Chapter L: Of Session (2)

She was buried (1732) on the same day with the too-much-celebrated Colonel Charteris. At the funeral of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, in the year 1812, in the aisle of the church at Dalkeith, my informant (Sir Walter Scott) was shown an old man who had been at the funeral of both her grace and Colonel Charteris. He said that the day was dreadfully stormy, which all the world agreed was owing to the devil carrying off Charteris. The mob broke in upon the mourners who followed this personage to the grave, and threw cats, dogs, and a pack of cards upon the coffin; whereupon the gentlemen drew their swords, and cut away among the rioters. In the confusion one little old man was pushed into the grave; and the sextons, somewhat prompt in the discharge of their duty, began to shovel in the earth upon the quick and the dead. The grandfather of my informant (Dr Rutherford), who was one of the mourners, was much hurt in the affray; and my informant has heard his mother describe the terror of the family on his coming home with his clothes bloody and his sword broken.

As to pages—a custom existed among old ladies till a later day of keeping such attendants, rather superior to the little polybuttoned personages who are now so universal. It was not, however, to be expected that a pranksome youth would behave with consistent respect to an aged female of the stiff manners then prevalent. Accordingly, ridiculous circumstances took place. An old lady of the name of Plenderleith, of very stately aspect and grave carriage, used to walk to Leith by the Easter Road with her little foot-page behind her. For the whole way, the young rogue would be seen projecting burs at her dress, laughing immoderately, but silently, when one stuck. An old lady and her sequel of a page was very much like a tragedy followed by a farce. The keeping of the rascals in order at home used also to be a sad problem to a quiet old lady. The only expedient which Miss —— could hit upon to preserve her page from the corruption of the streets was, in her own phrase, to _lock up his breeks_, which she did almost every evening. The youth, being then only presentable at a window, had to content himself with such chat as he could indulge in with his companions and such mischief as he could execute from that loophole of retreat. So much for the parade of keeping pages.

CLAUDERO.

Edinburgh, which now smiles complacently upon the gravities of her reviews and the flippancies of her magazines, formerly laughed outright at the coarse lampoons of her favourite poet and pamphleteer, Claudero. The distinct publications of this witty and eccentric personage (whose real name was James Wilson) are well known to collectors; and his occasional pieces must be fresh in the remembrance of those who, forty or fifty years ago (1824), were in the habit of perusing the _Scots Magazine_, amidst the general gravity of which they appeared, like the bright and giddy eyes of a satyr, staring through the sere leaves of a sober forest scene.

Claudero was a native of Cumbernauld, in Dumbartonshire, and at an early period of his life showed such marks of a mischief-loving disposition as procured him general odium. The occasion of his lameness was a pebble thrown from a tree at the minister, who, having been previously exasperated by his tricks, chased him to the end of a closed lane, and with his cane inflicted such personal chastisement as rendered him a cripple, and a hater of the clergy, for the rest of his life.

In Edinburgh, where he lived for upwards of thirty years previous to his death in 1789, his livelihood was at first ostensibly gained by keeping a little school, latterly by celebrating what were called _half-mark marriages_—a business resembling that of the Gretna blacksmith. It is said that he, who made himself the terror of so many by his wit, was in his turn held in fear by his wife, who was as complete a shrew as ever fell to the lot of poet or philosopher.

He was a satirist by profession; and when any person wished to have a squib played off upon his neighbours, he had nothing to do but call upon Claudero, who, for half a crown, would produce the desired effusion, composed, and copied off in a fair hand, in a given time. He liked this species of employment better than writing upon speculation, the profit being more certain and immediate. When in want of money, it was his custom to write a sly satire on some opulent public personage, upon whom he called with it, desiring to have his opinion of the work, and his countenance in favour of a subscription for its publication. The object of his ridicule, conscious-struck by his own portrait, would wince and be civil, advise him to give up thoughts of publishing so hasty a production, and conclude by offering a guinea or two to keep the poet alive till better times should come round. At that time there lived in Edinburgh a number of rich old men who had made fortunes in questionable ways abroad, and whose characters, labouring under strange suspicions, were wonderfully susceptible of Claudero’s satire. These the wag used to bleed profusely and frequently by working upon their fears of public notice.

In 1766 appeared _Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, by Claudero, Son of Nimrod the Mighty Hunter, &c., &c._, opening with this preface: ‘Christian Reader—The following miscellany is published at the desire of many gentlemen, who have all been my very good friends; if there be anything in it amusing or entertaining, I shall be very glad I have contributed to your diversion, and will laugh as heartily at your money as you do at my works. Several of my pieces may need explanation; but I am too cunning for that: what is not understood, like Presbyterian preaching, will at least be admired. I am regardless of critics; perhaps some of my lines want a foot; but then, if the critic look sharp out, he will find that loss sufficiently supplied in other places, where they have a foot too much: and besides, men’s works generally resemble themselves; if the poems are lame, so is the author—CLAUDERO.’

