[Illustration]
Tavern dissipation, now so rare amongst the respectable classes of the
community, formerly prevailed in Edinburgh to an incredible extent, and
engrossed the leisure hours of all professional men, scarcely excepting
even the most stern and dignified. No rank, class, or profession,
indeed, formed an exception to this rule. Nothing was so common in
the morning as to meet men of high rank and official dignity reeling
home from a close in the High Street, where they had spent the night
in drinking. Nor was it unusual to find two or three of His Majesty’s
most honourable Lords of Council and Session mounting the bench in the
forenoon in a crapulous state. A gentleman one night stepping into
Johnnie Dowie’s, opened a side-door, and looking into the room, saw a
sort of _agger_ or heap of snoring lads upon the floor, illumined by
the gleams of an expiring candle. ‘Wha may thae be, Mr Dowie?’ inquired
the visitor. ‘Oh,’ quoth John in his usual quiet way, ‘just twa-three
o’ Sir Willie’s drucken clerks!’—meaning the young gentlemen employed
in Sir William Forbes’s banking-house, whom of all earthly mortals one
would have expected to be observers of the decencies.
[Illustration: Johnnie Dowie.]
To this testimony may be added that of all published works descriptive
of Edinburgh during the last century. Even in the preceding century, if
we are to believe Taylor the Water-poet, there was no superabundance
of sobriety in the town. ‘The worst thing,’ says that sly humorist in
his _Journey_ (1623), ‘was, that wine and ale were so scarce, and the
people such misers of it, that every night, before I went to bed, if
any man had asked me a civil question, all the wit in my head could not
have made him a sober answer.’
The _diurnal_ of a Scottish judge[130] of the beginning of the last
century, which I have perused, presents a striking picture of the
habits of men of business in that age. Hardly a night passes without
some expense being incurred at taverns, not always of very good fame,
where his lordship’s associates on the bench were his boon-companions
in the debauch. One is at a loss to understand how men who drugged
their understandings so habitually could possess any share of vital
faculty for the consideration or transaction of business, or how they
contrived to make a decent appearance in the hours of duty. But,
however difficult to be accounted for, there seems no room to doubt
that deep drinking was compatible in many instances with good business
talents, and even application. Many living men connected with the
Court of Session can yet look back to a juvenile period of their lives
when some of the ablest advocates and most esteemed judges were noted
for their convivial habits. For example, a famous counsel named Hay,
who became a judge under the designation of Lord Newton, was equally
remarkable as a bacchanal and as a lawyer.[131] He considered himself
as only the better fitted for business that he had previously imbibed
six bottles of claret; and one of his clerks afterwards declared that
the best paper he ever knew his lordship dictate was done after a
debauch where that amount of liquor had fallen to his share. It was
of him that the famous story is told of a client calling for him one
day at four o’clock, and being surprised to find him at dinner; when,
on the client saying to the servant that he had understood five to
be Mr Hay’s dinner-hour—‘Oh, but, sir,’ said the man, ‘it is his
_yesterday’s dinner_!’ M. Simond, who, in 1811, published a _Tour
in Scotland_, mentions his surprise, on stepping one morning into
the Parliament House, to find in the dignified capacity of a judge,
and displaying all the gravity suitable to the character, the very
gentleman with whom he had spent most of the preceding night in a
fierce debauch. This judge was Lord Newton.
