Chapter C: K. Sharpe, Notes to Law’s Memorials, p. xlvii (2)

‘The concerts of St Cecilia’s Hall formed one of the most liberal and attractive amusements that any city in Europe could boast of. The hall was built on purpose at the foot of Niddry’s Wynd, by a number of public-spirited noblemen and gentlemen; and the expense of the concerts was defrayed by about two hundred subscribers paying two or three guineas each annually; and so respectable was the institution considered, that upon the death of a member there were generally several applications for the vacancy, as is now the case with the Caledonian Hunt. The concerts were managed by a governor and a set of six or more directors, who engaged the performers—the principal ones from Italy, one or two from Germany, and the rest of the orchestra was made up of English and native artists. The concerts were given weekly during most of the time that I attended; the instrumental music consisting chiefly of the concertos of Corelli and Handel, and the overtures of Bach, Abel, Stamitz, Vanhall, and latterly of Haydn and Pleyel; for at that time, and till a good many years after, the magnificent symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, which now form the most attractive portions of all public concerts, had not reached this country. Those truly grand symphonies do not seem likely to be superseded by any similar compositions for a century to come, transcending so immensely, as they do, all the orchestral compositions that ever before appeared; yet I must not venture to prophesy, when I bear in mind what a powerful influence fashion and folly exercise upon music, as well as upon other objects of taste. When the overtures and quartettes of Haydn first found their way into this country, I well remember with what coldness the former were received by most of the grave Handelians, while at the theatres they gave delight. The old concert gentlemen said that his compositions wanted the solidity and full harmony of Handel and Corelli; and when the celebrated leader—the elder Cramer—visited St Cecilia’s Hall, and played a spirited charming overture of Haydn’s, an old amateur next to whom I was seated asked me: “Whase music is that, now?” “Haydn’s, sir,” said I. “Poor new-fangled stuff,” he replied; “I hope I shall never hear it again!” Many years have since rolled away, and mark what some among us now say: A friend, calling lately on an old lady much in the fashionable circle of society, heard her give directions to the pianist who was teaching her nieces to bring them some new and fashionable pieces of music, but no more of the _unfashionable_ compositions of Haydn! Alas for those ladies whose taste in music is regulated by fashion, and who do not know that the music of Haydn is the admiration and delight of all the real lovers and judges of the art in Europe!

‘The vocal department of our concerts consisted chiefly of the songs of Handel, Arne, Gluck, Sarti, Jornelli, Guglielmi, Paisiello, Scottish songs, &c.; and every year, generally, we had an oratorio of Handel performed, with the assistance of a principal bass and a tenor singer, and a few chorus-singers from the English cathedrals; together with some Edinburgh amateurs,[212] who cultivated that sacred and sublime music; Signor and Signora Domenico Corri, the latter our _prima donna_, singing most of the principal songs, or most interesting portions of the music. On such occasions the hall was always crowded to excess by a splendid assemblage, including all the beauty and fashion of our city. A supper to the directors and their friends at Fortune’s Tavern generally followed the oratorio, where the names of the chief beauties who had graced the hall were honoured by their healths being drunk: the champion of the lady whom he proposed as his toast being sometimes challenged to maintain the pre-eminence of her personal charms by the admirer of another lady filling a glass of double depth to her health, and thus forcing the champion of the first lady to _say more_ by drinking a still deeper bumper in honour of her beauty; and if this produced a rejoinder from the other, by his seizing and quaffing the cup of _largest_ calibre, there the contest generally ended, and the deepest drinker _saved_ his lady, as it was phrased, although he might have had some difficulty in saving himself from a flooring while endeavouring to regain his seat.[213] Miss Burnet of Monboddo and Miss Betsy Home, reigning beauties of the time, were said more than once to have been the innocent cause of the fall of man in this way. The former was gifted with a countenance of heavenly sweetness and expression, which Guido, had he beheld it, would have sought to perpetuate upon canvas as that of an angel; while the other lady, quite piquant and brilliant, might have sat to Titian for a Hebe or one of the Graces. Miss Burnet died in the bloom of youth, universally regretted both for her personal charms and the rare endowments of her mind. Miss Home was happily married to Captain Brown, her ardent admirer, who had made her his _toast_ for years, and vowed he would continue to do so till he toasted her _Brown_. This sort of exuberant loyalty to beauty was by no means uncommon at the convivial meetings of those days, when “time had not thinned our flowing hair, nor bent us with his iron hand.”

‘Let me call to mind a few of those whose lovely faces at the concerts gave us the sweetest zest for the music. Miss Cleghorn of Edinburgh, still living in single-blessedness; Miss Chalmers of Pittencrief, who married Sir William Miller of Glenlee, Bart.; Miss Jessie Chalmers of Edinburgh, who was married to Mr Pringle of Haining; Miss Hay of Hayston, who married Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Bart.; Miss Murray of Lintrose, who was called the _Flower of Strathmore_, and upon whom Burns wrote the song:

“Blithe, blithe, and merry was she,
Blithe was she but and ben;
Blithe by the banks of the Earn,
And blithe in Glenturit Glen.”

She married David Smith, Esq. of Methven, one of the Lords of Session; Miss Jardine of Edinburgh, who married Mr Home Drummond of Blairdrummond—their daughter, if I mistake not, is now the Duchess of Athole; Miss Kinloch of Gilmerton, who married Sir Foster Cunliffe of Acton, Bart.; Miss Lucy Johnston of East Lothian, who married Mr Oswald of Auchincruive; Miss Halket of Pitferran, who became the wife of the celebrated Count Lally-Tollendal; and Jane, Duchess of Gordon, celebrated for her wit and spirit, as well as for her beauty. These, with Miss Burnet and Miss Home, and many others whose names I do not distinctly recollect, were indisputably worthy of all the honours conferred upon them. But beauty has tempted me to digress too long from my details relative to the hall and its concerts, to which I return.

