Part 36

Between the eastern suburbs of Edinburgh and the village of Restalrig stands a solitary house named Marionville, enclosed in a shrubbery of no great extent, surrounded by high walls. Whether it be that the place has become dismal in consequence of the rise of a noxious fen in its neighbourhood, or that the tale connected with it acts upon the imagination, I cannot pretend to decide, but unquestionably there is about the house an air of depression and melancholy such as could scarcely fail to strike the most unobservant passenger. Yet, in 1790, this mansion was the abode of a gay and fashionable family, who, amongst other amusements, indulged in that of private theatricals, and in this line were so highly successful that admission to the Marionville theatre became a privilege for which the highest in the land would contend. Mr Macrae, the head of this family, was a man of good fortune, being the proprietor of an estate in Dumfriesshire, and also of good connections—the Earl of Glencairn, whom Burns has so much celebrated, being his cousin, while by his mother he was nearly related to Viscount Fermoy and the celebrated Sir Boyle Roche. He had been for some years retired from the Irish Carabiniers, and being still in the prime of life, he was thinking of again entering the army, when the incident which I am about to relate took place. He was a man of gentlemanlike accomplishments and manners, of a generous and friendly disposition, but marked by a keen and imperious sense of the deference due to a gentleman, and a heat of temper which was apt to make him commit actions of which he afterwards bitterly repented. After the unfortunate affair which ended his career in Scotland, the public, who never make nice distinctions as to the character of individuals, adopted the idea that he was as inhumane as rash, and he was reported to be an experienced duellist. But here he was greatly misrepresented. Mr Macrae would have shrunk from a deliberate act of cruelty; and the only connection he had ever had with single combat was in the way of endeavouring to reconcile friends who had quarrelled—an object in which he was successful on several memorable occasions. But the same man—whom all that really knew him allowed to be a delightful companion and kind-hearted man—was liable to be transported beyond the bounds of reason by casual and trivial occurrences. A messenger of the law having arrested the Rev. Mr Cunningham, brother of the Earl of Glencairn, for debt, as he was passing with a party from the drawing-room to the dining-room at Drumsheugh House, Mr Macrae threw the man over the stair. He was prompted to this act by indignation at the affront which he conceived his cousin, as a gentleman, had received from a common man. But soon after, when it was represented to him that every other means of inducing Mr Cunningham to settle his debt had failed, and when he learned that the messenger had suffered severe injury, he went to him, made him a hearty apology, and agreed to pay three hundred guineas by way of compensation. He had himself allowed a debt due to a tailor to remain too long unpaid, and the consequence was that he received a summons for it before the sheriff-court. With this document in his hand, he called, in a state of great excitement, upon his law-agent, to whom he began to read: ‘Archibald Cockburn of Cockpen, sheriff-depute,’ &c., till he came to a passage which declared that ‘he, the said James Macrae, had been oft and diverse times desired and required,’ &c. ‘The greatest lie ever uttered!’ he exclaimed. ‘He had never heard a word of it before; he would instantly go to the sheriff and horsewhip him.’ The agent had at the time letters of _horning_ against a very worthy baronet lying upon his table—that is to say, a document in which the baronet was denounced as a rebel to the king, according to a form of the law of Scotland, for failing to pay his debt. The agent took up this, and coolly began to read: ‘George III. by the grace of God,’ &c. Macrae at once saw the application, and fell a-laughing at his own folly, saying he would go directly and give the sheriff tickets for the play at Marionville, which he and his family requested. It will be seen that the fault of this unfortunate gentleman was heat of temper, not a savage disposition; but what fault can be more fatal than heat of temper?

Mr Macrae was married to an accomplished lady, Maria Cecilia le Maitre, daughter of the Baroness Nolken, wife of the Swedish ambassador. They occasionally resided in Paris, with Mrs Macrae’s relations, particularly with her cousin, Madame de la Briche, whose private theatricals in her elegant house at the Marais were the models of those afterwards instituted at Marionville. It may not be unworthy of notice that amongst their fellow-performers at Madame de la Briche’s was the celebrated Abbé Sieyès. When Mr Macrae and his lady set up their theatre at Marionville, they both took characters, he appearing to advantage in such parts as that of Dionysius in the _Grecian Daughter_, and she in the first line of female parts in genteel comedy. Sir David Kinloch and a Mr Justice were their best male associates; and the chief female performer, after Mrs Macrae herself, was Mrs Carruthers of Dormont, a daughter of the celebrated artist Paul Sandby. When all due deduction is made for the effects of complaisance, there seems to remain undoubted testimony that these performances involved no small amount of talent.