The most remarkable poems in this volume are: ‘The Echo of the Royal Porch of the Palace of Holyrood House, which fell under Military Execution, anno 1753;’ ‘The Last Speech and Dying Words of the Cross, which was Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered on Monday the 15th of March 1756, for the horrid crime of being an Incumbrance to the Street;’ ‘Scotland in Tears for the horrid Treatment of the Kings’ Sepulchres;’ ‘An Elegy on the much-lamented Death of Quaker Erskine;’[255] ‘A Sermon on the Condemnation of the Netherbow;’ ‘Humphry Colquhoun’s Last Farewell,’ &c. Claudero seems to have been the only man of his time who remonstrated against the destruction of the venerable edifices then removed from the streets which they ornamented, to the disappointment and indignation of all future antiquaries. There is much wit in his sermon upon the destruction of the Netherbow. ‘What was too hard,’ he says, ‘for the great ones of the earth, yea, even queens, to effect, is now accomplished. No patriot duke opposeth the scheme, as did the great Argyll in the grand senate of our nation; therefore the project shall go into execution, and down shall Edina’s lofty porches be hurled with a vengeance. Streets shall be extended to the east, regular and beautiful, as far as the Frigate Whins; and Portobello[256] shall be a lodge for the captors of tea and brandy. The city shall be joined to Leith on the north, and a procession of wise masons shall there lay the foundations of a spacious harbour. Pequin or Nanquin shall not be able to compare with Edinburgh for magnificence. Our city shall be the greatest wonder of the world, and the fame of its glory shall reach the distant ends of the earth.[257] But lament, O thou descendant of the royal Dane, and chief of the tribe of Wilson; for thy shop, contiguous to the porch, shall be dashed to pieces, and its place will know thee no more! No more shall the melodious voice of the loyalist Grant[258] be heard in the morning, nor shall he any more shake the bending wand towards the triumphal arch. Let all who angle in deep waters lament, for Tom had not his equal. The Netherbow Coffee-house of the loyal Smeiton can now no longer enjoy its ancient name with propriety; and from henceforth _The Revolution Coffee-house_ shall its name be called. Our gates must be extended wide for accommodating the gilded chariots, which, from the luxury of the age, are become numerous. With an impetuous career, they jostle against one another in our streets, and the unwary foot-passenger is in danger of being crushed to pieces. The loaded cart itself cannot withstand their fury, and the hideous yells of _Coal Johnie_ resound through the vaulted sky. The sour-milk barrels are overturned, and deluges of Corstorphin cream run down our strands, while the poor unhappy milkmaid wrings her hands with sorrow.’ To the sermon are appended the ‘Last Speech and Dying Words of the Netherbow,’ in which the following laughable declaration occurs: ‘May my clock be struck dumb in the other world, if I lie in this! and may MACK, the reformer of Edina’s lofty spires, never bestride my weathercock on high, if I deviate from truth in these my last words! Though my fabric shall be levelled with the dust of the earth, yet I fall in hope that my weathercock shall be exalted on some more modern dome, where it shall shine like the burnished gold, reflecting the rays of the sun to the eye of ages unborn. The daring Mack shall yet look down from my cock, high in the airy region, to the brandy-shops below, where large graybeards shall appear to him no bigger than mutchkin-bottles, and mutchkin-bottles shall be in his sight like the spark of a diamond.’ One of Claudero’s versified compositions, ‘Humphry Colquhoun’s Farewell,’ is remarkable as a kind of coarse prototype of the beautiful lyric entitled ‘Mary,’ sung in _The Pirate_ by Claud Halcro. One wonders to find the genius of Scott refining upon such materials:

‘Farewell to Auld Reekie,
Farewell to lewd Kate,
Farewell to each ——,
And farewell to cursed debt;
With light heart and thin breeches,
Humph crosses the main;
All worn out to stitches,
He’ll ne’er come again.

Farewell to old Dido,
Who sold him good ale;
Her charms, like her drink,
For poor Humph were too stale;
Though closely she urged him
To marry and stay,
Her Trojan, quite cloyed,
From her sailed away.

Farewell to James Campbell,
Who played many tricks;
Humph’s ghost and Lochmoidart’s[259]
Will chase him to Styx;
Where in Charon’s wherry
He’ll be ferried o’er
To Pluto’s dominions,
’Mongst rascals great store.

Farewell, pot-companions,
Farewell, all good fellows;
Farewell to my anvil,
Files, pliers, and bellows;
Sails, fly to Jamaica,
Where I mean long to dwell,
Change manners with climate—
Dear Drummond, farewell.’

It is not unworthy of notice that the publication of Dr Blair’s _Lectures on Rhetoric and the Belles-lettres_ was hastened by Claudero, who, having procured notes taken by some of the students, avowed an intention of giving these to the world. The reverend author states in his preface that he was induced to publish the lectures in consequence of some surreptitious and incorrect copies finding their way to the public; but it has not hitherto been told that this doggerel-monger was the person chiefly concerned in bringing about that result.

Claudero occasionally dealt in whitewash as well as blackball, and sometimes wrote regular panegyrics. An address of this kind to a _writer_ named Walter Fergusson, who built St James’s Square, concludes with a strange association of ideas:

‘May Pentland Hills pour forth their springs,
To water all thy square!
May Fergussons still bless the place,
Both gay and debonnair!’

When the said square was in progress, however, the water seemed in no hurry to obey the bard’s invocation; and an attempt was made to procure this useful element by sinking wells for it, despite the elevation of the ground. Mr Walter Scott, W.S., happened one day to pass when Captain Fergusson of the Royal Navy—a good officer, but a sort of Commodore Trunnion in his manners—was sinking a well of vast depth. Upon Mr Scott expressing a doubt if water could be got there, ‘I will get it,’ quoth the captain, ‘though I sink to hell for it!’ ‘A bad place for water,’ was the dry remark of the doubter.

FOOTNOTES

[255] A noted brewer, much given to preaching. Of him Claudero says:

‘Our souls with gospel he did cheer,
Our bodies, too, with ale and beer;
_Gratis_ he gospel got and gave away;
For ale and beer he only made us pay.’