Contemporary with this learned lord was another of marvellous powers
of drollery, of whom it is told, as a fact too notorious at the time
to be concealed, that he was one Sunday morning, not long before
church-time, found asleep among the paraphernalia of the sweeps, in
a shed appropriated to the keeping of these articles at the end of
the Town Guard-house in the High Street. His lordship, in staggering
homeward alone from a tavern during the night, had tumbled into this
place, where consciousness did not revisit him till next day. Of
another group of clever but over-convivial lawyers of that age, it is
related that, having set to wine and cards on a Saturday evening, they
were so cheated out of all sense of time that the night passed before
they thought of separating. Unless they are greatly belied, the people
passing along Picardy Place next forenoon, on their way to church, were
perplexed by seeing a door open, and three gentlemen issue forth, in
all the disorder to be expected after a night of drunken vigils, while
a fourth, in his dressing-gown, held the door in one hand and a lighted
candle in the other, by way of showing them out![132]
The _High Jinks_ of Counsellor Pleydell, in _Guy Mannering_, must have
prepared many for these curious traits of a bypast age; and Scott has
further illustrated the subject by telling, in his notes to that novel,
an anecdote, which he appears to have had upon excellent authority,
respecting the elder President Dundas of Arniston, father of Lord
Melville. ‘It had been thought very desirable, while that distinguished
lawyer was king’s counsel, that his assistance should be obtained in
drawing up an appeal case, which, as occasion for such writings then
rarely occurred, was held to be a matter of great nicety. The solicitor
employed for the appellant, attended by my informant, acting as his
clerk, went to the Lord Advocate’s chambers in the Fishmarket Close,
as I think. It was Saturday at noon, the court was just dismissed, the
Lord Advocate had changed his dress and booted himself, and his servant
and horses were at the foot of the close to carry him to Arniston.
It was scarcely possible to get him to listen to a word respecting
business. The wily agent, however, on pretence of asking one or two
questions, which would not detain him half-an-hour, drew his lordship,
who was no less an eminent _bon-vivant_ than a lawyer of unequalled
talent, to take a whet at a celebrated tavern, when the learned counsel
became gradually involved in a spirited discussion of the law points of
the case. At length it occurred to him that he might as well ride to
Arniston in the cool of the evening. The horses were directed to be put
into the stable, but not to be unsaddled. Dinner was ordered, the law
was laid aside for a time, and the bottle circulated very freely. At
nine o’clock at night, after he had been honouring Bacchus for so many
hours, the Lord Advocate ordered his horses to be unsaddled—paper,
pen, and ink were brought—he began to dictate the appeal case, and
continued at his task till four o’clock the next morning. By next day’s
post the solicitor sent the case to London—a _chef-d’œuvre_ of its
kind; and in which, my informant assured me, it was not necessary, on
revisal, to correct five words.’
It was not always that business and pleasure were so successfully
united. It is related that an eminent lawyer, who was confined to
his room by indisposition, having occasion for the attendance of his
clerk at a late hour, in order to draw up a paper required on an
emergency next morning, sent for and found him at his usual tavern.
The man, though remarkable for the preservation of his faculties under
severe application to the bottle, was on this night further gone than
usual. He was able, however, to proceed to his master’s bedroom, and
there take his seat at the desk with the appearance of a sufficiently
collected mind, so that the learned counsel, imagining nothing more
wrong than usual, began to dictate from his couch. This went on for two
or three hours, till, the business being finished, the barrister drew
his curtain—to behold _Jamie_ lost in a profound sleep upon the table,
with the paper still in virgin whiteness before him!
One of the most notable jolly fellows of the last age was James
Balfour, an accountant, usually called _Singing Jamie Balfour_, on
account of his fascinating qualities as a vocalist. There used to be
a portrait of him in the Leith Golf-house, representing him in the
act of commencing the favourite song of _When I ha’e a saxpence under
my thoom_, with the suitable attitude and a merriness of countenance
justifying the traditionary account of the man. Of Jacobite leanings,
he is said to have sung _The wee German lairdie_, _Awa, Whigs, awa_,
and _The sow’s tail to Geordie_ with a degree of zest which there was
no resisting.
Report speaks of this person as an amiable, upright, and able man; so
clever in business matters that he could do as much in one hour as
another man in three; always eager to quench and arrest litigation
rather than to promote it; and consequently so much esteemed
professionally that he could get business whenever he chose to
undertake it, which, however, he only did when he felt himself in need
of money. Nature had given him a robust constitution, which enabled him
to see out three sets of boon-companions, but, after all, gave way
before he reached sixty. His custom, when anxious to repair the effects
of intemperance, was to wash his head and hands in cold water; this, it
is said, made him quite cool and collected almost immediately. Pleasure
being so predominant an object in his life, it was thought surprising
that at his death he was found in possession of some little money.
