By the kindness of A. G. Jun. the Year Book is favored with a drawing by Mr. W. GEIKIE, for the preceding engraving. The houses it represents may not be allowed to remain long, and this may be an apology for introducing it with the following particulars from the "Traditions of Edinburgh."

Mr. Chambers says "The West Bow is a place abounding more in antiquities than any other part of the city, and what could not fail to render these antiquities interesting to the public is the circumstance that they are all accompanied in their preservation by anecdotes of a curious and amusing description. It is one of the oldest streets in Edinburgh, and has been less subjected to modern reno

vations than almost any other place, so that its form and appearance are much the same as they were two hundred years ago; and the traditions with which it abounds have suffered proportionably little from the changes of time. From its peculiarly venerable aspect--the dark profundities and culs de sac that descend from behind it-its numerous decayed houses with aerial dove-cot-looking gables projecting over the street, seemingly not more secure of their hold than the last leaf of autumn shivering on the aspen's topmost bough it seems a place full of grandmothers' tales and quite calculated to maintain a wizard or a ghost in its community. Both of these it has accordingly done within the last century and a half, in the person of

the notorious Weir, who first served them in the one capacity, and lastly in the other. At the head of this street there happened, in the year 1596, a memorable combat between James Johnston of Westerhall, and a gentleman of the house of Somerville, which is related in the "Memorial of the Somervills," vol. II. p. 7.

At the period referred to, combats of this description and even tulzies (so to speak), that is to say, skirmishes between the retainers of various noblemen, were of no infrequent occurrence upon the streets of Edinburgh. On the 24th of November, 1567, according to Birrel, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Wemyss met upon the High Street, and together with their followers fought a bloody battle, “many being hurte on both sides by shote of pistoll." Three days afterwards there was a strict proclamation, forbidding "the wearing of guns or pistolls, or aney sick like fyerwork ingyne, under ye paine of death, the Kings guards and shouldours only excepted." This circumstance seems to be referred to in "The Abbot," vol. II. p. 95-where the Regent Murray, in allusion to Lord Seyton's rencounter with the Leslies, in which Roland Græme had borne a distinguished part, says, "These broils and feuds would shame the capital of the Great Turk, let alone that of a Christian and reformed state. But, if I live, this gear shall be amended; and men shall say," &c. This may suffice for the fame of the West Bow in tulzie-annals.

In early times, it appears, the inhabitants of the West Bow were peculiarly zealous in the cause of the Covenant. Pitcairne, Pennycuik, and other poets of the Cavalier or Jacobite faction, distinguish the matrons of this street by satirical epithets, such as the "Bow head Saints," the "godly plants of the Bow head," &c. We also see that many of the polemical pamphlets and sermons of the Presbyterian divines, since this period, have been published in the Bow.

By far the most curious publications of the latter sort, were those of one William Mitchell, a crazed white iron smith, who lived in a cellar at the Bow head, and occasionally preached. Mr. Mitchell was altogether a strange mixture of fanaticism, madness, and humour. He published many pamphlets and single sheets, very full of amusing nonsense and generally adorned with a wooden cut of the Mitchell

and Boyd, in small parcels, and sold at one penny. His verses possess humour equal to that of some of (his contemporary) Allan Ramsay's, but are debased by

coarseness.