[256] This thriving parliamentary burgh originated in a cottage built, and long inhabited, by a retired seaman of Admiral Vernon’s squadron, who gave it this name in commemoration of the triumph which his commander there gained over the Spaniards in 1739. There must have been various houses at the spot in 1753, when we find one ‘George Hamilton, in Portobello,’ advertising in the _Edinburgh Courant_ that he would give a reward of three pounds to any one who should discover the author of a scandalous report, which represented him as harbouring robbers in his house. The waste upon which Portobello is now partly founded was dreadfully infested at this time with robbers, and resorted to by smugglers; see _Courant_. [Portobello, while remaining one of the ‘Leith burghs’ for parliamentary purposes, was municipally incorporated with Edinburgh in 1896. Claudero’s ‘Frigate Whins’ are better known as the ‘Figgate Whins.’]

[257] Claudero could have little serious expectation that several of these predictions would come to pass before he had been forty years in his grave.

[258] A celebrated and much-esteemed fishing-rod maker, who afterwards flourished in the old wooden _land_ at the head of Blackfriars Wynd. He survived to recent times, and was distinguished for his adherence to the cocked hat, wrist ruffles, and buckles of his youth. He was a short, neat man, very well bred, a great angler, intimate with the great, a Jacobite, and lived to near a century. He had fished in almost every trouting stream in the three kingdoms, and was seen skating on Lochend at the age of eighty-five.

[259] This seems to bear some reference to the seizure of young Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart at Lesmahagow in 1745.

QUEENSBERRY HOUSE.

In the Canongate, on the south side, is a large, gloomy building, enclosed in a court, and now used as a refuge for destitute persons. This was formerly the town mansion of the Dukes of Queensberry, and a scene, of course, of stately life and high political affairs. It was built by the first duke, the willing minister of the last two Stuarts—he who also built Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, which he never slept in but one night, and with regard to which it is told that he left the accounts for the building tied up with this inscription: ‘The deil pyke out his een that looks herein!’ Duke William was a noted money-maker and land-acquirer. No little laird of his neighbourhood had any chance with him for the retention of his family property. He was something still worse in the eyes of the common people—a _persecutor_; that is, one siding against the Presbyterian cause. There is a story in one of their favourite books of his having died of the _morbus pediculosus_, by way of a judgment upon him for his wickedness. In reality, he died of some ordinary fever. It is also stated, from the same authority, that about the time when his grace died, a Scotch skipper, being in Sicily, saw one day a coach-and-six driving to Mount Etna, while a diabolic voice exclaimed: ‘Open to the Duke of Drumlanrig!’—‘which proves, by the way,’ says Mr Sharpe, ‘that the devil’s porter is no herald. In fact,’ adds this acute critic, ‘the legend is borrowed from the story of Antonio the Rich, in George Sandys’s _Travels_.’[260]

It appears, from family letters, that the first duchess often resided in the Canongate mansion, while her husband occupied Sanquhar Castle. The lady was unfortunately given to drink, and there is a letter of hers in which she pathetically describes her situation to a country friend, left alone in Queensberry House with only a few bottles of wine, one of which, having been drawn, had turned out sour. Sour wine being prejudicial to her health, it was fearful to think of what might prove the quality of the remaining bottles.

The son of this couple, James, second duke, must ever be memorable as the main instrument in carrying through the Union. His character has been variously depicted. By Defoe, in his _History of the Union_, it is liberally panegyrised. ‘I think I have,’ says he, ‘given demonstrations to the world that I will flatter no man.’ Yet he could not refrain from extolling the ‘prudence, calmness, and temper’ which the duke showed during that difficult crisis. Unfortunately the author of _Robinson Crusoe_, though not a flatterer, could not insure himself against the usual prepossessions of a partisan. Boldness the duke must certainly have possessed, for during the ferments attending the parliamentary proceedings on that occasion, he continued daily to drive between his lodgings in Holyrood and the Parliament House, notwithstanding several intimations that his life was threatened. His grace’s eldest son, James, was an idiot of the most unhappy sort—rabid and gluttonous, and early grew to an immense height, which is testified by his coffin in the family vault at Durisdeer, still to be seen, of great length and unornamented with the heraldic follies which bedizen the violated remains of his relatives. A tale of mystery and horror is preserved by tradition respecting this monstrous being. While the family resided in Edinburgh, he was always kept confined in a ground apartment, in the western wing of the house, upon the windows of which, till within these few years, the boards still remained by which the dreadful receptacle was darkened to prevent the idiot from looking out or being seen. On the day the Union was passed, all Edinburgh crowded to the Parliament Close to await the issue of the debate, and to mob the chief promoters of the detested measure on their leaving the House. The whole household of the commissioner went _en masse_, with perhaps a somewhat different object, and among the rest was the man whose duty it was to watch and attend Lord Drumlanrig. Two members of the family alone were left behind—the madman himself, and a little kitchen-boy who turned the spit. The insane being, hearing everything unusually still around, the house being deserted, and the Canongate like a city of the dead, and observing his keeper to be absent, broke loose from his confinement, and roamed wildly through the house. It is supposed that the savoury odour of the preparations for dinner led him to the kitchen, where he found the little turnspit quietly seated by the fire. He seized the boy, killed him, took the meat from the fire, and spitted the body of his victim, which he half-roasted, and was found devouring when the duke, with his domestics, returned from his triumph. The idiot survived his father many years, though he did not succeed him upon his death in 1711, when the titles devolved upon Charles, the younger brother. He is known to have died in England. This horrid act of his child was, according to the common sort of people, the judgment of God upon him for his wicked concern in the Union—the greatest blessing, as it has happened, that ever was conferred upon Scotland by any statesman.

