Part 34
In Edinburgh, where he lived for upwards of thirty years previous to his death in 1789, his livelihood was at first ostensibly gained by keeping a little school, latterly by celebrating what were called _half-mark marriages_—a business resembling that of the Gretna blacksmith. It is said that he, who made himself the terror of so many by his wit, was in his turn held in fear by his wife, who was as complete a shrew as ever fell to the lot of poet or philosopher.
He was a satirist by profession; and when any person wished to have a squib played off upon his neighbours, he had nothing to do but call upon Claudero, who, for half a crown, would produce the desired effusion, composed, and copied off in a fair hand, in a given time. He liked this species of employment better than writing upon speculation, the profit being more certain and immediate. When in want of money, it was his custom to write a sly satire on some opulent public personage, upon whom he called with it, desiring to have his opinion of the work, and his countenance in favour of a subscription for its publication. The object of his ridicule, conscious-struck by his own portrait, would wince and be civil, advise him to give up thoughts of publishing so hasty a production, and conclude by offering a guinea or two to keep the poet alive till better times should come round. At that time there lived in Edinburgh a number of rich old men who had made fortunes in questionable ways abroad, and whose characters, labouring under strange suspicions, were wonderfully susceptible of Claudero’s satire. These the wag used to bleed profusely and frequently by working upon their fears of public notice.
In 1766 appeared _Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, by Claudero, Son of Nimrod the Mighty Hunter, &c., &c._, opening with this preface: ‘Christian Reader—The following miscellany is published at the desire of many gentlemen, who have all been my very good friends; if there be anything in it amusing or entertaining, I shall be very glad I have contributed to your diversion, and will laugh as heartily at your money as you do at my works. Several of my pieces may need explanation; but I am too cunning for that: what is not understood, like Presbyterian preaching, will at least be admired. I am regardless of critics; perhaps some of my lines want a foot; but then, if the critic look sharp out, he will find that loss sufficiently supplied in other places, where they have a foot too much: and besides, men’s works generally resemble themselves; if the poems are lame, so is the author—CLAUDERO.’
The most remarkable poems in this volume are: ‘The Echo of the Royal Porch of the Palace of Holyrood House, which fell under Military Execution, anno 1753;’ ‘The Last Speech and Dying Words of the Cross, which was Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered on Monday the 15th of March 1756, for the horrid crime of being an Incumbrance to the Street;’ ‘Scotland in Tears for the horrid Treatment of the Kings’ Sepulchres;’ ‘An Elegy on the much-lamented Death of Quaker Erskine;’[255] ‘A Sermon on the Condemnation of the Netherbow;’ ‘Humphry Colquhoun’s Last Farewell,’ &c. Claudero seems to have been the only man of his time who remonstrated against the destruction of the venerable edifices then removed from the streets which they ornamented, to the disappointment and indignation of all future antiquaries. There is much wit in his sermon upon the destruction of the Netherbow. ‘What was too hard,’ he says, ‘for the great ones of the earth, yea, even queens, to effect, is now accomplished. No patriot duke opposeth the scheme, as did the great Argyll in the grand senate of our nation; therefore the project shall go into execution, and down shall Edina’s lofty porches be hurled with a vengeance. Streets shall be extended to the east, regular and beautiful, as far as the Frigate Whins; and Portobello[256] shall be a lodge for the captors of tea and brandy. The city shall be joined to Leith on the north, and a procession of wise masons shall there lay the foundations of a spacious harbour. Pequin or Nanquin shall not be able to compare with Edinburgh for magnificence. Our city shall be the greatest wonder of the world, and the fame of its glory shall reach the distant ends of the earth.