=Guy Mannering.=
CURIOUS PARTICULARS OF SIR ROBERT MAXWELL OF ORCHARDSTON.
(_Groundwork of the Novel._)
“Sir Robert Maxwell of Orchardston, in the county of Galloway, was
the descendant of an ancient Roman Catholic family of title in the
south of Scotland. He was the only child of a religious and bigoted
recluse, who sent him, while yet very young, to a college of Jesuits in
Flanders, for education—the paternal estate being, in the meantime,
wholly managed by the boy’s uncle, the brother of the devotee, to
whom he resigned the guardianship of the property, in order that
he might employ the remainder of his days exclusively in acts of
devotion. In the family of Orchardston, as, indeed, in most great
families of that day, the younger branches were but ill provided for,
and looked to the inheritor of the family estate alone for the means
of supporting their rank in society: the liberal professions and the
employments of trade were still considered somewhat dishonourable; and
the unfortunate junior, nursed with inflated ideas of consequence and
rank, was doomed in after-life to exercise the servility and experience
the mortification of an humble dependant. In this case, the culpable
negligence of the father had transferred the entire management of
a large estate to his younger brother, who was so delighted in the
possession, that he resolved to retain it, to the exclusion of the
rightful heir. He consequently circulated a report that the boy was
dead; and on the death of the old baronet, which took place about
this period, he laid claim to the title and estate. In the meantime,
our young hero was suffering (very reluctantly) the severe discipline
of the Jesuits’ college, his expenses being defrayed by occasional
supplies sent him by his uncle, which were represented to him as the
bounties of the college—a story which he could not discredit, as he
had been placed there at an age too young to know distinctly either who
he was or whence he came. He was intelligent and docile; and was deemed
of sufficient capacity to become hereafter one of their own learned
body, with which view he was educated. When at the age of sixteen, he
found the discipline and austerities of a monastic life so ill suited
to his inclination, that, on a trivial dispute with the superior of
his college, he ran away, and enlisted himself in a French marching
regiment. In this situation he sustained all the hardships of hunger,
long marches, and incessant alarms; and, as it was in the hottest part
of the war between France and England, about the year 1743, it may
easily be imagined that his situation was by no means enviable. He
fought as a foot-soldier at the battle of Dettingen; he was also at
the battle of Fontenoy; and landed, as an ensign in the French troops,
at Murray Frith, during the rebellion of 1745. He joined the rebels a
little before the battle of Prestonpans, marched with them to Derby,
and retreated with them to Scotland. He was wounded at the battle of
Culloden, and fled with a few friends to the woods of Lochaber, where
he remained the greater part of the summer 1746, living upon the roots
of trees, goats’ milk, and the oatmeal and water of such peasants as
he durst confide in. Knowing, however, that it would be impossible to
continue this course of life during the winter, he began to devise
means of effecting his return to France—perfectly unconscious that,
in the country where he was suffering all the miseries of an outcast
criminal, he was entitled to the possession of an ample estate and
title. His scheme was to gain the coast of Galloway, where he hoped
to get on board some smuggling vessel to the Isle of Man, and from
thence to France. The hardships which he suffered in the prosecution
of this plan would require a volume in their description. He crept
through by-ways by night, and was forced to lie concealed among rocks
and woods during the day. He was reduced almost to a state of nudity,
and his food was obtained from the poorest peasants, in whom only he
could confide. Of this scanty subsistence he was sometimes for days
deprived; and, to complete his misfortunes, he was, after having walked
barefooted over rocks, briars, and unfrequented places, at length
discovered, seized, and carried before a magistrate near Dumfries. As
his name was Maxwell, which he did not attempt to conceal, he would
have suffered as a rebel, had not his commission as a French officer
been found in the lining of his tattered coat, which entitled him to
the treatment of a prisoner of war. This privilege, however, only
extended to the preservation of his life. He was confined in a paved
stone dungeon so long, that he had amused himself by giving names to
each stone which composed the pavement, and which, in after-life,
he took great pleasure in relating and pointing out to his friends.
An old woman, who had been his nurse in childhood, was at this time
living in Dumfries, where he was a prisoner; and having accidentally
seen him, and becoming acquainted with his name, apparent age, etc.,
felt an assurance that he was the rightful Sir Robert Maxwell. The
indissoluble attachment of the lower orders in Scotland to their chiefs
is well known; and, impelled by this feeling, this old and faithful
domestic attended him with almost maternal affection, administering
liberally to his distresses. After an interview of some weeks, she
made him acquainted with her suspicion, and begged leave to examine a
mark which she remembered upon his body. This proof also concurring,
she became outrageous with joy, and ran about the streets proclaiming
the discovery she had made. This rumour reaching the ears of the
magistrates, inquiry was made, the proofs were examined, and it soon
became the general opinion that he was the son of the old baronet of
Orchardston. The estate lay but a few miles from Dumfries; and the
unlawful possessor being a man of considerable power, and of a most
vindictive disposition, most people, whatever might be their private
opinion, were cautious in espousing the cause of this disinherited
and distressed orphan. One gentleman, however, was found, who, to
his eternal honour, took him by the hand. A Mr. Gowdy procured his
release from prison, took him to his own house, clothed him agreeably
to his rank, and enabled him to commence an action against his uncle.
The latter was not inactive in the defence of his crime, and took
every pains to prove his nephew to be an impostor. Chagrin and a
consciousness of guilt, however, put an end to his existence before
the cause came to a hearing; and Sir Robert was at length put into
possession of an estate worth upwards of ten thousand pounds a year.
He now began to display those qualities and abilities which had been
but faintly perceptible in his former station. He now discovered an
ingenuous mind, an intellect at once vigorous and refined, and manners
the most elegant and polished. His society was courted by all the
neighbouring gentry; and, in the course of time he married a Miss
Maclellan, a near relation of the family of Lord Kirkcudbright; with
this lady he lived in the most perfect happiness for many years. He
joined in the prevalent practice of farming his own estate, and built
a very elegant house on an eminence overlooking the Nith. An imprudent
speculation in the bank of Ayr, however, compelled him to abandon the
seat of his ancestors. He had reserved a small pittance, on which he
and his lady lived the latter part of their days. This calamity he
bore as became a man familiar with misfortune; and he continued the
same worthy open-hearted character he had ever been. The reduction of
his fortune served only to redouble the kindness and cordiality of his
friends. He died suddenly in September, 1786, whilst on the road to
visit one of them—the Earl of Selkirk. He left behind him no issue;
but his name is still remembered with ardent attachment.”—_New Monthly
Magazine, June, 1819._
ANDREW CROSBIE, ESQ.
(_Counsellor Pleydell._)
We feel no little pleasure in presenting the original of a character
so important as the facetious Pleydell. He is understood to be the
representative of Mr. Andrew Crosbie, who flourished at the head of
the Scottish bar about the period referred to in the novel. Many
circumstances conspire to identify him with the lawyer of the novel.
Their eminence in their profession was equally respectable; their
habits of frequenting taverns and High Jinks parties on Saturday nights
was the same, and both were remarkable for that antique politeness of
manner so characteristic of old Scottish gentlemen. It may be allowed
that Pleydell is one of the characters most nearly approaching to
_generic_ that we have attempted to identify with real life; but it is
nevertheless so strenuously asserted by all who have any recollection
of Mr. Crosbie, that Pleydell resembles _him in particular_, that we
feel no hesitation in assigning him as the only true specific original.
We therefore lay the following simple facts before the public, and
leave the judicious reader to his own discrimination.
