"Like most who have arisen to the head of their profession, the modern degradation which mendicity has undergone was often the subject of Andrew's lamentations. As a trade, he said, it was forty pounds a year worse since he had first practised it. On another occasion he observed, begging was in modern times scarcely the profession of a gentleman, and that if he had twenty sons, he would not easily be induced to breed one of them up in his own line. When or where this _laudator temporis acti_ closed his wanderings, the author never heard with certainty; but most probably, as Burns says-- "----he died a cadger-powny's death At some dike side." "The author may add another picture of the same kind as Edie Ochiltree and Andrew Gemmells; considering these illustrations as a sort of gallery, open to the reception of any thing which may elucidate former manners, or amuse the reader. "The author's contemporaries at the university of Edinburgh will probably remember the thin wasted form of a venerable old Bedesman, who stood by the Potter-row Port, now demolished; and, without speaking a syllable, gently inclined his head, and offered his hat, but with the least possible Degree of urgency, towards each individual who passed. This man gained, by silence and the extenuated and wasted appearance of a palmer from a remote country, the same tribute which was yielded to Andrew Gemmells's sarcastic humour and stately deportment. He was understood to be able to maintain a son a student in the theological classics of the University, at the gate of which the father was a mendicant. The young man was modest and inclined to learning, so that a student of the same age, and whose parents were rather of the lower order, moved by seeing him excluded from the society of other scholars when the secret of his birth was suspected, endeavoured to console him by offering him some occasional civilities. The old mendicant was grateful for this attention to his son, and one day, as the friendly student passed, he stooped forward more than usual, as if to intercept his passage. The scholar drew out a halfpenny, which he concluded was the beggar's object, when he was surprised to receive his thanks for the kindness he had shown to Jemmie, and at the same time a cordial invitation to dine with them next Sunday, 'on a shoulder of mutton and potatoes,' adding, 'ye'll put on your clean sark, as I have company.' The student was strongly tempted to accept of this hospitable proposal, as many in his place would probably have done; but as the motive might have been capable of misrepresentation, he thought it most prudent, considering the character and circumstances of the old man, to decline the invitation.