Part 8

The age which I am attempting to describe was looked upon by Lord Cockburn as “the last purely Scotch age that Scotland was destined to see. The whole country had not begun to be absorbed in the ocean of London.”[331] The distance between the two capitals as measured by time, fatigue, and money was little less than the distance in the present day between Liverpool and New York. Johnson, who travelled in post-chaises, and therefore in great comfort, was nine days on the road. “He purposed,” he wrote, “not to loiter much by the way;”[332] but he did not journey by night, and he indulged in two days’ rest at Newcastle. Hume, three years later, travelling by easy stages on account of his failing health, took two days longer.[333] Had Johnson gone by the public conveyance, the “Newcastle Fly” would have brought him in three days as far as that town at a charge of £3 6_s._ On the panels of the “Fly” was painted the motto, _Sat cito si sat bene_. Thence he would have continued his journey by the “Edinburgh Fly,” which traversed the whole remaining distance in a single day in summer, and in a day and a half in winter. The charge for this was £1 11_s._ 6_d._ In these sums were not included the payments to the drivers and guards. The “Newcastle Fly” ran six times a week, starting from London an hour after midnight. The “Edinburgh Fly” ran only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. A traveller then who lost no time on the road, leaving London at one o’clock on Sunday night, would in the summer-time reach Edinburgh by Thursday evening, and in the winter after mid-day on Friday.[334] Even the mail which was carried on horse-back, and went five times a week, took in good weather about 82 hours.[335] The news of the battle of Culloden, though it was forwarded by an express, was seven days all but two or three hours in reaching London.[336] There were men living in 1824 who recollected when the mail came down with only one single letter for Edinburgh.[337] By 1793 a great acceleration had been effected in the coach-service. It was possible, so the proud boast ran, to leave Edinburgh after morning service on Sunday, spend a whole day in London, and be back again by six o’clock on Saturday morning.[338] The weary traveller would have had to pass every night in the coach. By the year 1800 the journey was done from London to Edinburgh in fifty-eight hours, and from Edinburgh to London in sixty and a half.[339] But such annihilation of time and space, as no doubt this rapid rate of travelling was then called, was not dreamed of in Johnson’s day. The capitals of England and Scotland still stood widely apart. It was wholly “a Scotch scene” which the English traveller saw, and “independent tastes and ideas and pursuits” caught his attention.[340] Nevertheless in one respect Edinburgh, as I have already said, felt strongly the influence of England. In its literature and its language it was laboriously forming itself on the English model. There had been a long period during which neither learning nor literature had shone in Scotland with any brightness of light. Since the days of the great classical scholars not a single famous author had been seen. There had been “farthing candles” from time to time, but no “northern lights.”[341] The two countries were under the same sovereign, but there was no Age of Queen Anne north of the Tweed. There was indeed that general diffusion of learning which was conspicuously wanting in England. An English traveller noticed with surprise how rare it was to find “a man of any rank but the lowest who had not some tincture of learning. It was the pride and delight of every father to give his son a liberal education.”[342] Nevertheless it had been “with their learning as with provisions in a besieged town, every man had a mouthful and no one a bellyful.”[343] That there was a foundation for Johnson’s pointed saying was many years later candidly admitted by Sir Walter Scott.[344] So great had been the dearth of literature that the printer’s art had fallen into decay. About the year 1740 there were but four printing-houses in Edinburgh, which found scanty employment in producing school-books, law-papers, newspapers, sermons, and Bibles. By 1779 the number had risen from four to seven and twenty.[345] This rapid growth was by no means wholly due to an increase in Scotch authors. Edinburgh might have become “a hot-bed of genius,” but such productiveness even in a hot-bed would have been unparalleled. The booksellers in late years, in defiance of the supposed law of copyright, had begun to reprint the works of standard English writers, and after a long litigation had been confirmed in what they were doing by a decision given in the House of Lords.[346]

[Sidenote: ENGLISH STUDIED BY THE SCOTCH.]

