The _White Horse_ has ceased to be an inn from a time which no ‘oldest
inhabitant’ of my era could pretend to have any recollection of. The
only remaining fact of interest connected with it is one concerning Dr
Alexander Rose, the last Bishop of Edinburgh, and the last survivor
of the established Episcopacy of Scotland. Bishop Keith, who had been
one of his presbyters, and describes him as a sweet-natured man,
of a venerable aspect, states that he died March 20, 1720, ‘in his
own sister’s house in the Canongate, in which street he also lived.’
Tradition points to the floor immediately above the _porte-cochère_ by
which the stable-yard is entered from the street as the humble mansion
in which the bishop breathed his last. I know at least one person who
never goes past the place without an emotion of respect, remembering
the self-abandoning devotion of the Scottish prelates to their
engagements at the Revolution:[147]
‘Amongst the faithless, faithful only found.’
To the elegant accommodations of the best New Town establishments of
the present day, the inns of the last century present a contrast which
it is difficult by the greatest stretch of imagination to realise.
For the west road, there was the _White Hart_ in the Grassmarket; for
the east, the _White Horse Inn_ in Boyd’s Close, Canongate; for the
south, and partly also the east, Peter Ramsay’s, at the bottom of St
Mary’s Wynd. Arnot, writing in 1779, describes them as ‘mean buildings;
their apartments dirty and dismal; and if the waiters happen to be
out of the way, a stranger will perhaps be shocked with the novelty
of being shown into a room by a dirty, sunburnt wench, without shoes
or stockings.’ The fact is, however, these houses were mainly used
as places for keeping horses. Guests, unless of a very temporary
character, were usually relegated to lodging-houses, of which there
were several on a considerable scale—as Mrs Thomson’s at the Cross,
who advertises, in 1754, that persons not bringing ‘their silver plate,
tea china, table china, and tea linen, can be served in them all;’ also
in wines and spirits; likewise that persons boarding with her ‘may
expect everything in a very genteel manner.’ But hear the unflattering
Arnot on these houses. ‘He [the stranger] is probably conducted to
the third or fourth floor, up dark and dirty stairs, and there shown
into apartments meanly fitted up and poorly furnished.... In Edinburgh,
letting of lodgings is a business by itself, and thereby the prices
are very extravagant; and every article of furniture, far from wearing
the appearance of having been purchased for a happy owner, seems to
be scraped together with a penurious hand, to pass muster before a
stranger who will never wish to return!’
_Ramsay’s_ was almost solely a place of stables. General Paoli,[148]
on visiting Edinburgh in 1771, came to this house, but was immediately
taken home by his friend Boswell to James’s Court, where he lived
during his stay in our city; his companion, the Polish ambassador,
being accommodated with a bed by Dr John Gregory, in a neighbouring
floor. An old gentleman of my acquaintance used to talk of having
seen the Duke of Hamilton one day lounging in front of Ramsay’s inn,
occasionally chatting with any gay or noble friend who passed. To
one knowing the Edinburgh of the present day, nothing could seem
more extravagant than the idea of such company at such places. I
nevertheless find Ramsay, in 1776, advertising that, exclusive of some
part of his premises recently offered for sale, he is ‘possessed of a
good house of entertainment, good stables for above one hundred horses,
and sheds for above twenty carriages.’ He retired from business about
1790 with £10,000.[149]
The modern _White Horse_ was a place of larger and somewhat better
accommodations, though still far from an equality with even the
second-rate houses of the present day. Here also the rooms were
directly over the stables.
It was almost a matter of course that Dr Johnson, on arriving in
Edinburgh, August 17, 1773, should have come to the _White Horse_,
which was then kept by a person of the name of Boyd. His note to
Boswell informing him of this fact was as follows:
‘_Saturday night._
‘Mr Johnson sends his compliments to Mr Boswell, being just
arrived at Boyd’s.’
When Boswell came, he found his illustrious friend in a violent passion
at the waiter for having sweetened his lemonade without the ceremony
of a pair of sugar-tongs. Mr William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell,
accompanied Johnson on this occasion; and he informs us, in a note
to Croker’s edition of Boswell, that when he heard the mistress of
the house styled, in Scotch fashion, _Lucky_, which he did not then
understand, he thought she should rather have been styled _Unlucky_,
for the doctor seemed as if he would destroy the house.[150]
James Boyd, the keeper of this inn, was addicted to horse-racing, and
his victories on the turf, or rather on Leith sands, are frequently
chronicled in the journals of that day. It is said that he was at one
time on the brink of ruin, when he was saved by a lucky run with a
white horse, which, in gratitude, he kept idle all the rest of its
days, besides setting up its portrait as his sign. He eventually
retired from this ‘dirty and dismal’ inn with a fortune of several
thousand pounds; and, as a curious note upon the impression which its
slovenliness conveyed to Dr Johnson, it may be stated as a fact, well
authenticated, that at the time of his giving up the house he possessed
_napery_ to the value of five hundred pounds!
A large room in the _White Horse_ was the frequent scene of
the marriages of runaway English couples, at a time when these
irregularities were permitted in Edinburgh. On one of the windows were
scratched the words:
‘JEREMIAH and SARAH BENTHAM, 1768.’
Could this be the distinguished jurist and codificator, on a journey to
Scotland in company with a female relation?[151]