Part 1
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TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH
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TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH
by
ROBERT CHAMBERS, LL.D.
Illustrated by James Riddel, R.S.W.
London: 38 Soho Square, W. W. & R. Chambers, Limited Edinburgh: 339 High Street J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia 1912
Edinburgh: Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
1868.
I am about to do what very few could do without emotion—revise a book which I wrote forty-five years ago. This little work came out in the Augustan days of Edinburgh, when Jeffrey and Scott, Wilson and the Ettrick Shepherd, Dugald Stewart and Alison, were daily giving the productions of their minds to the public, and while yet Archibald Constable acted as the unquestioned emperor of the publishing world. I was then an insignificant person of the age of twenty; yet, destitute as I was both of means and friends, I formed the hope of writing something which would attract attention. The subject I proposed was one lying readily at hand, the romantic things connected with Old Edinburgh. If, I calculated, a first _part_ or _number_ could be issued, materials for others might be expected to come in, for scores of old inhabitants, even up perhaps to the very ‘oldest,’ would then contribute their reminiscences.
The plan met with success. Materials almost unbounded came to me, chiefly from aged professional and mercantile gentlemen, who usually, at my first introduction to them, started at my youthful appearance, having formed the notion that none but an old person would have thought of writing such a book. A friend gave me a letter to Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, who, I was told, knew the scandal of the time of Charles II. as well as he did the merest gossip of the day, and had much to say regarding the good society of a hundred years ago.
Looking back from the year 1868, I feel that C. K. S. has himself become, as it were, a tradition of Edinburgh. His thin effeminate figure, his voice pitched _in alt_—his attire, as he took his daily walks on Princes Street, a long blue frock-coat, black trousers, rather wide below, and sweeping over white stockings and neat shoes—something like a web of white cambric round his neck, and a brown wig coming down to his eyebrows—had long established him as what is called a character. He had recently edited a book containing many stories of diablerie, and another in which the original narrative of ultra-presbyterian church history had to bear a series of cavalier notes of the most mocking character. He had a quaint biting wit, which people bore as they would a scratch from a provoked cat. Essentially, he was good-natured, and fond of merriment. He had considerable gifts of drawing, and one caricature portrait by him, of Queen Elizabeth dancing, ‘high and disposedly,’ before the Scotch ambassadors, is the delight of everybody who has seen it. In jest upon his own peculiarity of voice, he formed an address-card for himself consisting simply of the following anagram:
_quasi dicitur_ C sharp. He was intensely aristocratic, and cared nothing for the interests of the great multitude. He complained that one never heard of any gentlefolks committing crimes nowadays, as if that were a disadvantage to them or the public. Any case of a Lady Jane stabbing a perjured lover would have delighted him. While the child of whim, Mr Sharpe was generally believed to possess respectable talents by which, with a need for exerting them, he might have achieved distinction. His ballad of the ‘Murder of Caerlaverock,’ in the _Minstrelsy_, is a masterly production; and the concluding verses haunt one like a beautiful strain of music:
‘To sweet Lincluden’s haly cells Fu’ dowie I’ll repair; There Peace wi’ gentle Patience dwells, Nae deadly feuds are there. In tears I’ll wither ilka charm, Like draps o’ balefu’ yew; And wail the beauty that cou’d harm A knight sae brave and true.’
After what I had heard and read of Charles Sharpe, I called upon him at his mother’s house, No. 93 Princes Street, in a somewhat excited frame of mind. His servant conducted me to the first floor, and showed me into what is generally called amongst us the back drawing-room, which I found carpeted with green cloth, and full of old family portraits, some on the walls, but many more on the floor. A small room leading off this one behind, was the place where Mr Sharpe gave audience. Its diminutive space was stuffed full of old curiosities, cases with family bijouterie, &c. One petty object was strongly indicative of the man—a calling-card of Lady Charlotte Campbell, the once adored beauty, stuck into the frame of a picture. He must have kept it at that time about thirty years. On appearing, Mr Sharpe received me very cordially, telling me he had seen and been pleased with my first two numbers. Indeed, he and Sir Walter Scott had talked together of writing a book of the same kind in company, and calling it _Reekiana_, which plan, however, being anticipated by me, the only thing that remained for him was to cast any little matters of the kind he possessed into my care. I expressed myself duly grateful, and took my leave. The consequence was the appearance of notices regarding the eccentric Lady Anne Dick, the beautiful Susanna, Countess of Eglintoune, the Lord Justice-clerk Alva, and the Duchess of Queensberry (the ‘Kitty’ of Prior), before the close of my first volume. Mr Sharpe’s contributions were all of them given in brief notes, and had to be written out on an enlarged scale, with what I thought a regard to literary effect as far as the telling was concerned.