Mr. Crosbie was in the prime of life about the middle of the last
century, and, from that period till the year 1780, enjoyed the highest
reputation in his profession. He came of a respectable family in the
county of Galloway—the district, the reader will remember, in which
the principal scenes of the novel are laid, and probably the shire of
which Paulus Pleydell, Esq., is represented (vol. ii. chap, xvi.) as
having been, at an early period of his life, the sheriff-depute.
The residence of Mr. Crosbie, in the early periods of his practice,
exactly coincides with that of Pleydell, whom, if we recollect rightly,
Colonel Mannering found in a dark close on the north side of the High
Street, several storeys up a narrow common stair. Mr. Crosbie lived
first in Lady Stair’s Close, a steep alley on the north side of the
Lawnmarket; afterwards in the Advocate’s Close, in the Luckenbooths;
and finally in a self-contained and well-built house of his own, at
the foot of Allan’s Close, still standing, and lately inhabited by
Richard Cleghorn, Esq., Solicitor before the Supreme Courts. All these
various residences are upon the north side of the High Street, and the
two first answer particularly to the description in the novel. The
last is otherwise remarkable as being situated exactly behind and in
view of the innermost penetralia of Mr. Constable’s great publishing
warehouse,[10]—the _sanctum sanctorum_ in which Captain Clutterbuck
found the _Eidolon_ of the Author of “Waverley,” so well described in
the introduction to “Nigel.”
At the period when Mr. Crosbie flourished, all the advocates and judges
of the day dwelt in those obscure _wynds_ or alleys leading down
from the High Street, which, since the erection of the New Town, have
been chiefly inhabited by the lower classes of society. The greater
part, for the sake of convenience, lived in the lanes nearest to the
Parliament House—such as the Advocate’s Close, Writer’s Court, Lady
Stair’s Close, the West Bow, the _Back Stairs_, the President’s Stairs
in the Parliament Close, and the tenements around the Mealmarket. In
these dense and insalubrious obscurities they possessed what were
then the best houses in Edinburgh, and which were considered as such
till the erection of Brown’s Square and the contiguous suburbs, about
the beginning of the last king’s reign, when the lawyers were found
the first to remove to better and more extensive accommodations,
being then, as now, the leading and most opulent class of Edinburgh
population. This change is fully pointed out in “Redgauntlet,” where a
writer to the signet is represented as removing from the Luckenbooths
to Brown’s Square about the time specified—which personage, disguised
under the name of Saunders Fairford, we have no doubt was designed for
Sir Walter Scott’s own father, a practitioner of the same rank, who
then removed from the Old Town to a house at the head of the College
Wynd, in which his distinguished son, the _Alan Fairford_ of the
romance, was born and educated.
Living as they did so near the Parliament House, it was the custom of
both advocates and senators to have their wigs dressed at home, and to
go to court with their gowns indued, their wigs in full puff, and each
with his cocked hat under his arm.[11] About nine in the morning, the
various avenues to the Parliament Square used to be crowded with such
figures. In particular, Mr. Crosbie was remarkable for the elegance of
his figure, as, like his brethren, he emerged from the profundity of
his alley into the open street. While he walked at a deliberate pace
across the way, there could not be seen among all the throng a more
elegant figure. He exhibited at once the dignity of the counsellor high
at the bar and the gracefulness of the perfect gentleman. He frequently
walked without a gown, when the fineness of his personal appearance
was the more remarkable. His dress was usually a black suit, silk
stockings, clear shoes, with gold or silver buckles. Sometimes the suit
was of rich black velvet.
Mr. Crosbie, with all the advantages of a pleasing exterior, possessed
the more solid qualifications of a vigorous intellect, a refined taste,
and an eloquence that has never since been equalled at the bar. His
integrity as a counsel could only be surpassed by his abilities as a
pleader. In the first capacity, his acute judgment and great legal
knowledge had long placed him in the highest rank. In the second,
his thorough and confident acquaintance with the law of his case,
his beautiful style of language, all “the pomp and circumstance”
of matchless eloquence, commanded the attention of the bench in no
ordinary degree; and while his talents did all that could be done
in respect of moving the court, the excelling beauty of his oratory
attracted immense crowds of admirers, whose sole disinterested object
was to hear him.
It is recorded of him that he was one day particularly brilliant—so
brilliant as even to surprise his usual audience, the imperturbable
Lords themselves. What rendered the circumstance more wonderful
was, that the case happened to be extremely dull, common-place and
uninteresting. The secret history of the matter was to the following
effect:—A facetious contemporary, and intimate friend of Mr.
Crosbie, the celebrated Lord Gardenstone, in the course of a walk
from Morningside, where he resided, fell into conversation with a
farmer, who was going to Edinburgh in order to hear his cause pled that
forenoon by Mr. Crosbie. The senator, who was a very homely and rather
eccentric personage, on being made acquainted with the man’s business,
directed him to procure a dozen or two farthings at a snuff-shop in
the Grassmarket—to wrap them separately up in white paper, under the
disguise of guineas—and to present them to his counsel as fees, when
occasion served. The case was called: Mr. Crosbie rose; but his heart
not happening to be particularly engaged, he did not by any means exert
the utmost of his powers. The treacherous client, however, kept close
behind his back, and ever and anon, as he perceived Mr. C. bringing his
voice to a cadence, for the purpose of closing the argument, slipped
the other farthing into his hand. The repeated application of this
silent encouragement so far stimulated the advocate, that, in the
end, he became truly eloquent—strained every nerve of his soul in
grateful zeal for the interests of so good a client—and, precisely
at the fourteenth farthing, gained the cause. The _denouement_ of the
conspiracy took place immediately after, in John’s Coffee-house, over
a bottle of wine, with which Mr. Crosbie treated Lord Gardenstone from
the profits of his pleading; and the surprise and mortification of the
barrister, when, on putting his hand into his pocket in order to pay
the reckoning, he discovered the real extent of his fee, can only be
imagined.
Within the last forty years, a curious custom prevailed among the
gentlemen of the long robe in Edinburgh—a custom which, however
little it might be thought of then, would certainly make nine modern
advocates out of ten shudder at every curl just to think of it. This
was the practice of doing all their business, except what required to
be done in the court, in taverns and coffee-houses. Plunged in these
subterranean haunts, the great lawyers of the day were to be found,
surrounded with their myrmidons, throughout the whole afternoon and
evening of the day. It was next to impossible to find a lawyer at
his own abode, and, indeed, such a thing was never thought of. The
whole matter was to find out his tavern, which the cadies upon the
street—those men of universal knowledge—could always tell, and then
seek the oracle in his own proper _hell_, as Æneas sought the sibyl. At
that time a Directory was seldom applied to; and even though a stranger
could have consulted the celebrated Peter Williamson’s (supposing it
then to have been published), he might, perhaps, by dint of research,
have found out where Lucky Robertson lived, who, in the simple words of
that intelligencer, “_sold the best twopenny_;” or he might have been
accommodated, more to his satisfaction, with the information of who,
through all the city, “_sett lodgings_” and “_kept rooms for single
men_;” but he would have found the Directory of little use to him in
pointing out where he might meet a legal friend. The cadies, who, at
that time, wont to be completely _au fait_ with every hole and bore in
the town, were the only directories to whom a client from the country,
such as Colonel Mannering or Dandie Dinmont, could in such a case apply.
