Of the first Baronet’s eldest son, Sir John Clerk, second Baronet, and
one of the Barons of Exchequer, several portraits are preserved at
Penicuik; but even a more complete picture of this stout old gentleman,
perhaps the most potent and memorable figure that appears in this
family history, may be gathered from the voluminous diaries in his
hand that are preserved in the Charter-room, and from that “History of
my Life,” which he himself compiled from these, and which the present
Baronet has placed at the disposal of the Scottish History Society for
publication; a manuscript affording a clear narrative of the events of
the Baron’s life, and throwing curious and valuable side-lights upon
the manners and public occurrences of the time, while, in almost every
line of its pages, it gives a vivid, if unconscious, picture of the
quaint, masterful personality of its writer.
He was born, as he tells us, on the 8th of February 1676—not in
1684, as stated by his biographers; studied at Penicuik School and
Glasgow University; and, at the age of nineteen, went to Leyden to
be instructed in law by “a very learned man, Philippus Bernardus
Vitrianus.” Here he boarded with a German who taught mathematics,
philosophy, and music, and he applied himself to all of these studies
as well as to law, having previously, as he remarks with proper pride,
“played tolerably on the harpsicord, and since I was 7 I touched the
violin a little.” Nor do these exhaust the list of his pursuits, for
“among other things I learned to draw from Francis Miers, a very great
painter; this proceeded partly from inclination, and partly from the
advice I had from some of my Dutch friends, for all their young Folks
learn to draw from their being 7 years of Age, and find it vastly
useful in most Stations of Life.” His great friend at Leyden was Herman
Boerhaave, then a man of twenty-six, afterwards world-famous as a
physician, and he gives a curious account of his being treated by the
young doctor with a “chymecal medicine he had discovered which would
carry off the smallpox before they came any length,” and which was
successful at the time, though the malady returned in full force three
months afterwards, when Clerk had gone to Rome. “We not only lived like
brothers while I studied in Leyden, but continued a correspondence
together while he lived”; and forty-four years afterwards Boerhaave
bequeathed to the Baron a collection of his books, which still forms
part of the Library at Penicuik House.
After leaving Leyden Clerk visited Germany, Italy, France, and
Flanders, and the two large MS. volumes of his “Travels” during this
period—not only descriptive of the various places that he saw, and
very particularly of the antiquities of Rome, but also giving an
account of the laws manners, and customs of the several countries that
he visited—prove how diligent and observant the youth had been during
the whole time. At the end of these volumes he sums up the results of
his residence abroad, as follows:—
“_N.B._—My improvements abroad were these:
“I had studied the civil Law for three Winters at Leyden, and did not
neglect it at home, by which means I passed Advocate, by a privat and
publick examination some months after my return, with great ease and
some credite.
“I spoke French and Italian very well, but particularly Dutch,
having come very young into Holland, and kept more in the Company of
Hollanders than those of my own country.
“I had applied much to classical learning, and had more than ordinary
inclination for Greek and Roman Antiquities.
“I understood pictures better than became my Purse, and as to Musick
I ... performed better, especially on the Herpsicord, than became a
gentleman.
“This, to the best of my knowledge, is a faithful account of myself.”
The volumes are illustrated with over fifty drawings of the landscapes,
buildings, statues, etc., which he had seen during his travels, “a few
of many hundreds executed while I was abroad.”
In 1702 he was elected member for Whithorn in Galloway, which he
represented till 1707; and his “History” contains curious particulars
of the last sittings of the Scottish Parliament, and personal
references to the prominent political figures of the period,—to the
Duke of Queensberry, the Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Tweeddale, the
Earl of Stair, Robert Dundas, second Lord Arniston, and Fletcher of
Salton—“a man of republican principles,” “a little untoward in temper,
and much inclined to Eloquence.” In 1706-7, through the influence of
the Duke of Queensberry, his first wife’s cousin, and the Duke of
Argyll, he was appointed a Commissioner for the Union; and in the
following year he became one of the Barons of the newly constituted
Court of Exchequer in Scotland.
From this period till his death on the 4th of October 1755, his life
was occupied with his official duties; with planting and improving
his various estates; with the classical studies to which he continued
faithful all his days; with the composition of various learned
pamphlets, several of which have been published—his “Historical
View of the Forms and Powers of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland,”
written in conjunction with Baron Scrope, having been edited by Sir
Henry Jardine in 1820; in the enjoyment of the society of his friend
Allan Ramsay, the poet; and in correspondence with Roger Gale, and
with Alexander Gordon, in the subscription list of whose “Itinerarium
Septentrionale” he is entered for “five books,” in company with such
well-known names as “Mr. Adams, Architect”; “The Right Hon. Duncan
Forbes, Lord Advocate of Scotland”; “James Gibbs, Esq., Architect”;
“The Right Hon. The Lord Lovat”; “Richard Mead, M.D.”; “The Hon. Sir
Hans Sloane, Bart.”; and “Mr. John Smibert,” the portrait-painter.
Gordon styles him “not only a treasure of learning and good taste, but
now one of its chief supports in that country,” and pronounces that
“among all the collections of Roman antiquities in Scotland, that of
Baron Clerk claims the preference, both as to number and curiosity.”
