The Heart of Mid-Lothian

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 since the year 1728, when the famous Maggy Dickson was condemned and executed for child-murder in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, and was restored to life in a cart on her way to Musselburgh to be buried . . . . . She kept an ale-house in a neighbouring parish for many years after she came to life again, which was much resorted to from curiosity." After the body was cut down and handed over to her relatives, her revival is attributed to the jolting of the cart, and according to Robert Chambers,—taking a retired road to Musselburgh, "they stopped near Peffer-mill to get a dram; and when they came out from the house to resume their journey, Maggie was sitting up in the cart." Among the poems of Alexander Pennecuick (who died in 1730), is one entitled "The Merry Wives of Musselburgh's Welcome to Meg Dickson;" while another broadside, without any date or author's name, is called "Margaret Dickson's Penitential Confession," containing these lines referring to her conviction:—

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

In his reference to Maggie's calling salt after her recovery, the Author would appear to be alluding to another character who went by the name of "saut Maggie," and is represented in one or more old etchings about 1790.]