‘The hall [built in 1762 from a design of Mr Robert Mylne, after the model of the great opera theatre of Parma] was an exact oval, having a concave elliptical ceiling, and was remarkable for the clear and perfect conveyance of sounds, without responding echoes, as well as for the judicious manner in which the seating was arranged. In this last respect, I have seen no concert-room equal to it either in London or Paris. The orchestra was erected at the upper end of the hall, opposite to the door of entrance; a portion of the area, in the centre or widest part, was without any seats, and served as a small promenade, where friends could chat together during the intervals of performance. The seats were all _fixed_ down on both sides of the hall, and each side was raised by a gradual elevation from the level area, backward, the rows of seats behind each other, till they reached a passage a few feet broad, that was carried quite round the hall behind the last of the elevated seats; so that when the audience was seated, each half of it fronted the other—an arrangement much preferable to that commonly adopted, of placing all the seats upon a _level_ behind each other, for thus the whole company must look one way, and see each other’s _backs_. A private staircase at the upper end of the hall, not seen by the company, admitted the musicians into the orchestra; in the front of which stood a harpsichord, with the singers, and the principal violoncellist; and behind these, on a platform a little elevated, were the violins, and other stringed and wind instruments, just behind which stood a noble organ. The hall, when filled, contained an audience of about four hundred. No money was taken for admission, tickets being given gratis to the lovers of music, and to strangers. What a pity that such a liberal and gratifying institution should have ceased to exist! But after the New Town arose, the Old was deserted by the upper classes: the hall was too small for the increased population, and concerts were got up at the Assembly Rooms and Corri’s Rooms by the professional musicians, and by Corri himself. Now a capacious Music Hall is erected behind the Assembly Rooms, where a pretty good subscription concert is carried on; and from the increased facility of intercourse between Paris, London, and Edinburgh, it seems probable that concerts by artists of the highest talents will ere long be set on foot in Edinburgh in this fine hall, diversified sometimes by oratorios or Italian operas.

‘Before concluding this brief memoir of St Cecilia’s Hall Concerts, I shall mention the chief performers who gave attractions to them. These were Signor and Signora Domenico Corri, from Rome; he with a falsetto voice, which he managed with much skill and taste; the signora with a fine, full-toned, flexible soprano voice. Tenducci, though not one of the band, nor resident among us, made his appearance occasionally when he came to visit the Hopetoun family, his liberal and steady patrons; and while he remained he generally gave some concerts at the hall, which made quite a sensation among the musicals. I considered it a jubilee year whenever Tenducci arrived, as no singer I ever heard sang with more expressive simplicity, or was more efficient, whether he sang the classical songs of Metastasio, or those of Arne’s _Artaxerxes_, or the simple melodies of Scotland. To the latter he gave such intensity of interest by his impassioned manner, and by his clear enunciation of the words, as equally surprised and delighted us. I never can forget the pathos and touching effect of his _Gilderoy_, _Lochaber no more_, _The Braes of Ballenden_, _I’ll never leave thee_, _Roslin Castle_, &c. These, with the _Verdi prati_ of Handel, _Fair Aurora_ from Arne’s _Artaxerxes_, and Gluck’s _Che faro_, were above all praise. Miss Poole, Mr Smeaton, Mr Gilson, and Mr Urbani were also for a time singers at the hall—chiefly of English and Scottish songs.

‘In the instrumental department we had Signor Puppo, from Rome or Naples, as leader and violin concerto player, a most capital artist; Mr Schetky, from Germany, the principal violoncellist, and a fine solo concerto player; Joseph Reinagle, a very clever violoncello and viola player; Mr Barnard, a very elegant violinist; Stephen Clarke, an excellent organist and harpsichord player; and twelve or fifteen violins, basses, flutes, violas, horns, and clarionets, with extra performers often from London. Upon the resignation of Puppo, who charmed all hearers, Stabilini succeeded him, and held the situation till the institution was at an end: he had a good round tone, though, to my apprehension, he did not exceed mediocrity as a performer.

‘But I should be unpardonable if I omitted to mention the most accomplished violin-player I ever heard, Paganini only excepted—I mean Giornovicki, who possessed in a most extraordinary degree the various requisites of his beautiful art: execution peculiarly brilliant, and finely articulated as possible; a tone of the richest and most exquisite quality; expression of the utmost delicacy, grace, and tenderness; and an animation that commanded your most intense and eager attention. Paganini did not appear in Edinburgh till [thirty years] after the hall was closed. There, as well as at private parties, I heard Giornovicki often, and always with no less delight than I listened to Paganini.[214] Both, if I may use the expression, threw their whole hearts and souls into their Cremonas, bows, and fingers.

“Hall of sweet sounds, adieu, with all thy fascinations of langsyne,
My dearest reminiscences of music all are thine.”’

_G. T. Octogenarius Edinburgensis_, Feb. 1847.[215]

Stabilini, to whom our dear G. T. refers, and who died in 1815, much broken down by dissipation, was obliged, against his will, to give frequent attendance at the private concerts of one of these gentlemen performers, where Corelli’s trios were in great vogue. There was always a capital supper afterwards, at which Stab (so he was familiarly called) ate and drank for any two. A waggish friend, who knew his opinion of Edinburgh amateurs, meeting him next day, would ask: ‘Well, Mr Stabilini, what sort of music had you the other night at —— ——’s?’