The peculiar haunt of Mr. Crosbie was Douglas’s tavern in the Anchor
Close, then a respectable and flourishing house, now deserted and shut
up. Here many revelries, similar to those described in the novel,
took place; and here the game of High Jinks was played by a party of
convivial lawyers every Saturday night. The situation of the house
resembles that of Clerihugh, described in “Guy Mannering,” being the
second floor down a steep _close_, upon the north side of the High
Street. Here a club, called the _Crochallan Corps_, of which Robert
Burns was a member when in Edinburgh, assembled periodically, and held
bacchanalian orgies, famous for their fierceness and duration.
There was also a tavern in Writer’s Court, kept by a real person, named
Clerihugh, the peculiarities of which do not resemble those ascribed
to the tavern of the novel, nearly so much as do those of Douglas’s.
Clerihugh’s was, however, a respectable house. There the magistrates of
the city always gave their civic dinners, and, what may perhaps endear
it more in our recollections, it was once the favourite resort of a
Boswell, a Gardenstone, and a Home. We may suppose that such a house as
Douglas’s gave the idea of the tavern described by our author, while
_Clerihugh_ being a more striking name, and better adapted for his
purpose, he adopted it in preference to the real one.
The custom of doing all business in taverns gave that generation of
lawyers a very dissipated habit, and to it we are to attribute the
ruin of Mr. Crosbie. That gentleman being held in universal esteem and
admiration, his company was much sought after; and, while his celibacy
gave every opportunity that could be desired, his own disposition to
social enjoyments tended to confirm the evil. An anecdote is told of
him, which displays in a striking manner the extent to which he was
wont to go in his debaucheries. He had been engaged to plead a cause,
and had partially studied the _pros_ and _cons_ of the case, after
which he set off and plunged headlong into those convivialities with
which he usually closed the evening. His debauch was a fierce one, and
he did not get home till within an hour of the time when the court
was to open. It was then too late for sleep, and all other efforts to
cool the effervescence of his spirits, by applying wet cloths to his
temples, etc., were vain; so that when the case was called, reason had
scarcely reassumed her deserted throne. Nevertheless, he opened up with
his usually brilliancy, and soon got warm into the argument; but not
far did he get leave to proceed with his speech, when the agent came
up behind, with horror and alarm in his face, pulled him by the gown,
and whispered into his ear, “What the deevil! Mr. Crosbie! ye’ll ruin
a’! ye’re on the wrang side; the very Lords are winking at it; and the
client is gi’en’ a’ up for lost.” The crapulous barrister gave a single
glance at the _exordia_ of his papers, and instantly comprehended his
mistake. However, not at all abashed, he rose again, and “Such my
lords,” says he, “are probably the weak and intemperate arguments of
the defender, concerning which, as I have endeavoured to state them,
you can only entertain one opinion, namely, that they are utterly
false, groundless, and absurd.” He then turned to upon the right side
of the question, pulled to pieces all that he had said before, and
represented the case in an entirely different light; and so much and so
earnestly did he exert himself in order to repair his error, that he
actually gained the cause.
Some allusion is made to Mr. Crosbie’s propensity to wine, in a
birthday ode, written in his honour by his friend, Mr. Maclaurin
(afterwards Lord Dreghorn), and set to music by the celebrated Earl of
Kelly. We there learn that, at his birth, Venus, Bacchus, and Astrea,
came and contended for the possession of his future affections, and
that Jove gave a decision to this effect:—
“’Tis ordered, boy, Love, Law, and Wine,
Shall thy strange cup of life compose;
But, though the three are all divine,
The last shall be thy _favourite dose_.”
It was indeed his favourite dose, and proved at last a fatal one. But,
before we relate the history of his end, it will be necessary to notice
a few particulars respecting his life.
Towards the conclusion of the American war, when Edinburgh raised a
defensive band, and offered its services to government, Mr. Crosbie
interested himself very much in the patriotic scheme, and was
appointed lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. About the same period,
he also interested himself very deeply in a business of a different
description, namely, the institution of the Scottish Antiquarian
Society, which was first projected by the Earl of Buchan. Mr. Crosbie
was one of the original members, and had the honour to be appointed
a censor. Honourable mention is made of him in his friend Boswell’s
Tour to the Hebrides, being one of the northern literati who were
introduced to Dr. Johnson when he passed through Edinburgh. In the life
of Johnson, also, it will be found that the barrister visited the great
lexicographer in London, shortly after the Doctor had returned from his
northern excursion. The conversations which took place on both these
occasions are curious, but not sufficiently interesting to be extracted
into this work.
In the course of a long successful practice, the original of Pleydell
acquired some wealth; and, at the time when the New Town of Edinburgh
began to be built, with an enthusiasm prevalent at the period, he
conceived the best way of laying out his money to be in the erection
of houses in that noble and prosperous extension of the city. He
therefore spent all he had, and ran himself into considerable debt, in
raising a structure which was to surpass all the edifices yet erected,
for making the design of which he employed that celebrated architect,
Mr. James Craig, the nephew of Mr. Thomson, who planned the New Town
on its projection in 1767. The house which Mr. Crosbie erected was to
the north of the splendid mansion built by Sir Lawrence Dundas, which
subsequent times have seen converted into an excise-office; and as
the beauty of Mr. C.’s house was in a great measure subservient to
the decoration of Sir Lawrence’s, that gentleman, with his accustomed
liberality, made his tasteful neighbour a present of five hundred
pounds. Yet this _bonus_ proved, after all, but an insufficient
compensation for the expense which Mr. Crosbie had incurred in his
sumptuous speculation; and the unfortunate barrister, who, by his
taste, had attracted the wonder and envy of all ranks, was thought to
have made himself a considerable loser in the end. While it was yet
unfinished, he removed from Allan’s Close, and, establishing himself
in one of its corners, realized Knickerbocker’s fable of the snail
in the lobster’s shell. He lived in it for some time, in a style
of extravagance appropriate to the splendour of his mansion; till,
becoming embarrassed by his numerous debts, and beginning to feel
the effects of other imprudencies, he was at last obliged to resort
to Allan’s Close, and take up with his old abode and his diminished
fortunes. About this period his constitution appeared much injured by
his habits of life, and he was of course unable to attend to business
with his former alacrity. An incipient passion for dogs, horses, and
cocks, was another strong symptom of decay. To crown all, he made a low
marriage with a woman who had formerly been his menial, and (some said)
his mistress; and as this tended very much to take away the esteem of
the world, his practice began to forsake, and his friends to neglect
him.
It was particularly unfortunate that, about this time, he lost the
habit of frequenting one particular tavern, as he had been accustomed
to do in his earlier and better years. The irregularity consequent
upon visiting four or five of a night, in which he drank liquors of
different sorts and qualities, was sufficient to produce the worst
effects. Had he always steadily adhered to Clerihugh’s or Douglas’s,
he might have been equally fortunate with many of his companions, who
had frequented particular taverns, through several generations of
possessors, seldom missing a night’s attendance, during the course of
fifty years, from ill health or any other cause.
It is a melancholy task to relate the end of Mr. Crosbie. From one
depth he floundered down to another, every step in his conduct
tending towards a climax of ruin. Infatuation and despair led him on,
disrespect and degradation followed him. When he had reached what
might be called the goal of his fate, he found himself deserted by
all whom he had ever loved or cherished, and almost destitute of a
single attendant to administer to him the necessaries of life. Bound by
weakness and disease to an uneasy pallet, in the garret of his former
mansion, he lingered out the last weeks of life in pain, want, and
sickness. So completely was he forsaken by every friend, that not one
was by at the last scene to close his eyes or carry him to the grave.