The growth of literature in Scotland had taken a turn which was not unnatural. In the troubles of the seventeenth century the nation, while yet it was in its power, had neglected to refine its language. No great masters of style had risen. There had been no Sir William Temple “to give cadence to its prose.”[347] The settled government and the freedom from tyranny which the country enjoyed on the fall of the Stuarts, the growth of material wealth which followed on the Union, the gradual diminution of bigotry and the scattering of darkness which was part of the general enlightenment of Europe had given birth to a love of modern literature. The old classical learning no longer sufficed. Having no literature of their own which satisfied their aspirations, the younger generation of men was forced to acquire the language of their ancient rivals, brought as it had been by a long succession of illustrious authors to a high degree of perfection.[348] It was to the volumes of Addison that the Scotch student was henceforth to give his days and nights. To read English was an art soon acquired, but to write it, and still more to speak it correctly, demanded a long and laborious study. Very few, with all their perseverance, succeeded like Mallet in “clearing their tongues from their native pronunciation.”[349] Even to understand the language when spoken was only got by practice. A young lady from the country, who was reproached with having seen on the Edinburgh stage some loose play, artlessly replied:—“Indeed they did nothing wrong that I saw; and as for what they said, it was high English, and I did not understand it.”[350] Dr. Beattie studied English from books like a dead language. To write it correctly cost him years of labour.[351] “The conversation of the Edinburgh authors,” said Topham, “showed that they wrote English as a foreign tongue,” for their spoken language was so unlike their written.[352] Some men were as careless of their accent as they were careful of their words. Hume’s tone was always broad Scotch, but Scotch words he carefully avoided.[353] Others indulged in two styles and two accents, one for familiar life, the other for the pulpit, the court of Session, or the professor’s chair. In all this there was a great and a strange variety. Lord Kames, for instance, in his social hour spoke pure Scotch, though “with a tone not displeasing from its vulgarity;” on the Bench his language approached to English.[354] His brother judge, Lord Auchinleck, on the other hand, clung to his mother tongue. He would not smooth or round his periods, or give up his broad Scotch, however vulgar it was accounted. The sturdy old fellow felt, no doubt, a contempt for that “compound of affectation and pomposity” which some of his countrymen spoke—a language which “no Englishman could understand.”[355] In their attempt to get rid of their accent they too often arrived at the young lady’s _High English_, a mode of speaking far enough removed no doubt from the Scotch, but such as “made ‘the fools who used it’ truly ridiculous.”[356] There were others who were far more successful. “The conversation of the Scots,” wrote Johnson, “grows every day less unpleasing to the English; their peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to become in half a century provincial and rustic, even to themselves. The great, the learned, the ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the English phrase, and the English pronunciation; and in splendid companies Scotch is not much heard, except now and then from an old lady.”[357] The old lady whom he chiefly had in his memory when he wrote this was probably the Duchess of Douglas. He had met her at Boswell’s table. “She talks broad Scotch with a paralytick voice,” he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, “and is scarce understood by her own countrymen.”[358] Boswell himself, by the instruction of a player from Drury Lane, who had brought a company to Edinburgh, succeeded so well in clearing his tongue of his Scotch that Johnson complimented him by saying: “Sir, your pronunciation is not offensive.”[359]

In their pursuit of English literature the Scotch proved as successful as in everything else which they took in hand. Whatever ill-will may have existed between the two nations, there was no grudging admiration shown in England for their authors. In popularity few writers of their time surpassed Thomson, Smollett, Hume, Robertson, John Home, Macpherson, Hugh Blair, Beattie, and Boswell; neither had Robert Blair, Mallet, Kames, John Dalrymple, Henry Mackenzie, Monboddo, Adam Ferguson, and Watson, any reason to complain of neglect. If Adam Smith and Reid were not so popular as some of their contemporaries it was because they had written for the small class of thinkers; though the _Wealth of Nations_, which was published little more than two years after Johnson’s visit, was by the end of the century to reach its ninth edition. “This, I believe, is the historical age, and this the historical nation,” Hume wrote proudly from Edinburgh.[360] He boasted that “the copy-money” given him for his _History_ “much exceeded anything formerly known in England.” It made him “not only independent but opulent.” Robertson for his _Charles V._ received £3,400, and £400 was to be added on the publication of the second edition.[361] Blair for a single volume of his Sermons was paid £600.[362]

Whatever ardour Scotchmen showed for English literature as men of letters, yet they never for one moment forgot their pride in their own country. In a famous club they had banded themselves together for the sake of doing away with a reproach which had been cast upon their nation. Just as down to the present time no Parliament has ventured to trust Ireland with a single regiment of volunteers, so Scotland one hundred years ago was not trusted with a militia. In the words of Burns,

“Her lost militia fired her bluid.”[363]

[Sidenote: THE POKER CLUB.]