Charles, third Duke of Queensberry, who was born in Queensberry House, resided occasionally in it when he visited Scotland; but as he was much engaged in attending the court during the earlier part of his life, his stay here was seldom of long continuance. After his grace and the duchess embroiled themselves with the court (1729), on account of the support which they gave to the poet Gay, they came to Scotland, and resided for some time here. The author of the _Beggar’s Opera_ accompanied them, and remained about a month, part of which was given to Dumfriesshire. Tradition in Edinburgh used to point out an attic in an old house opposite to Queensberry House, where, as an appropriate abode for a poet, his patrons are said to have stowed him. It was said he wrote the _Beggar’s Opera_ there—an entirely gratuitous assumption. In the progress of the history of his writings, nothing of consequence occurs at this time. He had finished the second part of the opera a short while before. After his return to the south, he is found engaged in ‘new writing a damned play, which he wrote several years before, called _The Wife of Bath_; a task which he accomplished while living with the Duke of Queensberry in Oxfordshire, during the ensuing months of August, September, and October.’[261] It is known, however, that while in Edinburgh, he haunted the shop of Allan Ramsay, in the Luckenbooths—the flat above that well-remembered and classical shop so long kept by Mr Creech, from which issued the _Mirror_, _Lounger_, and other works of name, and where for a long course of years all the _literati_ of Edinburgh used to assemble every day, like merchants at an Exchange. Here Ramsay amused Gay by pointing out to him the chief public characters of the city as they met in the forenoon at the Cross. Here, too, Gay read the _Gentle Shepherd_, and studied the Scottish language, so that upon his return to England he was enabled to make Pope appreciate the beauties of that delightful pastoral. He is said also to have spent some of his time with the sons of mirth and humour in an alehouse opposite to Queensberry House, kept by one Janet Hall. _Jenny Ha’s_, as the place was called, was a noted house for drinking claret from the butt within the recollection of old gentlemen living in my time.

While Gay was at Drumlanrig, he employed himself in picking out a great number of the best books from the library, which were sent to England, whether for his own use or the duke’s is not known.

Duchess Catherine was a most extraordinary lady, eccentric to a degree undoubtedly bordering on madness. Her beauty has been celebrated by Pope not in very elegant terms:

‘Since Queensberry to strip there’s no compelling,
’Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen.’

Prior had, at an early period of her life, depainted her irrepressible temper:

‘Thus Kitty, beautiful and young,
And wild as colt untamed,
Bespoke the fair from whom she sprang,
By little rage inflamed;
Inflamed with rage at sad restraint,
Which wise mamma ordained;
And sorely vexed to play the saint,
Whilst wit and beauty reigned.

“Shall I thumb holy books, confined
With Abigails forsaken?
Kitty’s for other things designed,
Or I am much mistaken.
Must Lady Jenny frisk about,
And visit with her cousins?
At balls must she make all the rout,
And bring home hearts by dozens?

What has she better, pray, than I?
What hidden charms to boast,
That all mankind for her should die,
Whilst I am scarce a toast?
Dearest mamma, for once let me,
Unchained, my fortune try;
I’ll have my earl as well as she,
Or know the reason why.

I’ll soon with Jenny’s pride quit score,
Make all her lovers fall;
They’ll grieve I was not loosed before,
She, I was loosed at all.”
Fondness prevailed, mamma gave way;
Kitty, at heart’s desire,
Obtained the chariot for a day,
And set the world on fire!’

It is an undoubted fact that, before her marriage, she had been confined in a _strait-jacket_ on account of mental derangement; and her conduct in married life was frequently such as to entitle her to a repetition of the same treatment. She was, in reality, at all times to a certain extent insane, though the politeness of fashionable society and the flattery of her poetical friends seem to have succeeded in passing off her extravagances as owing to an agreeable freedom of carriage and vivacity of mind. Her brother was as clever and as mad as herself, and used to amuse himself by hiding a book in his library, and hunting for it after he had forgot where it was deposited.

Her grace was no admirer of Scottish manners. One of their habits she particularly detested—the custom of eating off the end of a knife. When people dined with her at Drumlanrig, and began to lift their food in this manner, she used to scream out and beseech them not to cut their throats; and then she would confound the offending persons by sending them a silver spoon or fork upon a salver.[262]

When in Scotland her grace always dressed herself in the garb of a peasant-girl. Her object seems to have been to ridicule and put out of countenance the stately dresses and demeanour of the Scottish gentlewomen who visited her. One evening some country ladies paid her a visit, dressed in their best brocades, as for some state occasion. Her grace proposed a walk, and they were of course under the necessity of trooping off, to the utter discomfiture of their starched-up frills and flounces. Her grace at last pretended to be tired, sat down upon the dirtiest dunghill she could find, at the end of a farmhouse, and saying, ‘Pray, ladies, be seated,’ invited her poor draggled companions to plant themselves round about her. They stood so much in awe of her that they durst not refuse; and of course her grace had the satisfaction of afterwards laughing at the destruction of their silks.

When she went out to an evening entertainment, and found a tea-equipage paraded which she thought too fine for the rank of the owner, she would contrive to overset the table and break the china. The forced politeness of her hosts on such occasions, and the assurances which they made her grace that no harm was done, &c., delighted her exceedingly.

