Syne, next in order, passing through the town, Thou suld have heard the din of instruments, Of tabron, trumpet, shalm, and clarioun, With reird redoundand through the elements; The Heralds, with their aweful vestiments; With Macers, upon either of their hands, To rule the press with burnist silver wands. This outgoes Scott himself for the possible pomp of Old Edinburgh, and is poetically authentic. Later records, however, enable us to tone down Lindsay’s description of the High Street on a great gala day by the sight of it on any ordinary market day. Since the reign of James III., it appears, there had been an authorised distribution of the markets for different kinds of commodities through prescribed parts of the town, with the general effect that, while live stock and such bulkier commodities as wood and fodder were sold and bought only in the Grassmarket and its low-lying purlieus, the markets for all other commodities were divided mainly between the two piazzas of the High Street, each having its own “tron” or weighing apparatus. Of late years, however, there had been encroachments by each piazza on the market rights of the other, with a good deal of mutual complaint and bad feeling. We hear more particularly that, about 1559, in consequence of temporary dilapidations in the lower piazza by recent English and French ravagings of the town, the upper piazza, or High Street above the Tolbooth, had drawn into it far more than its statutory share of the market traffic. The complaints of this by the inhabitants of the lower piazza had been such that the Provost, Bailies, and Council passed an order on the subject, which may be read in Dr. Marwick’s admirable Extracts from the Burgh Records. “Upoun consideratioun of the thraing of mercattis abone the Over Tolbuth, and that the passage upon all mercat dayis is sa stoppit be confluence of peple that nane may pas by are uther, as alsua upoun consideratioun that the saidis landis and fore-tenementis be-eist Nudryis Wynde [_i.e._ in the lower piazza] ar almaist desolait and nocht inhabitit, beand the fairest and braidest parts of the toun, for laik of merkattis and resort of peple thairto”: it was decreed that in all time coming the markets for hides, wool, and skins should be specifically in the lower piazza. For a while the order took effect; but, by the “procurment of certane particular personis having thair landis abone the Tolbuth,” the upper piazza had again obtained the advantage. Things seem to have rectified themselves eventually; but about 1561 there was still this war of the markets between the two piazzas, with a continued overthronging of the upper.