It was one of the Baron’s antiquarian experiences at a supposed Roman
camp on his property of Dumcrieff, in Dumfriesshire, which, narrated
to Scott by his son, John Clerk of Eldin, suggested the episode of the
“Prætorium” in “The Antiquary.”
Occasionally across the quiet and characteristic pages that narrate
his daily doings there falls the shadow of larger national events: of
the Rebellion of 1715,—“The Earl of Mar was not only my acquaintance
but my particular friend”; of the South Sea Scheme, in connection with
which Clerk held stock, and was a consequent sufferer; and of the
Rebellion of 1745, when the Highlanders in occupation of Edinburgh
visited Penicuik House, demanding food and drink.
As a poet—or, at least, a rhymester—the Baron is known by the really
vigorous verses which he added to the single surviving stanza of the
old Scotch song
“O merry may the maid be
That marries the miller,”
which will be found in Johnston’s “Musical Museum,” but were first
published anonymously, in 1751, in “The Charmer”; and by the lines
beginning
“Harmonious pipe, how I envye thy bliss
When pressed to Sylphia’s lips with gentle kiss,”
which he sent, screwed up in a flute to Susanna Kennedy, afterwards the
celebrated Countess of Eglintoune, to whom Allan Ramsay dedicated his
“Gentle Shepherd,” and of whom Clerk was a lover in his youth, at the
time when, as he tells us, he suffered from his father’s “attempts” to
find him a wife, and especially to wed him to a lady—whose name he
honourably suppresses—“not to my taste, and indeed it was happy for me
to have stopt short in this amour, for she proved the most disagreeable
woman I ever knew, tho’ otherways a wise enough country woman.” There
also exist in MS. “Some Poetical Ejeculations on the Death of my dear
wife, Lady Margaret Stuart,” that “choice of my own,” who became his
first wife, “a very handsome woman, for the most part bred up in
Galloway, a stranger to the follies of Edinburgh,” “the best Woman that
ever breathed Life.”
The earliest of the portraits of the Baron preserved at Penicuik House
hangs in the dressing-room of the present Baronet. It is a small,
carefully finished pencil-drawing; an interesting memorial of Sir
John’s student days at Leyden. The figure is portrayed to the waist,
clad in a loose gown, and with a voluminous cravat wrapped round the
neck. The hands are not shown. The hair is long and curling. The face
full, beardless, and youthful, set in three-quarters to the right,
is modelled with excellent thoroughness, and very crisp and incisive
in the touches that express the lips and the dimple at the corner
of the mouth. The background is dark to the left, and to the right
appears a wall decorated with pilasters. The drawing is inscribed on
the background “Ætatis 19,” and beneath “My picture done at Leyden,
Jo. Clerk”; while on the back is written “My picture done at Leyden by
Francis Miris,” the two latter inscriptions being in the handwriting of
the Baron himself.
A comparison of the dates leads to some dubiety as to who was the
actual draughtsman of this portrait. There were three well-known Dutch
painters of the name of Mieris—Frans Van Mieris, the pupil of Gerard
Dow, born at Delft in 1635, died at Leyden 1681; Willem Van Mieris, his
son, born at Leyden 1662, and died there, 1747; and his son, Frans Van
Mieris, the younger, born at Leyden 1689, died there in 1763. The year
in which the drawing was executed must have been 1695, consequently it
cannot be the work of the elder Frans; nor can it have been done by
his grandson, the younger Frans, who was then only six years of age.
A solution of the difficulty seems to be afforded by a comparison of
the “Travels” and the “History” of the Baron. In the former, a journal
written at the time, he states that he was instructed in art at Leyden,
by “Miris,” but in the latter, compiled from the former many years
afterwards, he states that “Francis Miers, a very great painter,”
was his teacher, the Christian name being apparently added from
memory, which, in the present case, seems to have played him false.
There can be little doubt that the portrait was drawn by Willem Van
Mieris, who at the time of Clerk’s residence at Leyden was forty-one
years of age, and in full practice as an artist. As corroborating
this supposition, we may notice that in the account of the Clerks of
Penicuik contributed by Miss Isabella Clerk to the “Life of Professor
James Clerk Maxwell,” and “chiefly derived from a book of autograph
letters which was long kept at Glenlair, and is now in the possession
of Mrs. Maxwell,” it is stated that the Baron was a pupil of _William_
Mieris in drawing; and further, that a drawing of two men’s heads
similar in style to the present portrait, preserved in the Penicuik
Drawing-room, is inscribed in the Baron’s hand, “Originall by William
Van Miris, 1696,” indicating that about the date he must have been in
communication with this artist.
Three oil portraits, showing the Baron in later life, hang in the
Dining-room. In the first, by Sir John Medina, he appears still as
a young man, seen to the waist, clad in a bright blue coat and a
crimson cloak—a combination of primary colours in which the painter
frequently indulged. His right hand is laid on a book, which rests on
an unseen table in front to the right. He wears a long yellowish wig,
with powdered curls, and the blue eyes and the alert mouth are full
of activity and energy. Probably this portrait was executed at the
time of his marriage, in 1700, for there is a companion picture of his
first wife, Margaret Stewart, daughter of the third Earl of Galloway,
and grand-daughter of James, Earl of Queensberry, painted by Aikman.
