Chapter C: E. S. Chambers (3)

The profession of which the Tinklarian Doctor subscribed himself a member has long been predominant in the West Bow. We see from a preceding extract that it reckoned dagger-makers among its worthy denizens in the reign of James VI. But this trade has long been happily extinct everywhere in Scotland; though their less formidable brethren the whitesmiths, coppersmiths, and pewterers have continued down to our own day to keep almost unrivalled possession of the Bow. Till within these few years, there was scarcely a shop in this street occupied by other tradesmen; and it might be supposed that the noise of so many hammermen, pent up in a narrow thoroughfare, would be extremely annoying to the neighbourhood. Yet however disagreeable their clattering might seem to strangers, it is generally admitted that the people who lived in the West Bow became habituated to the noise, and felt no inconvenience whatever from its ceaseless operation upon their ears. Nay, they rather experienced inconvenience from its cessation, and only felt annoyed when any period of rest arrived and stopped it. Sunday morning, instead of favouring repose, made them restless; and when they removed to another part of the town, beyond the reach of the sound, sleep was unattainable in the morning for some weeks, till they got accustomed to the quiescence of their new neighbourhood. An old gentleman once told me that, having occasion in his youth to lodge for a short time in the West Bow, he found the incessant clanking extremely disagreeable, and at last entered into a paction with some of the workmen in his immediate neighbourhood, who promised to let him have another hour of quiet sleep in the mornings for the consideration of some such matter as half-a-crown to drink on Saturday night. The next day happening (out of his knowledge) to be some species of Saint Monday, his annoyers did not work at all; but such was the force of a habit acquired even in a week or little more, that our friend awoke precisely at the moment when the hammers used to commence; and he was glad to get his bargain cancelled as soon as possible, for fear of another morning’s want of disturbance.

OLD ASSEMBLY-ROOM.

At the first angle of the Bow, on the west side of the street, is a tall picturesque-looking house, which tradition points to as having been the first place where the fashionables of Edinburgh held their dancing assemblies. Over the door is a well-cut sculpture of the arms of the Somerville family, together with the initials P. J. and J. W., and the date 1602. These are memorials of the original owner of the mansion, a certain Peter Somerville, a wealthy citizen, at one time filling a dignified situation in the magistracy, and father of Bartholomew Somerville, who was a noted benefactor to the then infant university of Edinburgh. The architrave also bears a legend (the title of the eleventh psalm):

IN DOMINO CONFIDO.

Ascending by the narrow spiral stair, we come to the second floor, now occupied by a dealer in wool, but presenting such appearances as leave no doubt that it once consisted of a single lofty wainscoted room, with a carved oak ceiling. Here, then, did the fair ladies whom Allan Ramsay and William Hamilton celebrate meet for the recreation of dancing with their toupeed and deep-skirted beaux. There in that little side-room, formed by an _outshot_ from the building, did the merry sons of Euterpe retire to _rosin their bows_ during the intervals of the performance. Alas! dark are the walls which once glowed with festive light; burdened is that floor, not with twinkling feet, but with the most sluggish of inanimate substances. And as for the fiddlers-room—enough:

‘A merry place it was in days of yore,
But something ails it now—the place is cursed.’[31]

Dancing, although said to be a favourite amusement and exercise of the Scottish people, has always been discountenanced, more or less, in the superior circles of society, or only indulged after a very abstemious and rigid fashion, until a comparatively late age. Everything that could be called public or promiscuous amusement was held in abhorrence by the Presbyterians, and only struggled through a desultory and degraded existence by the favour of the Jacobites, who have always been a less strait-laced part of the community. Thus there was nothing like a conventional system of dancing in Edinburgh till the year 1710, when at length a private association was commenced under the name of ‘the Assembly;’ and probably its first quarters were in this humble domicile. The persecution which it experienced from rigid thinkers and the uninstructed populace of that age would appear to have been very great. On one occasion, we are told, the company were assaulted by an infuriated rabble, and the door of their hall perforated with red-hot spits.[32] Allan Ramsay, who was the friend of all amusements, which he conceived to tend only to cheer this sublunary scene of care, thus alludes to the Assembly:

‘Sic as against the Assembly speak,
The rudest sauls betray,
When matrons noble, wise, and meek,
Conduct the healthfu’ play;
Where they appear nae vice daur keek,
But to what’s guid gies way,
Like night, sune as the morning creek
Has ushered in the day.

Dear E’nburgh, shaw thy gratitude,
And o’ sic friends mak sure,
Wha strive to mak our minds less rude,
And help our wants to cure;
Acting a generous part and guid,
In bounty to the poor:
Sic virtues, if right understood,
Should every heart allure.’

