The house on the west side of the Old Stamp-office Close, High Street,
formerly Fortune’s Tavern, was, in the early part of the last century,
the family mansion of Alexander, Earl of Eglintoune. It is a building
of considerable height and extent, accessible by a broad scale
stair. The alley in which it is situated bears great marks of former
respectability, and contained, till the year 1821, the Stamp-office,
then removed to the Waterloo Buildings.[162]
The ninth Earl of Eglintoune[163] was one of those patriarchal peers
who live to an advanced age—indefatigable in the frequency of their
marriages and the number of their children—who linger on and on, with
an unfailing succession of young countesses, and die at last leaving a
progeny interspersed throughout the whole of Douglas’s _Peerage_, two
volumes, folio, re-edited by Wood. His lordship, in early life, married
a sister of Lady Dundee, who brought him a large family, and died just
about that happy period when she could not have greatly increased it.
His next wife was a daughter of Chancellor Aberdeen, who only added one
daughter to his stock, and then paused, in a fit of ill-health, to the
great vexation of his lordship, who, on account of his two sons by the
first countess having died young, was anxious for an heir. This was a
consummation to his nuptial happiness which Countess Anne did not seem
at all likely to bring about, and the chagrin of his lordship must
have been increased by the longevity which her very ill-health seemed
to confer upon her; for her ladyship was one of those valetudinarians
who are too well acquainted with death, being always just at his door,
ever to come to closer quarters with him. At this juncture the blooming
Miss Kennedy was brought to Edinburgh by her father, Sir Archibald,
the rough old cavalier, who made himself so conspicuous in _the
Persecution_ and in Dundee’s wars.
Susanna Kennedy, though the daughter of a lady considerably under the
middle size—one of the three co-heiresses of the Covenanting general,
David Leslie (Lord Newark), whom Cromwell overthrew at Dunbar—was
six feet high, extremely handsome, elegant in her carriage, and had a
face and complexion of most bewitching loveliness. Her relations and
nurses always anticipated that she was to marry the Earl of Eglintoune,
in spite of their disparity of age;[164] for, while walking one day
in her father’s garden at Culzean, there alighted upon her shoulder a
hawk, with his lordship’s name upon its bells, which was considered
an infallible omen of her fate. Her appearance in Edinburgh, which
took place about the time of the Union, gained her a vast accession of
lovers among the nobility and gentry, and set all the rhyming fancies
of the period agog. Among her swains was Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, a
man of learning and talent in days when such qualities were not common.
As Miss Kennedy was understood to be fond of music, he sent her a flute
as a love-gift; from which it may be surmised that this instrument was
played by females in that age, while as yet the pianoforte was not.
When the young lady attempted to blow the instrument, something was
found to interrupt the sound, which turned out to be a copy of verses
in her praise:
‘Harmonious pipe, I languish for thy bliss,
When pressed to Silvia’s lips with gentle kiss!
And when her tender fingers round thee move
In soft embrace, I listen and approve
Those melting notes which soothe my soul in love.
Embalmed with odours from her breath that flow,
You yield your music when she’s pleased to blow;
And thus at once the charming lovely fair
Delights with sounds, with sweets perfumes the air.
Go, happy pipe, and ever mindful be
To court bewitching Silvia for me;
Tell all I feel—you cannot tell too much—
Repeat my love at each soft melting touch—
Since I to her my liberty resign,
Take thou the care to tune her heart to mine.’
Unhappily for this accomplished and poetical lover, Lord Eglintoune’s
sickly wife happened just about this time to die, and set his lordship
again at large among the spinsters of Scotland. Admirers of a youthful,
impassioned, and sonnet-making cast might have trembled at his approach
to the shrine of their divinity; for his lordship was one of those
titled suitors who, however old and horrible, are never rejected,
except in novels and romances. It appears that poor Clerk had actually
made a declaration of his passion for Miss Kennedy, which her father
was taking into consideration, a short while before the death of Lady
Eglintoune. As an old friend and neighbour, Sir Archibald thought he
would consult the earl upon the subject, and he accordingly proceeded
to do so. Short but decisive was the conference. ‘Bide a wee, Sir
Archy,’ said his lordship; ‘my wife’s very sickly.’ With Sir Archibald,
as with Mrs Slipslop, the least hint sufficed: the case was at once
settled against the elegant baronet of Penicuik. The lovely Susanna
accordingly became in due time the Countess of Eglintoune.
