In the early part of the last century, the Bowhead was distinguished as
the residence of an odd, half-crazy varlet of a tinsmith named William
Mitchell, who occasionally held forth as a preacher, and every now
and then astounded the quiet people of Edinburgh with some pamphlet
full of satirical personalities. He seems to have been altogether a
strange mixture of fanaticism, humour, and low cunning. In one of his
publications—a single broadside, dated 1713—he has a squib upon the
magistrates, in the form of a _leit_, or list, of a new set, whom he
proposes to introduce in their stead. At the end he sets forward a
claim on his own behalf, no less than that of representing the city in
parliament. In another of his prose pieces he gives a curious account
of a journey which he made into France, where, he affirms, ‘the king’s
court is six times bigger than the king of Britain’s; his guards have
all feathers in their hats, and their horse-tails are to their heels;
and their king [Louis XV.] is one of the best-favoured boys that
you can look upon—blithe-like, with black hair; and all his people
are better natured in general than the Scots or English, except the
priests. Their women seem to be modest, for they have no fardingales.
The greatest wonder I saw in France, was to see the braw people fall
down on their knees on the clarty ground when the priest comes by,
carrying the cross, to give a sick person the sacrament.’
The Tinklarian Doctor, for such was his popular appellation, appears to
have been fully acquainted with an ingenious expedient, long afterwards
held in view by publishers of juvenile toy-books. As in certain sage
little histories of Tommy and Harry, King Pepin, &c., we are sure
to find that ‘the good boy who loved his lessons’ always bought his
books from ‘kind, good, old Mr J. Newberry, at the corner of St Paul’s
Churchyard, where the greatest assortment of nice books for good boys
and girls is always to be had’—so in the works of Mr Mitchell we find
some sly encomium upon the Tinklarian Doctor constantly peeping forth;
and in the pamphlet from which the above extract is made, he is not
forgetful to impress his professional excellence as a whitesmith.
‘I have,’ he says, ‘a good pennyworth of pewter spoons, fine, like
silver—none such made in Edinburgh—and silken pocks for wigs, and
French white pearl-beads; all to be sold for little or nothing.’ _Vide_
‘A part of the works of that Eminent Divine and Historian, Dr William
Mitchell, Professor of Tinklarianism in the University of the BOWHEAD;
being a Syze of Divinity, Humanity, History, Philosophy, Law, and
Physick; Composed at Various Occasions for his own Satisfaction and the
World’s Illumination.’ In his works—all of which were adorned with a
cut of the Mitchell arms—he does not scruple to make the personages
whom he introduces speak of himself as a much wiser man than the
Archbishop of Canterbury, all the clergymen of his native country, and
even the magistrates of Edinburgh! One of his last productions was
a pamphlet on the murder of Captain Porteous, which he concludes by
saying, in the true spirit of a Cameronian martyr: ‘If the king and
clergy gar hang me for writing this, I’m content, because it is long
since any man was hanged for religion.’ The learned Tinklarian was
destined, however, to die in his bed—an event which came to pass in
the year 1740.
The profession of which the Tinklarian Doctor subscribed himself
a member has long been predominant in the West Bow. We see from a
preceding extract that it reckoned dagger-makers among its worthy
denizens in the reign of James VI. But this trade has long been
happily extinct everywhere in Scotland; though their less formidable
brethren the whitesmiths, coppersmiths, and pewterers have continued
down to our own day to keep almost unrivalled possession of the Bow.
Till within these few years, there was scarcely a shop in this street
occupied by other tradesmen; and it might be supposed that the noise
of so many hammermen, pent up in a narrow thoroughfare, would be
extremely annoying to the neighbourhood. Yet however disagreeable their
clattering might seem to strangers, it is generally admitted that the
people who lived in the West Bow became habituated to the noise, and
felt no inconvenience whatever from its ceaseless operation upon their
ears. Nay, they rather experienced inconvenience from its cessation,
and only felt annoyed when any period of rest arrived and stopped it.
Sunday morning, instead of favouring repose, made them restless; and
when they removed to another part of the town, beyond the reach of
the sound, sleep was unattainable in the morning for some weeks, till
they got accustomed to the quiescence of their new neighbourhood. An
old gentleman once told me that, having occasion in his youth to lodge
for a short time in the West Bow, he found the incessant clanking
extremely disagreeable, and at last entered into a paction with some
of the workmen in his immediate neighbourhood, who promised to let him
have another hour of quiet sleep in the mornings for the consideration
of some such matter as half-a-crown to drink on Saturday night. The
next day happening (out of his knowledge) to be some species of Saint
Monday, his annoyers did not work at all; but such was the force of a
habit acquired even in a week or little more, that our friend awoke
precisely at the moment when the hammers used to commence; and he was
glad to get his bargain cancelled as soon as possible, for fear of
another morning’s want of disturbance.