We can easily see from this, and other symptoms, that the Assembly had to make many sacrifices to the spirit which sought to abolish it. In reality, the dancing was conducted under such severe rules as to render the whole affair more like a night at La Trappe than anything else. So lately as 1753, when the Assembly had fallen under the control of a set of directors, and was much more of a public affair than formerly, we find Goldsmith giving the following graphic account of its meetings in a letter to a friend in his own country. The author of the _Deserted Village_ was now studying the medical profession, it must be recollected, at the university of Edinburgh:

‘Let me say something of their balls, which are very frequent here. When a stranger enters the dancing-hall, he sees one end of the room taken up with the ladies, who sit dismally in a group by themselves; on the other end stand their pensive partners that are to be; but no more intercourse between the sexes than between two countries at war. The ladies, indeed, may ogle, and the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid upon any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady-directress, intendant, or what you will, pitches on a gentleman and a lady to walk a minuet, which they perform with a formality approaching to despondence. After five or six couple have thus walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country-dances, each gentleman furnished with a partner from the aforesaid lady-directress. So they dance much, and say nothing, and thus concludes our Assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman that such a profound silence resembled the ancient procession of the Roman matrons in honour of Ceres; and the Scotch gentleman told me (and, faith, I believe he was right) that I was a very great pedant for my pains.’

In the same letter, however, Goldsmith allows the beauty of the women and the good-breeding of the men.

It may add to the curiosity of the whole affair, that when the Assembly was reconstituted in February 1746, after several years of cessation, the first of a set of regulations hung up in the hall[33] was: ‘_No lady to be admitted in a night-gown, and no gentleman in boots_.’ The eighth rule was: ‘No misses in skirts and jackets, robe-coats, nor stay-bodied gowns, to be allowed to dance in country-dances, but in a sett by themselves.’

In all probability it was in this very dingy house that Goldsmith beheld the scene he has so well described. At least it appears that the improved Assembly Room in Bell’s Wynd (which has latterly served as a part of the accommodations of the Commercial Bank) was not built till 1766.[34] Arnot, in his _History of Edinburgh_, describes the Assembly Room in Bell’s Wynd as very inconvenient, which was the occasion of the present one being built in George Street in 1784.

PAUL ROMIEU.

At this angle of the Bow the original city-wall crossed the line of the street, and there was, accordingly, a gate at this spot,[35] of which the only existing memorial is one of the hooks for the suspension of the hinges, fixed in the front wall of a house, at the height of about five feet from the ground. It is from the arch forming this gateway that the street takes its name, _bow_ being an old word for an arch. The house immediately _without_ this ancient port, on the east side of the street, was occupied, about the beginning of the last century, and perhaps at an earlier period, by Paul Romieu, an eminent watchmaker, supposed to have been one of the French refugees driven over to this country in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This is the more likely, as he seems, from the workmanship of his watches, to have been a contemporary of Tompion, the famous London horologist of the reign of Charles II. In the front of the house, upon the third story, there is still to be seen the remains of a curious piece of mechanism—namely, a gilt ball representing the moon, which was made to revolve by means of a clock.[36]

‘HE THAT THOLES OVERCOMES.’

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

HE YT THOLIS OVERCVMMIS.

_He that tholes_ (that is, bears) _overcomes_; equivalent to what Virgil says:

‘Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.’

_Æneid_, v.

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

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

PROVOST STEWART’S HOUSE—DONALDSONS THE BOOKSELLERS.

The upper floors of the house which looks down into the Grassmarket formed the mansion of Mr Archibald Stewart, Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1745. This is an abode of singular structure and arrangements, having its principal access by a close out of another street, and only a postern one into the Bow, and being full of curious little wainscoted rooms, concealed closets, and secret stairs. In one apartment there is a cabinet, or what appears a cabinet, about three feet high: this, when cross-examined, turns out to be the mask of a trap-stair. Only a smuggler, one would think, or a gentleman conducting treasonable negotiations, could have bethought him of building such a house. Whether Provost Stewart, who was a thorough Jacobite, was the designer of these contrivances, I cannot tell; but fireside gossip used to have a strange story as to his putting his trap-stair to use on one important occasion. It was said that, during the occupation of Edinburgh by the Highland army in ’45, his lordship was honoured one evening with a secret visit from the Prince and some of his principal officers. The situation was critical, for close by was the line between the Highland guards and the beleaguered environs of the Castle. Intelligence of the Prince’s movements being obtained by the governor of the fortress, a party was sent to seize him in the provost’s house. They made their approach by the usual access from the Castle-hill Street; but an alarm preceded them, and before they obtained admission, the provost’s visitors had vanished through the mysterious cabinet, and made their exit by the back-door. What real foundation there may have been for this somewhat wild-looking story I do not pretend to say.

The house was at a subsequent time the residence of Alexander Donaldson the bookseller, whose practice of reprinting modern English books in Edinburgh, and his consequent litigation with the London booksellers, attracted much attention sixty years since. Printing and publishing were in a low state in Edinburgh before the time of Donaldson. In the frank language of Hugo Arnot: ‘The printing of newspapers and of school-books, of the fanatick effusions of Presbyterian clergymen, and the law papers of the Court of Session, joined to the patent Bible printing, gave a scanty employment to four printing-offices.’ About the middle of the century, the English law of copyright not extending to Scotland, some of the booksellers began to reprint the productions of the English authors of the day; for example, the _Rambler_ was regularly reproduced in this manner in Edinburgh, with no change but the addition of English translations of the Latin mottoes, which were supplied by Mr James Elphinstone. From this and minor causes, it came to pass that, in 1779, there were twenty-seven printing-offices in Edinburgh. The most active man in this trade was Alexander Donaldson, who likewise reprinted in Edinburgh, and sold in London, English books of which the author’s fourteen years’ copyright had expired, and which were then only protected by a usage of the London trade, rendering it dishonourable as between man and man, among themselves, to reprint a book which had hitherto been the assigned property of one of their number. Disregarding the rule of his fraternity, Donaldson set up a shop in the Strand for the sale of his cheap Edinburgh editions of the books of expired copyright. They met an immense sale, and proved of obvious service to the public, especially to those of limited means; though, as Johnson remarked, this made Donaldson ‘no better than Robin Hood, who robbed the rich in order to give to the poor.’ In reality, the London booksellers had no right beyond one of class sentiment, and this was fully found when they wrestled with Mr Donaldson at law. Waiving all question on this point, Donaldson may be considered as a sort of morning-star of that reformation which has resulted in the universal cheapening of literary publications. Major Topham, in 1775, speaks of a complete set of the English classics which he was bringing out, ‘in a very handsome binding,’ at the rate of one and sixpence a volume!

