_CIVIC INTERESTS._
As a citizen William Nelson was ever ready to forward whatever appeared
calculated to promote the public welfare; and his faith in the Divine
maxim that righteousness exalts the nation knew no limits in its
practical application. He judged his fellow-men, moreover, by his own
high standard of rectitude; and, with his faith in humanity, he was
prepared to favour the largest popular concessions. In politics
accordingly he heartily sympathized with the Liberal party, and frankly
gave expression to his opinions on all the great questions of the day.
His numerous letters to his friends abound in discussions showing the
keenest interest in all the events and movements that engaged public
attention: the scientific discussions and religious controversies; the
triumphs of engineering skill; the fascinating novelties of geographical
exploration; or again, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, the great
American Civil War, the Franco-German War, the Eastern question in all
its phases, and the no less momentous issues of party strife at home.
In a letter, for example, of May 13th, 1886, addressed to his
fellow-traveller, Major MacEnery, in which he gives him the latest
information about their poor old dragoman, Abdallah, he thus writes: “I
earnestly hope that there will soon be an end of the turmoil that there
is at present in regard to Old Ireland, by letting her people have Home
Rule to the fullest extent. There can be no harm in this; and we who are
north of the Tweed will be a great deal the better too of having the
management of our own affairs a great deal more in our own hands, as it
is absurd that we should have to apply to Parliament for its sanction
for many things that it knows little or nothing about; and a deal of
money would be saved were applications to Parliament for them not to be
necessary. The bill for the sewage of a district, for instance, in the
south part of our city had to be got through Parliament lately; and what
can that august body know about this odoriferous subject? We are much
more familiar with it ourselves.” His appeal in such questions was apt
to be to common sense; and when practical aid was needed, his purse was
ever available. His sympathy with the working-classes found its most
fitting expression in his dealings with those in his own employment.
When the works at Hope Park were in flames, more than one onlooker
reported overhearing the remark by some of his work-people, that they
were sure he would feel it as much for their sakes as his own. A lady
visiting a poor woman in the neighbourhood of the Hope Park works, whose
husband was ill, was told by her: “He works for Mr. Nelson; and they
dinna let their men suffer when they canna work.” Another told her that
the aged and the crippled or maimed were found employment at the
Parkside Works, “for Mr. Nelson can aye find a job to suit a’ sorts.”
The evils of improvidence and the misery resulting from the drinking
habits that prevailed among the lower classes were constant subjects of
thought. He systematically exerted himself to devise innocent pastimes,
and to stimulate the working-classes to more refined tastes and
intellectual sources of enjoyment. His New-Year’s letters to friends
always included some reference to the midnight gathering around the Tron
Church in the High Street of Edinburgh for the “first-footing,” with its
customary excesses, at the inauguration of the New Year; and every
symptom of improvement was hailed with delight. The movement accordingly
for displacing the taverns by “workmen’s homes” and coffee shops met
with his heartiest encouragement. A Glasgow paper-maker mentioned to a
friend that he had not seen Mr. Nelson for many years, when on the
occasion of a visit to Edinburgh he went into one of the places then
being established under the name of “British Workmen’s Houses” for the
supply of non-intoxicating refreshments. To his surprise he found Mr.
Nelson seated there in company with one of his daughters. On his
expressing some surprise, Mr. Nelson said he had come to see how things
were served; and that really he thought the coffee very good, and
indeed, he said in his hearty way, he thought the milk quite as good as
what they got at home from his own cows. He was not without a hope that
one of the results of his reviving the popularity of St. Bernard’s Well,
hereafter referred to, would be the promotion of the same good end. It
is not therefore to be wondered that Mr. Nelson’s services were sought
for in public life, and his fellow-citizens repeatedly manifested the
high esteem they entertained for him by urging his acceptance both of
civic and parliamentary honours. But few men ever shrank more
sensitively from publicity, and only when the importance of the question
under discussion overpowered his natural reserve could he be induced to
take any part in a public meeting. Such, however, was the high sense of
his services as a citizen that he was selected by her Majesty for the
honourable distinction of Deputy-Lieutenant of the County of Edinburgh.