Her custom of dressing like a _paysanne_ once occasioned her grace a disagreeable adventure at a review. On her attempting to approach the duke, the guard, not knowing her rank or relation to him, pushed her rudely back. This threw her into such a passion that she could not be appeased till his grace assured her that the men had all been soundly flogged for their insolence.

An anecdote scarcely less laughable is told of her grace as occurring at court, where she carried to the same extreme her attachment to plain-dealing and plain-dressing. An edict had been issued forbidding the ladies to appear at the drawing-room in aprons. This was disregarded by the duchess, whose rustic costume would not have been complete without that piece of dress. On approaching the door she was stopped by the lord in waiting, who told her that he could not possibly give her grace admission in that guise, when she, without a moment’s hesitation, stripped off her apron, threw it in his lordship’s face, and walked on, in her brown gown and petticoat, into the brilliant circle!

Her caprices were endless. At one time when a ball had been announced at Drumlanrig, after the company were all assembled her grace took a headache, declared that she could bear no noise, and sat in a chair in the dancing-room, uttering a thousand peevish complaints. Lord Drumlanrig, who understood her humour, said: ‘Madam, I know how to cure you;’ and taking hold of her immense elbow-chair, which moved on castors, rolled her several times backwards and forwards across the saloon, till she began to laugh heartily—after which the festivities were allowed to commence.

The duchess certainly, both in her conversation and letters, displayed a great degree of wit and quickness of mind. Yet nobody perhaps, saving Gay, ever loved her. She seems to have been one of those beings who are too much feared, admired, or envied, to be loved.

The duke, on the contrary, who was a man of ordinary mind, had the affection and esteem of all. His temper and dispositions were sweet and amiable in the extreme. His benevolence, extending beyond his fellow-creatures, was exercised even upon his old horses, none of which he would ever permit to be killed or sold. He allowed the veterans of his stud free range in some parks near Drumlanrig, where, retired from active life, they got leave to die decent and natural deaths. Upon his grace’s decease, however, in 1778, these luckless pensioners were all put up to sale by his heartless successor; and it was a painful sight to see the feeble and pampered animals forced by their new masters to drag carts, &c., till they broke down and died on the roads and in the ditches.

Duke Charles’s eldest son, Lord Drumlanrig, was altogether mad. He had contracted himself to one lady when he married another. The lady who became his wife was a daughter of the Earl of Hopetoun, and a most amiable woman. He loved her tenderly, as she deserved; but owing to the unfortunate contract which he had engaged in, they were never happy. They were often observed in the beautiful pleasure-grounds at Drumlanrig weeping bitterly together. These hapless circumstances had such a fatal effect upon him that during a journey to London in 1754 he rode on before the coach in which the duchess travelled, and shot himself with one of his own pistols. It was given out that the pistol had gone off by chance.

There is just one other tradition of Drumlanrig to be noticed. The castle, being a very large and roomy mansion, had of course a ghost, said to be the spirit of a Lady Anne Douglas. This unhappy phantom used to walk about the house, terrifying everybody, with her head in one hand and her fan in the other—are we to suppose, fanning her face?

On the death of the Good Duke, as he was called, in 1778, the title and estates devolved on his cousin, the Earl of March, so well remembered as a sporting character and debauchee of the old school by the name of _Old Q._ In his time Queensberry House was occupied by other persons, for he had little inclination to spend his time in Scotland. And this brings to mind an anecdote highly illustrative of the wretchedness of such a life as his. When professing, towards the close of his days, to be eaten up with ennui, and incapable of any longer taking an interest in anything, it was suggested that he might go down to his Scotch estates and live among his tenantry. ‘I’ve tried that,’ said the _blasé_ aristocrat; ‘it is not amusing.’ In 1801 he caused Queensberry House to be stripped of its ornaments and sold. With fifty-eight fire-rooms, and a gallery seventy feet long, besides a garden, it was offered at the surprisingly low upset price of £900. The Government purchased it for a barrack. Thus has passed away the [home of the] Douglas of Queensberry from its old place in Edinburgh, where doubtless the money-making duke thought it would stand for ever.

FOOTNOTES

[260] Introduction to Law’s _Memorials_, p. lxxx.

[261] See letters of Gay, Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot, in Scott’s edition of Swift.

[262] In a letter from Gay to Swift, dated February 15, 1727-8, we find the subject illustrated as follows: ‘As to my favours from great men, I am in the same state you left me; but I am a great deal happier, as I have expectations. The Duchess of Queensberry has signalised her friendship to me upon this occasion [the bringing out of the _Beggar’s Opera_] in such a conspicuous manner, that I hope (for her sake) you will take care to put your fork to all its proper uses, and suffer nobody for the future to put their knives in their mouth.’

In the _P.S._ to a letter from Gay to Swift, dated Middleton Stoney, November 9, 1729, Gay says: ‘To the lady I live with I owe my life and fortune. Think of her with respect—value and esteem her as I do—and never more despise a fork with three prongs. I wish, too, you would not eat from the point of your knife. She has so much goodness, virtue, and generosity, that if you knew her, you would have a pleasure in obeying her as I do. She often wishes she had known you.’

TENNIS COURT.

EARLY THEATRICALS—THE CANONGATE THEATRE—DIGGES AND MRS
BELLAMY—A THEATRICAL RIOT.

‘Just without the Water-gate,’ says Maitland, ‘on the eastern side of the street, was the Royal Tennis Court, anciently called the Catchpel [from Cache, a game since called _Fives_, and a favourite amusement in Scotland so early as the reign of James IV.].’ The house—a long, narrow building with a court—was burned down in modern times, and rebuilt for workshops. Yet the place continues to possess some interest as connected with the early and obscure history of the stage in Scotland, not to speak of the tennis itself, which was a fashionable amusement in Scotland in the seventeenth century, and here played by the Duke of York, Law the financial schemer, and other remarkable persons.