[Donaldson, in 1763, started a twice-a-week newspaper under the name of the _Edinburgh Advertiser_, which was for a long course of years the prominent journal on the Conservative side, and eminently lucrative, chiefly through its multitude of advertisements. All his speculations being of a prosperous nature, he acquired considerable wealth, which he left to his son, the late Mr James Donaldson, by whom the newspaper was conducted for many years. James added largely to his wealth by successful speculations in the funds, where he held so large a sum that the rise of a per cent. made him a thousand pounds richer than he had been the day before. Prompted by the example of Heriot and Watson, and partly, perhaps, by that modification of egotism which makes us love to be kept in the remembrance of future generations, James Donaldson, at his death in 1830, devoted the mass of his fortune—about £240,000—for the foundation of a _hospital_ for the maintenance and education of poor children of both sexes; and a structure for the purpose was erected, on a magnificent plan furnished by Mr Playfair, at an expense, it is said, of about £120,000.

The old house in the West Bow—which was possessed by both of these remarkable men in succession, and the scene of their entertainments to the literary men of the last age, with some of whom Alexander Donaldson lived on terms of intimacy—stood unoccupied for several years before 1824, when it was burnt down. New buildings now occupy its site.]

TEMPLARS’ LANDS.

We have now arrived at the _Bow-foot_, about which there is nothing remarkable to be told, except that here, and along one side of the Grassmarket, are several houses marked by a cross on some conspicuous part—either an actual iron cross, or one represented in sculpture. This seems a strange circumstance in a country where it was even held doubtful, twenty years ago, whether one could be placed as an ornament on the top of a church tower. The explanation is that these houses were built upon lands originally the property of the Knights Templars, and the cross has ever since been kept up upon them, not from any veneration for that ancient society, neither upon any kind of religious ground; the sole object has been to fix in remembrance certain legal titles and privileges which have been transmitted into secular hands from that source, and which are to this day productive of solid benefits. A hundred years ago, the houses thus marked were held as part of the barony of Drem in Haddingtonshire, the baron of which used to hold courts in them occasionally; and here were harboured many persons not free of the city corporations, to the great annoyance of the adherents of local monopoly. At length, the abolition of heritable jurisdictions in 1747 extinguished this little barony, but not certain other legal rights connected with the _Templar Lands_, which, however, it might be more troublesome to explain than advantageous to know.

PAGE 50.]

THE GALLOWS STONE.

In a central situation at the east end of the Grassmarket, there remained till very lately a massive block of sandstone, having a quadrangular hole in the middle, being the stone which served as a socket for the gallows, when this was the common place of execution. Instead of the stone, there is now only a St Andrew’s cross, indicated by an arrangement of the paving-stones.

This became the regular scene of executions after the Restoration, and so continued till the year 1784. Hence arises the sense of the Duke of Rothes’s remark when a Covenanting prisoner proved obdurate: ‘Then e’en let him glorify God in the Grassmarket!’—the deaths of that class of victims being always signalised by psalm-singing on the scaffold. Most of the hundred persons who suffered for that cause in Edinburgh during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. breathed their last pious aspirations at this spot; but several of the most notable, including the Marquis and Earl of Argyll, were executed at the Cross.

As a matter of course, this was the scene of the Porteous riot in 1736, and of the subsequent murder of Porteous by the mob. The rioters, wishing to despatch him as near to the place of his alleged crime as possible, selected for the purpose a dyer’s pole which stood on the south side of the street, exactly opposite to the gallows stone.

Some of the Edinburgh executioners have been so far notable men as to be the subject of traditionary fame. In the reign of Charles II., Alexander Cockburn, the hangman of Edinburgh, and who must have officiated at the exits of many of the ‘martyrs’ in the Grassmarket, was found guilty of the murder of a bluegown, or privileged beggar, and accordingly suffered that fate which he had so often meted out to other men. One Mackenzie, the hangman of Stirling, whom Cockburn had traduced and endeavoured to thrust out of office, was the triumphant executioner of the sentence.