Though almost incredible, it is absolutely true, that he was buried
by a few unconcerned strangers, gathered from the street; and this
happened in the very spot where he had been known all his life, in the
immediate neighbourhood of hundreds who had known, loved, and admired
him for many years. He died on the 25th of February, 1785.
DRIVER.
MR. CROSBIE’S clerk was a person named ROBERT H——, whose character
and propensities agreed singularly well with those of Mr. Pleydell’s
dependant, Driver. He was himself a practitioner before the courts, of
the meaner description, and is remembered by many who were acquainted
with the public characters of Edinburgh, towards the end of last
century. He was frequently to be seen in the forenoon, scouring the
closes of the High Street, or parading the Parliament Square; sometimes
seizing his legal friends by the button, and dragging them about in the
capacity of listeners, with an air and manner of as great importance as
if he had been up to the very pen in his ear in business.
He was a pimpled, ill-shaven, smart-speaking, clever-looking fellow,
usually dressed in grey under-garments, an old hat nearly brushed to
death, and a black coat, of a fashion at least in the seventh year of
its age, scrupulously buttoned up to his chin. It was in his latter
and more unfortunate years that he had become thus slovenly. A legal
gentleman, who gives us information concerning him, recollects when he
was nearly the greatest fop in Edinburgh—being powdered in the highest
style of fashion, wearing two gold watches, and having the collar of
his coat adorned with a beautiful loop of the same metal. After losing
the protection of Mr. Crosbie, he had fallen out of all regular means
of livelihood; and unfortunately acquiring an uncontrollable propensity
for social enjoyments, like the ill-fated Robert Fergusson, with whom
he had been intimately acquainted, he became quite unsettled—sometimes
did not change his apparel for weeks—sat night and day in particular
taverns—and, in short, realized what Pleydell asserted of Driver,
that “sheer ale supported him under everything; was meat, drink, and
cloth—bed, board, and washing.” In his earlier years he had been
very regular in his irregularities, and was a “complete fixture” at
John Baxter’s tavern, in Craig’s Close, High Street, where he was the
_Falstaff_ of a convivial society, termed the “_Eastcheap Club_.” But
his dignity of conduct becoming gradually dissipated and relaxed, and
there being also, perhaps, many a landlady who might have said with
Dame Quickly, “I warrant you he’s an infinite thing upon my score,”
he had become unfortunately migrative and unsteady in his taproom
affections. One night he would get drunk at the sign of the _Sautwife_,
in the Abbeyhill, and next morning be found tipping off a corrective
dram at a porter-house in Rose Street. Sometimes, after having made a
midnight tumble into “the Finish” in the Covenant Close, he would, by
next afternoon, have found his way (the Lord and the policeman only
knew how) to a pie-office in the Castlehill. It was absolutely true
that he could write his papers as well drunk as sober, asleep as awake;
and the anecdote which the facetious Pleydell narrated to Colonel
Mannering, in confirmation of this miraculous faculty, is also, we
are able to inform the reader, strictly consistent in truth with an
incident of real occurrence.
Poor H—— was one of those happy, thoughtless, and imprudent
mortals, whose idea of existence lies all in to-day, or to-morrow at
farthest,—whose whole life is only a series of random exertions and
chance efforts at subsistence—a sort of constant _Maroon war_ with
starvation. His life had been altogether passed in Edinburgh. All he
knew, besides his professional lore, was of _Edinburgh_; but then he
knew _all_ of that. There did not exist a tavern in the capital of
which he could not have winked you the characters of both the waiters
and the beefsteaks at a moment’s notice. He was at once the annalist
of the history, the mobs, the manners, and the jokes of Edinburgh—a
human phial, containing its whole essential spirit, corked with wit and
labelled with pimples.
H—— was a man rich in all sorts of humour and fine sayings. His
conversation was dangerously delightful. Had he not unhappily fallen
into debauched habits, he possessed abilities that might have entitled
him to the most enviable situations about the Court; but, from the
nature of his peculiar habits, his wit was the only faculty he ever
displayed in its full extent—pity it was the only one that could not
be exerted for his own benefit! To have seen him set down “for a night
of it” in Lucky F——’s, with a few cronies as _drowthie_ as himself,
and his _Shadow_ (a person who shall hereafter be brought to light),
was in itself a most exquisite treat. By the time that the injunction
of “another half-mutchkin, mistress,” had been six times repeated,
his lips, his eyes, and his nose, spoke, looked, and burned wit—pure
wit! “He could not ope his mouth, but out there flew a trope.” The
very sound of his voice was in itself a waggery; the twinkle of his
eye might have toppled a whole theatre over into convulsions. He could
not even spit but he was suspected of a witticism, and received the
congratulation of a roar accordingly. Nay, at the height of such a tide
as this, he would sometimes get the credit of Butler himself for an
accidental scratch of his head.
His practice as a writer (for so he is styled in Peter Williamson’s
Directory) lay chiefly among the very dregs of desperation and poverty,
and was withal of such a nature as to afford him the humblest means
of subsistence. Being naturally damned, as he himself used to say,
with the utmost goodness of heart, he never hesitated at taking any
poverty-struck case by the hand that could hold forth the slightest
hope of success, and was perfectly incapable of resisting any appeal to
his sense of justice, if made in _forma pauperis_. The greater part of
his clients were poor debtors in the Heart of Midlothian, and he was
most frequently employed in cases of _cessio_, for the accomplishment
of which he was, from long practice, peculiarly qualified. He had
himself a sort of instinctive hatred of the name of creditor, and would
have been at any time perfectly willing to fight _gratis_ upon the
debtor’s side out of pure amateurship. His idle and debauched habits,
also, laid him constantly open to the company of the lowest litigants,
who purchased his advice or his opinion, and, in some cases, even his
services as an agent, for the paltriest considerations in the shape of
liquor; and, unfortunately, he did not possess sufficient resolution to
withstand such temptations—his propensity for social enjoyments, which
latterly became quite ungovernable, disposing him to make the greatest
sacrifices for its gratification.
Yet this man, wretched as he eventually was, possessed a perfect
knowledge of the law of Scotland, besides a great degree of
professional cleverness; and, what with his experience under Mr.
Crosbie, and his having been so long a hanger-on of the Court, was
considered one of the best agents that could be employed in almost any
class of cases. It is thought by many of his survivors that, if his
talents had been backed by steadiness of application, he might have
attained to very considerable eminence. At least, it has been observed,
that many of his contemporaries, who had not half of his abilities,
by means of better conduct and greater perseverence, have risen to
enviable distinction. Mr. Crosbie always put great reliance in him, and
sometimes intrusted him with important business; and H—— has even
been seen to destroy a paper of Mr. Crosbie’s writing, and draw up a
better himself, without incurring the displeasure which such an act of
disrespect seemed to deserve. The highest compliment, however, that
could be paid to Mr. H——’s abilities, was the saying of an old man,
named Nicol,[12] a native of that litigious kingdom, Fife, who, for a
long course of years, pestered the Court, _in forma pauperis_, with a
process about a dunghill, and who at length died in Cupar jail—where
he had been disposed, for some small debt, by a friend, just, as was
asserted, to keep him out of harm’s way. Old John used to treat H——
in Johnnie Dowie’s, and get, as he said, _the law out o’ him_ for the
matter of a dram. He declared that “he would not give H——’s drunken
glour at a paper for the serious opinions of the haill bench!”