But his appreciation of the antique beauty and historical associations
of his native city overcame all his retiring dread of publicity whenever
they were endangered; and the same regard for the amenities of civic
architecture, and the dread of the destruction of whatever is associated
with the memorable events of bygone times, repeatedly find expression in
his critical notes from abroad. In 1873 he writes to Mr. Campbell from
Vienna, describing a two months’ Continental tour, in which he was
accompanied by Mrs. Nelson and his daughters Eveline and Meta. He passed
from Paris and Geneva to Italy; spent some time in Florence and Venice;
travelled as far as Naples; and then returned to Rome. “I need not say,”
he writes, “that Rome, which is really the capital of the world for art
and archæological interest, detained us much longer than any of the
other places. I was there twenty-three years ago, and though great works
are now in progress, I may say that there has been as yet no very great
change since that time. The city, however, is now under Italian
government, and in a few years Rome will be completely altered. There
are large buildings in course of erection near the railway station,
which are understood to be the commencement of an entire new city in
that quarter; and in many of the streets throughout the city are marks
on the houses, indicating that they are either to be wholly or partially
demolished for improvements, or for the widening of the streets. But I
must say that from what I have seen of the new buildings recently
erected in Rome the architecture is of about as poverty-stricken a kind
as can well be imagined. They are constructed of brick, which is
plastered over, and the plaster gets a coating of size of a pink hue
very much like that of blot-sheet; and the effect is anything but
cheering. The windows have nothing round them but plain mouldings, and
these are painted gray. There is not the slightest attempt at
architectural ornament externally in any of the new buildings that I
happened to see. If this sort of thing goes on to any great extent, the
fine mediæval feeling that there is about Rome as it now exists will be
in a great measure done away with, and it will present in many parts a
smooth-shaven and very unattractive appearance. The main things notable
in the way of change, besides the new buildings to which I have
referred, since I was in Rome formerly, are the excavations in the Forum
and the Palace of the Cæsars, the Baths of Caracalla, and the changes
caused by the occupation of the city by the Italian troops, and the
disappearance from the streets of the religious processions, which are
not now permitted. We hurried on to Rome in order to be there at Easter
week, expecting to see something of the religious ceremonials for which
that week has been famous for ages; but though we were in Rome the
greater part of it, we found it nothing more than an ordinary week, as
far as religious ceremonials are concerned. The Pope and his council
are in the sulks, and as processions in the streets are not allowed,
they have taken care that the curiosity of strangers shall not be
gratified by any great ceremonial in the churches. It would interest you
much to see the ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars, now that they have
been cleared out, especially that part of them which is known to have
been the court house. The wall all round still exists to some extent, as
do also portions of the mosaic floor, and the place where the emperor or
the judge sat is still to be seen. There is in front of it a portion of
the marble balustrade that extended across this part of the court; and
Dr. Philip, missionary to the Jews in Rome, who acted as guide to us in
our wanderings through these immense ruins, said there can hardly be a
doubt that Paul stood before that very balustrade and pleaded his cause
before Nero as his judge. The guard-rooms of the soldiers of what is
called the Palace of Tiberius are quite entire, and on the walls of them
are several very interesting scratchings made by the occupants of those
rooms in ancient days. One is of a Roman galley in full sail; another is
an outline portrait said to be of Augustus Cæsar; another is a
caricature likeness of Nero; and another a very clever comical figure of
a fellow with a tremendously long nose. What a living reality they seem
to give to those old times! In a room at a little distance there is a
remarkably clever scratching of a donkey with a mill on its back, with
the words below: ‘If you labour as I do, you shall not want bread.’ How
little things of this kind carry us back to the far bygone past!”
In like manner, in a letter to Dr. Simpson, he thus records the
impression which his visit to St. Petersburg in 1884 left on his mind:
“We were very much disappointed with St. Petersburg, as it occupies a
site that is very flat and very unhealthy; and it is a city of pure
sham, so far as the architecture of it is concerned. The principal
buildings, as a rule, are of plaster or cement, and are painted in a
style that is perfectly barbaric. Even the celebrated Winter Palace is
not an exception. It is of Roman architecture; and it is besmeared with
paint of a yellowish-brown colour which is sufficient to make one
shudder. The building, moreover, is of great extent, and it is all the
more repulsive on this account.”