Another Edinburgh hangman of this period was a reduced gentleman, the last of a respectable family who had possessed an estate in the neighbourhood of Melrose. He had been a profligate in early life, squandered the whole of his patrimony, and at length, for the sake of subsistence, was compelled to accept this wretched office, which in those days must have been unusually obnoxious to popular odium, on account of the frequent executions of innocent and religious men. Notwithstanding his extreme degradation, this unhappy reprobate could not altogether forget his original station and his former tastes and habits. He would occasionally resume the garb of a gentleman, and mingle in the parties of citizens who played at golf in the evenings on Bruntsfield Links. Being at length recognised, he was chased from the ground with shouts of execration and loathing, which affected him so much that he retired to the solitude of the King’s Park, and was next day found dead at the bottom of a precipice, over which he was supposed to have thrown himself in despair. This rock was afterwards called the _Hangman’s Craig_.

In the year 1700, when the Scottish people were in a state of great excitement on account of the interference of the English government against their expedition to Darien, some persons were apprehended for a riot in the city of Edinburgh, and sentenced to be whipped and put upon the pillory. As these persons had acted under the influence of the general feeling, they excited the sympathy of the people in an extraordinary degree, and even the hangman was found to have scruples about the propriety of punishing them. Upon the pillory they were presented with flowers and wine; and when arrayed for flagellation, the executioner made a mere mockery of his duty, never once permitting his whip to touch their backs. The magistrates were very indignant at the conduct of their servant, and sentenced him to be scourged in his turn. However, when the Haddington executioner was brought to officiate upon his metropolitan brother, he was so much frightened by the threatening aspect of the mob that he thought it prudent to make his escape through a neighbouring alley. The laugh was thus turned against the magistrates, who, it was said, would require to get a third executioner to punish the Haddington man. They prudently dropped the whole matter.

At a somewhat later period, the Edinburgh official was a man named John Dalgleish. He it was who acted at the execution of Wilson the smuggler in 1736, and who is alluded to so frequently in the tale of the _Heart of Mid-Lothian_. Dalgleish, I have heard, was esteemed, before his taking up this office, as a person in creditable circumstances. He is memorable for one pithy saying. Some one asking him how he contrived in whipping a criminal to adjust the weight of his arm, on which, it is obvious, much must depend: ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I lay on the lash according to my conscience.’ Either Jock, or some later official, was remarked to be a regular _hearer_ at the Tolbooth Church. As no other person would sit in the same seat, he always had a pew to himself. He regularly communicated; but here the exclusiveness of his fellow-creatures also marked itself, and the clergyman was obliged to serve a separate table for the hangman, after the rest of the congregation had retired from the church.

The last Edinburgh executioner of whom any particular notice has been taken by the public was John High, commonly called Jock Heich, who acceded to the office in the year 1784, and died so lately as 1817. High had been originally induced to undertake this degrading duty in order to escape the punishment due to a petty offence—that of stealing poultry. I remember him living in his official mansion in a lane adjoining to the Cowgate—a small wretched-looking house, assigned by the magistrates for the residence of this race of officers, and which has only been removed within the last few years, to make way for the extension of the buildings of the Parliament Square. He had then a second wife, whom he used to beat unmercifully. Since Jock’s days, no executioner has been so conspicuous as to be known by name. The fame of the occupation seems somehow to have departed.

* * * * *

I have now finished my account of the West Bow; a most antiquated place, yet not without its virtues even as to matters of the present day. Humble as the street appears, many of its shopkeepers and other inhabitants are of a very respectable character. Bankruptcies are said to be very rare in the Bow. Most of the traders are of old standing, and well-to-do in the world; few but what are the proprietors of their own shops and dwellings, which, in such a community, indicates something like wealth. The smarter and more dashing men of Princes Street and the Bridges may smile at their homely externals and darksome little places of business, or may not even pay them the compliment of thinking of them at all; yet, while they boast not of their ‘warerooms,’ or their troops of ‘young men,’ or their plate-glass windows, they at least feel no apprehension from the approach of rent-day, and rarely experience tremulations on the subject of bills. Perhaps, if strict investigation were made, the ‘bodies’ of the Bow could show more comfortable balances at the New Year than at least a half of the sublime men who pay an income by way of rental in George Street. Not one of them but is respectfully known by a good sum on the creditor side at Sir William Forbes’s; not one but can stand at his shop-door, with his hands in his pockets and his hat on, not unwilling, it may be, to receive custom, yet not liable to be greatly distressed if the customer go by. Such, perhaps, were shopkeepers in the golden age![39]

FOOTNOTES

[17] Fellows.

[18] Busy.

[19] Not improbably this was done in a spirit of literal obedience to the injunction (Matthew vi. 6): ‘Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.’ Commentators on this passage mention that every Jewish house had a place of secret devotion built over the porch.

[20] When Colonel Gardiner occupied it the house was known as Olive Bank. It was later changed to Bankton House by Andrew Macdowall, who, when raised to the Bench in 1755, took the title of Lord Bankton.

[21] Bankton House has been burned down and rebuilt since this was written.

[22] _History of Edinburgh_, p. 205, note.

[23] Before Major Weir took up house in the West Bow he is said to have lodged in the Cowgate, where he had as a fellow-lodger the fanatic Mitchell (Ravaillac _redivivus_), who attempted to shoot Archbishop Sharpe.

[24] Sir Andrew Ramsay was provost of the city, first from 1654 till 1657, and then continuously for eleven years, 1662-73. It was he who obtained from the king the title of Lord Provost for the chief magistrate, and secured precedence for him next to the Lord Mayor of London.

