'Wha last beside his chair shall fa'
He is the king amang us three!'
It was the Princess Dashkoff who said, in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, that of all the societies of men of talent she
had met with in her travels, Edinburgh's was the first in point of
abilities.
One might make the same remark to-day, perhaps, and not depart widely
from the truth. One does not find, however, as many noted names as are
associated with the annals of the Cape and Poker Clubs or the Crochallan
Fencibles, those famous groups of famous men who met for relaxation (and
intoxication, I should think) at the old Isle of Man Arms or in Dawney's
Tavern in the Anchor Close. These groups included such shining lights
as Robert Fergusson the poet, and Adam Ferguson the historian and
philosopher, Gavin Wilson, Sir Henry Raeburn, David Hume, Erskine,
Lords Newton, Gillies, Monboddo, Hailes, Kames, Henry Mackenzie, and the
Ploughman Poet himself, who has kept alive the memory of the Crochallans
in many a jovial verse like that in which he describes Smellie, the
eccentric philosopher and printer:--
'Shrewd Willie Smellie to Crochallan came,
The old cocked hat, the grey surtout the same,
His bristling beard just rising in its might;
'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night';
or in the characteristic picture of William Dunbar, a wit of the time,
and the merriest of the Fencibles:--
'As I cam by Crochallan
I cannily keekit ben;
Rattlin', roarin' Willie
Was sitting at yon boord en';
Sitting at yon boord en',
And amang guid companie!
Rattlin', roarin' Willie,
Ye're welcome hame to me!'
or in the verses on Creech, Burns's publisher, who left Edinburgh for a
time in 1789. The 'Willies,' by the way, seem to be especially inspiring
to the Scottish balladists.
'Oh, Willie was a witty wight,
And had o' things an unco slight!
Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight
And trig and braw;
But now they'll busk her like a fright--
Willie's awa'!'
I think perhaps the gatherings of the present time are neither quite as
gay nor quite as brilliant as those of Burns's day, when
'Willie brewed a peck o' maut,
An' Rob an' Allan cam to pree';
but the ideal standard of those meetings seems to be voiced in the
lines:--
'Wha last beside his chair shall fa',
He is the king amang us three!'
As they sit in their chairs nowadays to the very end of the feast, there
is doubtless joined with modern sobriety a soupcon of modern dulness and
discretion.
To an American the great charm of Edinburgh is its leisurely atmosphere:
'not the leisure of a village arising from the deficiency of ideas and
motives, but the leisure of a city reposing grandly on tradition and
history; which has done its work, and does not require to weave its own
clothing, to dig its own coals, or smelt its own iron.'
We were reminded of this more than once, and it never failed to depress
us properly. If one had ever lived in Pittsburg, Fall River, or
Kansas City, I should think it would be almost impossible to maintain
self-respect in a place like Edinburgh, where the citizens 'are released
from the vulgarising dominion of the hour.' Whenever one of Auld
Reekie's great men took this tone with me, I always felt as though I
were the germ in a half-hatched egg, and he were an aged and lordly cock
gazing at me pityingly through my shell. He, lucky creature, had lived
through all the struggles which I was to undergo; he, indeed, was
released from 'the vulgarising dominion of the hour'; but I, poor thing,
must grow and grow, and keep pecking at my shell, in order to achieve
existence.
Sydney Smith says in one of his letters, 'Never shall I forget the
happy days passed there [in Edinburgh], amidst odious smells, barbarous
sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts, and the most enlightened and
cultivated understandings.' His only criticism of the conversation of
that day (1797-1802) concerned itself with the prevalence of that form
of Scotch humour which was called wut; and with the disputations and
dialectics. We were more fortunate than Sydney Smith, because Edinburgh
has outgrown its odious smells, barbarous sounds, and bad suppers and,
wonderful to relate, has kept its excellent hearts and its enlightened
and cultivated understandings. As for mingled wut and dialectics, where
can one find a better foundation for dinner-table conversation?
The hospitable board itself presents no striking differences from
our own, save the customs of serving sweets in soup-plates with
dessert-spoons, of a smaller number of forks on parade, of the
invariable fish-knife at each plate, of the prevalent 'savoury' and
'cold shape,' and the unusual grace and skill with which the hostess
carves. Even at very large dinners one occasionally sees a lady of high
degree severing the joints of chickens and birds most daintily, while
her lord looks on in happy idleness, thinking, perhaps, how greatly
times have changed for the better since the ages of strife and
bloodshed, when Scottish nobles
'Carved at the meal with gloves of steel,
And drank their wine through helmets barred.'
