JAMES'S COURT.

��hanging out garments of

��children are playing about ; in some of the windows there are broken and patched panes of glass, while high above one's head, from the different storeys, are

to dry

various

sorts and hues, on a curious kind of frame- work, let down by a pulley and string, till it stands out square from the wall. Some of the houses are coloured with a yel- low wash, in others the stones round the windows and at the corners are painted red. The uncoloured stone is a grey dark- ened by years of smoke. The lower windows are guarded by iron gratings. On the southern, or Lawn- market side, a block of building juts out, and makes a division in the Court. This pro- jection looks as an- cient as any part, and was doubtless there in those old days when the place was inha- bited by a select set of gentlemen, " who JAMES , S COURT .

kept a clerk to record

their names and proceedings, had a scavenger of their own, clubbed in many public measures, and had balls and assemblies among them- selves." ] It must have pleasantly recalled to Boswell the chambers

1 Clmmbers's Traditions of Edinburgh, p. 68.

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