[25] The Rev. Mr Frazer, minister of Wardlaw, in his _Divine Providences_ (MS. Adv. Lib.), dated 1670.

[26] _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered._

[27] The causeway. A skirmish fought between the Hamiltons and Douglases, upon the High Street of Edinburgh, in the year 1515, was popularly termed _Cleanse the Causeway_.

[28] Cane.

[29] Hamstringed.

[30] _Memorie of the Somervilles_, vol. ii. p. 271.

[31] This house was demolished in 1836.

[32] Jackson’s _History of the Stage_, p. 418.

[33] See _Notes from the Records of the Assembly Rooms of Edinburgh_. Edinburgh: 1842. In the eighteenth century a lady’s ‘night-gown’ was a special kind of evening-dress, often of silk brocade, &c., other than full dress; and a gentleman’s night-gown was a dressing-gown, not a bed-garment.

[34] It was a ball in the room of the Old Assembly Close building which Goldsmith describes in the letter quoted, and in which public assemblies were revived in 1746. The new rooms in Bell’s Wynd were opened in 1756.

[35] Called the ‘Ovir Bow Port.’ It stood about the line of the present Victoria Terrace.

[36] This house was demolished in 1835, to make way for a passage towards George IV. Bridge.

[37] Taken down in 1839.

[38] Demolished in 1833.

[39] The narrow, crooked West Bow, descending very steeply from the Lawnmarket to the Grassmarket, has been almost wholly obliterated by Victoria Street, a comparatively wide and gradually sloping street which crosses the line of the old West Bow from George IV. Bridge. Victoria Street was built in 1835-40; and only a few houses on one side of the head of the Bow still stand, and these have been rebuilt.

JAMES’S COURT.

DAVID HUME—JAMES BOSWELL—LORD FOUNTAINHALL.

James’s Court, a well-known pile of building of great altitude at the head of the Earthen Mound, was erected about 1725-27 by James Brownhill,[40] a joiner, as a speculation, and was for some years regarded as the _quartier_ of greatest dignity and importance in Edinburgh. The inhabitants, who were all persons of consequence in society, although each had but a single floor of four or five rooms and a kitchen, kept a clerk to record their names and proceedings, had a scavenger of their own, clubbed in many public measures, and had balls and parties among themselves exclusively. In those days it must have been quite a step in life when a man was able to fix his family in one of the _flats_ of James’s Court.

Amongst the many notables who have harboured here, only two or three can be said to have preserved their notability till our day, the chief being David Hume and James Boswell.

DAVID HUME.

The first fixed residence of David Hume in Edinburgh appears to have been in _Riddel’s Land_, Lawnmarket, near the head of the West Bow. He commenced housekeeping there in 1751, when, according to his own account, he ‘removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a man of letters.’ It was while in Riddel’s Land that he published his _Political Discourses_, and obtained the situation of librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. In this place also he commenced the writing of his _History of England_. He dates from Riddel’s Land in January 1753, but in June we find him removed to _Jack’s Land_,[41] a somewhat airier situation in the Canongate, where he remained for nine years. Excepting only the small portion composed in the Lawnmarket mansion, the whole of the _History of England_ was written in Jack’s Land; a fact which will probably raise some interest respecting that locality. It is, in reality, a plain, middle-aged fabric, of no particular appearance, and without a single circumstance of a curious nature connected with it, besides the somewhat odd one that the continuator of the _History_, Smollett, lived, some time after, in his sister’s house precisely opposite.

Hume removed at Whitsunday 1762 to a house which he purchased in James’s Court—the eastern portion of the third floor in the west stair (counting from the level of the court). This was such a step as a man would take in those days as a consequence of improvement in his circumstances. The philosopher had lived in James’s Court but a short time, when he was taken to France as secretary to the embassy. In his absence, which lasted several years, his house was occupied by Dr Blair, who here had a son of the Duke of Northumberland as a pupil. It is interesting to find Hume, some time after, writing to his friend Dr Ferguson from the midst of the gaieties of Paris: ‘I am sensible that I am misplaced, and I wish twice or thrice a day for _my easy-chair and my retreat in James’s Court_.’ Then he adds a beautiful sentiment: ‘Never think, dear Ferguson, that as long as you are master of your own fireside and your own time, you can be unhappy, or that any other circumstance can add to your enjoyment.’[42] In one of his letters to Blair he speaks minutely of his house: ‘Never put a fire in the south room with the red paper. It was so warm of itself that all last winter, which was a very severe one, I lay with a single blanket; and frequently, upon coming in at midnight starving with cold, have sat down and read for an hour, as if I had had a stove in the room.’ From 1763 till 1766 he lived in high diplomatic situations at Paris; and thinking to settle there for life, for the sake of the agreeable society, gave orders to sell his house in Edinburgh. He informs us, in a letter to the Countess de Boufflers (_General Correspondence_, 4to, 1820, p. 231), that he was prevented by a singular accident from carrying his intention into effect. After writing a letter to Edinburgh for the purpose of disposing of his house, and leaving it with his Parisian landlord, he set out to pass his Christmas with the Countess de Boufflers at L’Isle Adam; but being driven back by a snowstorm, which blocked up the roads, he found on his return that the letter had not been sent to the post-house. More deliberate thoughts then determined him to keep up his Edinburgh mansion, thinking that, if any affairs should call him to his native country, ‘it would be very inconvenient not to have a house to retire to.’ On his return, therefore, in 1766, he re-entered into possession of his _flat_ in James’s Court, but was soon again called from it by an invitation from Mr Conway to be an under-secretary of state. At length, in 1769, he returned permanently to his native city, in possession of what he thought opulence—a thousand a year. We find him immediately writing from his retreat in James’s Court to his friend Adam Smith, then commencing his great work _On the Wealth of Nations_ in the quiet of his mother’s house at Kirkcaldy: ‘I am glad to have come within sight of you, and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from my windows; but I wish also to be within speaking-terms of you,’ &c. To another person he writes: ‘I live still, and must for a twelvemonth, in my old house in James’s Court, which is very cheerful, and even elegant, but too small to display my great talent for cookery, the science to which I intend to addict the remaining years of my life!’