The Scotch butler is not in the least like an English one. No man could
be as respectable as he looks, not even an elder of the kirk, whom he
resembles closely. He hands your plate as if it were a contribution-box,
and in his moments of ease, when he stands behind the 'maister,' I am
always expecting him to pronounce a benediction. The English butler,
when he wishes to avoid the appearance of listening to the conversation,
gazes with level eye into vacancy; the Scotch butler looks distinctly
heavenward, as if he were brooding on the principle of co-ordinate
jurisdiction with mutual subordination. It would be impossible for me to
deny the key of the wine-cellar to a being so steeped in sanctity, but
it has been done, I am told, in certain rare and isolated cases.
As for toilets, the men dress like all other men (alas, and alas, that
we should say it, for we were continually hoping for a kilt!) though
there seems to be no survival of the finical Lord Napier's spirit.
Perhaps you remember that Lord and Lady Napier arrived at Castlemilk
in Lanarkshire with the intention of staying a week, but announced next
morning that a circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable
to return without delay to their seat in Selkirkshire. This was the only
explanation given, but it was afterwards discovered that Lord Napier's
valet had committed the grievous mistake of packing up a set of
neckcloths which did not correspond IN POINT OF DATE with the shirts
they accompanied!
The ladies of the 'smart set' in Edinburgh wear French fripperies
and chiffons, as do their sisters every where, but the other women of
society dress a trifle more staidly than their cousins in London,
Paris, or New York. The sobriety of taste and severity of style that
characterise Scotswomen may be due, like Susanna Crum's dubieties, to
the haar, to the shorter catechism, or perhaps in some degree to the
presence of three branches of the Presbyterian Church among them; the
society that bears in its bosom three separate and antagonistic kinds of
Presbyterianism at the same time must have its chilly moments.
In Lord Cockburn's time the 'dames of high and aristocratic breed'
must have been sufficiently awake to feminine frivolities to be both
gorgeously and extravagantly arrayed. I do not know in all literature
a more delicious and lifelike word-portrait than Lord Cockburn gives
of Mrs. Rochead, the Lady of Inverleith, in the Memorials. It is quite
worthy to hang beside a Raeburn canvas; one can scarce say more.
'Except Mrs. Siddons in some of her displays of magnificent royalty,
nobody could sit down like the Lady of Inverleith. She would sail like a
ship from Tarshish, gorgeous in velvet or rustling silk, done up in
all the accompaniments of fans, ear-rings, and finger-rings, falling
sleeves, scent-bottle, embroidered bag, hoop, and train; managing all
this seemingly heavy rigging with as much ease as a full-blown swan does
its plumage. She would take possession of the centre of a large sofa,
and at the same moment, without the slightest visible exertion, cover
the whole of it with her bravery, the graceful folds seeming to lay
themselves over it, like summer waves. The descent from her carriage,
too, where she sat like a nautilus in its shell, was a display which no
one in these days could accomplish or even fancy. The mulberry-coloured
coach, apparently not too large for what it contained, though she alone
was in it; the handsome, jolly coachman and his splendid hammer-cloth
loaded with lace; the two respectful liveried footmen, one on each side
of the richly carpeted step,--these were lost sight of amidst the slow
majesty with which the Lady of Inverleith came down and touched the
earth.'
My right-hand neighbour at Lady Baird's dinner was surprised at
my quoting Lord Cockburn. One's attendant squires here always seem
surprised when one knows anything; but they are always delighted, too,
so that the amazement is less trying. True, I had read the Memorials
only the week before, and had never heard of them previous to that time;
but that detail, according to my theories, makes no real difference. The
woman who knows how and when to 'read up,' who reads because she wants
to be in sympathy with a new environment; the woman who has wit and
perspective enough to be stimulated by novel conditions and kindled by
fresh influences, who is susceptible to the vibrations of other people's
history, is safe to be fairly intelligent and extremely agreeable,
if only she is sufficiently modest. I think my neighbour found me
thoroughly delightful after he discovered my point of view. He was an
earl; and it always takes an earl a certain length of time to understand
me. I scarcely know why, for I certainly should not think it courteous
to interpose any real barriers between the nobility and that portion of
the 'masses' represented in my humble person.
It seemed to me at first that the earl did not apply himself to the
study of my national peculiarities with much assiduity, but wasted
considerable time in gazing at Francesca, who was opposite. She is
certainly very handsome, and I never saw her lovelier than at that
dinner; her eyes were like stars, and her cheeks and lips a splendid
crimson, for she was quarrelling with her attendant cavalier about the
relative merits of Scotland and America, and they apparently ceased to
speak to each other after the salad.