But if the disfigurement of the modern city of Peter the Great on the
Neva, or the effacement of the historic antiquities of Rome, offended
his taste, and gave rise to unavailing regrets, every movement of a like
kind affecting his native city roused him not only to vehement protest,
but to vigorous action to avert as far as possible the threatened
mischief. Under such stimulus, all reserve disappeared, and he stood
forth as the resolute defender of his city and its historical
memorials. His letters to old schoolmates, whose lot had been cast far
from those favourite haunts of early years, are frequently devoted to a
notice of the rescue of some threatened antique building, or a wail over
the irrevocable destruction of some historic pile in the alleys or
closes of Old Edinburgh.
The old Bowhead land had an interest of its own, apart from its singular
picturesqueness as an example of the civic architecture of older
centuries. When its demolition could no longer be averted, he rescued
from the wreck some of its substantial oak timbers, and had them
fashioned into antique furniture as memorial gifts to absent friends. In
1883, another of the venerable survivals of older generations,
immediately adjoining the former Castle Hill establishment, was
demolished; and he thus records the event in a letter to myself:--“I
sent you a _Scotsman_, with an account of the demolition of one of the
old houses that you will remember on the Castle Hill. It stood in front
of Milne’s Court, looking down the West Bow, and presented a very
picturesque front, both to the street and to the court behind. Two
stone-vaulted shops faced the street, standing some feet back from the
pavement. It was thought that the main walls of the house went straight
up all the way, and that the timber front, projecting story by story
farther into the street, was an addition of later date; but this was a
mistake, for the original beams extended right over the pavement. The
likelihood is that there was an open veranda on each flat, though it had
been closed in with lath and plaster in course of time. On the second
flat, when the plaster was removed, it was interesting to see a
neatly-carved oaken balustrade, that had been covered up probably for
centuries, where one could fancy the good folks of the house sitting in
their balcony enjoying the fresh air and having their gossip on the
great events of the day. They could look down the Lawnmarket and the
West Bow and up the Castle Hill; and it must have been a choice place on
great occasions, when a royal cavalcade came up the Bow, or when some
poor rogue went down it for the last time.” (In allusion to the old site
of the gallows in the Grassmarket.) “I see, on turning to your
‘Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time,’ that it belonged to a worthy
old citizen, Bartholomew Somerville, a liberal benefactor to our
University in its early days.”
The sympathetic interest thus manifested in every ancient feature of the
special haunts of his boyhood extended to whatever contributed to the
picturesqueness and beauty of his native city. One who was very familiar
with his indefatigable exertions for the conservation of whatever
pertained to its historical antiquities--Mr. D. Scott Moncrieff--thus
writes in reply to a request for information relative to the share
borne by Mr. Nelson in recent efforts on that behalf:--“It is no easy
matter to do this, for Mr. Nelson for many years took an active interest
in every movement having for its object the enhancement of the beauties
of his native city. As you are aware, he was long a member, and latterly
one of the council, of the Cockburn Association, founded in 1875, for
promoting the improvement of Edinburgh and its neighbourhood; and as
convener of the council I had frequent opportunities of hearing his
views upon such questions. His interest was much engaged, in particular,
in the improvement of Edinburgh Castle, the Meadows, and other public
parks, the encouragement of a higher style of architecture, and the
frustration of mean and tasteless designs, vulgar advertisements, and
the depraved habit of painting stone work. He strove to obviate the
necessity for unsightly workshops and tall chimneys, for which in his
own extensive works there was found no place.” But he soon discovered
that mere criticising, remonstrating, and suggesting improvements were
of little avail; and as Mr. Scott Moncrieff adds: “His interest in the
work of the Association was not confined to attending meetings and
expressing his views. Every citizen of Edinburgh may well feel proud and
grateful that amongst them there was one gifted, not only with an
exquisite taste for all that was beautiful, but with an enthusiasm in
having his aspirations given expression to, and also with the means of
carrying his ideas into effect.” One of those practical demonstrations
of his public-spirited liberality has a history of its own.
