THE IMAGINARY CHARACTER OF

JEANIE DEANS;

REFUSING THE SLIGHTEST DEPARTURE
FROM VERACITY,
EVEN TO SAVE THE LIFE OF A SISTER,

SHE NEVERTHELESS SHOWED HER
KINDNESS AND FORTITUDE,
IN RESCUING HER FROM THE SEVERITY OF THE LAW
AT THE EXPENSE OF PERSONAL EXERTIONS
WHICH THE TIME RENDERED AS DIFFICULT
AS THE MOTIVE WAS LAUDABLE.

RESPECT THE GRAVE OF POVERTY
WHEN COMBINED WITH LOVE OF TRUTH
AND DEAR AFFECTION.

_Erected October 1831._

NOTE C.--THE OLD TOLBOOTH.

The ancient Tolbooth of Edinburgh, Situated as described in this CHAPTER,
was built by the citizens in 1561, and destined for the accommodation of
Parliament, as well as of the High Courts of Justice;* and at the same
time for the confinement of prisoners for debt, or on criminal charges.
Since the year 1640, when the present Parliament House was erected, the
Tolbooth was occupied as a prison only.

* [This is not so certain. Few persons now living are likely to remember
the interior of the old Tolbooth, with narrow staircase, thick walls,
and small apartments, nor to imagine that it could ever have been used
for these purposes. Robert Chambers, in his _Minor Antiquities_ of
Edinburgh, has preserved ground-plans or sections, which clearly show
this,--the largest hall was on the second floor, and measuring 27 feet
by 20, and 12 feet high. It may have been intended for the meetings of
Town Council, while the Parliament assembled, after 1560, in what was
called the Upper Tolbooth, that is the south-west portion of the
Collegiate Church of St. Giles, until the year 1640, when the present
Parliament House was completed. Being no longer required for such a
purpose, it was set apart by the Town Council on the 24th December 1641
as a distinct church, with the name of the Tolbooth parish, and
therefore could not have derived the name from its vicinity to the
Tolbooth, as usually stated.]

Gloomy and dismal as it was, the situation in the centre of the High
Street rendered it so particularly well-aired, that when the plague laid
waste the city in 1645, it affected none within these melancholy
precincts. The Tolbooth was removed, with the