Hume now built a superior house for himself in the New Town, which was then little beyond its commencement, selecting a site adjoining to St Andrew Square. The superintendence of this work was an amusement to him. A story is related in more than one way regarding the manner in which a denomination was conferred upon the street in which this house is situated. Perhaps, if it be premised that a corresponding street at the other angle of St Andrew Square is called _St Andrew Street_—a natural enough circumstance with reference to the square, whose title was determined on in the plan—it will appear likely that the choosing of ‘St David Street’ for that in which Hume’s house stood was not originally designed as a jest at his expense, though a second thought, and the whim of his friends, might quickly give it that application. The story, as told by Mr Burton, is as follows: ‘When the house was built and inhabited by Hume, but while yet the street of which it was the commencement had no name, a witty young lady, daughter of Baron Ord, chalked on the wall the words, ST DAVID STREET. The allusion was very obvious. Hume’s “lass,” judging that it was not meant in honour or reverence, ran into the house much excited, to tell her master how he was made game of. “Never mind, lassie,” he said, “many a better man has been made a saint of before.”’

That Hume was a native of Edinburgh is well known. One could wish to know the spot of his birth; but it is not now perhaps possible to ascertain it. The nearest approach made to the fact is from intelligence conveyed by a memorandum in his father’s handwriting among the family papers, where he speaks of ‘my son David, born in the _Tron Church parish_’—a district comprehending a large square clump of town between the High Street and Cowgate, east of the site of the church itself.

One of Hume’s most intimate friends amongst the other sex was Mrs Cockburn, author of one of the beautiful songs called _The Flowers of the Forest_. While he was in France in 1764, she writes to him from _Baird’s Close,[43] Castle-hill_: ‘The cloven foot for which thou art worshipped I despise; yet I remember _thee_ with affection. I remember that, in spite of vain philosophy, of dark doubts, of toilsome learning, God has stamped his image of benignity so strong upon thy _heart_, that not all the labours of thy head could efface it.’ After Hume’s return to Edinburgh, he kept up his acquaintance with this spirited and amiable woman. The late Mr Alexander Young, W.S., had some reminiscences of parties which he attended when a boy at her house, and at which the philosopher was present. Hume came in one evening behind time for her _petit souper_, when, seeing her bustling to get something for him to eat, he called out: ‘Now, no trouble, if you please, about quality; for you know I’m only a glutton, not an epicure.’ Mr Young attended at a dinner where, besides Hume, there were present Lord Monboddo and some other learned personages. Mrs Cockburn was then living in the neat first floor of a house at the end of Crighton Street, with windows looking along the Potterrow. She had a son of eccentric habits, in middle life, or rather elderly, who came in during the dinner tipsy, and going into a bedroom, locked himself in, went to bed, and fell asleep. The company in time made a move for departure, when it was discovered that their hats, cloaks, and greatcoats were all locked up in Mr Cockburn’s room. The door was knocked at and shaken, but no answer. What was to be done? At length Mrs Cockburn had no alternative from sending out to her neighbours to borrow a supply of similar integuments, which was soon procured. There was then such fun in fitting the various _savants_ with suitable substitutes for their own proper gear! Hume, for instance, with a dreadnought riding-coat; Monboddo with a shabby old hat, as unlike his own neat chapeau as possible! In the highest exaltation of spirits did these two men of genius at length proceed homeward along the Potterrow, Horse Wynd, Assembly Close, &c., making the old echoes merry with their peals of laughter at the strange appearance which they respectively made.[44]

I lately inspected Hume’s _cheerful and elegant_ mansion in James’s Court, and found it divided amongst three or four tenants in humble life, each possessing little more than a single room. It was amusing to observe that what had been the dining-room and drawing-room towards the north were _each_ provided with one of those little side oratories which have been described elsewhere as peculiar to a period in Edinburgh house-building, being designed for private devotion. Hume living in a house with two private chapels!

JAMES BOSWELL.

