The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 2

  NOTE Q.--Half-hanged Maggie Dickson.

  [In the Statistical Account of the Parish of Inveresk (vol. xvi. p. 34),Dr. Carlyle says, "No person has been convicted of a capital felony sincethe year 1728, when the famous Maggy Dickson was condemned and executedfor child-murder in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, and was restored tolife in a cart on her way to Musselburgh to be buried . . . . . She keptan ale-house in a neighbouring parish for many years after she came tolife again, which was much resorted to from curiosity." After the bodywas cut down and handed over to her relatives, her revival is attributedto the jolting of the cart, and according to Robert Chambers,--taking aretired road to Musselburgh, "they stopped near Peffer-mill to get adram; and when they came out from the house to resume their journey,Maggie was sitting up in the cart." Among the poems of AlexanderPennecuick (who died in 1730), is one entitled "The Merry Wives ofMusselburgh's Welcome to Meg Dickson;" while another broadside, withoutany date or author's name, is called "Margaret Dickson's PenitentialConfession," containing these lines referring to her conviction:--

  "Who found me guilty of that barbarous crime, And did, by law, end this wretched life of mine; But God . . . . did me preserve," etc.

  In another of these ephemeral productions hawked about the streets,called, "A Ballad by J--n B--s," are the following lines:--

  "Please peruse the speech Of ill-hanged Maggy Dickson. Ere she was strung, the wicked wife Was sainted by the Flamen (priest), But now, since she's retum'd to life, Some say she's the old samen."

  In his reference to Maggie's calling salt after her recovery, the Authorwould appear to be alluding to another character who went by the name of"saut _Maggie,_" and is represented in one or more old etchings about1790.]