The pin, rendered interesting by the figure which it makes in Scottish song, was formed of a small rod of iron, twisted or notched, which was placed perpendicularly, starting out a little from the door, and bore a small ring of the same metal, which an applicant for admittance drew rapidly up and down the NICKS, so as to produce a grating sound.

Sometimes the rod was simply stretched across the VIZZYING hole, a convenient aperture through which the porter could take cognisance of the person applying; in which case it acted also as a stanchion.

These were almost all disused about sixty years ago, when knockers were generally substituted as more genteel.

But knockers at that time did not long remain in repute, though they have never been altogether superseded, even by bells, in the Old Town.

The comparative merit of knockers and pins was for a long time a subject of doubt, and many knockers got their heads twisted off in the course of the dispute."-- CHAMBERS'S TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH.
Note 4 .-- COUNTESS OF EGLINTON.
Susannah Kennedy, daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy of Cullean, Bart., by Elizabeth Lesly, daughter of David Lord Newark, third wife of Alexander 9th Earl of Eglinton, and mother of the 10th and 11th Earls.
She survived her husband, who died 1729, no less than fifty-seven years, and died March 1780, in her ninety-first year.