The first known appearance of the post-reformation theatre in Edinburgh was in the reign of King James VI., when several companies came from London, chiefly for the amusement of the Court, including one to which Shakespeare is known to have belonged, though his personal attendance cannot be substantiated. There was no such thing, probably, as a play acted in Edinburgh from the departure of James in 1603 till the arrival of his grandson, the Duke of York, in 1680.

Threatened by the Whig party in the House of Commons with an exclusion from the throne of England on account of his adherence to popery, this prince made use of his exile in Scotland to conciliate the nobles, and attach them to his person. His beautiful young wife, Mary of Modena, and his second daughter, the _Lady Anne_, assisted by giving parties at the palace—where, by the bye, tea was now first introduced into Scotland. Easy and obliging in their manners, these ladies revived the entertainment of the masque, and took parts themselves in the performance. At length, for his own amusement and that of his friends, James had some of his own company of players brought down to Holyrood and established in a little theatre, which was fitted up in the Tennis Court. On this occasion the remainder of the company playing at Oxford apologised for the diminution of their strength in the following lines written by Dryden:

‘Discord and plots, which have undone our age,
With the same ruin have o’erwhelmed the stage.
Our house has suffered in the common woe;
We have been troubled with Scots rebels too.
Our brethren have from Thames to Tweed departed,
And of our sisters, all the kinder-hearted
To Edinburgh gone, or coached or carted.
With bonny _Blew cap_ there they act all night,
For Scotch half-crowns—in English threepence hight.
One nymph to whom fat Sir John Falstaff’s lean,
There, with her single person, fills the scene.
Another, with long use and age decayed,
Died here old woman, and there rose a maid.
Our trusty door-keeper, of former time,
There struts and swaggers in heroic rhyme.
Tack but a copper lace to drugget suit,
And there’s a hero made without dispute;
And that which was a capon’s tail before,
Becomes a plume for Indian emperor.
But all his subjects, to express the care
Of imitation, go like Indians bare.
Laced linen there would be a dangerous thing,
It might perhaps a new rebellion bring;
The Scot who wore it would be chosen king.’

We learn from Fountainhall’s _Diary_ that on the celebration of the king’s birthday, 1681, the duke honoured the magistrates of the city with his presence in the theatre—namely, this theatre in the Tennis Court.

No further glimpse of our city’s theatrical history is obtained till 1705, when we find a Mr Abel announcing a concert in the Tennis Court, under the patronage of the Duke of Argyll, then acting as the queen’s commissioner to the Parliament. It is probable that the concert was only a cloak to some theatrical representation. This is the more likely from a tradition already mentioned of some old members of the Spendthrift Club who once frequented the tavern of a Mrs Hamilton, whose husband recollected having attended the theatre in the Tennis Court at Holyrood House, when the play was _The Spanish Friar_, and many members of the Union Parliament were present in the house.

Theatrical amusements appear to have been continued at the Tennis Court in the year 1710, if we are to place any reliance upon the following anecdote: When Mrs Siddons came to Edinburgh in 1784, the late Mr Alexander Campbell, author of the _History of Scottish Poetry_, asked Miss Pitcairn, daughter of Dr Pitcairn, to accompany him to one of the representations. The old lady refused, saying with coquettish vivacity: ‘Laddie, wad ye ha’e an auld lass like me to be running after the play-actors—me that hasna been at a theatre since I gaed wi’ papa to the Canongate in the year _ten_?’ The theatre was in those days encouraged chiefly by such Jacobites as Dr Pitcairn. It was denounced by the clergy as a hotbed of vice and profanity.

After this we hear no more of the theatre in the Tennis Court. The next place where the drama set up its head was in a house in Carrubber’s Close, under the management of an Italian lady styled Signora Violante, who paid two visits to Edinburgh. After her came, in 1726, one Tony Alston, who set up his scenes in the same house, and whose first prologue was written by Ramsay: it may be found in the works of that poet. In 1727 the Society of High Constables, of which Ramsay was then a member, endeavoured to ‘suppress the abominable stage-plays lately set up by Anthony Alston.’[263] Mr Alston played for a season or two, under the fulminations of the clergy and a prosecution on their part in the Court of Session.

CANONGATE THEATRE.

From a period subsequent to 1727 till after the year 1753, the Tailors’ Hall in the Cowgate[264] was used as a theatre by itinerating companies, who met with some success notwithstanding the incessant hostility of the clergy.[265] It was a house which in theatrical phrase, could hold from £40 to £45. A split in the company here concerned led to the erection, in 1746-7, of a theatre at the bottom of a close in the Canongate, nearly opposite to the head of New Street. This house, capable of holding about £70—the boxes being half-a-crown and pit one and sixpence—was for several years the scene of good acting under Lee, Digges, Mrs Bellamy, and Mrs Ward. We learn from Henry Mackenzie that the tragedy of _Douglas_, which first appeared here in 1756, was most respectably acted—the two ladies above mentioned playing respectively Young Norval and Lady Randolph.[266] The personal elegance of Digges—understood to be the natural son of a man of rank—and the beauty of Mrs Bellamy were a theme of interest amongst old people fifty years ago; but their scandalous life was of course regarded with horror by the mass of respectable society. They lived in a small country-house at Bonnington, between Edinburgh and Leith. It is remembered that Mrs Bellamy was extremely fond of singing-birds, and kept many about her. When emigrating to Glasgow, she had her feathered favourites carried by a porter all the way that they might not suffer from the jolting of a carriage. Scotch people wondered to hear of ten guineas being expended on this occasion. Persons under the social ban for their irregular lives often win the love of individuals by their benevolence and sweetness of disposition—qualities, it is remarked, not unlikely to have been partly concerned in their first trespasses. This was the case with Mrs Bellamy. Her waiting-maid, Annie Waterstone, who is mentioned in her _Memoirs_, lived many years after in Edinburgh, and continued to the last to adore the memory of her mistress. Nay, she was, from this cause, a zealous friend of all kinds of players, and never would allow a slighting remark upon them to pass unreproved. It was curious to find in a poor old Scotchwoman of the humbler class such a sympathy with the follies and eccentricities of the children of Thespis.