By an introduction from Dr Chalmers, I visited a living lady who might be considered as belonging to the generation at the beginning of the reign of George III. Her husband, Alexander Murray, had, I believe, been Lord North’s Solicitor-general for Scotland. She herself, born before the Porteous Riot, and well remembering the Forty-five, was now within a very brief space of the age of a hundred. Although she had not married in her earlier years, her children, Mr Murray of Henderland and others, were all elderly people. I found the venerable lady seated at a window in her drawing-room in George Street, with her daughter, Miss Murray, taking the care of her which her extreme age required, and with some help from this lady, we had a conversation of about an hour. She spoke with due reverence of her mother’s brother, the Lord Chief-justice Mansfield, and when I adverted to the long pamphlet against him written by Mr Andrew Stuart at the conclusion of the Douglas Cause, she said that, to her knowledge, he had never read it, such being his practice in respect of all attacks made upon him, lest they should disturb his equanimity in judgment. As the old lady was on intimate terms with Boswell, and had seen Johnson on his visit to Edinburgh—as she was the sister-in-law of Allan Ramsay the painter, and had lived in the most cultivated society of Scotland all her long life—there were ample materials for conversation with her; but her small strength made this shorter and slower than I could have wished. When we came upon the _poet_ Ramsay, she seemed to have caught new vigour from the subject: she spoke with animation of the child-parties she had attended in his house on the Castle-hill during a course of ten years before his death—an event which happened in 1757. He was ‘charming,’ she said; he entered so heartily into the plays of children. He, in particular, gained their hearts by making houses for their dolls. How pleasant it was to learn that our great pastoral poet was a man who, in his private capacity, loved to sweeten the daily life of his fellow-creatures, and particularly of the young! At a warning from Miss Murray, I had to tear myself away from this delightful and never-to-be-forgotten interview.
I had, one or two years before, when not out of my teens, attracted some attention from Sir Walter Scott by writing for him and presenting (through Mr Constable) a transcript of the songs of the _Lady of the Lake_, in a style of peculiar calligraphy, which I practised for want of any better way of attracting the notice of people superior to myself. When George IV. some months afterwards came to Edinburgh, good Sir Walter remembered me, and procured for me the business of writing the address of the Royal Society of Edinburgh to His Majesty, for which I was handsomely paid. Several other learned bodies followed the example, for Sir Walter Scott was the arbiter of everything during that frantic time, and thus I was substantially benefited by his means.
According to what Mr Constable told me, the great man liked me, in part because he understood I was from Tweedside. On seeing the earlier numbers of the _Traditions_, he expressed astonishment as to ‘where the boy got all the information.’ But I did not see or hear from him till the first volume had been completed. He then called upon me one day, along with Mr Lockhart. I was overwhelmed with the honour, for Sir Walter Scott was almost an object of worship to me. I literally could not utter a word. While I stood silent, I heard him tell his companion that Charles Sharpe was a writer in the _Traditions_, and taking up the volume, he read aloud what he called one of his _quaint bits_. ‘The ninth Earl of Eglintoune was one of those patriarchal peers who live to an advanced age—indefatigable in the frequency of their marriages and the number of their children—who linger on and on, with an unfailing succession of young countesses, and die at last leaving a progeny interspersed throughout the whole of Douglas’s _Peerage_, two volumes, folio, re-edited by Wood.’ And then both gentlemen went on laughing for perhaps two minutes, with interjections: ‘How like Charlie!’—‘What a strange being he is!’—‘_Two volumes, folio, re-edited by Wood_—ha, ha, ha! There you have him past all doubt;’ and so on. I was too much abashed to tell Sir Walter that it was only an impudent little bit of writing of my own, part of the solution into which I had diffused the actual notes of Sharpe. But, having occasion to write next day to Mr Lockhart, I mentioned Sir Walter’s mistake, and he was soon after good enough to inform me that he had set his friend right as to the authorship, and they had had a _second_ hearty laugh on the subject.
A very few days after this visit, Sir Walter sent me, along with a kind letter, a packet of manuscript, consisting of sixteen folio pages, in his usual close handwriting, and containing all the reminiscences he could at the time summon up of old persons and things in Edinburgh. Such a treasure to me! And such a gift from the greatest literary man of the age to the humblest! Is there a literary man of the present age who would scribble as much for any humble aspirant? Nor was this the only act of liberality of Scott to me. When I was preparing a subsequent work, _The Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, he sent me whole sheets of his recollections, with appropriate explanations. For years thereafter he allowed me to join him in his walks home from the Parliament House, in the course of which he freely poured into my greedy ears anything he knew regarding the subjects of my studies. His kindness and good-humour on these occasions were untiring. I have since found, from his journal, that I had met him on certain days when his heart was overladen with woe. Yet his welcome to me was the same. After 1826, however, I saw him much less frequently than before, for I knew he grudged every moment not spent in thinking and working on the fatal tasks he had assigned to himself for the redemption of his debts.