Even after this attainment of one of the greatest blessings that life
has to bestow,[165] the old peer’s happiness was like to have been
destroyed by another untoward circumstance. It was true that he had the
handsomest wife in the kingdom, and she brought him as many children as
he could desire. One after another came no fewer than seven daughters.
But then his lordship wanted a male heir; and every one knows how
poor a consolation a train of daughters, however long, proves in such
a case. He was so grieved at the want of a son that he threatened to
divorce his lady. The countess replied that he need not do that, for
she would readily agree to a separation, provided he would give back
what he had with her. His lordship, supposing she alluded only to
pecuniary matters, assured her she should have her fortune to the last
penny. ‘Na, na, my lord,’ said she, ‘that winna do: return me my youth,
beauty, and virginity, and dismiss me when you please.’ His lordship,
not being able to comply with this demand, willingly let the matter
drop; and before the year was out her ladyship brought him a son, who
established the affection of his parents on an enduring basis. Two
other male children succeeded. The countess was remarkable for a manner
quite peculiar to herself, and which was remembered as the _Eglintoune
air_, or the _Eglintoune manner_, long after her death. A Scottish
gentleman, writing from London in 1730, says: ‘Lady Eglintoune has set
out for Scotland, much satisfied with the honour and civilities shown
her ladyship by the queen and all the royal family: she has done her
country more honour than any lady I have seen here, both by a genteel
and a prudent behaviour.’[166] Her daughters were also handsome women.
It was a goodly sight, a century ago, to see the long procession of
sedans, containing Lady Eglintoune and her daughters, devolve from
the close and proceed to the Assembly Rooms, where there was sure to
be a crowd of plebeian admirers congregated to behold their lofty and
graceful figures step from the chairs on the pavement. It could not
fail to be a remarkable sight—eight beautiful women, conspicuous for
their stature and carriage, all dressed in the splendid though formal
fashions of that period, and inspired at once with dignity of birth and
consciousness of beauty! Alas! such _visions_ no longer illuminate the
dark tortuosities of Auld Reekie!
Many of the young ladies found good matches, and were the mothers of
men more or less distinguished for intellectual attainments. Sir James
Macdonald, the Marcellus of the Hebrides, and his two more fortunate
brothers, were the progeny of Lady Margaret; and in various other
branches of the family talent seems to be hereditary.
The countess was herself a blue-stocking—at that time a sort of
prodigy—and gave encouragement to the humble literati of her time.
The unfortunate Boyse dedicated a volume of poems to her; and I need
scarcely remind the Scottish reader that the _Gentle Shepherd_ was laid
at her ladyship’s feet. The dedication prefixed to that pastoral drama
contains what appears the usual amount of extravagant praise; yet it
was perhaps little beyond the truth. For the ‘penetration, superior
wit, and profound judgment’ which Allan attributes to her ladyship,
she was perhaps indebted in some degree to the lucky accident of her
having exercised it in the bard’s favour; but he assuredly overstrained
his conscience very little when he said she was ‘possessed of every
outward charm in the most perfect degree.’ Neither was it too much to
speak of ‘the unfading beauties of wisdom and piety’ which adorned
her ladyship’s mind.’[167] Hamilton of Bangour’s prefatory verses,
which are equally laudatory and well bestowed, contain the following
beautiful character of the lady, with a just compliment to her
daughters:
‘In virtues rich, in goodness unconfined,
Thou shin’st a fair example to thy kind;
Sincere, and equal to thy neighbours’ fame,
How swift to praise, how obstinate to blame!
Bold in thy presence bashfulness appears,
And backward merit loses all its fears.
Supremely blest by Heaven, Heaven’s richest grace
Confest is thine—an early blooming race;
Whose pleasing smiles shall guardian wisdom arm—
Divine instruction!—taught of thee to charm,
What transports shall they to thy soul impart
(The conscious transports of a parent’s heart),
When thou behold’st them of each grace possessed,
And sighing youths imploring to be blest
After thy image formed, with charms like thine,
Or in the visit or the dance[168] to shine:
Thrice happy who succeed their mother’s praise,
The lovely Eglintounes of other days!’