In Mr and Mrs Macrae’s circle of visiting acquaintance, and frequent spectators of the Marionville theatricals, were Sir George Ramsay of Bamff and his lady. Sir George had recently returned, with an addition to his fortune, from India, and was now settling himself down for the remainder of life in his native country. I have seen original letters between the two families, showing that they lived on the most friendly terms and entertained the highest esteem for each other. One written by Lady Ramsay to Mrs Macrae, from Sir George’s country-seat in Perthshire, commences thus: ‘My dear friend, I have just time to write you a few lines to say how much I long to hear from you, and to assure you how sincerely I love you.’ Her ladyship adds: ‘I am now enjoying rural retirement with Sir George, who is really so good and indulgent, that I am as happy as the gayest scenes could make me. He joins me in kind compliments to you and Mr Macrae,’ &c. How deplorable that social affections, which contribute so much to make life pass agreeably, should be liable to a wild upbreak from perhaps some trivial cause, not in itself worthy of a moment’s regard, and only rendered of consequence by the sensitiveness of pride and a deference to false and worldly maxims!

The source of the quarrel between Mr Macrae and Sir George was of a kind almost too mean and ridiculous to be spoken of. On the evening of the 7th April 1790, the former gentleman handed a lady out of the Edinburgh theatre, and endeavoured to get a chair for her, in which she might be conveyed home. Seeing two men approaching through the crowd with one, he called to ask if it was disengaged, to which the men replied with a distinct affirmative. As Mr Macrae handed the lady forward to put her into it, a footman, in a violent manner, seized hold of one of the poles, and insisted that it was engaged for his mistress. The man seemed disordered by liquor, and it was afterwards distinctly made manifest that he was acting without the guidance of reason. His lady had gone home some time before, while he was out of the way. He was not aware of this, and, under a confused sense of duty, he was now eager to obtain a chair for her, but in reality had not bespoken that upon which he laid hold. Mr Macrae, annoyed at the man’s pertinacity at such a moment, rapped him over the knuckles with a short cane to make him give way; on which the servant called him a scoundrel, and gave him a push on the breast. Incensed overmuch by this conduct, Mr Macrae struck him smartly over the head with his cane, on which the man cried out worse than before, and moved off. Mr Macrae, following him, repeated his blows two or three times, but only with that degree of force which he thought needful for a chastisement. In the meantime the lady whom Mr Macrae had handed out got into a different chair, and was carried off. Some of the bystanders, seeing a gentleman beating a servant, cried shame, and showed a disposition to take part with the latter; but there were individuals present who had observed all the circumstances, and who felt differently. One gentleman afterwards gave evidence that he had been insulted by the servant, at an earlier period of the evening, in precisely the same manner as Mr Macrae, and that the man’s conduct had throughout been rude and insolent, a consequence apparently of drunkenness.

Learning that the servant was in the employment of Lady Ramsay, Mr Macrae came into town next day, full of anxiety to obviate any unpleasant impression which the incident might have made upon her mind. Meeting Sir George in the street, he expressed to him his concern on the subject, when Sir George said lightly that the man being his lady’s footman, he did not feel any concern in the matter. Mr Macrae then went to apologise to Lady Ramsay, whom he found sitting for her portrait in the lodgings of the young artist Raeburn, afterwards so highly distinguished. It has been said that he fell on his knees before the lady to entreat her pardon for what he had done to her servant. Certainly he left her with the impression that he had no reason to expect a quarrel between himself and Sir George on account of what had taken place.

James Merry—this was the servant’s name—had been wounded in the head, but not severely. The injuries which he had sustained—though nothing can justify the violence which inflicted them—were only of such a nature as a few days of confinement would have healed. Such, indeed, was the express testimony given by his medical attendant, Mr Benjamin Bell. There was, however, a strong feeling amongst his class against Macrae, who was informed, in an anonymous letter, that a hundred and seven men-servants had agreed to have some revenge upon him. Merry himself had determined to institute legal proceedings against Mr Macrae for the recovery of damages. A process was commenced by the issue of a summons, which Mr Macrae received on the 12th. Wounded to the quick by this procedure, and smarting under the insolence of the anonymous letter, Mr Macrae wrote next day a note to Sir George Ramsay, in which, addressing him without any term of friendly regard, he demanded that either Merry should drop the prosecution or that his master should turn him off. Sir George temperately replied ‘that he had only now heard of the prosecution for the first time; that the man met with no encouragement from him; and that he hoped that Mr Macrae, on further consideration, would not think it incumbent on him to interfere, especially as the man was at present far from being well.’

On the same evening Mr Amory, a military friend of Mr Macrae, called upon Sir George with a second note from that gentleman, once more insisting on the man being turned off, and stating that in the event of his refusal Mr Amory was empowered to communicate his opinion of his conduct. Sir George did refuse, on the plea that he had yet seen no good reason for his discharging the servant; and Mr Amory then said it was his duty to convey Mr Macrae’s opinion, which was ‘that Sir George’s conduct had not been that of a gentleman.’ Sir George then said that further conversation was unnecessary; all that remained was to agree upon a place of meeting. They met again that evening at a tavern, where Mr Amory informed Sir George that it was Mr Macrae’s wish that they should meet, properly attended, next day at twelve o’clock at Ward’s Inn, on the borders of Musselburgh Links.