[257] But lament, O thou descendant of the royal Dane, and chief of the tribe of Wilson; for thy shop, contiguous to the porch, shall be dashed to pieces, and its place will know thee no more! No more shall the melodious voice of the loyalist Grant[258] be heard in the morning, nor shall he any more shake the bending wand towards the triumphal arch. Let all who angle in deep waters lament, for Tom had not his equal. The Netherbow Coffee-house of the loyal Smeiton can now no longer enjoy its ancient name with propriety; and from henceforth _The Revolution Coffee-house_ shall its name be called. Our gates must be extended wide for accommodating the gilded chariots, which, from the luxury of the age, are become numerous. With an impetuous career, they jostle against one another in our streets, and the unwary foot-passenger is in danger of being crushed to pieces. The loaded cart itself cannot withstand their fury, and the hideous yells of _Coal Johnie_ resound through the vaulted sky. The sour-milk barrels are overturned, and deluges of Corstorphin cream run down our strands, while the poor unhappy milkmaid wrings her hands with sorrow.’ To the sermon are appended the ‘Last Speech and Dying Words of the Netherbow,’ in which the following laughable declaration occurs: ‘May my clock be struck dumb in the other world, if I lie in this! and may MACK, the reformer of Edina’s lofty spires, never bestride my weathercock on high, if I deviate from truth in these my last words! Though my fabric shall be levelled with the dust of the earth, yet I fall in hope that my weathercock shall be exalted on some more modern dome, where it shall shine like the burnished gold, reflecting the rays of the sun to the eye of ages unborn. The daring Mack shall yet look down from my cock, high in the airy region, to the brandy-shops below, where large graybeards shall appear to him no bigger than mutchkin-bottles, and mutchkin-bottles shall be in his sight like the spark of a diamond.’ One of Claudero’s versified compositions, ‘Humphry Colquhoun’s Farewell,’ is remarkable as a kind of coarse prototype of the beautiful lyric entitled ‘Mary,’ sung in _The Pirate_ by Claud Halcro. One wonders to find the genius of Scott refining upon such materials:
‘Farewell to Auld Reekie, Farewell to lewd Kate, Farewell to each ——, And farewell to cursed debt; With light heart and thin breeches, Humph crosses the main; All worn out to stitches, He’ll ne’er come again.
Farewell to old Dido, Who sold him good ale; Her charms, like her drink, For poor Humph were too stale; Though closely she urged him To marry and stay, Her Trojan, quite cloyed, From her sailed away.
Farewell to James Campbell, Who played many tricks; Humph’s ghost and Lochmoidart’s[259] Will chase him to Styx; Where in Charon’s wherry He’ll be ferried o’er To Pluto’s dominions, ’Mongst rascals great store.
Farewell, pot-companions, Farewell, all good fellows; Farewell to my anvil, Files, pliers, and bellows; Sails, fly to Jamaica, Where I mean long to dwell, Change manners with climate— Dear Drummond, farewell.’
It is not unworthy of notice that the publication of Dr Blair’s _Lectures on Rhetoric and the Belles-lettres_ was hastened by Claudero, who, having procured notes taken by some of the students, avowed an intention of giving these to the world. The reverend author states in his preface that he was induced to publish the lectures in consequence of some surreptitious and incorrect copies finding their way to the public; but it has not hitherto been told that this doggerel-monger was the person chiefly concerned in bringing about that result.
Claudero occasionally dealt in whitewash as well as blackball, and sometimes wrote regular panegyrics. An address of this kind to a _writer_ named Walter Fergusson, who built St James’s Square, concludes with a strange association of ideas:
‘May Pentland Hills pour forth their springs, To water all thy square! May Fergussons still bless the place, Both gay and debonnair!’
When the said square was in progress, however, the water seemed in no hurry to obey the bard’s invocation; and an attempt was made to procure this useful element by sinking wells for it, despite the elevation of the ground. Mr Walter Scott, W.S., happened one day to pass when Captain Fergusson of the Royal Navy—a good officer, but a sort of Commodore Trunnion in his manners—was sinking a well of vast depth. Upon Mr Scott expressing a doubt if water could be got there, ‘I will get it,’ quoth the captain, ‘though I sink to hell for it!’ ‘A bad place for water,’ was the dry remark of the doubter.