As was to be expected in so early a work of the artist’s—he must have
been under twenty when he painted it, for the lady died in 1701—this
latter is full of faults, stiff in pose, with little suggestion of the
figure under the draperies of white and blue: still it conveys the idea
of a charming and attractive personality, fitting as that of the lady
for whom the Baron—as shown in the “History of his Life,”—mourned so
truly.
There is a second bust-portrait of the Baron by Sir John Medina, a
low-toned picture, executed with care if with considerable hardness.
Here the costume is a lilac gown, with a long curled wig, and a
white cravat; the body seen turned to the right, and the face in
three-quarters to the left.
The finest, however, of the portraits of the second Baronet, is
the three-quarters length by his cousin, William Aikman. Here he
appears robed in his black gown as Baron of the Exchequer, worn over
a yellow-brown coat. Long white hanging bands appear at the breast,
and lace ruffles at the wrists; and the grave face, with its strongly
marked features, is surmounted by a long curled wig. His left hand
hangs down in front fingering among the folds of his gown, and the
right rests upon a red-covered table. The whole is relieved against a
plain brown background, with a low-toned space of crimson curtain to
the left. It is an excellent example by the painter, well arranged,
dignified, firmly handled, and manifestly faithful to the personality
portrayed. A bust-portrait similar in costume and wig to this one, but
with some difference in the features, was engraved, in line, by D.
Lizars, “from a portrait in the possession of John Clerk of Eldin, Esq.”
Of Sir James, the third Baronet, the architect of the present house of
Penicuik, we, unfortunately find no adequate portrait. The only effigy
of him that is here preserved is a small silhouette in white paper,
relieved against a black background, marked as cut two years after his
death by Barbara Clerk, his fifth sister, and as being considered very
like by those who knew him. It shows a small face, looking a little
downwards, with a high forehead, beneath the wig, impending over the
delicate features. (_See_ Note at page 69.)
In the Dining-room there hangs another picture by Aikman, marked in the
Baron’s writing, “My eldest son, John Clerk, by Lady Margaret Stuart,
born 1701, died 1722, painted by Mr. Aikman.” The figure is seen nearly
to the waist; the costume, a long curled grey wig, and a lilac-grey
gown, lined with blue. The small eyes are of a blue colour; the face
pale, refined, and delicate-looking. This was “the most accomplish’d
Son,” of “bright aspiring mind,” whose birth cost the life of the
Baron’s first wife, and whose own death, some twenty-one years later,
was mourned by Ramsay in the verses addressed to the bereaved father,
which may be read in his works. On another wall hang three pictures,
portraying, in pairs, the Baron’s six daughters by his second wife.
Near the portrait of his son is a half-length by Aikman, rather hard
in execution, showing a gentleman, with face turned to the left, in
a purple-grey coat, the end of his white cravat being thrust through
one of its button-holes. This is Dr. John Clerk, grandson of the first
Baronet of Penicuik, whose father, Robert Clerk, was a physician in
Edinburgh, and a close friend of Dr. Pitcairn. The son, born 1689,
died 1757, was a personage of greater mark. For above thirty years
he was the most eminent physician in Scotland; on the institution
of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1739, he was elected a
Vice-President, an office which he held till his death; and from 1740
to 1744, he was President of the Royal College of Physicians, in whose
Hall in Edinburgh another smaller portrait of him is preserved. He
purchased the lands of Listonshiels and Spittal in Mid-Lothian, and
founded the family of the Clerks of Listonshiels. His name appears in
the list of subscribers to the collection of Ramsay’s poems, published
in 1721, and he is believed to have contributed songs to the “Tea-table
Miscellany.” The portrait of his second son, Colonel Robert Clerk, in a
red military uniform, is also preserved in the Penicuik Dining-room.
Two other works by Aikman may here be mentioned, two drawings in red
chalk upon blue paper, which hang in a passage near the Library door.
They evince more of an ideal aim than any other of the productions of
this painter with which we are acquainted. Evidently they are companion
works, and the female portrait is dated 1730, the year before the
artist’s death. This shows a girl’s head in profile to the left, a
young attractive little face, with the faintest half-smile playing
round the tiny mouth, and the short hair decorated with a chaplet of
leaves, or of leaf-like ribbons. It is a portrait of Jean Clerk, the
Baron’s third daughter, who married James Smollet of Bonhill, one of
the Commissaries of Edinburgh.
The other drawing shows a male face in three-quarters to the right,
with flowing hair over the shoulders, and a heroic expression on the
high-arched brows, the raised eyes, and the rippling lips; the dress
thrown carelessly open at the throat. This is Patrick Clerk, the
Baron’s third son. His life-record is a brief one, as given in the
Baronage along with that of three of his brothers: “Patrick, Henry,
Matthew, and Adam, died abroad, in the service of their country.” We
learn from the Baron’s MS. that he died at Carthagena in 1744.