The powers of Balfour as a singer of the Scotch songs of all kinds,
tender and humorous, are declared to have been marvellous; and he had
a happy gift of suiting them to occasions. Being a great peacemaker,
he would often accomplish his purpose by introducing some ditty pat
to the purpose, and thus dissolving all rancour in a hearty laugh.
Like too many of our countrymen, he had a contempt for foreign music.
One evening, in a company where an Italian vocalist of eminence was
present, he professed to give a song in the manner of that country.
Forth came a ridiculous cantata to the tune of _Aiken Drum_, beginning:
‘There was a wife in Peebles,’ which the wag executed with all the
proper graces, shakes, and appoggiaturas, making his friends almost
expire with suppressed laughter at the contrast between the style of
singing and the ideas conveyed in the song. At the conclusion, their
mirth was doubled by the foreigner saying very simply: ‘De music be
very fine, but I no understand de words.’ A lady, who lived in the
Parliament Close, told a friend of mine that she was wakened from her
sleep one summer morning by a noise as of singing, when, going to the
window to learn what was the matter, guess her surprise at seeing
Jamie Balfour and some of his boon-companions (evidently fresh from
their wonted orgies), singing _The king shall enjoy his own again_, on
their knees, around King Charles’s statue! One of Balfour’s favourite
haunts was a humble kind of tavern called _Jenny Ha’s_, opposite to
Queensberry House, where, it is said, Gay had boosed during his short
stay in Edinburgh, and to which it was customary for gentlemen to
adjourn from dinner-parties, in order to indulge in claret from the
butt, free from the usual domestic restraints. Jamie’s potations here
were principally of what was called _cappie ale_—that is, ale in
little wooden bowls—with wee thochts of brandy in it. But, indeed,
no one could be less exclusive than he as to liquors. When he heard a
bottle drawn in any house he happened to be in, and observed the cork
to give an unusually smart report, he would call out: ‘Lassie, gi’e me
a glass o’ _that_;’ as knowing that, whatever it was, it must be good
of its kind.
Sir Walter Scott says, in one of his droll little missives to his
printer Ballantyne: ‘When the press does not follow me, I get on slowly
and ill, and put myself in mind of Jamie Balfour, who could run, when
he could not stand still.’ He here alludes to a matter of fact, which
the following anecdote will illustrate: Jamie, in going home late from
a debauch, happened to tumble into the pit formed for the foundation of
a house in James’s Square. A gentleman passing heard his complaint, and
going up to the spot, was entreated by our hero to help him out. ‘What
would be the use of helping you out,’ said the passer-by, ‘when you
could not stand though you _were_ out?’ ‘Very true, perhaps; yet if you
help me up, I’ll _run_ you to the Tron Kirk for a bottle of claret.’
Pleased with his humour, the gentleman placed him upon his feet, when
instantly he set off for the Tron Church at a pace distancing all
ordinary competition; and accordingly he won the race, though, at
the conclusion, he had to sit down on the steps of the church, being
quite unable to stand. After taking a minute or two to recover his
breath—‘Well, another race to Fortune’s for another bottle of claret!’
Off he went to the tavern in question, in the Stamp-office Close, and
this bet he gained also. The claret, probably with continuations, was
discussed in Fortune’s; and the end of the story is, Balfour sent his
new friend home in a chair, utterly done up, at an early hour in the
morning.
[Illustration: Stamp-office Close.]