‘Vera good soaper, sir; vera good soaper!’

‘But tell us the verse you made about one of these parties.’

Stabilini, twitching up his shirt-collar, a common trick of his, would say:

‘A piece ov toarkey for a hungree bellee
Is moatch sup_eer_ior to Corelli!’

The accent, the manner, the look with which this was delivered, is said to have been beyond expression rich.

It is quite remarkable, when we consider the high character of the popular melodies, how late and slow has been the introduction of a taste for the higher class of musical compositions into Scotland. The Earl of Kelly, a man of yesterday, was the first Scotsman who ever composed music for an orchestra.[216] This fact seems sufficient. It is to be feared that the beauty of the melodies is itself partly to be blamed for the indifference to higher music. There is too great a disposition to rest with the distinction thus conferred upon the nation; too many are content to go no further for the enjoyments which music has to give. It would be well if, while not forgetting those beautiful simple airs, we were more generally to open our minds to the still richer charms of the German and the Italian muses.

FOOTNOTES

[212] The amateurs who took the lead as choristers were Gilbert Innes, Esq. of Stow; Alexander Wight, Esq., advocate; Mr John Hutton, papermaker; Mr John Russel, W.S.; and Mr George Thomson. As an instrumentalist, we could boast of our countryman the Earl of Kelly, who also composed six overtures for an orchestra, one of which I heard played in the hall, himself leading the band.

[213] See a different account of this custom, p. 147.

[214] [‘John M. Giornovicki, commonly known in Britain under the name of Jarnowick, was a native of Palermo. About 1770 he went to Paris, where he performed a concerto of his famous master Lolli, but did not succeed. He then played one of his own concertos, that in A major, and became quite the fashion. The style of Giornovicki was highly elegant and finished, his intonation perfect, and his taste pure. The late Domenico Dragonetti, one of the best judges in Europe, told me that Giornovicki was the most elegant and graceful violin-player he had ever heard before Paganini, but that he wanted power. He seems to have been a dissipated and passionate man; a good swordsman too, as was common in those days. One day, in a dispute, he struck the Chevalier St George, then one of the greatest violin-players and best swordsmen in Europe. St George said coolly: “I have too much regard for his musical talent to fight him.” A noble speech, showing St George in all respects the better man. Giornovicki died suddenly at St Petersburg in 1804.’—G. F. G.]

[215] G. T., it may now be explained, was George Thomson, the well-known and generally loved editor of the _Melodies of Scotland_. He might rather have described himself as _Nonogenarius_, for at his death, in 1851, he had reached the age of ninety-four, his violin, as he believed, having prolonged his life much beyond the usual term.

[216] The earl was the leader of the amateur orchestra of St Cecilia’s Hall, which included Lord Colville, Sir John Pringle, Mr Seton of Pitmedden, General Middleton, Lord Elcho, Sir Gilbert Elliot, Mrs Forbes of Newhall, and others of the aristocracy. General Middleton was credited with ‘singing a song with much humour,’ which he sometimes accompanied with a key and tongs. Sir Gilbert Elliot, who played the German flute, was the first to introduce that instrument to a Scottish audience. St Cecilia’s Hall has passed through many vicissitudes since then, and is now a bookbinder’s warehouse, but its fine ceiling and the orchestral balcony at the southern end are still preserved as memorials of its early days.

THE MURDER OF DARNLEY.

While this event is connected with one of the most problematical points in our own history, or that of any other nation, it chances that the whole topography of the affair is very distinctly recorded. We know not only the exact spot where the deed was perpetrated, but almost every foot of the ground over which the perpetrators walked on their way to execute it. It is chiefly by reason of the depositions and confessions brought out by the legal proceedings against the inferior instruments that this minute knowledge is attained.

The house in which the unfortunate victim resided at the time was one called the Prebendaries’ Chamber, being part of the suite of domestic buildings connected with the collegiate church of St-Mary-in-the-Fields (usually called the _Kirk o’ Field_). Darnley was brought to lodge here on the 30th of January 1566-7. He had contracted the smallpox at Glasgow, and it was thought necessary, or pretended to be thought necessary, to lodge him in this place for air, as also to guard against infecting the infant prince, his son, who was lodged in Holyrood House. The house, which then belonged, by gift, to a creature of the Earl of Bothwell, has been described as so very mean as to excite general surprise. Yet, speaking by comparison, it does not appear to have been a bad temporary lodging for a person in Darnley’s circumstances. It consisted of two stories, with a _turnpike_ or spiral staircase behind. The gable adjoined to the town-wall, which there ran in a line east and west, and the cellar had a postern opening through that wall. In the upper floor were a chamber and closet, with a little gallery having a window also through the town-wall.[217] Here Darnley was deposited in an old purple travelling-bed. Underneath his room was an apartment in which the queen slept for one or two nights before the murder took place. On the night of Sunday, February 9, she was attending upon her husband in his sick-room, when the servants of the Earl of Bothwell deposited the powder in her room, immediately under the king’s bed. The queen afterwards took her leave, in order to attend the wedding of two of her servants at the palace.