Sunday was wont to be a very precious day to H——,—far too good
to be lost in idle dram-drinking at home. On Saturday nights he
generally made a point of insuring stock to the amount of half-a-crown
in his landlady’s hands, and proposed a tour of jollity for next
morning to a few of his companions. These were, for the most part,
poor devils like himself, who, with few lucid intervals of sobriety
or affluence—equally destitute of industry, prudence, and care for
the opinion of the world—contrive to fight, drink, and roar their
way through a desperate existence, in spite of the devil, their
washerwoman, and the small-debt-court—perhaps even receiving Christian
burial at last like the rest of their species. With one or two such
companions as these, H—— would issue of a Sunday morning through the
Watergate, on an expedition to Newhaven, Duddingstone, Portobello, or
some such guzzling retreat,[13]—the termination of their walk being
generally determined by the consideration of where they might have
the best drink, the longest credit, or where they had already least
debt. Then was it most delightful to observe by what a special act of
Providence they would alight upon “the last rizzer’d haddock in the
house,” or “the only hundred oysters that was to be got in the town;”
and how gloriously they would bouse away their money, their credit, and
their senses, till, finally, after uttering, for the thousand and first
time, all their standard Parliament-House jokes—after quarrelling with
the landlord, and flattering the more susceptible landlady up to the
sticking-place of “a last gill,”—they would reel away home, in full
enjoyment of that glory which, according to Robert Burns, is superior
to the glory of even kings!
Nevertheless, H—— was not utterly given up to Sunday debauches,
nor was he destitute of a sense of religion. He made a point of
always going to church on rainy Sundays—that is to say, when his
neckcloth happened to be in its honey-moon, and the button-moulds
of his vestments did not chance to be beyond their first phase. He
was not, therefore, very consistent in his devotional sentiments and
observances; for the weather shared with his tailor the credit of
determining him in all such matters. He was like Berwick smacks of
old, which only sailed, “wind and weather permitting.” When, however,
the day was favourably bad, he would proceed to the High Church of
St. Giles (where, excepting on days of _General Assembly_, there are
usually enow of empty seats for an army), and, on observing that the
Lords of Session had not chosen to hold any _sederunt_ that day, he
would pop into their pew. In this conspicuous seat, which he perhaps
considered a sort of common property of the College of Justice, he
would look wonderfully at his ease, with one threadbare arm lolling
carelessly over the velvet-cushioned gallery, while in the other hand
he held his mother’s old black pocket Bible—a relic which he had
contrived to preserve for an incredible number of years, through a
thousand miraculous escapades from lodgings where he was insolvent,
in memory of a venerable relation, whom he had never forgot, though
oblivious of every other earthly regard besides.
Mr. H——’s _Shadow_, whom we mentioned a few pages back, however
unsubstantial he may seem from his _sobriquet_, was a real person,
and more properly entitled Mr. NIMMO. He had long been a dependant
of H——’s, whence he derived this strange designation. Little more
than the shadow of a recollection of him remains as _materiel_ for
description. He bore somewhat of the same relation to his principal
which Silence bears to Shallow, in Henry IV.,—that is, he was
an exaggerated specimen of the same species, and exhibited the
peculiarities of H——’s habits and character in a more advanced stage.
He was a prospective indication of what H—— was to become. H——,
like Mr. Thomas Campbell’s “coming events,” cast his “shadow before;”
and Nimmo was this shadow. When H—— got new clothes, Nimmo got the
_exuviæ_ or cast-off garments, which he wore on and on, as long as
his principal continued without a new supply. Therefore, when H——
became shabby, Nimmo was threadbare; when H—— became threadbare,
Nimmo was almost denuded; and when H—— became almost denuded, Nimmo
was quite naked! Thus, also, when H——, after a successful course of
practice, got florid and in good case, Nimmo followed and exhibited a
little colour upon the wonted pale of his cheeks; when H—— began to
fade, Nimmo withered before him; by the time H—— was _looking thin_,
Nimmo was _thin indeed_; and when H—— was attenuated and sickly,
poor Nimmo was as slender and airy as a moonbeam. Nimmo was in all
things beyond, before, ahead of H——. If H—— was elevated, Nimmo was
tipsy; if H—— was tipsy, Nimmo was _fou_; if H—— was _fou_, Nimmo
was dead-drunk; and if H—— persevered and got dead-drunk also, Nimmo
was sure still to be beyond him, and was perhaps packed up and laid
to sleep underneath his principal’s chair. Nimmo, as it were, cleared
the way for H——’s progress towards destruction—was his pioneer, his
vidette, his harbinger, his avant-courier—the aurora of his rising,
the twilight of his decline.
Nimmo naturally, and to speak of him without relation to the person of
whom he was part and parcel, was altogether so inarticulate, so empty,
so meagre, so inane a being, that he could scarcely be reckoned more
than a mere thread of the vesture of humanity—a whisper of Nature’s
voice. Nobody knew where he lived at night: he seemed then to disappear
from the face of the earth, just as other shadows disappear on the
abstraction of the light which casts them. He was quite a casual
being—appeared by chance, spoke by chance, seemed even to exist only
by chance, as a mere occasional exhalation of chaos, and at last
evaporated from the world to sleep with the shadows of death,—all
by chance. To have seen him, one would have thought it by no means
impossible for him to dissolve himself and go into a phial, like
Asmodeus in the laboratory at Madrid. His figure was in fact a libel
on the human form divine. It was perfectly unimaginable what he would
have been like _in puris naturalibus_, had the wind suddenly blown him
out of his clothes some day—an accident of which he seemed in constant
danger. It is related of him, that he was once mistaken, when found
dead-drunk in a gutter, on the morning after a king’s birth-day, for
the defunct corpse of _Johnnie Wilkes_,[14] which had been so loyally
kicked about the streets by the mob on the preceding evening; but, on
a scavenger proceeding to sweep him down the channel, he presently
sunk from the exalted character imputed to him, by rousing himself,
and calling lustily, “Another bottle—just another bottle, and then
we’ll go!” upon which the deceived officer of police left him to the
management of the stream.
Besides serving Mr. H—— in the character of clerk or amanuensis,
he used to dangle at his elbow on all occasions, swear religiously
to all his charges, and show the way in laughing at all his jokes.
He was so clever in the use of his pen in transcription, that his
hand could travel over a sheet at the rate of eleven knots an hour,
and this whether drunk or sober, asleep or awake. Death itself could
scarcely have chilled his energies, and it was one of his favourite
jokes, in vaunting of the latter miraculous faculty, to declare that
he intended to delay writing his will till after his decease, when he
would guide himself in the disposal of his legacies by the behaviour of
his relations. We do not question his abilities for such a task; but
one might have had a pretty good guess, from Nimmo’s appearance, that
he would scarcely ever find occasion, either before or after death, to
exercise them.
These sketches, from the quaint flippancy of their style, may be
suspected of fancifulness and exaggeration; yet certain it is, that
out of the ten thousand persons said to be employed in this legal
metropolis in the solicitation, distribution, and execution of justice,
many individuals may even yet be found, in whom it would be possible to
trace the lineaments we have described. Such persons as H—— and Nimmo
dangle at the elbows of The Law, and can no more be said to belong to
its proper body than so many rats in a castle appertain to the garrison.
H—— continued in the course of life which we have attempted to
describe till the year 1808, when his constitution became so shattered,
that he was in a great measure unfitted for business or for intercourse
with society. Towards the end of his life, his habits had become still
more irregular than before, and he seemed to hasten faster and faster
as he went on to destruction, like the meteor, whose motion across
the sky seems to increase in rapidity the moment before extinction.
