Part 22

Ladies in the last century wore dresses and decorations many of which were of an inconvenient nature; yet no one can deny them the merit of a certain dignity and grace. How fine it must have been to see, as an old gentleman told me he had seen, two hooped ladies moving along the Lawnmarket in a summer evening, and filling up the whole footway with their stately and voluminous persons!

Amongst female articles of attire in those days were calashes, bongraces, capuchins, negligées, stomachers, stays, hoops, lappets, pinners, plaids, fans, busks, rumple-knots, &c., all of them now forgotten.

The calash was a species of hood, constructed of silk upon a framework of cane, and was used as a protection to a cap or head-dress in walking out or riding in a carriage. It could be folded back like the hood of a carriage, so as to lie gathered together behind the neck.

The bongrace was a bonnet of silk and cane, in shape somewhat like a modern bonnet.

The capuchin was a short cloak, reaching not below the elbows. It was of silk, edged with lace, or of velvet. Gentlemen also wore capuchins. The first Sir William Forbes frequently appeared at the Cross in one. A lady’s _mode tippet_ was nearly the same piece of dress.

The negligée was a gown, projecting in loose and ample folds from the back. It could only be worn with stays. It was entirely open in front, so as to show the stomacher, across which it was laced with flat silk cords, while below it opened more widely and showed the petticoat. This latter, though shorter, was sometimes more splendid than the gown, and had a deep flounce. Ladies in walking generally carried the skirt of the gown over the arm, and exhibited the petticoat; but when they entered a room, they always came sailing in, with the train sweeping full and majestically behind them.

The stomacher was a triangular piece of rich silk, one corner pointing downwards and joining the fine black lace-bordered apron, while the other two angles pointed to the shoulders. Great pains were usually discovered in the adornment of this beautiful and most attractive piece of dress. Many wore jewels upon it; and a lady would have thought herself poor indeed if she could not bedizen it with strings of bugles or tinsel.

Stays were made so long as to touch the chair, both in front and rear, when a lady sat. They were calculated to fit so tightly that the wearers had to hold by the bedpost while the maid was lacing them. There is a story told of a lady of high rank in Scotland, about 1720, which gives us a strange idea of the rigours and inconvenience of this fashion. She stinted her daughters as to diet, with a view to the improvement of their shapes; but the young ladies, having the cook in their interest, used to unlace their stays at night, after her ladyship went to bed, and make a hearty meal. They were at last discovered, by the smell of a roast goose, carried upstairs to their bedchamber; as unluckily their lady-mother did not take snuff,[169] and was not asleep.

The hoop was contemporary with, and a necessary appendage of, the stays. There were different species of hoops, being of various shapes and uses. The pocket-hoop, worn in the morning, was like a pair of small panniers, such as one sees on an ass. The bell-hoop was a sort of petticoat, shaped like a bell and made with cane or rope for framework. This was not quite full-dress. There was also a straw petticoat, a species of hoop such as is so common in French prints. The full-sized evening hoop was so monstrous that people saw one-half of it enter the room before the wearer. This was very inconvenient in the Old Town, where doorways and closes were narrow. In going down a close or a turnpike stair, ladies tilted them up and carried them under their arms. In case of this happening, there was a _show petticoat_ below; and such care was taken of appearances that even the _garters_ were worn fine, being either embroidered or having gold and silver fringes and tassels.

The French silks worn during the last century were beautiful, the patterns were so well drawn and the stuff of such excellent quality. The dearest common brocade was about a guinea a yard; if with gold or silver, considerably more.

The lappet was a piece of Brussels or point lace, hanging in two pieces from the crown of the head and streaming gracefully behind.

Pinners, such as the celebrated Egyptian Sphinx wears, were pinned down the stomacher.

Plaids were worn by ladies to cover their heads and muffle their faces when they went into the street. The council records of Edinburgh abound in edicts against the use of this piece of dress, which, they said, confounded decent women with those who were the contrary.