It is hardly surprising that habits carried to such an extravagance
amongst gentlemen should have in some small degree affected the fairer
and purer part of creation also. It is an old story in Edinburgh that
three ladies had one night a merry-meeting in a tavern near the Cross,
where they sat till a very late hour. Ascending at length to the
street, they scarcely remembered where they were; but as it was good
moonlight, they found little difficulty in walking along till they came
to the Tron Church. Here, however, an obstacle occurred. The moon,
shining high in the south, threw the shadow of the steeple directly
across the street from the one side to the other; and the ladies,
being no more clear-sighted than they were clear-headed, mistook this
for a broad and rapid river, which they would require to cross before
making further way. In this delusion, they sat down upon the brink of
the imaginary stream, deliberately took off their shoes and stockings,
_kilted_ their lower garments, and proceeded to wade through to the
opposite side; after which, resuming their shoes and stockings, they
went on their way rejoicing, as before! Another anecdote (from an aged
nobleman) exhibits the bacchanalian powers of our ancestresses in a
different light. During the rising of 1715, the officers of the crown
in Edinburgh, having procured some important intelligence respecting
the motions and intentions of the Jacobites, resolved upon despatching
the same to London by a faithful courier. Of this the party whose
interests would have been so materially affected got notice; and that
evening, as the messenger (a man of rank) was going down the High
Street, with the intention of mounting his horse in the Canongate and
immediately setting off, he met two tall, handsome ladies, in full
dress, and wearing black velvet masks, who accosted him with a very
easy demeanour and a winning sweetness of voice. Without hesitating as
to the quality of these damsels, he instantly proposed to treat them
with a pint of claret at a neighbouring tavern; but they said that,
instead of accepting his kindness, they were quite willing to treat
_him_ to his heart’s content. They then adjourned to the tavern, and
sitting down, the whole three drank plenteously, merrily, and long, so
that the courier seemed at last to forget entirely the mission upon
which he was sent, and the danger of the papers which he had about his
person. After a pertinacious debauch of several hours, the luckless
messenger was at length fairly drunk under the table; and it is
needless to add that the fair nymphs then proceeded to strip him of his
papers, decamped, and were no more heard of; though it is but justice
to the Scottish ladies of that period to say that the robbers were
generally believed at the time to be young men disguised in women’s
clothes.[133]
The custom which prevailed among ladies, as well as gentlemen, of
resorting to what were called _oyster-cellars_, is in itself a striking
indication of the state of manners during the last century. In winter,
when the evening had set in, a party of the most fashionable people
in town, collected by appointment, would adjourn in carriages to one
of those abysses of darkness and comfort, called in Edinburgh _laigh
shops_, where they proceeded to regale themselves with raw oysters and
porter, arranged in huge dishes upon a coarse table, in a dingy room,
lighted by tallow candles. The rudeness of the feast, and the vulgarity
of the circumstances under which it took place, seem to have given
a zest to its enjoyment, with which more refined banquets could not
have been accompanied. One of the chief features of an oyster-cellar
entertainment was that full scope was given to the conversational
powers of the company. Both ladies and gentlemen indulged, without
restraint, in sallies the merriest and the wittiest; and a thousand
remarks and jokes, which elsewhere would have been suppressed as
improper, were here sanctified by the oddity of the scene, and
appreciated by the most dignified and refined. After the table was
cleared of the oysters and porter, it was customary to introduce brandy
or rum-punch—according to the pleasure of the ladies—after which
dancing took place; and when the female part of the assemblage thought
proper to retire, the gentlemen again sat down, or adjourned to another
tavern to crown the pleasures of the evening with unlimited debauch. It
is not (1824) more than thirty years since the late Lord Melville, the
Duchess of Gordon, and some other persons of distinction, who happened
to meet in town after many years of absence, made up an oyster-cellar
party, by way of a frolic, and devoted one winter evening to the
revival of this almost forgotten entertainment of their youth.[134]
It seems difficult to reconcile all these things with the staid and
somewhat square-toed character which our country has obtained amongst
her neighbours. The fact seems to be that a kind of Laodicean principle
is observable in Scotland, and we oscillate between a rigour of manners
on the one hand, and a laxity on the other, which alternately acquire
an apparent paramouncy. In the early part of the last century, rigour
was in the ascendant; but not to the prevention of a respectable
minority of the free-and-easy, who kept alive the flame of conviviality
with no small degree of success. In the latter half of the century—a
dissolute era all over civilised Europe—the minority became the
majority, and the characteristic sobriety of the nation’s manners was
only traceable in certain portions of society. Now we are in a sober,
perhaps tending to a rigorous stage once more. In Edinburgh, seventy
years ago (1847), intemperance was the rule to such an degree that
exception could hardly be said to exist. Men appeared little in the
drawing-room in those days; when they did, not infrequently their
company had better have been dispensed with. When a gentleman gave an
entertainment, it was thought necessary that he should press the bottle
as far as it could be made to go. A particularly good fellow would lock
his outer door to prevent any guest of dyspeptic tendencies or sober
inclinations from escaping. Some were so considerate as to provide
shake-down beds for a general bivouac in a neighbouring apartment.