After the incontestable character of the greatest wit and the utmost
cleverness had been awarded to him,—after he had spent so much money
and constitution in endeavouring to render his companions happy,
that some of them, more grateful or more drunken than the rest,
actually confessed him to be “a devilish good-natured foolish sort
of fellow,”—after he had, like certain Scottish poets, almost drunk
himself into the character of a genius,—it came to pass that—he died.
A mere pot-house reveller like him is no more missed in the world of
life than a sparrow or a bishop. There was no one to sorrow for his
loss—no one to regret his absence—save those whose friendship is
worse than indifference. It never was very distinctly known how or
where he died. It was alone recorded of him, as of the antediluvian
patriarchs, that _he died_. As his life had become of no importance, so
his death produced little remark and less sorrow. On the announcement
of the event to a party of his old drinking friends, who, of course,
were all decently surprised, etc., one of them in the midst of the _Is
it possibles? Not-possibles!_ and _Can it be possibles?_ incidental
to the occasion, summed up his elegy, by trivially exclaiming, “Lord!
is Rab dead at last! Weel, that’s strange indeed!—not a week since I
drank six half-mutchkins wi’ him down at _Amos’s_! Ah! he was a good
bitch! (Then raising his voice) Bring us in a biscuit wi’ the next
gill, mistress! Rab was ay fond o’ bakes!” And they ate a biscuit to
his memory!
It is somewhat remarkable that the deaths of Crosbie and H—— should
have been produced by causes and attended by circumstances nearly the
same, though a period of full twenty years had intervened between the
events. Both were men of great learning and abilities,—they were drawn
down from the height in which their talents entitled them to shine by
the same unfortunate propensities,—and while, in their latter days,
both experienced the reverse of fortune invariably attendant upon
imprudence, they at length left the scene of their notoriety, equally
despised, deserted, and miserable.
Both cases are well calculated to illustrate the lesson so strenuously
inculcated by Johnson,—that to have friends we must first be virtuous,
as there is no friendship among the profligate.
Mr. Crosbie’s death presents the more trite moral of the two—for
in it we see little more than the world forsaking an unfortunate
man, as crowds fly from the falling temple, to avoid being crushed
in the ruins. But the moral of Mr. H——’s death is striking and
valuable. In him we see a man of the brightest genius gradually
losing that self-respect, so necessary, even when it amounts to
pride, for the cultivation and proper enjoyment of superior mental
powers,—becoming in time unsettled in his habits, and careless of
public estimation,—losing the attachment of friends of his own rank,
and compensating the loss by mixing with associates of the lowest
order:—next, become incapable of business, we see him dejected and
forlorn as poverty itself, by turns assuming every colour and every
aspect of which the human countenance and figure is susceptible, till
the whole was worn down to a degree of indiscriminate ruin—the _ne
plus ultra_ of change:—at length, when every vulgar mode of enjoyment
had been exhausted, and when even the fiercest stimulants had grown
insipid, we see him lost at once to sensibility and to sensation,
encountering the last evils of mortality in wretchedness and obscurity,
unpitied by the very persons for whom he had sacrificed so much, and
leaving a name for which he expected to acquire the fame of either
talent or misfortune,
“To point a moral and adorn a tale!”[15]
SOUTH COUNTRY FARMERS.
(_Dandie Dinmont._)
Perhaps the Author of “Waverley” has nowhere so completely given the
effect of reality to his portraiture as in the case of honest Dandie
Dinmont, the renowned yeoman of Charlieshope. This personage seems to
be quite familiar to his mind, present to his eye, domesticated in the
chambers of his fancy. The minutest motions of the farmer’s body, and
the most trivial workings of his mind, are alike bright in his eye; and
so faithful a representation has been produced, that one might almost
think the author had taken his sketch by some species of mental _camera
obscura_, which brought the figure beneath his pencil in all its native
colours and proportions.
It is impossible to point out any individual of real life as the
original of this happy production. It appears to be entirely
generic—that is to say, the whole class of Liddisdale farmers is here
represented, and little more than a single thread is taken from any
single person to form the web of the character. Three various persons
have been popularly mentioned as furnishing the author with his most
distinguished traits, each of whom have their followers and believers
among the country people. It will perhaps be possible to prove that
Dandie Dinmont is a sort of compound of all three, the ingredients
being leavened and wrought up with the general characteristic qualities
of the “Lads of Liddisdale.”
Mr. ARCHIBALD PARK, late of Lewinshope, near Selkirk, brother of the
celebrated Mungo Park, was the person always most strongly insisted on
as being the original of Dandie. He was a man of prodigious strength,
in stature upwards of six feet, and every member of his body was in
perfect accordance with his great height. He completely realized
the most extravagant ideas that the poets of his country formerly
entertained of the stalwart borderers; and his achievements “by flood
and field,” in the violent exercises and sports of his profession,
came fully up to those of the most distinguished heroes of border
song. He had all the careless humour and boisterous hospitality of
the Liddisdale farmer. On the appearance of the novel, his neighbours
at once put him down as the Dandie Dinmont of real life, and he was
generally addressed by the name of his supposed archetype by his
familiar associates, so long as he remained in that part of the
country, which, however, was not long. His circumstances requiring him
to relinquish his farm, he obtained, by the interest of some friends,
the situation of collector of customs at Tobermory, to which place he
removed in 1815. Soon after he had settled there, he was attacked by a
paralytic affection, from which he never thoroughly recovered, and he
died in 1821, aged about fifty years.
Mr. JOHN THORBURN, of Juniper Bank, the person whom we consider to have
stood in the next degree of relationship to Dinmont, was a humorous
good-natured farmer, very fond of hunting and fishing, and a most
agreeable companion over a bottle. He was truly an unsophisticated
worthy man. Many amusing anecdotes are told of him in the south, and
numerous scenes have been witnessed in his hospitable mansion, akin to
that described in the novel as taking place upon the return of Dandie
from “Stagshawbank fair.” The interior economy of Juniper Bank is said
to have more nearly resembled Charlieshope than did that of Lewinshope,
the residence of Mr. Park. Indeed the latter bore no similarity
whatever to Charlieshope, excepting in the hospitality of the master
and the Christian name of the mistress of the house. Mr. Park, like
his fictitious counterpart, was one of the most generous and hearty
landlords alive; and his wife, who was a woman of highly respectable
connections, bore, like Mrs. Dinmont, the familiar abbreviated name of
_Ailie_.
Thorburn, like Dandie, was once before _the feifteen_. The celebrated
Mr. Jeffrey being retained in his cause, Thorburn went into Court to
hear his pleading. He was delighted with the talents and oratory of
his advocate; and, on coming out, observed to his friends, “Od, he’s
an _awfu’ body_ yon; he said things that I never could hae thought o’
mysel’.”
Mr. JAMES DAVIDSON, of Hindlee, another honest south-country farmer,
was pointed out as the prototype of Dandie Dinmont. This gentleman used
to breed numerous families of terriers, to which he gave the names of
Pepper and Mustard, in all their varieties of _Auld_ and Young, Big and
Little; and it was this community of designation in the dogs of the
two personages, rather than any particular similarity in the manners
or characters of themselves, that gave credit to the conjecture of Mr.