In 1759 a Bill for establishing this force had been brought into Parliament, and though Pitt acquiesced in the measure, it was thrown out by “the young Whigs.” Most Englishmen probably felt with Horace Walpole, when he rejoiced that “the disaffected in Scotland could not obtain this mode of having their arms restored.”[364] Two or three years later the literary men in Edinburgh, affronted by this refusal, formed themselves into a league of patriots. The name of The Militia Club, which they had at first thought of adopting, was rejected as too directly offensive. With a happy allusion to the part which they were to play in stirring up the fire and spirit of the country, they decided on calling themselves “The Poker.” Andrew Crosbie, the original of Mr. Counsellor Pleydell, was humorously elected Assassin, and David Hume was added as his Assessor, “without whose assent nothing should be done.”[365] It was urged with great force that Scotland was as much exposed as England to plunder and invasion. Why, it was asked, was she refused a militia when one had been granted to Cumberland and Westmoreland, and Lancashire? Had not those countries contributed more adventurers to the forces of the Young Pretender than all the Lowlands? “Why put a sword in the hands of foreigners for wounding the Scottish nation and name? A name admired at home for fidelity, regaled [_sic_] in every clime for strictness of discipline, and dreaded for intrepidity.”[366] In 1776 the Bill was a second time brought in, but was a second time rejected. “I am glad,” said Johnson, “that the Parliament has had the spirit to throw it out.”[367] By this time it was not timidity only which caused the rejection. The English were touched in their pockets. It was maintained that as Scotland contributed so little to the land-tax, so if she needed a militia she ought to bear the whole expense herself. “What enemy,” asked Johnson scornfully, “would invade Scotland where there is nothing to be got?”[368] It was not till the year 1793, in the midst of the alarms of a war with France, that the force was at last established, and Scotland in one more respect placed on an equality with England.

In Edinburgh such a club as this, formed of all the eager active spirits in the place, could act with the greater vigour from the ease with which the members could meet. In whatever quarter of the town men lived, even if they had moved to the squares which had lately been built to the north and south, they were not much more widely separated than the residents in the Colleges of Oxford. The narrowness of the limits in which they were confined is shown by the small number of hackney-coaches which served their wants. In London, in 1761, there were eight hundred; by 1784 they had risen to a thousand.[369] In Edinburgh there were but nine; and even these, it was complained, were rarely to be seen on the stand after three o’clock in the afternoon. It was in sedan chairs that visits of ceremony were paid; the bearers were Highlanders, as in London they were generally Irishmen.[370] The dinner-hour was still so early that the meal of careless and cheerful hospitality was the supper. In 1763 fashionable people dined at two; twenty years later at four or even at five.[371] At the time of Johnson’s visit three was probably the common hour. Dr. Carlyle describes the ease with which in his younger days a pleasant supper party was gathered together. “We dined where we best could, and by cadies[372] we assembled our friends to meet us in a tavern by nine o’clock; and a fine time it was when we could collect David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Lord Elibank, and Drs. Blair and Jardine on an hour’s warning.”[373] Though the Scotch were “religious observers of hospitality,”[374] yet a stranger did not readily get invited to their favourite meal. “To be admitted to their suppers is a mark of their friendship. At them the restraints of ceremony are banished, and you see people really as they are.” The Scotch ladies, it was noticed, at these cheerful but prolonged repasts drank more wine than an English woman could well bear, “but the climate required it.”[375] The “patriotic Knox” describes the inhabitants of Edinburgh as being “not only courteous, obliging, open, and hospitable, but well-inclined to the bottle.” It was not to the climate that he attributed this joyous devotion, but “to their social dispositions and the excellence of their wines.”[376] Boswell has left us a description of a supper which he enjoyed at Hume’s new house in St. Andrew’s Square. He had Dr. Robertson and Lord Kames for his fellow-guests, and three sorts of ice-creams among the dishes. “What think you of the northern Epicurus style?” he asked. He complained, however, that he could recollect no conversation. “Our writers here are really not prompt on all occasions as those of London.”[377] He had been spoilt by the talk in the taverns of Fleet Street and the Turk’s Head Club, and was discontented because he did not find in St. Andrew’s Square a Johnson, a Burke, a Wilkes, and a Beauclerk.

[Sidenote: JOHNSON AND DAVID HUME.]