The "Tinklarian Doctor" (for such was his popular appellation,) appears to have been fully acquainted with an ingenious expedient, which we observe practised by many publishers of juvenile toy books in our own day,-namely, that of self-recommendation. As in certain sage little histories of Tommy and Harry, King Pepin, &c. we are sure to find that "the good boy who loved his lessons" always bought his books from "kind, good, old Mr. J. Newberry, at the corner of St. Paul's Church Yard, where the greatest assortment of nice books for good boys and girls is always to be had," -so in the works of Mr. Mitchell we find some sly encomium upon the Tinklarian Doctor constantly peeping forth; with, moreover, a plentiful advertisement or puff of his professional excellence as a white-smith. "I have," he says in one of his pieces, "a good penny-worth of pewter spoons, fine like silver, none such made in Edinburgh, and silken pocks for wiggs, and French white pearl beads,-all to be sold for little or nothing." In his works he does not scruple to make the personages whom he introduces speak of himself as a much wiser man than the archbishop of Canterbury, all the clergymen of his native country, and even the magistrates of Edinburgh! One of his last productions was a pamphlet on the murder of Captain Porteous, which he concludes by saying, in the true spirit of a Cameronian martyr, "If the king and Clergy gar hang me for writing this, I'm content, because it is long since any man was hanged for religion."

The abode of this singular enthusiast has been pointed out to us, as that low cellar on the west side of the Bow-head (No. 19) now occupied, in 1825, by Mrs. Philip, a dealer in small wares; here he is said to have delivered his lectures to the elèves of the Bow-head University.

The profession of which the Tinklarian Doctor subscribed himself a member has long been predominant in the West Bow. It reckoned dagger-makers among its worthy denizens in the reign of James VI.; but this trade has long been happily extinct every where in Scotland; though their less formidable brethren the whitesmiths, copper-smiths, and pewterers, have continued down to our own day to keep

almost unrivalled possession of the Bow. Till within these few years there was scarcely a shop in this crooked street occupied by other tradesmen; and we can easily imagine that the noise of so many hammermen, pent up in a narrow thoroughfare, would be extremely annoying. So remarkable was it for this, that country people always used to ask any acquaintance lately returned from town, if he went to hear "the tinklers o' the Bow," -reckoning them to form one of the most remarkable curiosities of Auld Reekie, Yet, however disagreeable their clattering might seem to the natives of the peaceful plain, we are credibly informed that the people who lived in the West Bow became perfectly habituated to the noise, and felt no inconvenience whatever from its ceaseless operation upon their ears. Nay, they rather experienced inconvenience from its cessation, and only felt annoyed when any period of rest arrived and stopped it. It was for this reason that they became remarkable, above all the rest of the people in Edinburgh, for rising early on Sunday mornings which in certain contiguous parts of the town is rather a singular virtue. The truth was, that the people could not rest in their beds after five o'clock, for want of the customary noise which commenced at that hour on work-days. It is also affirmed that when the natives of the West Bow removed to another part of the town, beyond the reach of these dulcet sounds, which so long had given music to their morning dreams, sleep was entirely out of the question for some weeks, till they got habituated to the quiescence of their new neighbourhood. An old gentleman having occasion to lodge for a short time in the West Bow, he found the incessant clanking extremely disagreeable, and at last entered into a paction with some of the-workmen in his immediate neighbourhood, who promised to let him have another hour of quiet sleep in the mornings, for the consideration of some such matter as half-a-crown to drink on Saturday night. The next day happening (out of his knowledge) to be some species of Saint Monday, his annoyers did not work at all; but, such was the force of a habit acquired even in three or four days, that our friend awoke precisely at the moment when the hammers used to commence ; and he was glad to get his bargain cancelled as soon as possible, for fear of another morning's want of disturbance.-Such

a dispersion has taken place in this modern Babel, that in 1825 there were only two tin-plate-workers in the whole Bow. The inhabitants and shop-keepers of the West Bow, though in general humble, are much more respectable than any other community of people of the same rank throughout the town. Here very few bankruptcies ever occur. Most of the shop-keepers are of old standing, and have reached, in the course of many years application to a small business, if not to wealth, at least to easy circumstances. The greater part of them possess their own shops, and live in their own houses; and, in such a community, that may be considered wealth.

November 17.

17th November, 1644, Mr. Evelyn, being at Rome, visited the villa Borghesi, and saw its rich sculpture, paintings, and other works of art. Amongst the rarities was one that fairly rivalled Friar Bacon's head. "A satyr which so artificially expressed a human voice, with the motion of the eyes and head, that it might easily affright one who was not prepared for that most extravagant sight.”

