lors', Paul's, or Charterhouse
schools, who produced the wonderful pontine inscription, must have
winced under the blows of this jester's bladderful of peas. Thornton
laughed most at the awkward phrase implying that Mr. Pitt had caught the
happy contagion of his own probity and spirit. He said that "Gulielmi
Pitt" should have been "Gulielmi Fossae." Lastly, he proposed, for a more
curt and suitable inscription, the simple words--

"GUIL. FOSSAE,
Patri Patriae D.D.D. (_i.e._, Datur, Dicatur, Dedicatur)."

Party feeling, as usual at those times, was rife. Mylne was a friend of
Paterson, the City solicitor, an apt scribbler and a friend of Lord
Bute, who no doubt favoured his young countryman. For, being a
Scotchman, Johnson no doubt took pleasure in opposing him, and for the
same reason Churchill, in his bitter poem on the Cock Lane ghost, after
ridiculing Johnson's credulity, goes out of his way to sneer at Mylne:--

"What of that bridge which, void of sense,
But well supplied with impudence,
Englishmen, knowing not the Guild,
Thought they might have the claim to build;
Till Paterson, as white as milk,
As smooth as oil, as soft as silk,
In solemn manner had decreed
That, on the other side the Tweed,
Art, born and bred and fully grown,
Was with one Mylne, a man unknown?
But grace, preferment, and renown
Deserving, just arrived in town;
One Mylne, an artist, perfect quite,
Both in his own and country's right,
As fit to make a bridge as he,
With glorious Patavinity,
To build inscriptions, worthy found
To lie for ever underground."

In 1766 it was opened for foot passengers, the completed portion being
connected with the shore by a temporary wooden structure; two years
later it was made passable for horses, and in 1769 it was fully opened.
An unpopular toll of one halfpenny on week-days for every person, and of
one penny on Sundays, was exacted. The result of this was that while the
Gordon Riots were raging, in 1780, the too zealous Protestants,
forgetting for a time the poor tormented Papists, attacked and burned
down the toll-gates, stole the money, and destroyed all the
account-books. Several rascals' lives were lost, and one rioter, being
struck with a bullet, ran howling for thirty or forty yards, and then
dropped down dead. Nevertheless, the iniquitous toll continued until
1785, when it was redeemed by Government.

The bridge,