Fans were large, the sticks curiously carved, and if of leather, generally very well painted—being imported from Italy or Holland. In later times these have been sometimes framed like pictures and hung on the walls.

All women, high and low, wore enormous busks, generally with a heart carved at the upper end. In low life this was a common present to sweethearts; if from carpenters, they were artificially veneered.

The rumple-knot was a large bunch of ribbons worn at the peak of the waist behind. Knots of ribbons were then numerous over the whole body. There were the breast-knots, two hainch-knots (at which there were also buttons for looping up the gown behind), a knot at the tying of the beads behind the neck, one in front and another at the back of the head-gear, and knots upon the shoes. It took about twelve yards or upwards to make a full suit of ribbons.[170]

Other minor articles of dress and adornment were the _befong_ handkerchief (spelt at random), of a stuff similar to what is now called _net_, crossed upon the breast; paste ear-rings and necklace; broad black bracelets at the wrists; a _pong pong_—a jewel fixed to a wire with a long pin at the end, worn in front of the cap, and which shook as the wearer moved. It was generally stuck in the cushion over which the hair was turned in front. Several were frequently worn at once. A song in the _Charmer_, 1751, alludes to this bijou:

‘Come all ye young ladies whose business and care Is contriving new dresses, and curling your hair; Who flirt and coquet with each coxcomb who comes To toy at your toilets, and strut in your rooms; While you’re placing a patch, _or adjusting pong pong_, Ye may listen and learn by the truth of my song.’

Fly-caps, encircling the head, worn by young matrons, and mob-caps, falling down over the ears, used only by old ones; pockets of silk or satin, of which young girls wore one above their other attire; silk or linen stockings—never of cotton, which is a modern stuff—slashed with pieces of a colour in strong contrast with the rest, or gold or silver clocks, wove in. The silk stockings were very thick, and could not be washed on account of the gold or silver. They were frequently of scarlet silk, and (1733) worn both by ladies and gentlemen. High-heeled shoes, set off with fine lace or sewed work, and sharply pointed in front.

To give the reader a more picturesque idea of the former dresses of the ladies of Edinburgh, I cite a couple of songs, the first wholly old, the second a revivification:

‘I’ll gar our guidman trow that I’ll sell the ladle, If he winna buy to me a new side-saddle— To ride to the kirk, and frae the kirk, and round about the toun— Stand about, ye fisher jades, and gi’e my goun room!

I’ll gar our guidman trow that I’ll tak the fling-strings, If he winna buy to me twelve bonnie goud rings, Ane for ilka finger, and twa for ilka thumb— Stand about, ye fisher jades, and gi’e my goun room!

I’ll gar our guidman trow that I’m gaun to dee, If he winna fee to me twa valets or three, To beir my tail up frae the dirt and ush me through the toun— Stand about, ye fisher jades, and gi’e my goun room!’

* * * * *

‘As Mally Lee cam’ down the street, her _capuchin_ did flee; She coost a look behind her, to see her _negligee_. And we’re a’ gaun east and wast, we’re a’ gaun agee, We’re a’ gaun east and wast, courtin’ Mally Lee.[171]

She had twa _lappets_ at her head, that flaunted gallantlie, And _ribbon knots_ at back and breast of bonnie Mally Lee. And we’re a’ gaun, &c.

A’ down alang the Canongate were beaux o’ ilk degree; And mony are turned round to look at bonnie Mally Lee. And we’re a’ gaun, &c.

And ilka bab her _pong pong_ gi’ed, ilk lad thought that’s to me; But feint a ane was in the thought of bonnie Mally Lee. And we’re a’ gaun, &c.

Frae Seton’s Land a countess fair looked owre a window hie, And pined to see the genty shape of bonnie Mally Lee. And we’re a’ gaun, &c.

And when she reached the palace porch, there lounged erls three; And ilk ane thought his Kate or Meg a drab to Mally Lee. And we’re a’ gaun, &c.