It appears, from the confessions of the wretches executed for this foul deed, that as they returned from depositing the powder they saw ‘the Queenes grace gangand before thame with licht torches up the Black Frier Wynd.’ On their returning to Bothwell’s lodging at the palace, that nobleman prepared himself for the deed by changing his gay suit of ‘hose, stockit with black velvet, passemented with silver, and doublett of black satin of the same maner,’ for ‘ane uther pair of black hose,[218] and ane canvas doublet white, and tuke his syde [long] riding-cloak about him, of sad English claith, callit the new colour.’ He then went, attended by Paris, the queen’s servant, Powry, his own porter, Pate Wilson, and George Dalgleish, ‘downe the turnepike altogedder, and along the bak of the Queene’s garden, till you come to the bak of the cunyie-house [mint], and the bak of the stabbillis, till you come to the Canongate fornent the Abbey zett.’ After passing up the Canongate, and gaining entry with some difficulty by the Netherbow Port, ‘thai gaid up abone Bassentyne’s hous on the south side of the gait,[219] and knockit at ane door beneath the sword slippers, and callit for the laird of Ormistounes, and one within answerit he was not thair; and thai passit down a cloiss beneath the Frier Wynd [_apparently Toddrick’s Wynd_], and enterit in at the zett of the Black Friers, till thay came to the back wall and dyke of the town-wall, whair my lord and Paris past in over the wall.’ The explosion took place soon after, about two in the morning. The earl then came back to his attendants at this spot, and ‘thai past all away togidder out at the Frier zett, and sinderit in the Cowgait.’ It is here evident that the alley now called the High School Wynd was the avenue by which the conspirators approached the scene of their atrocity. Bothwell himself, with part of his attendants, went up the same wynd ‘be east the Frier Wynd,’ and crossing the High Street, endeavoured to get out of the city by leaping a broken part of the town-wall in Leith Wynd, but finding it too high, was obliged to rouse once more the porter at the Netherbow. They then passed—for every motion of the villains has a strange interest—down St Mary’s Wynd, and along the south back of the Canongate to the earl’s lodgings in the palace.

The house itself, by this explosion, was destroyed, ‘_even_,’ as the queen tells in a letter to her ambassador in France, ‘_to the very grund-stane_.’ The bodies of the king and his servant were found next morning in a garden or field on the outside of the town-wall. The buildings connected with the Kirk o’ Field were afterwards converted into the College of King James, now our Edinburgh University. The hall of the Senatus in the new buildings occupies nearly the exact site of the Prebendaries’ Chamber, the ruins of which are laid down in De Witt’s map of 1648.

FOOTNOTES

[217] About seventy paces to the east of the site of the Prebendaries’ Chamber, and exactly opposite to the opening of Roxburgh Place, was a projection in the wall, which has been long demolished and the wall altered. Close, however, to the west of the place, and near the ground, are some remains of an arch in the wall, which Malcolm Laing supposes to have been a gun-port connected with the projection at this spot. It certainly has no connection, as Arnot and (after him) Whitaker have supposed, with the story of Darnley’s murder. [This relic of the Flodden wall is now removed, but a portion of the wall itself still stands behind the houses at the north-east junction of Drummond Street and the Pleasance. Another portion was recently discovered at the east end of Lothian Street, between that street and the Royal Scottish Museum. Another part forms the north side of a _cul de sac_ at Lindsay Place, and at the Vennel is the largest part of this old wall, with one of its few towers, forming the western boundary of the grounds of Heriot’s Hospital.]

[218] Hose in those days covered the whole of the lower part of the person.

[219] This indicates pretty nearly the site of the house of Bassendyne, the early printer. It must have been opposite, or nearly opposite, to the Fountain Well.

MINT CLOSE.

THE MINT—ROBERT CULLEN—LORD CHANCELLOR LOUGHBOROUGH.

The _Cunyie House_, as the Scottish Mint used to be called, was near Holyrood Palace in the days of Queen Mary. In the regency of Morton a large house was erected for it in the Cowgate, where it may still be seen,[220] with the following inscription over the door:

BE. MERCYFULL. TO. ME. O. GOD. 1574.

In the reign of Charles II. other buildings were added behind, forming a neat quadrangle; and here was the Scottish coin produced till the Union, when a separate coinage was given up and this establishment abandoned; though, to gratify prejudice, the offices were still kept up as sinecures. This court with its buildings was a sanctuary for persons prosecuted for debt, as was the King’s Stables, a mean place at the west end of the Grassmarket. There was, however, a small den near the top of the oldest building, lighted by a small window looking up the Cowgate, which was used as a jail for debtors or other delinquents condemned by the Mint’s own officers.

In the western portion of the old building, accessible by a stair from the court, is a handsome room with an alcove ceiling, and lighted by two handsomely proportioned windows, which is known to have been the council-room of the Mint, being a portion of the private mansion of the master. Here, in May 1590, on a Sunday evening, the town of Edinburgh entertained the Danish lords who accompanied James VI. and his queen from her native court—namely, Peter Monk, the admiral of Denmark; Stephen Brahe, captain of Eslinburg [perhaps a relative of Tycho?]; Braid Ransome Maugaret; Nicholaus Theophilus, Doctor of Laws; Henry Goolister, captain of Bocastle; William Vanderwent; and some others. For this banquet, ‘maid in Thomas Aitchinsoune, master of the cunyie-house lugeing,’ it was ordered ‘that the thesaurer caus by and lay in foure punsheouns wyne; John Borthuik baxter to get four bunnis of beir, with foure gang of aill, and to furneis breid; Henry Charteris and Roger Macnacht to caus hing the hous with tapestrie, set the burdis, furmis, chandleris [_candlesticks_], and get flowris; George Carketill and Rychert Doby to provyde the cupbuirds and men to keep thame; and my Lord Provest was content to provyde naprie and twa dozen greit veschell, and to avance ane hunder pund or mair, as thai sall haif a do.’