While under the temporary management of two Edinburgh citizens extremely ill-qualified for the charge—one of them, by the bye, a Mr David Beatt, who had read the rebel proclamations from the Cross in 1745—a sad accident befell the Canongate playhouse. Dissensions of a dire kind had broken out in the company. The public, as usual, was divided between them. Two classes of persons—the gentlemen of the bar and the students of the university[267]—were especially zealous as partisans. Things were at that pass when a trivial incident will precipitate them to the most fearful conclusion. One night, when _Hamlet_ was the play, a riot took place of so desperate a description that at length the house was set on fire. It being now necessary for the authorities to interfere, the Town-guard was called forth, and marched to the scene of disturbance; but though many of that veteran corps had faced the worst at Blenheim and Dettingen, they felt it as a totally different thing to be brought to action in a place which they regarded as a peculiar domain of the Father of Evil. When ordered, therefore, by their commander to advance into the house and across the stage, the poor fellows fairly stopped short amidst the scenes, the glaring colours of which at once surprised and terrified them. Indignant at their pusillanimity, the bold captain seized a musket, and placing himself in an attitude equal to anything that had ever appeared on those boards, exclaimed: ‘Now, my lads, follow _me_!’ But just at the moment that he was going to rush on and charge the rioters, a trap-door on which he trod gave way, and in an instant the heroic leader had sunk out of sight, as if by magic. This was too much for the excited nerves of the guard; they immediately vacated the house, leaving the devil to make his own of it; and accordingly it was completely destroyed. It is added that when the captain by-and-by reappeared, they received him in the quality of a gentleman from the other world; nor could they all at once be undeceived, even when he cursed them in vigorous Gaelic for a pack of cowardly scoundrels.

The Canongate theatre revived for a short time, and had the honour to be the first house in our city in which the drama was acted with a license. It was opened with this privilege by Mr Ross on the 9th December 1767, when the play was _The Earl of Essex_, and a general prologue was spoken, the composition of James Boswell. Soon after, being deserted for the present building in the New Town,[268] it fell into ruin; in which state it formed the subject of a mock elegy to the muse of Robert Fergusson. The reader will perhaps be amused with the following extract from that poem:

‘Can I contemplate on those dreary scenes
Of mouldering desolation, and forbid
The voice elegiac, and the falling tear!
No more from box to box the basket, piled
With oranges as radiant as the spheres,
Shall with their luscious virtues charm the sense
Of taste or smell. No more the gaudy beau,
With handkerchief in lavender well drenched,
Or bergamot, or [in] rose-waters pure,
With flavoriferous sweets shall chase away
The pestilential fumes of vulgar cits,
Who, in impatience for the curtain’s rise,
Amused the lingering moments, and applied
Thirst-quenching porter to their parched lips.
Alas! how sadly altered is the scene!
For lo! those sacred walls, that late were brushed
By rustling silks and waving capuchines,
Are now become the sport of wrinkled Time!
Those walls that late have echoed to the voice
Of stern King Richard, to the seat transformed
Of crawling spiders and detested moths,
Who in the lonely crevices reside,
Or gender in the beams, that have upheld
Gods, demigods, and all the joyous crew
Of thunderers in the galleries above.’

FOOTNOTES

[263] Record of that Society.

[264] The date over the exterior gateway of the Tailors’ Hall, towards the Cowgate, is 1644; but it is ascertained that the corporation had its hall at this place at an earlier period. An assembly of between two and three hundred clergymen was held here on Tuesday the 27th of February 1638 in order to consider the National Covenant, which was presented to the public next day in the Greyfriars Church. We are informed by the Earl of Rothes, in his _Relations_ of the transactions of this period, in which he bore so distinguished a part, that some few objected to certain points in it; but being taken aside into the garden attached to this hall, and there lectured on the necessity of mutual concession for the sake of the general cause, they were soon brought to give their entire assent.

[265] The announcements of entertainments given at this fashionable place of amusement in the eighteenth century make amusing reading to-day. ‘February 17, 1743. We hear that on Monday 21st instant, at the Tailors’ Hall, Cowgate, at the desire of several ladies of distinction, will be performed a concert of vocal and instrumental music. After which will be given gratis _Richard the Third_, containing several historical passages. To which will be added gratis “The Mock Lawyer.” Tickets for the Concert (on which _are_ [sic] printed a new device called Apology and Evasion) to be had at the Exchange and John’s Coffee-houses, and at Mr Este’s lodgings at Mr Monro’s, musician in the Cowgate, near Tailors’ Hall. As Mrs Este’s present condition will not admit a personal application, she hopes the ladies notwithstanding will grace her concert.’

