Whoe'er's been at Paris must needs know the Gre've,
The fatal retreat of the unfortunate brave,
Where honour and justice most oddly contribute,
To ease heroes' pains by an halter and gibbet.
There death breaks the shackles which force had put on,
And the hangman completes what the judge but began;
There the squire of the poet, and knight of the post,
Find their pains no more baulked, and their hopes no more
crossed. Prior.
In former times, England had her Tyburn, to which the devoted victims of justice
were conducted in solemn procession up what is now called Oxford Street. In
Edinburgh, a large open street, or rather oblong square, surrounded by high
houses, called the Grassmarket, was used for the same melancholy purpose. It
was not ill chosen for such a scene, being of considerable extent, and therefore
fit to accommodate a great number of spectators, such as are usually assembled
by this melancholy spectacle. On the other hand, few of the houses which
surround it were, even in early times, inhabited by persons of fashion; so that
those likely to be offended or over deeply affected by such unpleasant exhibitions
were not in the way of having their quiet disturbed by them. The houses in the
Grassmarket are, generally speaking, of a mean description; yet the place is not
without some features of grandeur, being overhung by the southern side of the
huge rock on which the Castle stands, and by the moss-grown battlements and
turreted walls of that ancient fortress.
It was the custom, until within these thirty years or thereabouts, to use this
esplanade for the scene of public executions. The fatal day was announced to
the public by the appearance of a huge black gallows-tree towards the eastern
end of the Grassmarket. This ill-omened apparition was of great height, with a
scaffold surrounding it, and a double ladder placed against it, for the ascent of
the unhappy criminal and executioner. As this apparatus was always arranged
before dawn, it seemed as if the gallows had grown out of the earth in the course
of one night, like the production of some foul demon; and I well remember the
fright with which the schoolboys, when I was one of their number, used to regard
these ominous signs of deadly preparation. On the night after the execution the
gallows again disappeared, and was conveyed in silence and darkness to the
place where it was usually deposited, which was one of the vaults under the
Parliament House, or courts of justice. This mode of execution is now exchanged
for one similar to that in front of Newgate,-- with what beneficial effect is
uncertain. The mental sufferings of the convict are indeed shortened. He no
longer stalks between the attendant clergymen, dressed in his grave-clothes,