In the latter days of the Mint as an active establishment, the coining-house was in the ground-floor of the building, on the north side of the court; in the adjoining house, on the east side, was the finishing-house, where the money was polished and fitted for circulation. The chief instruments used in coining were a hammer and steel dies, upon which the device was engraved. The metal, being previously prepared of the proper fineness and thickness, was cut into longitudinal slips, and a square piece being cut from the slip, it was afterwards rounded and adjusted to the weight of the money to be made. The blank pieces of metal were then placed between two dies, and the upper one was struck with a hammer. After the Restoration another method was introduced—that of the mill and screw, which, modified by many improvements, is still in use. At the Union, the ceremony of destroying the dies of the Scottish coinage took place in the Mint. After being heated red-hot in a furnace, they were defaced by three impressions of a broad-faced _punch_, which were of course visible on the dies as long as they existed; but it must be recorded that all these implements, which would now have been great curiosities, are lost, and none of the machinery remains but the press, which, weighing about half a ton, was rather too large to be readily appropriated, or perhaps it would have followed the rest.

The floors over the coining-house—bearing the letters, C. R. II., surmounting a crown, and the legend, GOD SAVE THE KING, 1674, originally the mansion of the master—were latterly occupied by the eminent Dr Cullen, whose family were all born here, and who died here himself in 1792.

ROBERT CULLEN.

Robert Cullen, the son of the physician, made a great impression on Edinburgh society by his many delightful social qualities, and particularly his powers as a mimic of the Mathews genus. He manifested this gift in his earliest years, to the no small discomposure of his grave old father. One evening, when Dr Cullen was going to the theatre, Robert entreated to be taken along with him, but for some reason was condemned to remain at home. Some time after the departure of the doctor, Mrs Cullen heard him come along the passage, as if from his own room, and say at her door: ‘Well, after all, you may let Robert go.’ Robert was accordingly allowed to depart for the theatre, where his appearance gave no small surprise to his father. On the old gentleman coming home and remonstrating with his lady for allowing the boy to go, it was discovered that the voice which seemed to give the permission had proceeded from the young wag himself.

In maturer years, Cullen could not only mimic any voice or mode of speech, but enter so thoroughly into the nature of any man that he could supply exactly the ideas which he was likely to use. His imitations were therefore something much above mimicries—they were artistic representations of human character. He has been known in a social company, where another individual was expected, to stand up, in the character of that person, and return thanks for the proposal of his health; and this was done so happily that when the individual did arrive and got upon his legs to speak for himself, the company was convulsed with an almost exact repetition of what Cullen had previously uttered, the manner also and every inflection of the voice being precisely alike. In relating anecdotes, of which he possessed a vast store, he usually prefaced them with a sketch of the character of the person referred to, which greatly increased the effect, as the story then told characteristically. These sketches were remarked to be extremely graphic and most elegantly expressed.

When a young man, residing with his father, he was very intimate with Dr Robertson, the Principal of the university. To show that Robertson was not likely to be easily imitated, it may be mentioned, from the report of a gentleman who has often heard him making public orations, that when the students observed him pause for a word, and would themselves mentally supply it, they invariably found that the word which he did use was different from that which they had hit upon. Cullen, however, could imitate him to the life, either in his more formal speeches or in his ordinary discourse. He would often, in entering a house which the Principal was in the habit of visiting, assume his voice in the lobby and stair, and when arrived at the drawing-room door, astonish the family by turning out to be—Bob Cullen. Lord Greville, a pupil of the Principal’s, having been one night detained at a protracted debauch, where Cullen was also present, the latter gentleman next morning got admission to the bedroom of the young nobleman, where, personating Dr Robertson, he sat down by the bedside, and with all the manner of the reverend Principal, gave him a sound lecture for having been out so late last night. Greville, who had fully expected this visit, lay in remorseful silence, and allowed his supposed monitor to depart without saying a word. In the course of a quarter of an hour, however, when the real Dr Robertson entered, and commenced a harangue exactly duplicating that just concluded, he could not help exclaiming that it was _too bad_ to give it him twice over. ‘Oh, I see how it is,’ said Robertson, rising to depart; ‘that rogue Bob Cullen must have been with you.’ The Principal became at length accustomed to Bob’s tricks, which he would seem, from the following anecdote, to have regarded in a friendly spirit. Being attended during an illness by Dr Cullen, it was found necessary to administer a liberal dose of laudanum. The physician, however, asked him, in the first place, in what manner laudanum affected him. Having received his answer, Cullen remarked, with surprise, that he had never known any one affected in the same way by laudanum besides his son Bob. ‘Ah,’ said Robertson, ‘_does the rascal take me off there too_?’

Mr Cullen entered at the Scottish bar in 1764, and, distinguishing himself highly as a lawyer, was raised to the bench in 1796, when he took the designation of Lord Cullen. He cultivated elegant literature, and contributed some papers of acknowledged merit to the _Mirror_ and _Lounger_; but it was in conversation that he chiefly shone.

The close adjoining to the Mint contains several old-fashioned houses of a dignified appearance. In a floor of one bearing the date 1679, and having a little court in front, Alexander Wedderburn, Earl of Rosslyn and Lord Chancellor of England, resided while at the Scottish bar. This, as is well known, was a very brief interval; for a veteran barrister having one day used the term ‘presumptuous boy’ with reference to him, and his own caustic reply having drawn upon him a rebuke from the bench, he took off his gown, and making a bow, said he would never more plead where he was subjected to insult, but would seek a wider field for his exertions. His subsequent rapid rise at the English bar is matter of history. It is told that, returning to Edinburgh at the end of his life, after an absence of many years, he wished to see the house where he had lived while a Scotch advocate. Too infirm to walk, he was borne in a chair to the foot of the Mint Close to see this building. One thing he was particularly anxious about. While residing here, he had had five holes made in the little court to play at some bowling game of which he was fond. He wished, above all things, to see these holes once more, and when he found they were still there, he expressed much satisfaction. Churchill himself might have melted at such an anecdote of the old days of him who was

‘Pert at the bar, and in the senate loud.’