[266] Among the audience on the first night of the performance of _Douglas_ were the two daughters of John and Lady Susan Renton, one of whom, Eleanor, was the mother of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, to whom the author in his ‘Introductory Notice’ expresses his indebtedness for assistance on the first appearance of this work. And it was for attending one of the performances that the minister of Liberton Church brought himself under sentence of six weeks’ suspension by the Presbytery of Edinburgh—a sentence modified in consideration of his plea that though he attended the play, ‘he concealed himself as well as he could to avoid giving offence.’

[267] Maitland, in his _History of Edinburgh_, 1753, says that the encouragement given to the diversions at the house ‘is so very great, ’tis to be feared it will terminate in the _destruction of the university_. Such diversions,’ he adds, ‘are noways becoming a seat of the Muses.’

[268] The Theatre Royal in Shakespeare Square, where the General Post Office now stands.

MARIONVILLE—STORY OF CAPTAIN MACRAE.

Between the eastern suburbs of Edinburgh and the village of Restalrig stands a solitary house named Marionville, enclosed in a shrubbery of no great extent, surrounded by high walls. Whether it be that the place has become dismal in consequence of the rise of a noxious fen in its neighbourhood, or that the tale connected with it acts upon the imagination, I cannot pretend to decide, but unquestionably there is about the house an air of depression and melancholy such as could scarcely fail to strike the most unobservant passenger. Yet, in 1790, this mansion was the abode of a gay and fashionable family, who, amongst other amusements, indulged in that of private theatricals, and in this line were so highly successful that admission to the Marionville theatre became a privilege for which the highest in the land would contend. Mr Macrae, the head of this family, was a man of good fortune, being the proprietor of an estate in Dumfriesshire, and also of good connections—the Earl of Glencairn, whom Burns has so much celebrated, being his cousin, while by his mother he was nearly related to Viscount Fermoy and the celebrated Sir Boyle Roche. He had been for some years retired from the Irish Carabiniers, and being still in the prime of life, he was thinking of again entering the army, when the incident which I am about to relate took place. He was a man of gentlemanlike accomplishments and manners, of a generous and friendly disposition, but marked by a keen and imperious sense of the deference due to a gentleman, and a heat of temper which was apt to make him commit actions of which he afterwards bitterly repented. After the unfortunate affair which ended his career in Scotland, the public, who never make nice distinctions as to the character of individuals, adopted the idea that he was as inhumane as rash, and he was reported to be an experienced duellist. But here he was greatly misrepresented. Mr Macrae would have shrunk from a deliberate act of cruelty; and the only connection he had ever had with single combat was in the way of endeavouring to reconcile friends who had quarrelled—an object in which he was successful on several memorable occasions. But the same man—whom all that really knew him allowed to be a delightful companion and kind-hearted man—was liable to be transported beyond the bounds of reason by casual and trivial occurrences. A messenger of the law having arrested the Rev. Mr Cunningham, brother of the Earl of Glencairn, for debt, as he was passing with a party from the drawing-room to the dining-room at Drumsheugh House, Mr Macrae threw the man over the stair. He was prompted to this act by indignation at the affront which he conceived his cousin, as a gentleman, had received from a common man. But soon after, when it was represented to him that every other means of inducing Mr Cunningham to settle his debt had failed, and when he learned that the messenger had suffered severe injury, he went to him, made him a hearty apology, and agreed to pay three hundred guineas by way of compensation. He had himself allowed a debt due to a tailor to remain too long unpaid, and the consequence was that he received a summons for it before the sheriff-court. With this document in his hand, he called, in a state of great excitement, upon his law-agent, to whom he began to read: ‘Archibald Cockburn of Cockpen, sheriff-depute,’ &c., till he came to a passage which declared that ‘he, the said James Macrae, had been oft and diverse times desired and required,’ &c. ‘The greatest lie ever uttered!’ he exclaimed. ‘He had never heard a word of it before; he would instantly go to the sheriff and horsewhip him.’ The agent had at the time letters of _horning_ against a very worthy baronet lying upon his table—that is to say, a document in which the baronet was denounced as a rebel to the king, according to a form of the law of Scotland, for failing to pay his debt. The agent took up this, and coolly began to read: ‘George III. by the grace of God,’ &c. Macrae at once saw the application, and fell a-laughing at his own folly, saying he would go directly and give the sheriff tickets for the play at Marionville, which he and his family requested. It will be seen that the fault of this unfortunate gentleman was heat of temper, not a savage disposition; but what fault can be more fatal than heat of temper?

Mr Macrae was married to an accomplished lady, Maria Cecilia le Maitre, daughter of the Baroness Nolken, wife of the Swedish ambassador. They occasionally resided in Paris, with Mrs Macrae’s relations, particularly with her cousin, Madame de la Briche, whose private theatricals in her elegant house at the Marais were the models of those afterwards instituted at Marionville. It may not be unworthy of notice that amongst their fellow-performers at Madame de la Briche’s was the celebrated Abbé Sieyès. When Mr Macrae and his lady set up their theatre at Marionville, they both took characters, he appearing to advantage in such parts as that of Dionysius in the _Grecian Daughter_, and she in the first line of female parts in genteel comedy. Sir David Kinloch and a Mr Justice were their best male associates; and the chief female performer, after Mrs Macrae herself, was Mrs Carruthers of Dormont, a daughter of the celebrated artist Paul Sandby. When all due deduction is made for the effects of complaisance, there seems to remain undoubted testimony that these performances involved no small amount of talent.