There are few Scottish families that, during the last two hundred
years, have been more closely connected with the progress of culture in
their native country than the Clerks of Penicuik.
Claiming descent from the Drummonds of Hawthornden, through Elizabeth
Henderson, grand-daughter of the poet and first wife of the first
Baronet of Penicuik, they have produced, both in the main line and in
its younger branches, a goodly proportion of men of intellect and mark.
At present we need only name Sir John Clerk, the second Baronet, one of
the Commissioners for the Union, and a Baron of the Exchequer, a man
of varied attainments and the strongest individuality, and known as
an enthusiastic antiquary; his son, Sir James, who was the architect
of the present mansion of the family; whose brother, Sir George Clerk
Maxwell, the fourth Baronet, distinguished himself by his efforts to
promote the commercial interests of his country, establishing a linen
manufactory at Dumfries, engaging in mining schemes for copper and
lead, and writing much upon agricultural and industrial subjects;
John Clerk of Eldin, younger brother of the last-named, author of
the celebrated “Essay on Naval Tactics,” and known as an artist by
his series of etchings which preserve in a manner so interesting
to the antiquary the aspect of many of the historical edifices of
Scotland; his well-known son John Clerk, “the Coryphæus of the Scottish
Bar,” afterwards Lord Eldin; and the Right Hon. Sir George Clerk,
sixth Baronet, the friend of Sir Robert Peel, one of the prominent
politicians of his time, and especially versed in all matters of
statistics. William Aikman, the portrait-painter, too, was descended
from the house of Penicuik, his mother having been the eldest sister
of Sir John Clerk, the first Baronet; and, in our own time, Professor
James Clerk Maxwell, whose father was grandson of the fourth Baronet
and brother of the sixth, has by his eminence in science added new
lustre to his parental name.
But not only have the Clerks been themselves witty—using the word in
its best, its old English, sense—they have been the cause of wit in
others; by their loyal friendships with the best Scottish painters and
poets of their time, and their open-handed patronage of these men’s
work, they have identified themselves with the history of art and
literature in Scotland. One can hardly pronounce the name of Allan
Ramsay without thinking of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, or the name of
Alexander Runciman, without recalling that of Sir James, his son and
successor.
The mansion of the family is situated about a mile and a half from
the village of Penicuik, on a commanding situation, overlooking the
wooded valley of the Esk, a “classic stream” which, at this point,
is still uncontaminated by the chemicals of the paper-makers, whose
manufactories begin to appear a little lower, at the village itself.
Manifestly great care and the finest taste have been expended by the
successive owners of the place in laying out the grounds, which are
a triumph of landscape-gardening, so filled are they with pleasant
combinations of woodland, lawn, and flowers; and we shall hardly forget
their gorgeous aspect on that summer day when we first saw them, with
their wealth of purple rhododendron blossoms, and, here and there,
a touch of particularly vivid crimson of beech-leaves diversifying
the “greenery” of June. Especially noticeable is the skill which has
arranged that spaces of shadowed and closely enclosed foliage shall
lead, with all the force of sharp and grateful contrast, to amplest
breadth of outlook and extended view; and so aptly does the peak of the
Black Hill top the belt of trees that bounds the Upper Pond, and with
such a perfect sense of definitely calculated balance, of satisfying
composition, does the blue outline of Mendick complete the view as we
look up the stream from near the south front of the house, that, in a
fanciful mood, we could well believe the whole to have been the result
of something more than a mere happy chance,—could almost imagine
that he who designed the place had been gifted with a wizard’s power,
greater than that of the Prophet himself, that the mountains had indeed
been at his beck and call, that they had come at his bidding, and taken
their stations, each in the precise spot best fitted to give to the
prospect its last, its crowning perfection.
Nay, Nature herself, even in her moments of wildest storm, seems to
have been working in harmony with the designer of the place, and
making for its beauty. When you have surveyed the last-named prospect,
and turned a little towards the left to follow the depressions of
the ground which mark the position of the unseen bed of the Esk, you
note the greensward that borders the stream; and this leads the eye
beyond to the further bank, where an open space of clearing among the
trees diversifies the succession of their rounded tops, this break
and point of pause being again repeated further up to the left among
the trees that crest the hill. The last opening was the work of the
tempest, which, by overturning a trunk or two, disclosed a glimpse of
the distant Peeblesshire moor behind, giving just that final touch,
that hint of the beyond “over the hills and far away,” which perfects
the view,—not only to the painter, as completing the lines of its
composition, but to the poet as well, by adding that sense of extended
outlook, as of a vista piercing into the breadth of the world, which is
needful, for finest imaginative effect, in every landscape.
Then, too, there are the Penicuik Gardens to be seen,—the old garden,
lying on a sheltered slope to the south, with its glass-houses,
the first, or all but the very first, of the kind in Scotland; the
extensive modern garden, bounded by brick walls, the soft mellow
colouring of which tells so pleasantly through the green of the trees;
and especially the “American Garden,” with its wealth of many-coloured
azaleas springing from the midmost space of softest turf, “a garden
inclosed” like the garden of the Canticles, cloistered and protected,
like some princess of romance, by thick-set hedges and a circle of
sheltering wood, lest any eager and nipping air of our northern clime
should visit its cheek too roughly, and blanch the beauty of its ardent
face of flowers.