Davidson’s friends.[16]
It will appear, from these notices, that no individual has sat for the
portrait of Dinmont, but that it has been painted from indiscriminate
recollections of various border store-farmers. We cannot do better
than conclude with the words of the author himself, when introducing
this subject to the reader:—“The present store-farmers of the south
of Scotland are a much more refined race than their fathers, and the
manners I am now to describe have either altogether disappeared or are
greatly modified. Without losing their rural simplicity of manners,
they now cultivate arts unknown to the former generation, not only
in the progressive improvement of their possessions, but in all the
comforts of life. Their houses are more commodious, their habits of
life better regulated, so as better to keep pace with those of the
civilized world; and the best of luxuries, the luxury of knowledge, has
gained much ground among the hills during the last thirty years. Deep
drinking, formerly their greatest failing, is now fast losing ground;
and while the frankness of their extensive hospitality continues
the same, it is, generally speaking, refined in its character, and
restrained in its excesses.”
A SCOTCH PROBATIONER.
(_Dominie Sampson._)
There are few of our _originals_ in whom we can exhibit such precise
points of coincident resemblance between the real and fictitious
character, as in him whom we now assign as the prototype of
Dominie Sampson. The person of _real_ existence also possesses the
singular recommendation of presenting more dignified and admirable
characteristics, in their plain unvarnished detail, than the ridiculous
caricature produced in “Guy Mannering,” though _it_ be drawn by an
author whose elegant imagination has often exalted, but seldom debased,
the materials to which he has condescended to be indebted.
Mr. JAMES SANSON was the son of James Sanson, tacksman of Birkhillside
Mill, situate in the parish of Legerwood, in Berwickshire. After
getting the rudiments of his education at a country-school, he went to
the University of Edinburgh, and, at a subsequent period, completed
his probationary studies at that of Glasgow. At these colleges he made
great proficiency in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, and became
deeply immersed in the depths of philosophy and theology, of which, as
with Dominie Sampson, the more abstruse and neglected branches were his
favourite subjects of application. He was a close, incessant student;
and, in the families where he afterwards resided as a tutor, all his
leisure moments were devoted to the pursuits of literature. Even his
hours of relaxation and walking were not exempted, in the exceeding
earnestness of his solicitude. Then he was seldom seen without a book,
upon which he would be so intent, that a friend might have passed,
and even spoken to him, without Sanson’s being conscious of the
circumstance. After going through his probationary trials before the
presbytery, he became an acceptable, even an admired preacher, and was
frequently employed in assisting the clergymen of the neighbourhood.
From the narrow circumstances of his father, he was obliged early in
life to become a tutor. Into whose family he first entered is unknown.
However, in this humble situation, owing probably to the parsimonious
economy to which he had been accustomed in his father’s house, he in
a short time saved the sum of twenty-five pounds—a little fortune in
those days to a youth of Mr. Sanson’s habits.
With this money he determined upon a pedestrian excursion into England,
for which he was excellently qualified, from his uncommon strength
and undaunted resolution. After journeying over a great part of the
sister kingdom, he came to Harwich, where a sight of the passage-boats
to Holland, and the cheapness of the fare, induced him to take a trip
to the continent. How he was supported during his peregrinations was
never certainly discovered; but he actually travelled over the greater
part of the Netherlands, besides a considerable portion of Germany,
and spent only about the third part of his twenty-five pounds. He
always kept a profound silence upon the subject himself; but it is
conjectured, with great probability, that in the Low Countries he had
recourse to convents, were the monks were ever ready to do acts of
kindness to men of such learning as Sanson would appear to them to be.
Perhaps he procured the means of subsistence by the expedients which
the celebrated Goldsmith is said to have practised in his continental
wanderings, and made the disputation of the morning supply the dinner
of the day.
After his return from the continent, about 1784, he entered the family
of the Rev. Laurence Johnson of Earlston, where he continued some
time, partly employed in the education of his children, and giving
occasional assistance in his public ministerial duty. From this
situation he removed to the house of Mr. Thomas Scott, uncle of the
celebrated Sir Walter, whose family then resided at Ellieston, in the
county of Roxburgh. While superintending this gentleman’s children, he
was appointed to a higher duty—the charge of Carlenridge Chapel, in
the parish of Hawick, which he performed regularly every Sunday, at
the same time that he attended the education of the family through the
week. We may safely conjecture that it was at this particular period of
his life he first was honoured with the title of _Dominie Sanson_.
He was next employed by the Earl of Hopetoun, as chaplain to that
nobleman’s tenants at Leadhills, where, with an admirable but
unfortunate tenaciousness of duty, he patiently continued to exercise
his honourable calling, to the irreparable destruction of his own
health. The atmosphere being tainted with the natural effluvia of the
noxious mineral which was the staple production of the place, though
incapable of influencing the health of those who had been accustomed
to it from their infancy, had soon a fatal effect upon the life of
poor Sanson. The first calamitous consequence that befel him was the
loss of his teeth; next he became totally blind; and, last of all, to
complete the sacrifice, the insalubrious air extinguished the principle
of life. Thus did this worthy man, though conscious of the fate that
awaited him, choose rather to encounter the last enemy of our nature,
than relinquish what he considered a sacred duty. Strange that one,
whose conduct through life was every way so worthy of the esteem
and gratitude of mankind—whose death would not have disgraced the
devotion of a primitive martyr—should by means of a few less dignified
peculiarities, have eventually conferred the character of perfection
on a work of _humour_, and, in a caricatured exhibition, supplied
attractions, nearly unparalleled, to innumerable theatres!
Mr. James Sanson was of the greatest stature—near six feet high, and
otherwise proportionately enormous. His person was coarse, his limbs
large, and his manners awkward; so that, while people admired the
simplicity and innocence of his character, they could not help smiling
at the clumsiness of his motions and the rudeness of his address.
His soul was pure and untainted—the seat of many manly and amiable
virtues. He was ever faithful in his duty, both as a preacher and a
tutor, warmly attached to the interests of the family in which he
resided, and gentle in the instruction of his pupils. As a preacher,
though his manner in his public exhibitions, no less than in private
society, was not in his favour, he was well received by every class
of hearers. His discourses were the well-digested productions of a
laborious mind; and his sentiments seldom failed to be expressed with
the utmost beauty and elegance of diction.
JEAN GORDON.
(_Meg Merrilies._)
The original of this character has been already pointed out and
described in various publications. A desire of presenting, in this
work, as much original matter as possible, will induce us to be very
brief in our notice of Jean Gordon.
It is impossible to specify the exact date of her nativity, though it
probably was about the year 1670. She was born at Kirk-Yetholm, in
Roxburghshire, the metropolis of the Scottish Gipsies, and was married
to a Gipsy chief, named Patrick Faa, by whom she had ten or twelve
children.
In the year 1714, one of Jean’s sons, named Alexander Faa, was murdered
by another Gipsy, named Robert Johnston, who escaped the pursuit of
justice for nearly ten years, but was then taken and indicted by his
Majesty’s Advocate for the crime. He was sentenced to be executed, but
escaped from prison. It was easier, however, to escape the grasp of
justice than to elude the wide spread talons of Gipsy vengeance. Jean
Gordon traced the murderer like a blood-hound, followed him to Holland,
and from thence to Ireland, where she had him seized, and brought him
back to Jedburgh. Here she obtained the full reward of her toils, by
having the satisfaction of seeing him hanged on Gallowhill. Some time
afterwards, Jean being at Sourhope, a sheep-farm on Bowmont-water,
the goodman said to her, “Weel, Jean, ye hae got Rob Johnston hanged
at last, and out o’ the way?” “Ay, gudeman,” replied Jean, lifting up
her apron by the two corners, “and a’ that fu’ o’ gowd hasna done’t.”
Jean Gordon’s “apron fu’ o’ gowd” may remind some of our readers of Meg
Merrilies’ poke of jewels; and indeed the whole transaction forcibly
recalls the stern picture of that intrepid heroine.