All through the preparation of this book, I was indebted a good deal to a gentleman who was neither a literary man nor an artist himself, but hovered round the outskirts of both professions, and might be considered as a useful adjunct to both. Every votary of pen or pencil amongst us knew David Bridges at his drapery establishment in the Lawnmarket, and many had been indebted to his obliging disposition. A quick, dark-eyed little man, with lips full of sensibility and a tongue unloving of rest, such a man in a degree as one can suppose Garrick to have been, he held a sort of court every day, where wits and painters jostled with people wanting coats, jerkins, and spotted handkerchiefs. The place was small, and had no saloon behind; so, whenever David had got some ‘bit’ to show you, he dragged you down a dark stair to a packing-place, lighted only by a grate from the street, and there, amidst plaster-casts numberless, would fix you with his glittering eye, till he had convinced you of the fine handling, the ‘buttery touches’ (a great phrase with him), the admirable ‘scummling’ (another), and so forth. It was in the days prior to the Royal Scottish Academy and its exhibitions; and it was left in a great measure to David Bridges to bring forward aspirants in art. Did such a person long for notice, he had only to give David one of his best ‘bits,’ and in a short time he would find himself chattered into fame in that profound, the grate of which I never can pass without recalling something of the buttery touches of those old days. The Blackwood wits, who laughed at everything, fixed upon our friend the title of ‘Director-general of the Fine Arts,’ which was, however, too much of a truth to be a jest. To this extraordinary being I had been introduced somehow, and, entering heartily into my views, he brought me information, brought me friends, read and criticised my proofs, and would, I dare say, have written the book itself if I had so desired. It is impossible to think of him without a smile, but at the same time a certain melancholy, for his life was one which, I fear, proved a poor one for himself.
Before the _Traditions_ were finished, I had become favourably acquainted with many gentlemen of letters and others, who were pleased to think that Old Edinburgh had been chronicled. Wilson gave me a laudatory sentence in the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_. The Bard of Ettrick, viewing my boyish years, always spoke of and to me as an unaccountable sort of person, but never could be induced to believe otherwise than that I had written all my traditions from my own head. I had also the pleasure of enjoying some intercourse with the venerable Henry Mackenzie, who had been born in 1745, but always seemed to feel as if the _Man of Feeling_ had been written only one instead of sixty years ago, and as if there was nothing particular in antique occurrences. The whole affair was pretty much of a triumph at the time. Now, when I am giving it a final revision, I reflect with touched feelings, that all the brilliant men of the time when it was written are, without an exception, passed away, while, for myself, I am forced to claim the benefit of Horace’s humanity:
‘Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne Peccet ad extremum ridendus, et ilia ducat.’
INTRODUCTION TO PRESENT ISSUE.
It has been very shrewdly remarked by a famous essayist and critic that a book is none the worse for having survived a generation or two. Robert Chambers’s _Traditions of Edinburgh_ has survived many generations since its first appearance in 1825, and I have before me a copy of this edition in the original six parts, published at two shillings each, the first of which aroused in Sir Walter Scott so much interest. The work when completed appears to have passed through many reprints, but retained its original form until it was remodelled and almost rewritten in 1846, much new matter being then added, and certain passages altogether omitted. Shortly before his death the author again revised the work, adding a new introduction, in which he reviewed the changes of the preceding forty years. This was in 1868, and since that time old Edinburgh has almost ceased to exist. Many an ancient wynd and close has disappeared, or remains simply as a right of way, on all sides surrounded by modern buildings. The City Improvements Act, obtained by Dr William Chambers when Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1865 and again in 1868, swept away hundreds of old buildings; and to it is due the disappearance of Leith Wynd, St Mary’s Wynd, Blackfriars Wynd, the Ancient Scottish Mint in the Cowgate, and other landmarks more or less familiar to our grandfathers. These changes are confined not alone to the old town of Edinburgh, but extend to other districts which at the beginning of the nineteenth century were comparatively modern and fashionable. Brown Square and the buildings adjoining it known as ‘the Society’ have passed away, being intersected by the modern Chambers Street. Adam Square, adjoining the College, has been absorbed in South Bridge Street; Park Street and Park Place, where was once a fashionable boarding-school for young ladies, have disappeared to make room for the M’Ewan Hall and other University buildings.
If it is true that the old town of Edinburgh has been modernised out of existence, the remark applies equally to its immediate suburbs. Indeed the all-round changes of the last forty years can fitly be compared to like changes which within the same period have taken place in the city of Rome. Until within very recent times Edinburgh bore some slight resemblance to the Rome of the Popes, with its stately villas and great extent of walled-in garden ground. Much of this aristocratic old-world aspect has passed away, and one can but lament the disappearance of many an eighteenth-century house and grounds, interesting in not a few cases as the former residence of a citizen whose memory extended back to the Edinburgh of Sir Walter Scott and the famous men who were his contemporaries and friends.
