwell in the Cowgate). And as for the Canongate, this Saxon gaet or way of the Holyrood canons, it still sheltered in 1753 "two dukes, sixteen earls, two dowager countesses, seven lords, seven lords of session, thirteen baronets, four commanders of the forces in Scotland, and five emment men,"—fine game indeed for Mally Lee!
"A' doun alang the Canongate
Were beaux o' ilk degree;
And mony ane turned round to look
At bonny Mally Lee.
And we're a' gaun east an' west,
We're a' gaun agee,
We're a' gaun east an' west
Courtin' Mally Lee!"
Every corner bristles with memories. Here is the Stamp Office Close, from which the lovely Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, was wont to issue on Assembly nights; she, six feet in height, with a brilliantly fair complexion and a "face of the maist bewitching loveliness." Her seven daughters and stepdaughters were all conspicuously handsome, and it was deemed a goodly sight to
