Laudator Temporis Acti

Robert Zaretsky, Boswell's Enlightenment (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2015), p. 2, with note on p. 245 (the two friends were James Boswell and William Temple):

The two friends hardly noticed the "Wha wants me?" Man, walking along High Street with a chaise percée for needy passers-by. The floppy overcoat he wore, though not fashionable, was practical, providing a modicum of privacy to his clients.³

3. Donald Campbell, Edinburgh: A Cultural History (Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2003), 42–43.

In the book cited, Campbell is actually quoting from David Young, Edinburgh in the Age of Sir Walter Scott (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), pp. 32-33.

See also Scotland Characterised: In a Letter Written to a Young Gentleman, To Dissuade Him froom an Intended Journey Thither (1701), rpt. in The Harleian Miscellany; or, A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, Vol. X (London: Ribert Dutton, 1810), pp. 509-515 (at 511):

In Edinburgh, the capital city, whither you are going, they have not a private forica; but, as their houses, which are incredibly high, consist of eight or ten distinct families, each of which possesses an intire floor, so, at every stair's-head, you may see a great tub, called a cogue, that is the receptacle-general of the nastiness of a whole family; for all disembogue here promiscuously, both males and females, masters and mistresses, with their servants, without the least restraint of modesty or shame. When this is competently full, two lusty fellows, by the help of a cowl-staff, carry it by night to a window, and, after crying, 'Geud peeple, leuk to yar selles there,' out they throw it; he, that comes by, has great cause to bless his stars, if he comes off with piss. It may be, at high noon, and in the principal street, you shall meet a tattered wretch, with a monstrous cloke, and a close-stool under it, bawling out, 'Wha wants me?' For a half-penny you may be accommodated, and covered, whilst you are so.

James Gillray, "Wha Wants Me?"
(caricaturing Henry Dundas and William Pitt)

Labels: noctes scatologicae