The circular panel of the finely-carved mantle-piece in the council room
of Heriot’s Hospital is filled with a painting which perpetuates the
tradition that the medicinal spring of St. Bernard’s Well, on the Water
of Leith--resembling in character the famed Harrogate springs--was
discovered by a party of Heriot boys while sporting on the bank of the
stream. A more dubious legendary tale assigns the origin of the name to
the occupation of a cave on the neighbouring slope by the saint still
associated with its healing waters; but its medicinal virtues are noted
for the first time in the _Scottish Magazine_ for 1760, at which date
the water seems to have been in great repute. The old Scottish judge,
Lord Gardenstone, an eccentric valetudinarian, having derived much
benefit from the medicinal waters, in 1789 erected over the healing
fountain a fine Doric temple, designed as a reproduction of the famous
Sibyl’s Temple at Tivoli. A colossal plaster statue of Hygeia was placed
within the columns, over the vaulted chamber of the well. Thus
enshrined, it has ever since been a favourite morning resort; and
William Nelson continued for many years to be one of its most faithful
frequenters. But the picturesque and richly-wooded valley of the Leith,
to which the Heriot boys resorted in the eighteenth century, has long
been invaded by the extended new town. The temple had fallen into
disrepair, and the boys of the neighbouring village of Stockbridge had
defaced and mutilated the statue, till it presented some of the most
familiar characteristics of a genuine antique. The amenities of the spot
had suffered in all ways, and the proposed erection of a public laundry
on the adjacent area threatened the final ruin of the well, when in 1885
Mr. Nelson interposed, purchased it and the grounds in its vicinity,
restored and beautified the well, and commissioned Mr. Stephenson to
execute a marble statue of Hygeia, to replace the mutilated goddess of
earlier days. The surrounding grounds were tastefully laid out, under
the directions of a skilled landscape gardener, and the whole finished
at a cost of £5,000, and presented to the city. He did not live to see
the fine statue placed on its pedestal; but his letters to his friends
frequently refer to it, along with others of the various works of
restoration which so largely occupied his thoughts and engaged his
active sympathy in his later years. Writing to Captain Chester in
January 1886 he says: “I send you the last report of the Cockburn
Association, from which you will see that I have in hand the restoration
of several ancient buildings in the Castle, and of the mineral well on
the Water of Leith called St. Bernard’s Well, a chromo-lithograph of
which I enclose. I am glad that it has fallen to my lot to do something
ere I be ‘called hence to be no more,’ for the beauty and interest of
mine own romantic town.”
The shrine of his favourite healing fountain had been restored to far
more than its pristine beauty, and the generous benefactor to whom the
work was due had himself been “called hence,” when the convener of the
Cockburn Association wrote: “What Mr. William Nelson undertook he did
well and thoroughly; and so long as Edinburgh citizens look down upon
the valley of the Water of Leith, his work at St. Bernard’s Well will
keep his memory green in their hearts.”
But, as his letters show, other and still more extensive and costly
restorations engaged William Nelson’s practical liberality, and
continued to be objects of deepest interest to him till the close of his
life. So early as 1847, attention had been recalled, in the “Memorials
of Edinburgh in the Olden Time,” to the fact that the ancient hall of
the palace in the Castle still existed, though so defaced and overlaid
by later transmutations as to have passed out of knowledge of the living
generation. But the matter was once more forgotten till near the close
of 1883, when Lord Napier and Ettrick published in the _Scotsman_ an
account of his explorations above the modern ceiling of the hospital
ward, where, “on creeping up a ladder, through a trap-door, he found
himself in a maze of mighty beams, on which the dust of centuries lay
thick and soft.” It was the fine old open timbered ceiling, of carved
chestnut, of the great hall of the Castle. Public attention was now
keenly awakened to the interest of this historic relic. Here was the
_aula Castri_, or great hall of the Castle, where there is little doubt
the Scottish Parliament assembled in 1437 to inaugurate the reign of the
young king, James II. Here, too, if the legend is to be accepted as a
verity, only two years later Chancellor Crichton had the fatal symbol of
the bull’s head served up for the Earl of Douglas. It was here that
Charles I. held his coronation banquet in 1633, and that Argyle
entertained the Lord Protector Cromwell in 1650. Of the historic worth
of the ancient hall there could be no question; and not only its
degradation to the purposes of a garrison hospital, but the general
neglect and disfigurement of the Castle, had long been a subject of
public complaint.