When the earl had sufficiently piqued me by his devotion to his dinner
and his glances at Francesca, I began a systematic attempt to achieve
his (transient) subjugation. Of course I am ardently attached to Willie
Beresford and prefer him to any earl in Britain, but one's self-respect
demands something in the way of food. I could see Salemina at the far
end of the table radiant with success, the W.S. at her side bending ever
and anon to catch the (artificial) pearls of thought that dropped from
her lips. “Miss Hamilton appears simple” (I thought I heard her say);
“but in reality she is as deep as the Currie Brig!” Now where did she
get that allusion? And again, when the W.S. asked her whither she was
going when she left Edinburgh, “I hardly know,” she replied pensively.
“I am waiting for the shade of Montrose to direct me, as the Viscount
Dundee said to your Duke of Gordon.” The entranced Scotsman little knew
that she had perfected this style of conversation by long experience
with the Q.C.'s of England. Talk about my being as deep as the Currie
Brig (whatever it may be); Salemina is deeper than the Atlantic Ocean! I
shall take pains to inform her Writer to the Signet, after dinner, that
she eats sugar on her porridge every morning; that will show him her
nationality conclusively.
The earl took the greatest interest in my new ancestors, and approved
thoroughly of my choice. He thinks I must have been named for Lady
Penelope Belhaven, who lived in Leven Lodge, one of the country villas
of the Earls of Leven, from whom he himself is descended. “Does that
make us relatives?” I asked. “Relatives, most assuredly,” he replied,
“but not too near to destroy the charm of friendship.”
He thought it a great deal nicer to select one's own forebears than to
allow them all the responsibility, and said it would save a world of
trouble if the method could be universally adopted. He added that he
should be glad to part with a good many of his, but doubted whether I
would accept them, as they were 'rather a scratch lot.' (I use his own
language, which I thought delightfully easy for a belted earl.) He was
charmed with the story of Francesca and the lamiter, and offered to
drive me to Kildonan House, Helmsdale, on the first fine day. I told him
he was quite safe in making the proposition, for we had already had the
fine day, and we understood that the climate had exhausted itself and
retired for the season.
The gentleman on my left, a distinguished Dean of the Thistle, gave me a
few moments' discomfort by telling me that the old custom of 'rounds'
of toasts still prevailed at Lady Baird's on formal occasions, and that
before the ladies retired every one would be called upon for appropriate
'sentiments.'
“What sort of sentiments?” I inquired, quite overcome with terror.
“Oh, epigrammatic sentences expressive of moral feelings or virtues,”
replied my neighbour easily. “They are not quite as formal and hackneyed
now as they were in the olden time, when some of the favourite toasts
were 'May the pleasure of the evening bear the reflections of the
morning!' 'May the friends of our youth be the companions of our old
age!' 'May the honest heart never feel distress!' 'May the hand of
charity wipe the eye of sorrow!'”
“I can never do it in the world!” I ejaculated. “Oh, one ought never,
never to leave one's own country! A light-minded and cynical English
gentleman told me that I should frequently be called upon to read hymns
and recite verses of Scripture at family dinners in Edinburgh, and I
hope I am always prepared to do that; but nobody warned me that I should
have to evolve epigrammatic sentiments on the spur of the moment.”
My confusion was so evident that the good dean relented and confessed
that he was imposing upon my ignorance. He made me laugh heartily at the
story of a poor dominie at Arndilly. He was called upon in his turn, at
a large party, and having nothing to aid him in an exercise to which
he was new save the example of his predecessors, lifted his glass after
much writhing and groaning and gave, “The reflection of the moon in the
cawm bosom of the lake!”
At this moment Lady Baird glanced at me, and we all rose to go into the
drawing-room; but on the way from my chair to the door, whither the earl
escorted me, he said gallantly, “I suppose the men in your country
do not take champagne at dinner? I cannot fancy their craving it when
dining beside an American woman!”
That was charming, though he did pay my country a compliment at my
expense. One likes, of course, to have the type recognised as fine; at
the same time his remark would have been more flattering if it had been
less sweeping.
When I remember that he offered me his ancestors, asked me to drive two
hundred and eighty miles, and likened me to champagne, I feel that,
with my heart already occupied and my hand promised, I could hardly have
accomplished more in the course of a single dinner-hour.