It appears that one of the immediately succeeding leaseholders of Hume’s house in James’s Court was James Boswell. Mr Burton has made this tolerably clear (_Life of Hume_, ii. 137), and he proceeds to speculate on the fact of Boswell having there entertained his friend Johnson. ‘Would Boswell communicate the fact, or tell what manner of man was the landlord of the habitation into which he had, under the guise of hospitality, entrapped the arch-intolerant? Who shall appreciate the mental conflict which Boswell may have experienced on this occasion?’ It appears, however, that by the time when Johnson visited Boswell in James’s Court, the latter had removed into a better and larger mansion right below and on the level of the court—namely, that now (1846) occupied by Messrs Pillans as a printing-office. This was an extraordinary house in its day; for it consisted of two floors connected by an internal stair. Here it was that the Ursa Major of literature stayed for a few days, in August 1773, while preparing to set out to the Hebrides, and also for some time after his return. Here did he receive the homage of the trembling literati of Edinburgh; here, after handling them in his rough manner, did he relax in play with little Miss Veronica, whom Boswell promised to consider peculiarly in his will for showing a liking to so estimable a man. What makes all this evident is a passage in a letter of Samuel himself to Mrs Thrale (Edinburgh, August 17), where he says: ‘Boswell has very handsome and spacious rooms, level with the ground on one side of the house, and on the other four stories high.’ Boswell was only tenant of the mansion. It affords a curious idea of the importance which formerly attached to some of these Old Town residences, when we learn that this was part of the entailed estate of the Macdowalls of Logan, one of whom sold it, by permission of an act of parliament, to redeem the land-tax upon his country property.

Boswell ceased to be a citizen of Edinburgh in 1785, when he was pleased to venture before the English bar. He is little remembered amongst the elder inhabitants of our city; but the late Mr William Macfarlane, the well-known small-debt judge, told me that there was _this_ peculiarity about him—it was impossible to look in his face without being moved by the comicality which always reigned upon it. He was one of those men whose very look is provocative of mirth. Mr Robert Sym, W.S., who died in 1844, at an advanced age, remembered being at parties in this house in Boswell’s time.

LORD FOUNTAINHALL.

Before James’s Court was built, its site was occupied by certain closes, in one of which dwelt Lord Fountainhall, so distinguished as an able, liberal, and upright judge, and still more so by his industrious habits as a collector of historical memorabilia, and of the decisions of the Court of Session. Though it is considerably upwards of a century since Lord Fountainhall died,[45] a traditionary anecdote of his residence in this place has been handed down till the present time by a surprisingly small number of persons. The mother of the late Mr Gilbert Innes of Stow was a daughter of his lordship’s son, Sir Andrew Lauder, and she used to describe to her children the visits she used to pay to her venerable grandfather’s house, situated, as she said, where James’s Court now stands. She and her sister, a little girl like herself, always went with their maid on the Saturday afternoons, and were shown into the room where the aged judge was sitting—a room covered with gilt leather,[46] and containing many huge presses and cabinets, one of which was ornamented with a death’s-head at the top. After amusing themselves for an hour or two with his lordship, they used to get each a shilling from him, and retire to the anteroom, where, as Mrs Innes well recollected, the waiting-maid invariably pounced upon their money, and appropriated it to her own use. It is curious to think that the mother of a gentlewoman living in 1839 (for only then did Miss Innes of Stow leave this earthly scene) should have been familiar with a lawyer who entered at the bar soon after the Restoration (1668), and acted as counsel for the unfortunate Earl of Argyll in 1681; a being of an age as different in every respect from the present as the wilds of North America are different from the long-practised lands of Lothian or Devonshire.

The judicial designation of Lord Fountainhall was adopted from a place belonging to him in East Lothian, now the property of his representative, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. The original name of the place was Woodhead. When the able lawyer came to the bench, and, as usual, thought of a new appellative of a territorial kind—‘Woodhead—Lord Woodhead,’ thought he; ‘that will never do for a judge!’ So the name of the place was changed to Fountainhall, and he became Lord Fountainhall accordingly.

[1868.—The western half of James’s Court having been destroyed by accidental fire, the reader will now find a new building on the spot. The houses rendered interesting by the names of Blair, Boswell, Johnson, and Hume are consequently no more.]

FOOTNOTES

[40] From whom it got its name—James’s Court.

[41] A ‘land’ still standing (1912) as it was when Hume lived there. It was also the residence of the Countess of Eglinton when she left the Stamp Office Close in the High Street. See p. 192.

[42] Burton’s _Life of Hume_, ii. 173.

[43] Formerly called Blair’s Close (p. 19). The name was altered to Baird’s Close when the Gordon property passed into the possession of Baird of Newbyth.

[44] Mrs Cockburn, writing to Miss Cumming at Balcarres, describes ‘a ball’ she gave in this house. ‘On Wednesday I gave a ball. How do ye think I contrived to stretch out this house to hold twenty-two people, and had nine couples always dancing? Yet this is true; it is also true that we had a table covered with divers eatables all the time, and that everybody ate when they were hungry and drank when they were dry, but nobody ever sat down.... Our fiddler sat where the cupboard is, and they danced in both rooms. The table was stuffed into the window and we had plenty of room. It made the bairns all very happy.’—_Mrs Cockburn’s Letters_, edited by T. Craig Brown.

[45] His lordship died September 20, 1722 (Brunton and Haig’s _Historical Account of the Senators of the College of Justice_).

[46] A stuff brought, I believe, from Spain, and which was at one time much in fashion in Scotland.

STORY OF THE COUNTESS OF STAIR.