About midway up the close is a turreted mansion, accessible from Hyndford’s Close, and having a tolerably good garden connected with it. This was, in 1742, the residence of the Earl of Selkirk; subsequently it was occupied by Dr Daniel Rutherford, professor of botany. Sir Walter Scott, who, being a nephew of that gentleman, was often in the house in his young days, communicated to me a curious circumstance connected with it. It appears that the house immediately adjacent was not furnished with a stair wide enough to allow of a coffin being carried down in decent fashion. It had, therefore, what the Scottish law calls a _servitude_ upon Dr Rutherford’s house, conferring the perpetual liberty of bringing the deceased inmates through a passage into that house and down _its_ stair into the lane.

FOOTNOTES

[220] Now removed and the site built over. There was also a Cunyie House in Candlemaker Row, which was used as the Mint during the regency of Mary of Guise.

MISS NICKY MURRAY.

The dancing assemblies of Edinburgh were for many years, about the middle of the last century, under the direction and dictatorship of the Honourable Miss Nicky Murray, one of the sisters of the Earl of Mansfield. Much good sense, firmness, knowledge of the world and of the histories of individuals, as well as a due share of patience and benevolence, were required for this office of unrecognised though real power; and it was generally admitted that Miss Murray possessed the needful qualifications in a remarkable degree, though rather more marked by good manners than good-nature. She and her sisters lived for many years in a floor of a large building at the head of Bailie Fife’s Close—a now unhallowed locality, where, I believe, Francis Jeffrey attended his first school. In their narrow mansion, the Miss Murrays received flights of young lady-cousins from the country, to be finished in their manners and introduced into society. No light task must theirs have been, all things considered. I find a highly significant note on the subject inserted by an old gentleman in an interleaved copy of my first edition: ‘It was from Miss Nicky Murray’s—a relation of the Gray family—that my father ran off with my mother, then not sixteen years old.’

The Assembly Room of that time was in the _close_ where the Commercial Bank was afterwards established.[221] First there was a lobby, where chairs were disburdened of their company, and where a reduced gentleman, with pretensions to the title of Lord Kirkcudbright—descendant of the once great Maclellans of Galloway—might have been seen selling gloves; this being the person alluded to in a letter written by Goldsmith while a student in Edinburgh: ‘One day, happening to slip into Lord Kilcobry’s—don’t be surprised, his lordship is only a glover!’ The dancing-room opened directly from the lobby, and above stairs was a tea-room. The former had a railed space in the centre, within which the dancers were arranged, while the spectators sat round on the outside; and no communication was allowed between the different sides of this sacred pale. The lady-directress had a high chair or throne at one end. Before Miss Nicky Murray, Lady Elliot of Minto and Mrs Brown of Coalstoun, wives of judges, had exercised this lofty authority, which was thought honourable on account of the charitable object of the assemblies. The arrangements were of a rigid character, and certainly tending to dullness. There being but one set allowed to dance at a time, it was seldom that any person was twice on the floor in one night. The most of the time was spent in acting the part of lookers-on, which threw great duties in the way of conversation upon the gentlemen. These had to settle with a partner for the year, and were upon no account permitted to change, even for a single night. The appointment took place at the beginning of the season, usually at some private party or ball given by a person of distinction, where the fans of the ladies were all put into a gentleman’s cocked hat; the gentlemen put in their hands and took a fan, and to whomsoever the fan belonged, that was to be his partner for the season. In the general rigours of this system, which sometimes produced ludicrous combinations, there was, however, one palliative—namely, the fans being all distinguishable from each other, and the gentleman being in general as well acquainted with the fan as the face of his mistress, and the hat being open, it was possible to peep in, and exercise, to a certain extent, a principle of selection, whereby he was perhaps successful in procuring an appointment to his mind. All this is spiritedly given in a poem of Sir Alexander Boswell:

‘Then were the days of modesty of mien!
Stays for the fat, and quilting for the lean;
The ribboned stomacher, in many a plait,
Upheld the chest, and dignified the gait;
Some Venus, brightest planet of the train,
Moved in a lustering _halo_, propped with cane.
Then the _Assembly Close_ received the fair—
Order and elegance presided there—
Each gay Right Honourable had her place,
To walk a minuet with becoming grace.
No racing to the dance, with rival hurry—
Such was thy sway, O famed Miss Nicky Murray!
Each lady’s fan a chosen Damon bore,
With care selected many a day before;
For, unprovided with a favourite beau,
The nymph, chagrined, the ball must needs forego;
But, previous matters to her taste arranged,
_Certes_, the constant couple never changed;
Through a long night, to watch fair Delia’s will,
The same dull swain was at her elbow still.’