Falcon Hall on the south side of the town, with its great gardens and walled-in parks, has disappeared. So also has the interesting villa of Abbey Hill, occupied until very recent times by the Dowager Lady Menzies. The Clock Mill House adjoining Holyrood Palace and the Duke’s Walk, and surrounded by ancient trees, has gone, as have likewise the many fine old residences with pleasant gardens which adjoined the two main roads between Edinburgh and Leith. All have passed away, giving place to rows of semi-detached villas and endless lines of streets erected for the housing of an ever-increasing population.
One of the few surviving examples of the old Scotch baronial mansion is Coates House, standing within the grounds of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral at the west end of the city. This house was occupied by Robert Chambers for several years prior to his removal to St Andrews in 1840. It has since been modernised, and is now used for various purposes in connection with the Cathedral.
Although Robert Chambers died so long ago as 1871, no adequate story of his life has since been attempted. This is a matter for regret in view of some comparatively recent discoveries, particularly those relating to the history of the authorship of that famous work, _Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation_, made public for the first time in 1884. Of that work, written between the years 1841-44, in the solitude of Abbey Park, St Andrews, a recent writer has said: ‘This book was almost as great a source of wonder in its time as the _Letters of Junius_, or _Waverley_ itself. The learning and common-sense of the book, its rare temperateness and common-sense, commanded immediate attention. It was the wonder of the world at that period, nor was the authorship ever acknowledged, I believe.’ The mystery is now solved; but be it said that in the opinion of many Robert Chambers is more interesting as an antiquary than a scientist. It is in the former capacity that his name will be handed down to posterity as author of the standard work on the tradition and antiquities of the Scottish capital. The outstanding feature of the present issue of the _Traditions_ is the series of original drawings which have been provided by Mr James Riddel, R.S.W., and it is hoped they will enable the reader more readily to realise the city’s old world charm, so sympathetically described by Robert Chambers. While a few notes have been added to this edition, it has not been deemed advisable to alter the text, and therefore that fact must be borne in mind where dates and lapses of time are mentioned.
C. E. S. CHAMBERS.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE CHANGES OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS 1
THE CASTLE-HILL 11
Hugo Arnot—Allan Ramsay—House of the Gordon Family—Sir David Baird—Dr Webster—House of Mary de Guise.
THE WEST BOW 26
The Bowhead—Weigh-house—Anderson’s Pills—Oratories—Colonel Gardiner—‘Bowhead Saints’—‘The Seizers’—Story of a Jacobite Canary—Major Weir—Tulzies—The Tinklarian Doctor—Old Assembly Room—Paul Romieu—‘He that Tholes Overcomes’—Provost Stewart—Donaldsons the Booksellers—Bowfoot—The Templars’ Lands—The Gallows Stone.
JAMES’S COURT 55
David Hume—James Boswell—Lord Fountainhall.
STORY OF THE COUNTESS OF STAIR 63
THE OLD BANK CLOSE 70
The Regent Morton—The Old Bank—Sir Thomas Hope—Chiesly of Dalry—Rich Merchants of the Sixteenth Century—Sir William Dick—The Birth of Lord Brougham.
THE OLD TOLBOOTH 82
SOME MEMORIES OF THE LUCKENBOOTHS 95
Lord Coalstoun and his Wig—Commendator Bothwell’s House—Lady Anne Bothwell—Mahogany Lands and Fore-stairs—The Krames—Creech’s Shop.
SOME MEMORANDA OF THE OLD KIRK OF ST GILES 105
THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE 109
Ancient Churchyard—Booths attached to the High Church—Goldsmiths—George Heriot—The Deid-Chack.
MEMORIALS OF THE NOR’ LOCH 117
THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE 119
Old Arrangements of the House—Justice in Bygone Times—_Court of Session Garland_—Parliament House Worthies.
CONVIVIALIA 138
TAVERNS OF OLD TIMES 158
THE CROSS—CADDIES 174
THE TOWN-GUARD 179
EDINBURGH MOBS 183
The Blue Blanket—Mobs of the Seventeenth Century—Bowed Joseph.
BICKERS 189
SUSANNA, COUNTESS OF EGLINTOUNE 192
FEMALE DRESSES OF LAST CENTURY 199
THE LORD JUSTICE-CLERK ALVA 204
Ladies Sutherland and Glenorchy—The Pin or Risp.
MARLIN’S AND NIDDRY’S WYNDS 209
Tradition of Marlin the Pavier—House of Provost Edward—Story of Lady Grange.
ABBOT OF MELROSE’S LODGING 223
Sir George Mackenzie—Lady Anne Dick.
BLACKFRIARS WYND 228