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Pursuing our way down the steep and devious street, we pass an antique wooden-faced house, bearing the odd name of the Mahogany Land, and just before turning the second corner, pause before a stone one of equally antiquated structure,[37] having a wooden-screened outer stair. Over the door at the head of this stair is a legend in very old lettering—certainly not later than 1530—and hardly to be deciphered. With difficulty we make it out to be:

HE YT THOLIS OVERCVMMIS.

He that tholes (that is, bears) overcomes; equivalent to what Virgil says:

‘Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.’

Æneid, v.

We may safely speculate on this inscription being antecedent in date to the Reformation, as after that period merely moral apothegms were held in little regard, and none but biblical inscriptions were actually put upon the fronts of houses.

Mahogany Land, West Bow.

On the other side of the street is a small shop (marked No. 69), now occupied by a dealer in small miscellaneous wares,[38] and which was, a hundred years ago, open for a nearly similar kind of business, under the charge of a Mrs Jeffrey. When, on the night of the 7th September 1736, the rioters hurried their victim Porteous down the West Bow, with the design of executing him in the Grassmarket, they called at this shop to provide themselves with a rope. The woman asked if it was to hang Porteous, and when they answered in the affirmative, she told them they were welcome to all she had of that article. They coolly took off what they required, and laid a guinea on the counter as payment; ostentatious to mark that they ‘did all in honour.’