At the same time "they showed us also a chair that catches fast any one who sits down in it, so as not to be able to stir out, by certain springs concealed in the arms and back thereof, which at sitting down, surprise a man on the sudden, locking him in by the arms and thighs, after a treacherous guise."

“In this yeere, through bookes of prognostications, foreshowing much hurt to come by waters and floods, many persons withdrew themselves to high grounds, for feare of drowning; specially one Bolton, Prior of St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield, builded him an house upon Harrow on the Hill, and thither went and made provision for two moneths. These great waters should have fallen in February; but, no such thing happening, the astronomers excused themselves by saying, that, in the computation, they had mis counted in their number an hundred yeeres."

These were the halcyon days of the gentry who, like Caleb Quotem's worthy father, "had a happy knack of cooking up an almanack." By the lower and middle classes their dicta were received as gospel; and, even amongst the more enlightened, there were few individuals altogether exempt from their influence. In 1582, Richard Harvey, of Cambridge, brother to the more celebrated Gabriel, frightened half the people in England out of their senses, by foreboding most fearful results from a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, which was to take place in the year following. The conjunction, however, took place, and nothing resulted there from, which brought the false prophet into disrepute, and afforded Nash and other mischievous wits a happy subject for ridicule; but, though people's faith in the individual was shaken, their reverence for the science remained unchanged.

Bishop Hall in the 2nd Book of his "Virgidemiarum, 1597," Sat. 7, has a passage on the subject, which, whilst it shows his own freedom from this childish credulity bears witness also to the extent of its influence at that period :—

"Thou damned mock-art, and thou brainsick tale

Of old Astrology, where didst thou veil
Thy cursed head thus long, that so it mist
The black bronds of some sharper satirist?
Some doting gossip 'mongst the Chaldee
wives

Did to the credulous world thee first derive;
And Superstition nurs'd thee ever since,
And publish'd, in profounder art's pretence,-
That now, who pares his nails, or libs his
swine,

But he must first take counsel of the Sign?
So that the vulgar's count for fair or foul,
For living or for dead, for sick or whole,
His fear or hope, for plenty or for lack,
Hangs all upon his New-Year's Almanack.
"Fain would I know (might it our artist
please)

Why can his tell-troth Ephemerides
Teach him the weather's state so long beforn,
And not foretel him nor his fatal horn,
Nor his death's-day, nor no such sad event,
Which he mought wisely labour to prevent?"
These were not only happy days for al-
manac writers, but also for almanac
buyers, the price being but a penny, as I
gather from various passages in old writers.
It will be sufficient to cite a couple. In
Jonson's "Every Man Out of his Humour,"
where these fooleries are delightfully ri-
diculed, Sordido exclaims, after consulting
his Almanac-

The pointing out proper days for bleeding, taking physic, and other odd matters, was an important part of the task formerly assumed by almanac compilers, as appears by the last quotation and that from Hall's Satires. Neither is the belief quite extinct even now, there being many well-meaning persons who would not willingly adopt a remedy for a disease, without previously consulting that mystical column in the Almanac devoted to "knees, hams, legs, ancles, feet, toes," &c; it being considered lucky, or unlucky, I forget which, to take medicine on the day when the particular part of the body affected is under the influence of the Sign. To facilitate the researches of the curious into these matters, Almanacs were formerly decorated with the figure of a man, and the several portions of his frame marked by the Sign which especially concerns them. I cannot say I recollect this desirable illustration "in my time," but I believe it has not been altogether discontinued within the memory of many persons somewhat more experienced. Mr. Forby, in his East Anglian Vocabulary, gives the following anecdote, in point.