It may be remarked that her ladyship’s thorough-paced Jacobitism, which
she had inherited from her father, tended much to make her the friend
of Ramsay, Hamilton, and other Cavalier bards. She was, it is believed,
little given to patronising Whig poets.
The patriarchal peer who made Susanna so happy a mother died in 1729,
leaving her a dowager of forty, with a good jointure. Retiring to the
country, she employed her widowhood in the education of her children,
and was considered a perfect example to all mothers in this useful
employment. In our days of freer manners, her conduct might appear too
reserved. The young were taught to address her by the phrase ‘Your
ladyship;’ and she spoke to them in the same ceremonious style. Though
her eldest son was a mere boy when he succeeded to the title, she
constantly called him Lord Eglintoune; and she enjoined all the rest of
the children to address him in the same manner. When the earl grew up,
they were upon no less formal terms; and every day in the world he took
his mother by the hand at the dinner-hour, and led her downstairs to
her chair at the head of his table, where she sat in state, a perfect
specimen of the stately and ostentatious politeness of the last age.
All this ceremony was accompanied with so much affection that the
countess was never known to refuse her son a request but one—to walk
as a peeress at the coronation of King George III. Lord Eglintoune,
then a gentleman of the bedchamber, was proud of his mother, and wished
to display her noble figure on that occasion. But she jestingly excused
herself by saying that it was not worth while for so old a woman to buy
new robes.
The unhappy fate of her eldest and favourite son—shot by a man of
violent passions, whom he was rashly treating as a poacher (1769)—gave
her ladyship a dreadful shock in her old age. The earl, after receiving
the fatal wound, was brought to Eglintoune Castle, when his mother was
immediately sent for from Auchans. What her feelings must have been
when she saw one so dear to her thus suddenly struck down in the prime
of his days may be imagined. The tenderness he displayed towards her
and others in his last hours is said to have been to the last degree
noble and affecting.
When Johnson and Boswell returned from their tour to the Hebrides,
they visited Lady Eglintoune at Auchans. She was so well pleased with
the doctor, his politics, and his conversation that she embraced and
kissed him at parting, an honour of which the gifted tourist was ever
afterwards extremely proud. Boswell’s account of the interview is
interesting. ‘Lady Eglintoune,’ says he, ‘though she was now in her
eighty-fifth year, and had lived in the country almost half a century,
was still a very agreeable woman. Her figure was majestic, her manners
high-bred, her reading extensive, and her conversation elegant. She had
been the admiration of the gay circles, and the patroness of poets. Dr
Johnson was delighted with his reception here. Her principles in church
and state were congenial with his. In the course of conversation, it
came out that Lady Eglintoune was married the year before Dr Johnson
was born; upon which she graciously said to him that she might have
been his mother, and she now adopted him.’
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
This venerable woman amused herself latterly in taming and patronising
rats. She kept a vast number of these animals in her pay at Auchans,
and they succeeded in her affections to the poets and artists whom she
had loved in early life. It does not reflect much credit upon the
latter that her ladyship used to complain of never having met with
true gratitude except from four-footed animals. She had a panel in
the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened
at meal-times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth and
joined her at table. At the word of command, or a signal from her
ladyship, they retired again obediently to their native obscurity—a
trait of good sense in the character and habits of the animals which,
it is hardly necessary to remark, patrons do not always find in
two-legged protégés.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Her ladyship died in 1780, at the age of ninety-one, having preserved
her stately mien and beautiful complexion to the last. The latter was
a mystery of fineness to many ladies not the third of her age. As her
secret may be of service to modern beauties, I shall, in kindness
to the sex, divulge it. _She never used paint, but washed her face
periodically with SOW’S MILK!_ I have seen a portrait, taken in her
eighty-first year, in which it is observable that her skin is of
exquisite delicacy and tint. Altogether, the countess was a woman of
ten thousand!
The jointure-house of this fine old country-gentlewoman—Auchans
Castle, a capital specimen of the Scottish manor-house of the
seventeenth century, situated near Irvine—is now uninhabited, and the
handsome wainscoted rooms in which she entertained Johnson and Boswell
are fast hastening to decay. One last trait may now be recorded; in her
ladyship’s bedroom at this place was hung a portrait of her sovereign
_de jure_, the ill-starred Charles Edward, so situated as to be _the
first object which met her sight on awaking in the morning_.