When gentlemen were obliged to appear at assemblies where decency was
enforced, they of course wore their best attire. This it was customary
to change for something less liable to receive damage, ere going, as
they usually did, to conclude the evening by a scene of conviviality.
Drinking entered into everything. As Sir Alexander Boswell has observed:
‘O’er draughts of wine the beau would moan his love,
O’er draughts of wine the cit his bargain drove,
O’er draughts of wine the writer penned the will,
And legal wisdom counselled o’er a gill.’
Then was the time when men, despising and neglecting the company of
women, always so civilising in its influence, would yet half-kill
themselves with bumpers in order, as the phrase went, to _save
them_. Drinking to save the ladies is said to have originated with a
catch-club, which issued tickets for gratuitous concerts. Many tickets
with the names of ladies being prepared, one was taken up and the name
announced. Any member present was at liberty to toast the health of
this lady in a bumper, and this ensured her ticket being reserved for
her use. If no one came forward to honour her name in this manner,
the lady was said to be damned, and her ticket was thrown under the
table. Whether from this origin or not, the practice is said to have
ultimately had the following form. One gentleman would give out the
name of some lady as the most beautiful object in creation, and, by
way of attesting what he said, drink one bumper. Another champion
would then enter the field, and offer to prove that a certain other
lady, whom he named, was a great deal more beautiful than she just
mentioned—supporting his assertion by drinking two bumpers. Then the
other would rise up, declare this to be false, and in proof of his
original statement, as well as by way of turning the scale upon his
opponent, drink four bumpers. Not deterred or repressed by this, the
second man would reiterate, and conclude by drinking as much as the
challenger, who would again start up and drink eight bumpers; and so
on, in geometrical progression, till one or other of the heroes fell
under the table; when of course the fair Delia of the survivor was
declared the queen supreme of beauty by all present. I have seen a
sonnet addressed on the morning after such a scene of contention to the
lady concerned by the unsuccessful hero, whose brains appear to have
been woefully muddled by the claret he had drunk in her behalf.
It was not merely in the evenings that taverns were then resorted to.
There was a petty treat, called a ‘meridian,’ which no man of that day
thought himself able to dispense with; and this was generally indulged
in at a tavern. ‘A cauld cock and a feather’ was the metaphorical mode
of calling for a glass of brandy and a bunch of raisins, which was
the favourite regale of many. Others took a glass of whisky, some few
a lunch. Scott very amusingly describes, from his own observation,
the manner in which the affair of the meridian was gone about by
the writers and clerks belonging to the Parliament House. ‘If their
proceedings were watched, they might be seen to turn fidgety about the
hour of noon, and exchange looks with each other from their separate
desks, till at length some one of formal and dignified presence
assumed the honour of leading the band; when away they went, threading
the crowd like a string of wild-fowl, crossed the square or close,
and following each other into the [John’s] coffee-house, drank the
meridian, which was placed ready at the bar. This they did day by day;
and though they did not speak to each other, they seemed to attach a
certain degree of sociability to performing the ceremony in company.’
It was in the evening, of course, that the tavern debaucheries assumed
their proper character of unpalliated fierceness and destructive
duration. In the words of Robert Fergusson:
‘Now night, that’s cunzied chief for fun,
Is with her usual rites begun.
* * * * *
Some to porter, some to punch,
Retire; while noisy ten-hours’ drum
Gars a’ the trades gang danderin’ hame.
Now, mony a club, jocose and free,
Gi’e a’ to merriment and glee;
Wi’ sang and glass they fley the power
O’ care, that wad harass the hour.
* * * * *
Chief, O CAPE! we crave thy aid,
To get our cares and poortith laid.
Sincerity and genius true,
O’ knights have ever been the due.