"About the close of the last century, a medical practitioner of great practice, in Suffolk, sent an opening medicine to a patient, and desired him to take it immediately. On the following day he called at his house, and inquired how it had operated. The patient (a substantial farmer) said he had not taken it; and, upon the doctor's remonstrating against this disobedience, the sick man gravely answered, that he had looked into his Almanac, and, seeing the sign lay in Bowels,' he thought that, and the physic together, would be too much for him."

Our old dramatists abound with allusions to this "pictured shape." Not to multiply quotations unnecessarily, I shall notice but two. In Fletcher's "Chances," Antario, having been wounded, says of the surgeon,

ii. 403.

66

The days of astrological prediction seem, however, to be nearly gone by; and even the compilation of Francis Moore, Physician, which the Address put forth by the Stationers' Company in 1830, avers to have been for nearly two centuries the most popular of all the Almanacs published in England," is rapidly declining, I fear, from that "high and palmy station." To hasten its downfall, the "Stationers,' in the Address just quoted, speaking of this and Partridge's, make the following admission, which I commend more for its candour than its prudence.

"Note. These two Almanacs are the only ones published by the Stationers' Company which contain astrological predictions. These are still given from a persuasion that they delude nobody, and because many thousand readers are amused by tracing the coincidences which often occur between the prediction furnished by the astrological rule and the actual event."

Superstition, however, has still her votaries; for a new Almanac has made its appearance, within these two or three years, resting its claim to support solely upon the ground of its astrological merits; and, having made some lucky hits, has, I understand, a large sale. I forget its precise title, and never had courage to examine its contents, being scared by the raw-head and bloody-bones, with other fearful objects, which the superbly colored hieroglyphic presents to view. It is observable that a penny pamphlet, containing a pirated copy of this print, with the addition of a wonderful story about the apparition of a Man in the Sun, taken from the newspapers of 1814, was found in the pocket of the maniac who the other day was apprehended in the house of lords: it appeared to have shortly influenced his disordered imagination.

As respects the price of Almanacs, I cannot trace with precision the periods of their successive advance in cost to the

present time; but from a series of Moore's, commencing in 1781, and ending in 1829, now lying before me, I find that in the first mentioned year the price was only nine-pence, of which two-pence was for stamp-duty. In 1791 it was increased to ten-pence; in 1795 to eleven-pence; in 1798 to sixteen-pence; in 1802 to seventeen-pence; in 1805 to one shilling and ten-pence; and in 1816 to two shillings and three-pence; at which it still continues, and which is too costly an article for the poor man to possess, who would consequently be quite without information upon the "subjects both profitable and curious" of which it treats, were it not that certain public-spirited hawkers, not having the fear of Stamp-Acts before their eyes, do still contrive furtively to circulate a sheet, wretchedly printed, on vile paper, at the good old price of a penny. One of these, under the title of " Paddy's Watch," I have just added to my collection of "rubbish;" and should Mr. Hone desire to possess one, he shall not wish in vain, as once he did for a "horn-book."

I wish some one, skilled in this kind of lore, would inform the world when and where the original Francis Moore, Physi cian, flourished. Many men of less eminence have had their biographers; and why shonld not some kind soul attempt to rescue poor Francis from "the gaping gulf of blank oblivion," as poor Kirke White styles it. To any one disposed to enter upon the enquiry, I tender a morsel of information, culled from the last page of his Almanac for 1788, where is inserted "A Rebuke to Thomas Wright, of Eaton, near Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire," who it appears "had the audacity to assert that he had been the only compiler of Moore's Almanac for nearly the fourth of a century, from papers and instructions communicated to him by Mr. Moore; but," proceeds the Rebuke, "this pretended astronomer never did calculate the Eclipses, &c., for that work, nor is he capable of doing them; so that any Almanac published under the name of such an impostor must (to use his own words) be false and counterfeit. For Mr. Francis Moore, the original author of this Almanac, died in London about the year 1724 (upwards of 33 years before this Wright mentions his communications to have been made), after which it was wrote and continued by Mr. John Wing, and afterwards by his son Tycho, both of Pickworth, in the county of Rutland.