FOOTNOTES
[255] A noted brewer, much given to preaching. Of him Claudero says:
‘Our souls with gospel he did cheer, Our bodies, too, with ale and beer; _Gratis_ he gospel got and gave away; For ale and beer he only made us pay.’
[256] This thriving parliamentary burgh originated in a cottage built, and long inhabited, by a retired seaman of Admiral Vernon’s squadron, who gave it this name in commemoration of the triumph which his commander there gained over the Spaniards in 1739. There must have been various houses at the spot in 1753, when we find one ‘George Hamilton, in Portobello,’ advertising in the _Edinburgh Courant_ that he would give a reward of three pounds to any one who should discover the author of a scandalous report, which represented him as harbouring robbers in his house. The waste upon which Portobello is now partly founded was dreadfully infested at this time with robbers, and resorted to by smugglers; see _Courant_. [Portobello, while remaining one of the ‘Leith burghs’ for parliamentary purposes, was municipally incorporated with Edinburgh in 1896. Claudero’s ‘Frigate Whins’ are better known as the ‘Figgate Whins.’]
[257] Claudero could have little serious expectation that several of these predictions would come to pass before he had been forty years in his grave.
[258] A celebrated and much-esteemed fishing-rod maker, who afterwards flourished in the old wooden _land_ at the head of Blackfriars Wynd. He survived to recent times, and was distinguished for his adherence to the cocked hat, wrist ruffles, and buckles of his youth. He was a short, neat man, very well bred, a great angler, intimate with the great, a Jacobite, and lived to near a century. He had fished in almost every trouting stream in the three kingdoms, and was seen skating on Lochend at the age of eighty-five.
[259] This seems to bear some reference to the seizure of young Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart at Lesmahagow in 1745.
QUEENSBERRY HOUSE.
In the Canongate, on the south side, is a large, gloomy building, enclosed in a court, and now used as a refuge for destitute persons. This was formerly the town mansion of the Dukes of Queensberry, and a scene, of course, of stately life and high political affairs. It was built by the first duke, the willing minister of the last two Stuarts—he who also built Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, which he never slept in but one night, and with regard to which it is told that he left the accounts for the building tied up with this inscription: ‘The deil pyke out his een that looks herein!’ Duke William was a noted money-maker and land-acquirer. No little laird of his neighbourhood had any chance with him for the retention of his family property. He was something still worse in the eyes of the common people—a _persecutor_; that is, one siding against the Presbyterian cause. There is a story in one of their favourite books of his having died of the _morbus pediculosus_, by way of a judgment upon him for his wickedness. In reality, he died of some ordinary fever. It is also stated, from the same authority, that about the time when his grace died, a Scotch skipper, being in Sicily, saw one day a coach-and-six driving to Mount Etna, while a diabolic voice exclaimed: ‘Open to the Duke of Drumlanrig!’—‘which proves, by the way,’ says Mr Sharpe, ‘that the devil’s porter is no herald. In fact,’ adds this acute critic, ‘the legend is borrowed from the story of Antonio the Rich, in George Sandys’s _Travels_.’[260]
It appears, from family letters, that the first duchess often resided in the Canongate mansion, while her husband occupied Sanquhar Castle. The lady was unfortunately given to drink, and there is a letter of hers in which she pathetically describes her situation to a country friend, left alone in Queensberry House with only a few bottles of wine, one of which, having been drawn, had turned out sour. Sour wine being prejudicial to her health, it was fearful to think of what might prove the quality of the remaining bottles.