The dance gaed through the palace ha’, a comely sight to see; But nane was there sae bright or braw as bonnie Mally Lee. And we’re a’ gaun, &c.

Though some had jewels in their hair, like stars ’mang cluds did shine, Yet Mally did surpass them a’ wi’ but her glancin’ eyne. And we’re a’ gaun, &c.

A prince cam’ out frae ’mang them a’, wi’ garter at his knee, And danced a stately minuet wi’ bonnie Mally Lee. And we’re a’ gaun, &c.’

FOOTNOTES

[169] Snuff-taking was prevalent among young women in our grandmothers’ time. Their flirts used to present them with pretty snuff-boxes. In one of the monthly numbers of the _Scots Magazine_ for the year 1745 there is a satirical poem by a swain upon the practice of snuff-taking; to which a lady replies next month, defending the fashion as elegant and of some account in coquetry. Almost all the old ladies who survived the commencement of this century took snuff. Some kept it in pouches, and abandoned, for its sake, the wearing of white ruffles and handkerchiefs.

[170] A gown then required ten yards of stuff.

[171] This verse appears in a manuscript subsequent to 1760. The name, however, is Sleigh, not Lee. Mrs Mally Sleigh was married in 1725 to the Lord Lyon Brodie of Brodie. Allan Ramsay celebrates her.

THE LORD JUSTICE-CLERK ALVA.[172]

LADIES SUTHERLAND AND GLENORCHY—THE PIN OR RISP.

This eminent person—a cadet of the ancient house of Mar (born 1680, died 1763)—had his town mansion in an obscure recess of the High Street called Mylne Square,[173] the first place bearing such a designation in our northern capital: it was, I may remark, built by one of a family of Mylnes, who are said to have been master-masons to the Scottish monarchs for eight generations, and some of whom are at this day architects by profession.[174] Lord Alva’s residence was in the second and third floors of the large building on the west side of the square. Of the same structure, an Earl of Northesk occupied another _flat_. And, to mark the character of Lord Alva’s abode, part of it was afterwards, in the hands of a Mrs Reynolds, used as a lodging-house of the highest grade. The Earl of Hopetoun, while acting as Commissioner to the General Assembly, there held viceregal state. But to return to Lord Alva: it gives a curious idea of the habits of such a dignitary before the rise of the New Town that we should find him content with this dwelling while in immediate attendance upon the court, and happy during the summer vacation to withdraw to the shades of his little villa at Drumsheugh, standing on a spot now surrounded by _town_. Lord Lovat, who, on account of his numerous law-pleas, was a great intimate of Lord Alva’s, frequently visited him here; and Mrs Campbell of Monzie, Lord Alva’s daughter, used to tell that when she met Lord Lovat on the stair he always took her up in his arms and kissed her, to her great annoyance and horror—_he was so ugly_. During one of his law-pleas, he went to a dancing-school ball, which Misses Jean and Susanna, Lord Alva’s daughters, attended. He had his pocket full of _sweeties_, as Mrs Campbell expressed it; and so far did he carry his exquisitely refined system of cunning, that—in order no doubt to find favour with their father—he devoted the greater share of his attentions and the whole of his comfits to them alone. Those who knew this singular man used to say that, with all his duplicity, faithlessness, and cruelty, his character exhibited no redeeming trait whatever: nobody ever knew any good of him.