The council of the Cockburn Association followed up the letter of Lord
Napier with a memorial to the Marquis of Hartington, then Secretary of
State for War, complaining of the misappropriation and defacement of the
ancient hall, and urging its restoration. But the wonted formalities and
circumlocution of official correspondence ensued, with little prospect
of any satisfactory result, “when,” as Mr. Scott Moncrieff writes, “we
were still hoping that the building might be rendered available for uses
more in harmony with its history and associations; and while the matter
was still under the consideration of the authorities, Mr. Nelson,
knowing the well-nigh insurmountable obstacles in the way of Government
dealing effectively, timeously, and reasonably, in affairs of the kind,
in the most generous and patriotic way offered at his sole expense to
undertake the restoration, not only of the old Parliament Hall, but also
of two other most interesting and picturesque features of the Castle,
the Argyle Tower and St. Margaret’s Chapel.”
The little oratory of St. Margaret had been a subject of interest to him
from the time when it was anew brought under notice, in 1845, as a
long-forgotten historical relic; and as for the Argyle Tower, it was
associated in his mind with the reverence due to the martyrs of the
Covenant. The fine old Edinburgh cemetery, the Greyfriars’ Churchyard,
was only separated from the West Bow by the Grassmarket, where in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the public gallows was erected, for
the execution not only of degraded criminals, but of many of the victims
of intolerance in Covenanting times, to whom a common grave was assigned
in the neighbouring cemetery. There, accordingly, in happier days the
Martyrs’ Monument was erected, with its tribute to the memory of “about
a hundred noblemen and gentlemen, ministers, and others, noble martyrs
for Jesus Christ,” all executed at Edinburgh, “from May 27th, 1661, that
the most noble Marquis of Argyle was beheaded, to the 17th February
1688, that Mr. James Renwick suffered.” It was but a step from the early
home in the West Bow to the Greyfriars’ Churchyard, where the Martyrs’
Monument had been an object of veneration to William Nelson from his
youth. The same spirit of reverent piety which led to the erection of
the Martyrs’ Monument on the spot selected, as a mark of ignominy, for
the graves of the victims of Stuart persecution, associates the name of
Argyle with the tower in the neighbouring fortress in which Archibald,
Earl of Argyle, was imprisoned before his execution in 1685. He had gone
up to London to pay his homage to Charles II., relying on the indemnity
which had been granted, as far as England was concerned. But Scotland
was still a separate kingdom; and as a prominent leader of the Scottish
Covenanters, Argyle was regarded with special antipathy. He was
accordingly arrested, cast into the Tower, and from thence transferred
to the state prison in the Castle of Edinburgh. It was from that prison
chamber that the earl addressed to his friends letters marked by a rare
spirit of calm Christian resignation, including the simple farewell note
to his own son, written immediately before his execution. Of the latter
William Nelson had a facsimile made. Still more, according to current
belief, it was in the same prison chamber that a member of the council,
on coming to interview him, was startled at finding the victim of
intolerance calmly asleep immediately before he walked with quiet
composure to the scaffold. The scene associated with such memorable
occurrences appealed to William Nelson’s religious no less than to his
archæological sympathies; so that the restoration of the Argyle Tower
was for him, in a very special sense, a labour of love.
The work thus generously undertaken proceeded slowly, amid endless
official routine and red-tape formalities. Plans were prepared and
submitted to the critical revision of his colleagues in the council of
the Cockburn Association before asking official approval. But hospital
accommodation had to be found elsewhere; and the patience he manifested,
and the calm perseverance with which he overcame the _vis inertiæ_ of
the Circumlocution Office, were a source of admiration to his friends
and of amusement to himself. His unostentatious liberality, along with
the taste and judgment he displayed, naturally gave weight to his
opinions; and, notwithstanding his instinctive reserve, he was induced
on more than one occasion to remonstrate with the authorities on plans
that had received official approval. In 1887 the sketch of a tasteless
design for a new entrance gateway, to form the main approach to the
Castle, had been exhibited without attracting public attention. The
working plans had been withheld; and it was about to be proceeded with,
on the plea, stated in an official letter, that “every reasonable
facility had been afforded for criticism.” A respectful letter of
remonstrance was forwarded by him to the Marquis of Lothian. Its style
of formal courtesy would suggest that it had been drawn up more probably
by some legal member of the council of the Cockburn Association, and
sent to him for signature. But having done so, his own simple and
plain-spoken style is unmistakably manifest in the postscript he has
added: “The proposed designs, I can assure you, will give great
dissatisfaction. They are not at all in keeping with the grand old
Castle.”