Mirth, music, porter deepest-dyed,
Are never here to worth denied.’
All the shops in the town were then shut at eight o’clock; and from
that hour till ten—when the drum of the Town-guard announced at once
a sort of license for the deluging of the streets with nuisances,[135]
and a warning of the inhabitants home to their beds—unrestrained scope
was given to the delights of the table. No tradesman thought of going
home to his family till after he had spent an hour or two at his club.
This was universal and unfailing. So lately as 1824, I knew something
of an old-fashioned tradesman who nightly shut his shop at eight
o’clock, and then adjourned with two old friends, who called upon him
at that hour, to a quiet old public-house on the opposite side of the
way, where they each drank precisely one bottle of Edinburgh ale, ate
precisely one halfpenny roll, and got upon their legs precisely at the
first stroke of ten o’clock.
The CAPE CLUB alluded to by Fergusson aspired to a refined and
classical character, comprising amongst its numerous members many
men of talents, as well as of private worth. Fergusson himself was
a member; as were Mr Thomas Sommers, his friend and biographer; Mr
Woods, a player of eminence on the humble boards of Edinburgh, and
an intimate companion of the poet; and Mr Runciman the painter. The
name of the club had its foundation in one of those weak jokes such
as ‘gentle dullness ever loves.’ A person who lived in the Calton was
in the custom of spending an hour or two every evening with one or
two city friends, and being sometimes detained till after the regular
period when the Netherbow Port was shut, it occasionally happened
that he had either to remain in the city all night, or was under the
necessity of bribing the porter who attended the gate. This difficult
_pass_—partly on account of the rectangular corner which he turned
immediately on getting out of the Port, as he went homewards down Leith
Wynd—the Calton burgher facetiously called _doubling the Cape_; and as
it was customary with his friends every evening when they assembled to
inquire ‘how he turned the Cape last night,’ and indeed to make that
circumstance and that phrase, night after night, the subject of their
conversation and amusement, ‘the Cape’ in time became so assimilated
with their very existence that they adopted it as a title; and it
was retained as such by the organised club into which shortly after
they thought proper to form themselves. The Cape Club owned a regular
institution from 1763. It will scarcely be credited in the present day
that a jest of the above nature could keep an assemblage of rational
citizens, and, we may add, professed wits, merry after a thousand
repetitions. Yet it really is true that the patron-jests of many a
numerous and enlightened association were no better than this, and the
greater part of them worse. As instance the following:
There was the ANTEMANUM CLUB, of which the members used to boast of the
state of their hands, _before-hand_, in playing at ‘Brag.’ The members
were all men of respectability, some of them gentlemen of fortune.
They met every Saturday and dined. It was at first a purely convivial
club; but latterly, the Whig party gaining a sort of preponderance, it
degenerated into a political association.
The PIOUS CLUB was composed of decent, orderly citizens, who met every
night, Sundays not excepted, in a _pie-house_, and whose joke was the
_équivoque_ of these expressions—similar in sound, but different in
signification. The agreeable uncertainty as to whether their name
arose from their _piety_, or the circumstance of their eating _pies_,
kept the club hearty for many years. At their Sunday meetings the
conversation usually took a serious turn—perhaps upon the sermons
which they had respectively heard during the day: this they considered
as rendering their title of _Pious_ not altogether undeserved.
Moreover, they were all, as the saying was, _ten o’clock men_, and of
good character. Fifteen persons were considered as constituting a full
night. The whole allowable debauch was a gill of toddy to each person,
which was drunk, like wine, out of a common decanter. One of the
members of the Pious Club was a Mr Lind, a man of at least twenty-five
stone weight, immoderately fond of good eating and drinking. It was
generally believed of him that were all the oxen he had devoured ranged
in a line, they would reach from the Watergate to the Castle-hill,
and that the wine he had drunk would swim a seventy-four. His most
favourite viand was a very strange one—salmon skins. When dining
anywhere, with salmon on the table, he made no scruple of raking all
the skins off the plates of the rest of the guests. He had only one
toast, from which he never varied: ‘Merry days to honest fellows.’ A Mr
Drummond was esteemed poet-laureate to this club. He was a facetious,
clever man. Of his poetical talents, take a specimen in the following
lines on Lind:
‘In going to dinner, he ne’er lost his way,
Though often, when done, he was carted away.’