In his Mylne Square mansion Lord Alva’s two step-daughters were married; one to become Countess of Sutherland, the other Lady Glenorchy. There was something very striking in the fate of Lady Sutherland and of the earl, her husband—a couple distinguished as much by personal elegance and amiable character as by lofty rank. Lady Sutherland was blessed with a temper of extraordinary sweetness, which shone in a face of so much beauty as to have occasioned admiration where many were beautiful—the coronation of George III. and his queen. The happiness of the young pair had been increased by the birth of a daughter. One unlucky day his lordship, coming after dinner into the drawing-room at Dunrobin a little flushed with wine, lifted up the infant above his head by way of frolic, when, sad to tell, he dropped her by accident on the floor, and she received injuries from which she never recovered. This incident had such an effect upon his lordship’s spirits that his health became seriously affected, so as finally to require a journey to Bath, where he was seized with an infectious fever. For twenty-one successive days and nights he was attended by his wife, then pregnant, till she herself caught the fatal distemper. The countess’s death was concealed from his lordship; nevertheless, when his delirium left him, the day before he died, he frequently said: ‘I am going to join my dear wife;’ appearing to know that she had ‘already reached the goal with mended pace!’ Can it be that we are sometimes able to penetrate the veil which hangs, in thick and gloomy folds, between this world and the next; or does the ‘mortal coil’ in which the light of mind is enveloped become thinner and more transparent by the wearing of deadly sickness? The bodies of the earl and countess were brought to Holyrood House, where they had usually resided when in town, and lay in state for some time previous to their interment in one grave in the Abbey Chapel. The death of a pair so young, so good, and who had stood in so distinguished a position in society—leaving one female infant to a disputed title—made a deep impression on the public, and was sincerely lamented in their own immediate circle. Of much poetry written on the occasion, a specimen may be seen in Evans’s _Old Ballads_. Another appears in Brydges’s _Censura Literaria_, being the composition of Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto:

‘In pity, Heaven bestowed An early doom: lo, on the self-same bier, A fairer form, cold by her husband’s side, And faded every charm. She died for thee, For thee, her only love. In beauty’s prime, In youth’s triumphant hour, she died for thee.

Bring water from the brook, and roses spread O’er their pale limbs; for ne’er did wedded love To one sad grave consign a lovelier pair, Of manners gentler, or of purer heart!’

Lady Glenorchy, the younger sister of Lady Sutherland, was remarkable for her pious disposition. Exceedingly unfortunate in her marriage, she was early taught to seek consolation from things ‘not of this world.’ I have been told that nothing could have been more striking than to hear this young and beautiful creature pouring forth her melodious notes and hymns, while most of her sex and age at that time exercised their voices only upon the wretched lyrics imported from Vauxhall and Ranelagh, or the questionable verses of Ramsay and his contemporaries. She met with her rich reward, even in this world; for she enjoyed the applause of the wealthy and the blessings of the poor, with that supreme of all pleasures—the conviction that the eternal welfare of those in whose fate she was chiefly interested was forwarded, if not perfected, by her precepts and example.[175]

It is not unworthy of notice, in this record of all that is old and quaint in our city, that the Lord Justice-clerk’s house was provided with a _pin_ or _risp_, instead of the more modern convenience—a knocker. The Scottish ballads, in numberless passages, make reference to this article: no hero in those compositions ever comes to his mistress’s door but he _tirles at the pin_. What, then, was a pin? It was a small slip or bar of iron, starting out from the door vertically, serrated on the side towards the door, and provided with a small ring, which, being drawn roughly along the serrations or nicks, produced a harsh and grating sound, to summon the servant to open. Another term for the article was a _crow_. In the fourth eclogue of Edward Fairfax, a production of the reign of James VI. and I., quoted in the _Muses’ Library_, is this passage:

‘Now, farewell Eglon! for the sun stoops low, And calling guests before my sheep-cot’s door; Now _clad in white, I see my porter-crow_; Great kings oft want these blessings of the poor;’