The son of this couple, James, second duke, must ever be memorable as the main instrument in carrying through the Union. His character has been variously depicted. By Defoe, in his _History of the Union_, it is liberally panegyrised. ‘I think I have,’ says he, ‘given demonstrations to the world that I will flatter no man.’ Yet he could not refrain from extolling the ‘prudence, calmness, and temper’ which the duke showed during that difficult crisis. Unfortunately the author of _Robinson Crusoe_, though not a flatterer, could not insure himself against the usual prepossessions of a partisan. Boldness the duke must certainly have possessed, for during the ferments attending the parliamentary proceedings on that occasion, he continued daily to drive between his lodgings in Holyrood and the Parliament House, notwithstanding several intimations that his life was threatened. His grace’s eldest son, James, was an idiot of the most unhappy sort—rabid and gluttonous, and early grew to an immense height, which is testified by his coffin in the family vault at Durisdeer, still to be seen, of great length and unornamented with the heraldic follies which bedizen the violated remains of his relatives. A tale of mystery and horror is preserved by tradition respecting this monstrous being. While the family resided in Edinburgh, he was always kept confined in a ground apartment, in the western wing of the house, upon the windows of which, till within these few years, the boards still remained by which the dreadful receptacle was darkened to prevent the idiot from looking out or being seen. On the day the Union was passed, all Edinburgh crowded to the Parliament Close to await the issue of the debate, and to mob the chief promoters of the detested measure on their leaving the House. The whole household of the commissioner went _en masse_, with perhaps a somewhat different object, and among the rest was the man whose duty it was to watch and attend Lord Drumlanrig. Two members of the family alone were left behind—the madman himself, and a little kitchen-boy who turned the spit. The insane being, hearing everything unusually still around, the house being deserted, and the Canongate like a city of the dead, and observing his keeper to be absent, broke loose from his confinement, and roamed wildly through the house. It is supposed that the savoury odour of the preparations for dinner led him to the kitchen, where he found the little turnspit quietly seated by the fire. He seized the boy, killed him, took the meat from the fire, and spitted the body of his victim, which he half-roasted, and was found devouring when the duke, with his domestics, returned from his triumph. The idiot survived his father many years, though he did not succeed him upon his death in 1711, when the titles devolved upon Charles, the younger brother. He is known to have died in England. This horrid act of his child was, according to the common sort of people, the judgment of God upon him for his wicked concern in the Union—the greatest blessing, as it has happened, that ever was conferred upon Scotland by any statesman.
Charles, third Duke of Queensberry, who was born in Queensberry House, resided occasionally in it when he visited Scotland; but as he was much engaged in attending the court during the earlier part of his life, his stay here was seldom of long continuance. After his grace and the duchess embroiled themselves with the court (1729), on account of the support which they gave to the poet Gay, they came to Scotland, and resided for some time here. The author of the _Beggar’s Opera_ accompanied them, and remained about a month, part of which was given to Dumfriesshire. Tradition in Edinburgh used to point out an attic in an old house opposite to Queensberry House, where, as an appropriate abode for a poet, his patrons are said to have stowed him. It was said he wrote the _Beggar’s Opera_ there—an entirely gratuitous assumption. In the progress of the history of his writings, nothing of consequence occurs at this time. He had finished the second part of the opera a short while before. After his return to the south, he is found engaged in ‘new writing a damned play, which he wrote several years before, called _The Wife of Bath_; a task which he accomplished while living with the Duke of Queensberry in Oxfordshire, during the ensuing months of August, September, and October.’[261] It is known, however, that while in Edinburgh, he haunted the shop of Allan Ramsay, in the Luckenbooths—the flat above that well-remembered and classical shop so long kept by Mr Creech, from which issued the _Mirror_, _Lounger_, and other works of name, and where for a long course of years all the _literati_ of Edinburgh used to assemble every day, like merchants at an Exchange. Here Ramsay amused Gay by pointing out to him the chief public characters of the city as they met in the forenoon at the Cross. Here, too, Gay read the _Gentle Shepherd_, and studied the Scottish language, so that upon his return to England he was enabled to make Pope appreciate the beauties of that delightful pastoral. He is said also to have spent some of his time with the sons of mirth and humour in an alehouse opposite to Queensberry House, kept by one Janet Hall. _Jenny Ha’s_, as the place was called, was a noted house for drinking claret from the butt within the recollection of old gentlemen living in my time.
While Gay was at Drumlanrig, he employed himself in picking out a great number of the best books from the library, which were sent to England, whether for his own use or the duke’s is not known.