A little before Miss Nicky’s time, it was customary for gentlemen to walk alongside the chairs of their partners, with their swords by their sides, and so escort them home. They called next afternoon upon their Dulcineas to inquire how they were and drink tea. The fashionable time for seeing company in those days was the evening, when people were all abroad upon the street, as in the forenoon now, making calls and _shopping_. The people who attended the assemblies were very _select_. Moreover, they were all known to each other; and the introduction of a stranger required nice preliminaries. It is said that Miss Murray, on hearing a young lady’s name pronounced for the first time, would say: ‘Miss ——, of what?’ If no territorial addition could be made, she manifestly cooled. Upon one occasion, seeing a man at the assembly who was born in a low situation and raised to wealth in some humble trade, she went up to him, and, without the least deference to his fine-laced coat, taxed him with presumption in coming there, and turned him out of the room.

Major Topham praises the regularity and propriety observed at the assemblies, though gently insinuating their heaviness. He says: ‘I was never at an assembly where the authority of the manager was so observed or respected. With the utmost politeness, affability, and good-humour, Miss Murray attends to every one. All petitions are heard, and demands granted, which appear reasonable. The company is so much the more obliged to Miss Murray, as the task is by no means to be envied. The crowd which immediately surrounds her on entering the room, the impetuous applications of _chaperons_, maiden-aunts, and the earnest entreaties of lovers to obtain a ticket in one of the first sets for the dear object, render the fatigue of the office of lady-directress almost intolerable.’[222]

Early hours were kept in those days, and the stinted time was never exceeded. When the proper hour arrived for dissolving the party, and the young people would crowd round the throne to petition for one other set, up rose Miss Nicky in unrelenting rigidity of figure, and with one wave of her hand silenced the musicians:

‘Quick from the summit of the grove they fell,
And left it inharmonious.’

FOOTNOTES

[221] The Assembly Room, afterwards occupied by the Commercial Bank, was in Bell’s Wynd, to which place it was removed in 1756 from the older room in Assembly Close. A scallop-shell above the entrance to Bell’s Wynd long commemorated the site of the Clamshell Turnpike, the lodging of the Earl of Home, to which Queen Mary, accompanied by Darnley, retreated on their return from Dunbar in 1566, rather than enter Holyrood so soon after the murder of Rizzio.

[222] It must have been after Miss Nicky Murray’s day that an Edinburgh Writer to the Signet, describing the unruliness of an assembly, writes: ‘I saw an English lady stand up at the head of a sett with a ticket No. 1 of that sett. By-and-bye my namesake, Miss Mary ——, came up, hauling after her a foolish-looking young man, who did as he was bid, and with all the ease in the world placed herself above the stranger, No. 1. The lady politely said there must be some mistake, for she had that place. “No,” said Miss Mary, “I can’t help your ticket, for I have the Lady Directress’s permission to lead down the sett!” The lady had spunk, and scolded, for which I liked her the better; only she dealt her sarcasms about Scotch politeness, Edinburgh manners, and so forth, rather too liberally and too loudly.’

[THE BISHOP’S LAND.

On the north side of the High Street, a hundred yards or so below the North Bridge, there existed previous to 1813 an unusually large and handsome old _land_ or building named the _Bishop’s Land_. It rested upon an arcade or _piazza_, as it is called, and the entry in the first floor bore the ordinary legend:

BLISSIT BE ZE LORD FOR ALL HIS GIFTIS,

together with the date 1578, and a shield impaled with two coats of arms. Along the front of this floor was a balcony composed of brass, a thing unique in the ancient city. The house had been the Edinburgh residence of Archbishop John Spottiswood. Most unfortunately the whole line of building towards the street was burned down in the year 1813.

In the latter part of the last century the Bishop’s Land was regarded as a very handsome residence, and it was occupied accordingly by persons of consideration. The dictum of an old citizen to me many years ago was: ‘Nobody without livery-servants lived in the Bishop’s Land.’ Sir Stuart Threipland of Fingask occupied the first floor. His estate, forfeited by his father in 1716, was purchased back by him, with money obtained through his wife, in 1784; and the title, which was always given to him by courtesy, was restored as a reality to his descendants by George IV. He had himself been engaged in the affair of 1745-6, and had accompanied ‘the Prince’ in some part of his wanderings. In the hands of this ‘fine old _Scottish_ gentleman,’ for such he was, his house in the Bishop’s Land was elegantly furnished, there being in particular some well-painted portraits of royal personages—_not of the reigning house_. These had all been sent to his father and himself by the persons represented in them, who thus showed their gratitude for efforts made and sufferings incurred in their behalf. There were five windows to the street, three of them lighting the drawing-room; the remaining two lighted the eldest son’s room. A dining-room, Sir Stuart’s bedroom, his sister Janet’s (who kept house for him) room, and other apartments were in the rear, some lighted from the adjacent close—and these still exist, having been spared by the fire. The kitchen and servants’ rooms were below.

In the next floor above lived the Hamiltons of Pencaitland; in the next again, the Aytouns of Inchdairnie. Mrs Aytoun, who was a daughter of Lord Rollo, would sometimes come down the stair in a winter evening, lighting herself with a little wax-taper, to drink tea with _Mrs_ Janet Threipland, for so she called herself, though unmarried. In the uppermost floor of all lived a reputable tailor and his family. All the various tenants, including the tailor, were on good neighbourly terms with each other; a pleasant thing to tell of this bit of the old world, which has left nothing of the same kind behind it in these later days, when we all live at a greater distance, physical and moral, from each other.]

JOHN KNOX’S MANSE.