with the following note: ‘The ring of the door, called a _crow_, and when covered with white linen, denoted the mistress of the house was in travel.’ It is quite appropriate to this explanation that a small Latin vocabulary, published by Andrew Simpson in 1702, places among the parts of a house, ‘_Corvex—a clapper or ringle_.’ Hardly one specimen of the pin, crow, or ringle now survives in the Old Town. They were almost all disused many years ago, when knockers were generally substituted as more stylish. Knockers at that time did not long remain in repute, though they have never been altogether superseded, even by bells, in the Old Town. The comparative merit of knockers and pins was for a long time a controversial point, and many knockers got their heads twisted off in the course of the dispute. Pins were, upon the whole, considered very inoffensive, decent, old-fashioned things, being made of a modest metal, and making little show upon a door; knockers were thought upstart, prominent, brazen-faced articles, and received the full share of odium always conferred by Scotsmen of the old school upon tasteful improvements. Every drunken fellow, in reeling home at night, thought it good sport to carry off all the knockers that came in his way; and as drunken gentlemen were very numerous, many acts of violence were committed, and sometimes a whole stair was found stripped of its knockers in the morning; when the voice of lamentation raised by the servants of the sufferers might have reminded one of the wailings of the Lennox dairy-women after a _creagh_ in the days of old. Knockers were frequently used as missile weapons by the bucks of that day against the Town-guard; and the morning sun sometimes saw the High Street strewed with them. The aforesaid Mrs Campbell remembered residing in an Old Town house, which was one night disturbed in the most intolerable manner by a drunken party at the knocker. In the morning the greater part of it was found to be gone; and it was besides discovered, to the horror of the inmates, that part of a finger was left sticking in the fragments, with the appearance of having been forcibly wrenched from the hand.

FOOTNOTES

[172] James Erskine on ascending the bench first took the title of Lord Tinwald, from his estate in Dumfriesshire. That of Lord Alva he assumed when he purchased the family estate of Alva, in Clackmannanshire, from his eldest brother, Sir Charles Erskine.

[173] The site of Mylne Square is now occupied by the block of buildings directly opposite the north front of the Tron Church.

[174] The first of this name was made ‘master-mason’ to the king in 1481, and the position descended in regular succession in the family till 1710, when they adopted the style of architect.

[175] Lady Glenorchy built a chapel, which was named after her, on the low ground to the south of the Calton Hill. The chapel was swept away, along with that of the fine Gothic building Trinity College Church, for the convenience of the North British Railway. The lady’s name is still preserved in Lady Glenorchy’s Established Church in Roxburgh Place and Lady Glenorchy’s United Free Church in Greenside.

MARLIN’S AND NIDDRY’S WYNDS.

TRADITION OF MARLIN THE PAVIER—HOUSE OF PROVOST EDWARD—STORY OF LADY GRANGE.

Where South Bridge Street now stands, there formerly existed two wynds, or alleys, of the better class, named Marlin’s and Niddry’s Wynds. Many persons of importance lived in these obscurities. Marlin’s Wynd, which extended from behind the Tron Church, and contained several bookshops and stalls, the favourite lounge of the lovers of old literature, was connected with a curious tradition, which existed at the time when Maitland wrote his _History of Edinburgh_ (1753). It was said that the High Street was first paved or _causewayed_ by one Marlin, a Frenchman, who, thinking that specimen of his ingenuity the best monument he could have, desired to be buried under it, and was accordingly interred at the head of this wynd, which derived its name from him. The tradition is so far countenanced by there having formerly been a space in the pavement at this spot, marked by six flat stones, in the shape of a grave. According, however, to more authentic information, the High Street was first paved in 1532[176] by John and Bartoulme Foliot, who appear to have had nothing in common with this legendary Marlin, except country. The grave of at least Bartoulme Foliot is distinctly marked by a flat monument in the Chapel-Royal at Holyrood House. It is possible, nevertheless, that Marlin may have been the more immediate executor or superintendent of the work.

Niddry’s Wynd abounded in curious antique houses, many of which had been the residences of remarkable persons. The most interesting _bit_ was a paved court, about half-way down, on the west side, called Lockhart’s Court, from its having latterly been the residence of the family of Lockhart of Carnwath.[177] This was, in reality, a quadrangular palace, the whole being of elegant old architecture in one design, and accessible by a deep arched gateway. It was built by Nicol Edward, or Udward, who was provost of Edinburgh in 1591; a wealthy citizen, and styled in his _writts_, ‘of old descent in the burgh.’ On a mantelpiece within the house his arms were carved, along with an anagram upon his name:

VA D’UN VOL À CHRIST—