Duchess Catherine was a most extraordinary lady, eccentric to a degree undoubtedly bordering on madness. Her beauty has been celebrated by Pope not in very elegant terms:
‘Since Queensberry to strip there’s no compelling, ’Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen.’
Prior had, at an early period of her life, depainted her irrepressible temper:
‘Thus Kitty, beautiful and young, And wild as colt untamed, Bespoke the fair from whom she sprang, By little rage inflamed; Inflamed with rage at sad restraint, Which wise mamma ordained; And sorely vexed to play the saint, Whilst wit and beauty reigned.
“Shall I thumb holy books, confined With Abigails forsaken? Kitty’s for other things designed, Or I am much mistaken. Must Lady Jenny frisk about, And visit with her cousins? At balls must she make all the rout, And bring home hearts by dozens?
What has she better, pray, than I? What hidden charms to boast, That all mankind for her should die, Whilst I am scarce a toast? Dearest mamma, for once let me, Unchained, my fortune try; I’ll have my earl as well as she, Or know the reason why.
I’ll soon with Jenny’s pride quit score, Make all her lovers fall; They’ll grieve I was not loosed before, She, I was loosed at all.” Fondness prevailed, mamma gave way; Kitty, at heart’s desire, Obtained the chariot for a day, And set the world on fire!’
It is an undoubted fact that, before her marriage, she had been confined in a _strait-jacket_ on account of mental derangement; and her conduct in married life was frequently such as to entitle her to a repetition of the same treatment. She was, in reality, at all times to a certain extent insane, though the politeness of fashionable society and the flattery of her poetical friends seem to have succeeded in passing off her extravagances as owing to an agreeable freedom of carriage and vivacity of mind. Her brother was as clever and as mad as herself, and used to amuse himself by hiding a book in his library, and hunting for it after he had forgot where it was deposited.
Her grace was no admirer of Scottish manners. One of their habits she particularly detested—the custom of eating off the end of a knife. When people dined with her at Drumlanrig, and began to lift their food in this manner, she used to scream out and beseech them not to cut their throats; and then she would confound the offending persons by sending them a silver spoon or fork upon a salver.[262]
When in Scotland her grace always dressed herself in the garb of a peasant-girl. Her object seems to have been to ridicule and put out of countenance the stately dresses and demeanour of the Scottish gentlewomen who visited her. One evening some country ladies paid her a visit, dressed in their best brocades, as for some state occasion. Her grace proposed a walk, and they were of course under the necessity of trooping off, to the utter discomfiture of their starched-up frills and flounces. Her grace at last pretended to be tired, sat down upon the dirtiest dunghill she could find, at the end of a farmhouse, and saying, ‘Pray, ladies, be seated,’ invited her poor draggled companions to plant themselves round about her. They stood so much in awe of her that they durst not refuse; and of course her grace had the satisfaction of afterwards laughing at the destruction of their silks.
When she went out to an evening entertainment, and found a tea-equipage paraded which she thought too fine for the rank of the owner, she would contrive to overset the table and break the china. The forced politeness of her hosts on such occasions, and the assurances which they made her grace that no harm was done, &c., delighted her exceedingly.
Her custom of dressing like a _paysanne_ once occasioned her grace a disagreeable adventure at a review. On her attempting to approach the duke, the guard, not knowing her rank or relation to him, pushed her rudely back. This threw her into such a passion that she could not be appeased till his grace assured her that the men had all been soundly flogged for their insolence.
An anecdote scarcely less laughable is told of her grace as occurring at court, where she carried to the same extreme her attachment to plain-dealing and plain-dressing. An edict had been issued forbidding the ladies to appear at the drawing-room in aprons. This was disregarded by the duchess, whose rustic costume would not have been complete without that piece of dress. On approaching the door she was stopped by the lord in waiting, who told her that he could not possibly give her grace admission in that guise, when she, without a moment’s hesitation, stripped off her apron, threw it in his lordship’s face, and walked on, in her brown gown and petticoat, into the brilliant circle!