The parties met there accordingly, Mr Macrae being attended by Captain Amory, and Sir George Ramsay by Sir William Maxwell; Mr Benjamin Bell, the surgeon, being also of the party. Mr Macrae had brought an additional friend, a Captain Haig, to favour them with his advice, but not to act formally as a second. The two parties being in different rooms, Sir William Maxwell came into that occupied by Mr Macrae, and proposed that if Mr Macrae would apologise for the intemperate style of his letters demanding the discharge of the servant, Sir George would grant his request, and the affair would end. Mr Macrae answered that he would be most happy to comply with this proposal if his friends thought it proper; but he must abide by their decision. The question being put to Captain Haig, he answered, in a deliberate manner: ‘It is altogether impossible; Sir George must, in the first place, turn off his servant, and Mr Macrae will then apologise.’ Hearing this speech, equally marked by wrong judgment and wrong feeling, Macrae, according to the testimony of Mr Bell, shed tears of anguish. The parties then walked to the beach, and took their places in the usual manner. On the word being given, Sir George took deliberate aim at Macrae, the neck of whose coat was grazed by his bullet. Macrae had, if his own solemn asseveration is to be believed, intended to fire in the air; but when he found Sir George aiming thus at his life, he altered his resolution, and brought his antagonist to the ground with a mortal wound in the body.

There was the usual consternation and unspeakable distress. Mr Macrae went up to Sir George and ‘told him that he was sincerely afflicted at seeing him in that situation.’[269] It was with difficulty, and only at the urgent request of Sir William Maxwell, that he could be induced to quit the field. Sir George lingered for two days. The event occasioned a great sensation in the public mind, and a very unfavourable view was generally taken of Mr Macrae’s conduct. It was given out that during a considerable interval, while in expectation of the duel taking place, he had practised pistol-shooting in his garden at a barber’s block; and he was also said to have been provided with a pair of pistols of a singularly apt and deadly character; the truth being that the interval was a brief one, his hand totally unskilled in shooting, and the pistols a bad brass-mounted pair, hastily furnished by Amory. We have Amory’s testimony that as they were pursuing their journey to another country, he was constantly bewailing the fate of Sir George Ramsay, remarking how unfortunate it was that he took so obstinate a view about the servant’s case. The demand, he said, was one which he would have thought it necessary to comply with. He had asked Sir George nothing but what he would have done had it been his own case. This is so consonant with what appears otherwise respecting his character that we cannot doubt it. It is only to be lamented that he should not have made the demand in terms more calculated to lead to compliance.

The death of an amiable man under such deplorable circumstances roused the most zealous vigilance on the part of the law authorities; but Mr Macrae and his second succeeded in reaching France. A summons was issued for his trial, but he was advised not to appear, and accordingly sentence of outlawry was passed against him. The servant’s prosecution meanwhile went on, and was ultimately decided against Mr Macrae, although, on a cool perusal of the evidence on both sides, there appears to me the clearest proof of Merry having been the first aggressor. Mr Macrae lived in France till the progress of the Revolution forced him to go to Altona. When time seemed to have a little softened matters against him, he took steps to ascertain if he could safely return to his native country. It was decided by counsel that he could not. They held that his case entirely wanted the extenuating circumstance which was necessary—his having to contemplate degradation if he did not challenge. He was under no such danger; so that, from his letters to Sir George Ramsay, he appeared to have forced on the duel purely for revenge. He came to see the case in this light himself, and was obliged to make up his mind to perpetual self-banishment. He survived thirty years. A gentleman of my acquaintance, who had known him in early life in Scotland, was surprised to meet him one day in a Parisian coffee-house after the peace of 1814—the wreck or ghost of the handsome, sprightly man he had once been. The comfort of his home, his country, and friends, the use of his talents to all these, had been lost, and himself obliged to lead the life of a condemned Cain, all through the one fault of a fiery temper.

FOOTNOTES

[269] Letter of Captain Amory, MS.

ALISON SQUARE.

This is a large mass of building between Nicolson Square and the Potterrow, in the south side of the town. It was built about the middle of the eighteenth century, upon venture, by one Colin Alison, a joiner, who in after-life was much reduced in his circumstances, not improbably in consequence of this large speculation. In his last days he spent some of his few remaining shillings in the erection of two boards, at different parts of his buildings, whereon was represented a globe in the act of falling, with this inscription:

‘If Fortune smile, be not puffed up, And if it frown, be not dismayed; For Providence governeth all, Although the world’s turned upside down.’