The lower portion of the High Street, including _the Netherbow_, was, till a recent time, remarkable for the antiquity of the greater number of the buildings, insomuch that no equal portion of the city was more distinctly a memorial of the general appearance of the whole as it was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On the north side of the High Street, immediately adjacent to the Netherbow, there was a nest of tall wooden-fronted houses of one character, and the age of which generally might be guessed from the date existing upon one—1562. This formed a perfect example of the _High Gait_ as it appeared to Queen Mary, excepting that the open booths below had been converted into close shops. The _fore-stairs_—that is, outside stairs ascending to the _first floor_ (technically so called), from which the women of Edinburgh reviled the hapless queen as she rode along the street after her surrender at Carberry—were unchanged in this little district.

The popular story regarding houses of this kind is that they took their origin in an inconvenience which was felt in having the Boroughmoor covered with wood, as it proved from that circumstance a harbour for robbers. To banish the robbers, it was necessary to extirpate the wood. To get this done, the magistrates granted leave to the citizens to project their house-fronts seven feet into the street, provided they should execute the work with timber cut from the Boroughmoor. Robert Fergusson follows up this story in a burlesque poem by relating how, consequently,

‘Edina’s mansions with lignarian art
Were piled and fronted. Like an ark she seemed
To lie on mountain’s top, with shapes replete,
Clean and unclean——
To Jove the Dryads prayed, nor prayed in vain,
For vengeance on her sons. At midnight drear
Black showers descend, and teeming myriads rise
Of bugs abhorrent’——

The only authentic information to be obtained on the point is presented by Maitland, when he tells us that the clearing of the Boroughmoor of timber took place in consequence of a charter from James IV. in 1508. He says nothing of robbers, but attributes the permission granted by the magistrates for the making of wooden projections merely to their desire of getting sale for their timber. After all, I am inclined to trace this fashion to taste. The wooden fronts appear to have originated in open galleries—an arrangement often spoken of in early writings. These, being closed up or formed into a range of windows, would produce the wooden-fronted house. It is remarkable that the wooden fronts do not in many instances bear the appearance of afterthoughts, as the stone structure within often shows such an arrangement of the fore wall as seems designed to connect the projecting part with the chambers within, or to give these chambers as much as possible of the borrowed light. At the same time, it is somewhat puzzling to find, in the closes below the buildings, gateways with hooks for hinges seven feet or so from the present street-front—an arrangement which does not appear necessary on the supposition that the houses were built designedly with a stone interior and a wooden projection.

In the Netherbow the street receives a contraction from the advance of the houses on the north side, thus closing a species of parallelogram, of which the Luckenbooths formed the upper extremity—the market-place of our ancient city. The uppermost of the prominent houses—having of course two fronts meeting in a right angle, one fronting to the line of street, the other looking up the High Street—is pointed to by tradition as the residence or manse of John Knox during his incumbency as minister of Edinburgh, from 1560 till (with few interruptions) his death in 1572. It is a picturesque building of three above-ground floors, constructed of substantial ashlar masonry, but on a somewhat small scale, and terminating in curious gables and masses of chimneys. A narrow door, right in the angle, gives access to a small room, lighted by one long window presented to the westward, and apparently the _hall_ of the mansion in former times. Over the window and door is this legend, in an unusually old kind of lettering:

LVFE·GOD·ABVFE·AL·AND·YI·NYCHTBOVR·[AS·]YI·SELF·

The word ‘as’ is obliterated. The words are, in modern English, simply the well-known scriptural command: ‘Love God above all, and thy neighbour as thyself.’ Perched upon the corner above the door is a small effigy of the Reformer, preaching in a pulpit, and pointing with his right hand to a stone above his head in that direction, which presents in rude sculpture the sun bursting from clouds, with the name of the Deity inscribed on his disc in three languages:

ΘΕΟΣ
DEUS
GOD

Dr M’Crie, in his _Life of John Knox_, states that the Reformer, on commencing duty in Edinburgh at the conclusion of the struggles with the queen-regent, ‘lodged in the house of David Forrest, a burgess of Edinburgh, from which he removed to the lodging which had belonged to Durie, Abbot of Dunfermline.’ The magistrates acted liberally towards their minister, giving him a salary of two hundred pounds Scottish money, and paying his house-rent for him, at the rate of fifteen merks yearly. In October 1561 they ordained the Dean of Guild, ‘with al diligence, to mak ane warm studye of dailles to the minister, Johne Knox, within his hous, aboue the hall of the same, with lyht and wyndokis thereunto, and all uther necessaris.’ This study is generally supposed to have been a very small wooden projection, of the kind described a few pages back, still seen on the front of the _first floor_. Close to it is a window in the angle of the building, from which Knox is said by tradition to have occasionally held forth to multitudes below.

The second floor, which is accessible by two narrow spiral stairs, one to the south, another to the west, contains a tolerably spacious room, with a ceiling ornamented by stucco mouldings, and a window presented to the westward. A partition has at one time divided this room from a narrow one towards the north, the ceiling of which is composed of the beams and flooring of the attic flat, all curiously painted with flower-work in an ancient taste. Two inferior rooms extend still farther to the northward. It is to be remarked that the wooden projection already spoken of extends up to this floor, so that there is here likewise a small room in front; it contains a fireplace, and a recess which might have been a cupboard or a library, besides two small windows. That this fireplace, this recess, and also the door by which the wooden chamber is entered from the decorated room should all be formed in the front wall of the house, and with a necessary relation to the wooden projection, strikes one as difficult to reconcile with the idea of that projection being an afterthought; the appearances rather indicate the whole having been formed at once, as parts of one design. The attic floor exhibits strong oaken beams, but the flooring is in bad order.

In the lower part of the house there is a small room, said by tradition to have been used in times of difficulty for the purpose of baptising children; there is also a well to supply the house with water, besides a secret stair, represented as communicating subterraneously with a neighbouring alley.