The circumstance in “Guy Mannering,” of Brown being indebted to Meg
Merrilies for lodging and protection, when he lost his way near
Derncleugh, finds a remarkably precise counterpart in an anecdote
related of Jean Gordon:—A farmer with whom she had formerly been on
good terms, though their acquaintance had been interrupted for several
years, lost his way, and was benighted among the mountains of Cheviot.
A light glimmering through the hole of a desolate barn, that had
survived the farmhouse to which it once belonged, guided him to a place
of shelter. He knocked at the door, and it was immediately opened by
Jean Gordon. To meet with such a character in so solitary a place, and
probably at no great distance from her clan, was a terrible surprise
to the honest man, whose rent, to lose which would have been ruin to
him, was about his person. Jean set up a shout of joyful recognition,
forced the farmer to dismount, and, in the zeal of her kindness, hauled
him into the barn. Great preparations were making for supper, which the
gudeman of Lochside, to increase his anxiety, observed was calculated
for at least a dozen of guests. Jean soon left him no doubt upon the
subject, but inquired what money he had about him, and made earnest
request to be made his purse-keeper for the night, as the “_bairns_”
would soon be home. The poor farmer made a virtue of necessity, told
his story, and surrendered his gold to Jean’s custody. She made him put
a few shillings in his pocket, observing, it would excite suspicion,
were he found travelling altogether penniless. This arrangement being
made, the farmer lay down on a sort of shake-down, upon some straw,
but, as will easily be believed, slept not. About midnight the gang
returned with various articles of plunder, and talked over their
exploits in language which made the farmer tremble. They were not long
in discovering their guest, and demanded of Jean whom she had there?
“E’en the winsome gudeman o’ Lochside, poor body,” replied Jean; “he’s
been at Newcastle seeking for siller to pay his rent, honest man,
but de’il-be-licket he’s been able to gather in, and sae he’s gaun
e’en hame wi’ a toom purse and a sair heart.” “That may be, Jean,”
said one of the banditti, “but we maun rip his pouches a bit, and see
if it be true or no.” Jean set up her throat in exclamation against
this breach of hospitality, but without producing any change in their
determination. The farmer soon heard their stifled whispers and light
steps by his bed-side, and understood they were rummaging his clothes.
When they found the money which the providence of Jean Gordon had made
him retain, they held a consultation if they should take it or no; but
the smallness of the booty, and the vehemence of Jean’s remonstrances,
determined them in the negative. They caroused and went to rest. So
soon as day dawned, Jean roused her guest, produced his horse, which
she had accommodated behind the _hallan_, and guided him for some miles
till he was on the high-road to Lochside. She then restored his whole
property, nor could his earnest entreaties prevail on her to accept so
much as a single guinea.
It is related that all Jean’s sons were condemned to die at Jedburgh on
the same day. It is said the jury were equally divided; but a friend to
justice, who had slept during the discussion, waked suddenly, and gave
his word for condemnation, in the emphatic words, “HANG THEM A’.” Jean
was present, and only said, “The Lord help the innocent in a day like
this!”
Her own death was accompanied with circumstances of brutal outrage, of
which Jean was in many respects wholly undeserving. Jean had, among
other merits or demerits, that of being a staunch Jacobite. She chanced
to be at Carlisle upon a fair or market-day, soon after the year 1746,
where she gave vent to her political partiality, to the great offence
of the rabble of that city. Being zealous of their loyalty, when
there was no danger, in proportion to the tameness with which they
surrendered to the Highlanders in 1745, they inflicted upon poor Jean
Gordon no slighter penalty than that of ducking her to death in the
Eden. It was an operation of some time; for Jean Gordon was a stout
woman, and, struggling hard with her murderers, often got her head
above water, and while she had voice left, continued to exclaim, at
such intervals, “_Charlie yet! Charlie yet!_”
Her propensities were exactly the same as those of the fictitious
character of Meg Merrilies. She possessed the same virtue of fidelity,
spoke the same language, and in appearance there was little difference;
yet Madge Gordon, her grand-daughter, was said to have had the same
resemblance. She was descended from the Faas by the mother’s side, and
was married to a Young. She had a large aquiline nose; penetrating
eyes, even in her old age; bushy hair, that hung around her shoulders
from beneath a gipsy bonnet of straw; a short cloak, of a peculiar
fashion; and a long staff, nearly as tall as herself. When she spoke
vehemently (for she had many complaints), she used to strike her
staff upon the floor, and throw herself into an attitude which it was
impossible to regard with indifference.
From these traits of the manners of Jean and Madge Gordon, it may be
perceived that it would be difficult to determine which of the two
Meg Merrilies was intended for; it may therefore, without injustice,
be divided between both. So that if Jean was the prototype of her
_character_, it is very probable that Madge must have sat to the
anonymous author of “Guy Mannering” as the representative of her
_person_.
To the author whose duty leads him so low in the scale of nature, that
the manners and the miseries of a vicious and insubordinate race,
prominent in hideous circumstances of unvarnished reality, are all he
is permitted to record, it must ever be gratifying to find traits of
such fine enthusiasm, such devoted fidelity, as the conduct of Jean
Gordon exhibits in the foregoing incidents. _They_ stand out with
a delightful and luminous effect from the gloomy canvas of guilt,
atoning for its errors and brightening its darkness. To trace further,
as others have done, the disgusting peculiarities of a people so
abandoned to all sense of moral propriety, would only serve to destroy
the effect already created by the redeeming characters of Jean Gordon
and her nobler sister, and more extensively to disgrace the general
respectability of human nature.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] From which all the works of the author of “Waverley,” besides many
other publications of the highest character, have issued. It is perhaps
worth while to record, that “Peveril of the Peak” was the last work of
the author of “Waverley’s” that appeared here—its successor, “Quentin
Durward,” being published (May, 1823) a few days after Constable and
Co. had forsaken the High Street for the genteeler air of the New Town.
[11] Even when the judges lived in the distant suburb of George’s
Square, they did not give up this practice. Old Braxfield used always
to put on his wig and gown at home, and walk to the Parliament House,
_via_ Bristo Street, Society, Scott’s Close, and the Back Stairs. One
morning his barber, old Kay, since the well-known limner, was rather
late in taking his Lordship’s wig to George’s Square. Braxfield was too
impatient to wait; so he ran off with only his night-cap on his head,
and was fortunate enough to meet his tardy barber in Scott’s Close,
when he seized his wig with one hand, took off his night-cap with the
other, and adjusting the whole matter himself, sent Kay back with the
undignified garment exued. This is a picture of times gone by never
to return; yet, as if to show how long traces of former manners will
survive their general decay, Lord Glenlee, who continues to live in
Brown’s Square, still dresses at home, and walks to court in the style
of his predecessors.
[12] The _Peter Peebles_ of “Redgauntlet.”
[13]
“Newhaven, Leith, and Canonmills
Supply them wi’ their Sunday gills:
There writers aften spend their pence,
And stock their heads wi’ drink and sense.”
_Robert Fergusson._
[14] The juvenile mob of Edinburgh was in the habit of dressing up
an effigy of this hero of liberty, which they treated in the most
ignominious manner, every 4th of June—a relic of the odium excited by
the publication of the _North Briton_, No. 45.
[15] H—— died in the month of May, 1808, and was buried on the
Edinburgh fast-day of that year. He was interred in the Calton Hill
burying-ground; but his grave cannot now be pointed out, as the spot
was removed in 1816, along with about half of the ground, when the
great London road was brought through it.
[16] He died January 2, 1820.