In a short alley leading between the Lawnmarket and the Earthen Mound, and called _Lady Stair’s Close_,[47] there is a substantial old mansion, presenting, in a sculptured stone over the doorway, a small coat-armorial, with the initials W. G. and G. S., the date 1622, and the legend:

FEAR THE LORD, AND DEPART
FROM EVILL.

The letters refer to Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, the original proprietor of the house, and his wife. Within there are marks of good style, particularly in the lofty ceiling and an inner stair apart from the common one; but all has long been turned to common purposes; while it must be left to the imagination to realise the terraced garden which formerly descended towards the North Loch.

This was the last residence of a lady conspicuous in Scottish society in the early part of the last century—the widow of the celebrated commander and diplomatist, John, Earl of Stair. Lady Eleanor Campbell was, by paternal descent, nearly related to one of the greatest historical figures of the preceding century, being the granddaughter of the Chancellor, Earl of Loudon, whose talents and influence on the Covenanting side were at one time believed to have nearly procured him the honour of a secret death at the command of Charles I. Her ladyship’s first adventure in matrimony led to a series of circumstances of a marvellous nature, which I shall set down exactly as they used to be related by friends of the lady in the last century. It was her lot, at an early age, to be united to James, Viscount Primrose, a man of the worst temper and most dissolute manners. Her ladyship, who had no small share of the old chancellor in her constitution, could have managed most men with ease, by dint of superior intellect and force of character; but the cruelty of Lord Primrose was too much for her. He treated her so barbarously that she had even reason to fear that he would some day put an end to her life. One morning she was dressing herself in her chamber, near an open window, when his lordship entered the room behind her with a drawn sword in his hand. He had opened the door softly, and although his face indicated a resolution of the most horrible nature, he still had the presence of mind to approach her with caution. Had she not caught a glimpse of his face and figure in the glass, he would in all probability have come near enough to execute his bloody purpose before she was aware or could have taken any measures to save herself. Fortunately, she perceived him in time to leap out of the open window into the street. Half-dressed as she was, she immediately, by a very laudable exertion of her natural good sense, went to the house of Lord Primrose’s mother, where she told her story, and demanded protection. That protection was at once extended; and it being now thought vain to attempt a reconciliation, they never afterwards lived together.

Lord Primrose soon afterwards went abroad. During his absence, a foreign conjurer, or fortune-teller, came to Edinburgh, professing, among many other wonderful accomplishments, to be able to inform any person of the present condition or situation of any other person, at whatever distance, in whom the applicant might be interested. Lady Primrose was incited by curiosity to go with a female friend to the lodgings of the wise man in the Canongate, for the purpose of inquiring regarding the motions of her husband, of whom she had not heard for a considerable time. It was at night; and the two ladies went, with the tartan _screens_ or _plaids_ of their servants drawn over their faces by way of disguise. Lady Primrose having described the individual in whose fate she was interested, and having expressed a desire to know what he was at present doing, the conjurer led her to a large mirror, in which she distinctly perceived the appearance of the inside of a church, with a marriage-party arranged near the altar. To her astonishment, she recognised in the shadowy bridegroom no other than her husband. The magical scene was not exactly like a picture; or if so, it was rather like the live pictures of the stage than the dead and immovable delineations of the pencil. It admitted of additions to the persons represented, and of a progress of action. As the lady gazed on it, the ceremonial of the marriage seemed to proceed. The necessary arrangements had at last been made, the priest seemed to have pronounced the preliminary service; he was just on the point of bidding the bride and bridegroom join hands, when suddenly a gentleman, for whom the rest seemed to have waited a considerable time, and in whom Lady Primrose thought she recognised a brother of her own, then abroad, entered the church, and advanced hurriedly towards the party. The aspect of this person was at first only that of a friend who had been invited to attend the ceremony, and who had come too late; but as he advanced, the expression of his countenance and figure was altered. He stopped short; his face assumed a wrathful expression; he drew his sword, and rushed up to the bridegroom, who prepared to defend himself. The whole scene then became tumultuous and indistinct, and soon after vanished entirely away.[48]

When Lady Primrose reached home she wrote a minute narrative of the whole transaction, to which she appended the day of the month on which she had seen the mysterious vision. This narrative she sealed up in the presence of a witness, and then deposited it in one of her drawers. Soon afterwards her brother returned from his travels, and came to visit her. She asked if, in the course of his wanderings, he had happened to see or hear anything of Lord Primrose. The young man only answered by saying that he wished he might never again hear the name of that detested personage mentioned. Lady Primrose, however, questioned him so closely that he at last confessed having met his lordship, and that under very strange circumstances. Having spent some time at one of the Dutch cities—it was either Amsterdam or Rotterdam—he had become acquainted with a rich merchant, who had a very beautiful daughter, his only child, and the heiress of his large fortune. One day his friend the merchant informed him that his daughter was about to be married to a Scottish gentleman, who had lately come to reside there. The nuptials were to take place in the course of a few days; and as he was a countryman of the bridegroom, he was invited to the wedding. He went accordingly, was a little too late for the commencement of the ceremony, but fortunately came in time to prevent the sacrifice of an amiable young lady to the greatest monster alive in human shape—his own brother-in-law, Lord Primrose!