When the worship of Bacchus held such sway in our city, his peculiar
temples—the taverns—must, one would suppose, have been places of
some importance. And so they were, comparatively speaking; and yet,
absolutely, an Edinburgh tavern of the last century was no very fine
or inviting place. Usually these receptacles were situated in obscure
places—in courts or closes, away from the public thoroughfares; and
often they presented such narrow and stifling accommodations as might
have been expected to repel rather than attract visitors. The truth
was, however, that a coarse and darksome snugness was courted by the
worshippers. Large, well-lighted rooms, with a look-out to a street,
would not have suited them. But allow them to dive through some Erebean
alley, into a cavern-like house, and there settle themselves in a
cell unvisited of Phœbus, with some dingy flamen of either sex to act
as minister, and their views as to circumstances and properties were
fulfilled.
The city traditions do not go far back into the eighteenth century
with respect to taverns; but we obtain some notion of the principal
houses in Queen Anne’s time from the Latin lyrics of Dr Pitcairn, which
Ruddiman published, in order to prove that the Italian muse had not
become extinct in our land since the days of Buchanan. In an address
_To Strangers_, the wit tells those who would acquire some notion of
our national manners to avoid the triple church of St Giles’s:
‘Tres ubi Cyclopes fanda nefanda boant’—
where three horrible monsters bellow forth sacred and profane
discourse—and seek the requisite knowledge in the sanctuaries of the
rosy god, whose worship is conducted by night and by day. ‘At one
time,’ says he, ‘you may be delighted with the bowls of Steil of the
_Cross Keys_; then other heroes, at the _Ship_, will show you the huge
cups which belonged to mighty bibbers of yore. Or you may seek out the
sweet-spoken Katy at _Buchanan’s_, or _Tennant’s_ commodious house,
where scalloped oysters will be brought in with your wine. But _Hay_
calls us, than whom no woman of milder disposition or better-stored
cellar can be named in the whole town. Now it will gratify you to
make your way into the Avernian grottoes and caves never seen of
the sun; but remember to make friends with the dog which guards the
threshold. Straightway Mistress Anne will bring the native liquor.
Seek the innermost rooms and the snug seats: these know the sun, at
least, when Anne enters. What souls joying in the Lethæan flood you
may there see! what frolics, God willing, you may partake of! Mindless
of all that goes on in the outer world, joys not to be told to mortal
do they there imbibe. But perhaps you may wish by-and-by to get back
into the world—which is indeed no easy matter. I recommend you, when
about to descend, to take with you a trusty Achates [a caddy]: say
to Anne, “Be sure you give him no drink.” By such means it was that
Castor and Pollux were able to issue forth from Pluto’s domain into
the heavenly spaces. Here you may be both merry and wise; but beware
how you toast kings and their French retreats,’ &c. The sites of
these merry places of yore are not handed down to us; but respecting
another, which Pitcairn shadows forth under the mysterious appellation
of _Greppa_, it chances that we possess some knowledge. It was a suite
of dark underground apartments in the Parliament Close, opening by
a descending stair opposite the oriel of St Giles’s, in a mass of
building called the Pillars. By the wits who frequented it, it was
called the _Greping-office_, because one could only make way through
its dark passages by groping. It is curious to see how Pitcairn works
this homely Scottish idea into his Sapphics, talking, for example, by
way of a good case of bane and antidote, of
‘Fraudes Egidii, venena Greppæ.’
A venerable person has given me an anecdote of this singular mixture
of learning, wit, and professional skill in connection with the
Greping-office. Here, it seems, according to a custom which lasted
even in London till a later day, the clever physician used to receive
visits from his patients. On one occasion a woman from the country
called to consult him respecting the health of her daughter, when he
gave a shrewd hygienic advice in a pithy metaphor not be mentioned
to ears polite. When, in consequence of following the prescription,
the young woman had recovered her health, the mother came back
to the Greping-office to thank Dr Pitcairn and give him a small
present. Seeing him in precisely the same place and circumstances,
and surrounded by the same companions as on the former occasion, she
lingered with an expression of surprise. On interrogation, she said she
had only one thing to speer at him (ask after), and she hoped he would
not be angry.
‘Oh no, my good woman.’
‘Well, sir, have you been sitting here ever since I saw you last?’
According to the same authority, small claret was then sold at
twentypence the Scottish pint, equivalent to tenpence a bottle.
Pitcairn once or twice sent his servant for a regale of this liquor
on the Sunday forenoon, and suffered the disappointment of having it
intercepted by the _seizers_, whose duty it was to make capture of all
persons found abroad in time of service, and appropriate whatever they
were engaged in carrying that smelled of the common enjoyments of life.
To secure his claret for the future from this interference, the wit
caused the wine on one occasion to be drugged in such a manner as to
produce consequences more ludicrous than dangerous to those drinking
it. The triumph he thus attained over a power which there was no
reaching by any appeal to common-sense or justice must have been deeply
relished in the Greping-office.
Pitcairn was professedly an Episcopalian, but he allowed himself a
latitude in wit which his contemporaries found some difficulty in
reconciling with any form of religion. Among the popular charges
against him was that he did not believe in the existence of such a
place as hell; a point of heterodoxy likely to be sadly disrelished
in Scotland. Being at a book-sale, where a copy of Philostratus sold
at a good price and a copy of the Bible was not bidden for, Pitcairn
said to some one who remarked the circumstance: ‘Not at all wonderful;
for is it not written, “_Verbum Dei manet in eternum_”?’ For this,
one of the _Cyclopes_, a famous Mr Webster, called him publicly an
atheist. The story goes on to state that Pitcairn prosecuted Webster
for defamation in consequence, but failed in the action from the
following circumstance: The defender, much puzzled what to do in the
case, consulted a shrewd-witted friend of his, a Mr Pettigrew, minister
of Govan, near Glasgow. Pettigrew came to Edinburgh to endeavour to get
him out of the scrape. ‘Strange,’ he said, ‘since he has caught so much
at your mouth, if we can catch nothing at his.’ Having laid his plan,
he came bustling up to the physician at the Cross, and tapping him on
the shoulder, said: ‘Are you Dr Pitcairn the atheist?’
The doctor, in his haste, overlooking the latter part of the query,
answered: ‘Yes.’
‘Very good,’ said Pettigrew; ‘I take you all to witness that he has
confessed it himself.’
Pitcairn, seeing how he had been outwitted, said bitterly to the
minister of Govan, whom he well knew: ‘Oh, Pettigrew, that skull of
yours is as deep as hell.’
‘Oh, man,’ replied Pettigrew, ‘I’m glad to find you have come to
believe there is a hell.’ The prosecutor’s counsel, who stood by at the
time, recommended a compromise, which accordingly took place.
A son of Pitcairn was minister of Dysart; a very good kind of man,
who was sometimes consulted in a medical way by his parishioners. He
seems to have had a little of the paternal humour, if we may judge from
the following circumstance: A lady came to ask what her maid-servant
should do for sore or tender eyes. The minister, seeing that no active
treatment could be recommended, said: ‘She must do naething wi’ them,
but just rub them wi’ her elbucks [elbows].’
Allan Ramsay mentions, of Edinburgh taverns in his day,
‘Cumin’s, Don’s, and Steil’s,’
as places where one may be as well served as at _The Devil_ in London.
‘’Tis strange, though true, he who would shun all evil,
Cannot do better than go to the Devil.’