Alison Square[270] has enjoyed some little connection with the Scottish muses. It was in the house of a Miss Nimmo in this place that Burns met Clarinda. It would amuse the reader of the ardent letters which passed between these two kindred souls to visit the plain, small, dusky house in which the lady lived at that time, and where she received several visits of the poet. It is situated in the adjacent humble street called the Potterrow, the first floor over the passage into General’s Entry, accessible by a narrow spiral stair from the court. A little parlour, a bedroom, and a kitchen constituted the accommodations of Mrs M’Lehose; now the residence of two, if not three, families in the extreme of humble life. Here she lived with a couple of infant children, a young and beautiful woman, blighted in her prospects in consequence of an unhappy marriage (her husband having deserted her, after using her barbarously), yet cheerful and buoyant, through constitutional good spirits and a rational piety. To understand her friendship with Burns and the meaning of their correspondence, it was almost necessary to have known the woman. Seeing her and hearing her converse, even in advanced life, one could penetrate the whole mystery very readily, in appreciating a spirit unusually gay, frank, and emotional. The perfect innocence of the woman’s nature was evident at once; and by her friends it was never doubted.

In Alison Square Thomas Campbell lived while composing his _Pleasures of Hope_. The place where any deathless composition took its shape from the author’s brain is worthy of a place in the chart. A lady, the early friend of Campbell and his family, indicates their residence at that time as being the second door in the stair, entered from the east side, on the north side of the arch, the windows looking partly into Nicolson Square and partly to the Potterrow. The same authority states that much of the poem was written in the middle of the night, and from a sad cause. The poet’s mother, it seems, was of a temper so extremely irritable that her family had no rest till she retired for the night. It was only at that season that the young poet could command repose of mind for his task.

FOOTNOTES

[270] The north and south sides only of this square now remain. The west was removed to make a thoroughfare—Marshall Street, connecting Nicolson Square and Potterrow.

LEITH WALK.

Up to the period of the building of the North Bridge, which connects the Old with the New Town of Edinburgh, the Easter Road was the principal passage to Leith. The origin of Leith Walk was accidental. At the approach of Cromwell to Edinburgh, immediately before the battle of Dunbar, Leslie, the Covenanting general, arranged the Scottish troops in a line, the right wing of which rested upon the Calton Hill, and the left upon Leith, being designed for the defence of these towns. A battery was erected at each extremity, and the line was itself defended by a trench and a mound, the latter composed of the earth dug from the former. Leslie himself took up his head-quarters at Broughton, whence some of his despatches are dated. When the war was shifted to another quarter, this mound became a footway between the two towns. It is thus described in a book published in 1748: ‘A very handsome gravel walk, twenty feet broad, which is kept in good repair at the public charge, and no horses suffered to come upon it.’ When Provost Drummond built the North Bridge in 1769, he contemplated that it should become an access to Leith as well as to the projected New Town. Indeed, he seems to have been obliged to make it pass altogether under that semblance in order to conciliate the people; for upon the plate sunk under the foundations of the bridge it is solely described as the opening of a road to Leith. At that time the idea of a New Town seemed so chimerical that he scarcely dared to avow his patriotic intentions. After the opening of the bridge, the _Walk_ seems to have become used by carriages, but without any regard being paid to its condition or any system established for keeping it in repair. It consequently fell into a state of disorder, from which it was not rescued till after the commencement of the present century, when a splendid causeway was formed at a great expense by the city of Edinburgh, and a toll erected for its payment.

One terrible peculiarity attended Leith Walk in its former condition. It was overhung by a gibbet, from which were suspended all culprits whose bodies at condemnation were sentenced to be hung in chains. The place where this gibbet stood, called the Gallow Lee, is now a good deal altered in appearance. It was a slight rising ground immediately above the site of the toll[271] and on the west side of the road, being now partly enclosed by the precincts of a villa, where the beautiful Duchess of Gordon once lived. The greater part of the Gallow Lee now exists in the shape of mortar in the walls of the houses of the New Town. At the time when that elegant city was built, the proprietor of this redoubtable piece of ground, finding it composed of excellent sand, sold it all away to the builders, to be converted into mortar, so that it soon, from a rising ground, became a deep hollow. An amusing anecdote is told in connection with this fact. The honest man, it seems, was himself fully as much of a sand-bed as his property. He was a big, voluminous man, one of those persons upon whom drink never seems to have any effect. It is related that every day, while the carts were taking away his sand, he stood regularly at the place receiving the money in return, and every little sum he got was immediately converted into liquor and applied to the comfort of his inner man. A public-house was at length erected at the spot for his particular behoof; and, assuredly, as long as the Gallow Lee lasted this house did not want custom. Perhaps, familiar as the reader may be with stories of sots who have drunk away their last acre, he never before heard of the thing being done in so literal a manner.