He made the following impromptu on an associate of small figure and
equally small understanding, who had been successful in the world:
‘O thou of genius slow,
Weak by nature;
A rich fellow,
But a poor creature.’
[Illustration: The Watergate.]
The SPENDTHRIFT CLUB took its name from the extravagance of the members
in spending no less a sum than fourpence halfpenny each night! It
consisted of respectable citizens of the middle class, and continued in
1824 to exist in a modified state. Its meetings, originally nightly,
were then reduced to four a week. The men used to play at whist for a
halfpenny—one, two, three—no rubbers; but latterly they had, with
their characteristic extravagance, doubled the stake! Supper originally
cost no less than twopence; and half a bottle of strong ale, with a
dram, stood every member twopence halfpenny; to all which sumptuous
profusion might be added still another halfpenny, which was given
to the maid-servant—in all, fivepence! Latterly the dram had been
disused; but such had been the general increase, either in the cost
or the quantity of the indulgences, that the usual nightly expense
was ultimately from a shilling to one and fourpence. The winnings at
whist were always thrown into the reckoning. A large two-quart bottle
or tappit-hen was introduced by the landlady, with a small measure,
out of which the company helped themselves; and the members made up
their own bill with chalk upon the table. In 1824, in the recollection
of the senior members, some of whom were of fifty years’ standing,
the house was kept by the widow of a Lieutenant Hamilton of the army,
who recollected having attended the theatre in the Tennis Court at
Holyroodhouse, when the play was the _Spanish Friar_, and when many of
the members of the _Union Parliament_ were present in the house.
[Illustration: Tappit-hen.]
The BOAR CLUB was an association of a different sort, consisting
chiefly of wild, fashionable young men; and the place of meeting was
not in any of the snug profundities of the Old Town, but in a modern
tavern in Shakspeare Square, kept by one Daniel Hogg. The _joke_ of
this club consisted in the supposition that all the members were
_boars_, that their room was a _sty_, that their talk was _grunting_,
and in the _double-entendre_ of the small piece of stone-ware which
served as a repository of all the fines being a _pig_. Upon this they
lived twenty years. I have, at some expense of eyesight and with no
small exertion of patience, perused the soiled and blotted records of
the club, which in 1824 were preserved by an old vintner, whose house
was their last place of meeting; and the result has been the following
memorabilia. The Boar Club commenced its meetings in 1787, and the
original members were J. G. C. Schetky, a German musician; David Shaw;
Archibald Crawfuird; Patrick Robertson; Robert Aldridge, a famed
pantomimist and dancing-master; James Neilson; and Luke Cross. Some of
these were remarkable men, in particular Mr Schetky. He had come to
Edinburgh about the beginning of the reign of George III. He used to
tell that on alighting at Ramsay’s inn, opposite the Cowgate Port, his
first impression of the city was so unfavourable that he was on the
point of leaving it again without further acquaintance, and was only
prevented from doing so by the solicitations of his fellow-traveller,
who was not so much alarmed at the dingy and squalid appearance of
this part of Auld Reekie.[136] He was first employed at St Cecilia’s
Hall, where the concerts were attended by all the ‘rank, beauty, and
fashion’ of which Edinburgh could then boast, and where, besides the
professional performers, many amateurs of great musical skill and
enthusiasm, such as Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee,[137] were pleased to
exhibit themselves for the entertainment of their friends, who alone
were admitted by tickets. Mr Schetky composed the march of a body of
volunteers called the Edinburgh Defensive Band, which was raised out
of the citizens of Edinburgh at the time of the American war, and was
commanded by the eminent advocate Crosbie. One of the verses to which
the march was set may be given as an admirable specimen of _militia
poetry_:
‘Colonel Crosbie takes the field;
To France and Spain he will not yield;
But still maintains his high command
At the head of the noble Defensive Band.’[138]
[Illustration: ‘AULD REEKIE’
from Largo.