Into Hume’s pleasant house Johnson unhappily never entered.[378] He even thought that his friend Dr. Adams, the Master of Pembroke College, had done wrong when he had met by invitation “that infidel writer” at dinner, and “had treated him with smooth civility.”[379] Yet a man who could yield to the temptation of the talk of Jack Wilkes had no right to stand aloof from David Hume. We should like to know what he would have thought of that philosopher’s _soupe à la reine_ made from a receipt which he had copied in his own neat hand, or of his “beef and cabbage (a charming dish) and old mutton and old claret, in which,” he boasted, “no man excelled him.” Perhaps, however, if Johnson could have been persuaded to taste the claret, old as it was, he would have shaken his head over it and called it “poor stuff.”[380] The sheep-head broth he would certainly have refused, though one Mr. Keith did speak of it for eight days after,[381] and the Duke de Nivernois would have bound himself apprentice to Hume’s lass to learn it.[382] “The stye of that fattest of Epicurus’s hogs” he failed to visit. “You tell me,” wrote the great Gibbon to a friend who was at Edinburgh just at the time of Johnson’s arrival, “you tell me of a long list of Dukes, Lords, and Chieftains of renown to whom you are introduced; were I with you I should prefer one _David_ to them all.”[383] Boswell could easily have brought the two men together, intimate as he was with both. Early in his life he was able to boast that one of them had visited him in the forenoon and the other in the afternoon of the same day.[384] Hume’s conversation perhaps was not after the fashion which Johnson liked. It certainly would not have come recommended to him by his broad Scotch accent. Nevertheless there was that about it which endeared it to his friends. For innocent mirth and agreeable raillery he was thought to be unmatched.[385] Adam Smith has celebrated his constant pleasantry. In his wit there was not the slightest tincture of malignity.[386] But Johnson would have nothing to do with him.[387] In Boswell’s house in James’s Court, that Sunday he spent there in Dr. Robertson’s company, he said “something much too rough both as to Mr. Hume’s head and heart,” which Boswell thought well to suppress. In the quiet stillness of that summer sabbath day in Edinburgh, the strong loud voice might almost have been carried across the narrow valley to St. Andrew’s Square, and startled the philosopher in his retirement.

Neither did Johnson see Adam Smith, who in Hume’s house had his room whenever he chose to occupy it. To meet a famous stranger he would, we may well believe, have willingly crossed the Firth from his house in Kirkaldy. But the two men had once met in London, and “we did not take to each other,” said Johnson. Had he been more tolerant, and sought the society of these two great Scotchmen, he would have seen in Scotland the best which Scotland had to show. Even as it was, in his visit to the capital and the seats of the other universities, in his tour through Lowlands, Highlands and Isles, he saw perhaps as great a variety of men and manners as had been seen in that country by any Englishman up to his time.

EDINBURGH (AUGUST 14-18). THE WHITE HORSE INN.

[Sidenote: BEGINNING OF THE TOUR.]

On Friday, August 6th, 1773, Dr. Johnson set off from London on his famous tour to the Western Islands of Scotland. His companion as far as Newcastle was Robert Chambers, Principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, who had been lately appointed one of the new judges for India, and was going down to his native town to take leave of his family. The two friends travelled in a post-chaise. “Life has not many better things than this,” said Johnson once when he was driven rapidly along in one with Boswell.[388] It was too costly a pleasure for him to indulge in often unless he could find a companion to share the expense. The charge for a chaise and pair of horses for two passengers from London to Edinburgh could scarcely have been kept under twenty-two pounds.[389] The weather was bright and hot.[390] At Newcastle Chambers’s place in the chaise was taken by a fellow-townsman who was destined to go far beyond him in the career of the law—William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, the great judge of the High Court of Admiralty. The travellers entered Scotland by Berwick-on-Tweed, passing near to those nine wells which gave their name to the estate which had come down to David Hume’s father through many generations. Very likely they dined at Dunbar, that “high and windy town,” and thought, as they crossed the Brocksburn, how Cromwell’s horse and foot charged across it in the mingled light of the harvest-moon and the early dawn on that September morning one hundred and twenty-three years before. Their next stage would bring them to Haddington, past the ruined Abbey where nearly a hundred years later that great Scotchman, Johnson’s foremost champion, was often with a contrite and almost broken heart to seek his wife’s grave in the desolate chancel. As they drove on they passed by the wide plain, shut in by the sea on one side and by a morass on the other, over which, only twenty-eight years earlier, on another misty morning in September, the rude Highlanders had chased Cope’s English Dragoons in shameful and headlong flight. Evening had overtaken the travellers by this time, so that they could not have seen “the one solitary thorn bush round which lay the greatest number of slain,” or the grey tower of the church of Preston Pans, whence the afternoon before the battle, young Alexander Carlyle had looked down upon the two armies.[391] They passed Pinkie, where the Protector Somerset’s soldiers had made such a savage massacre of the routed Scotch; and Carberry Hill, where Mary took her last farewell of Bothwell as she gave herself up to the Scottish lords. They passed, too, the serfs of Tranent and Preston Pans, “the colliers and salters who were in a state of slavery and bondage, bound to the collieries or salt-works for life.”[392]

[Sidenote: THE ROAD TO EDINBURGH.]

[Sidenote: THE WHITE HORSE INN.]