When Smollett was confined in the King’s Bench Prison for the libel
upon Admiral Knowles, he formed an intimacy with the celebrated
Tenducci. This melodious singing-bird had recently got his wings
clipped by his creditors, and was mewed up in the same cage with the
novelist. Smollett’s friendship proceeded to such a height that he paid
the vocalist’s debts from his own purse, and procured him his liberty.
Tenducci afterwards visited Scotland, and was one night singing in a
private circle, when somebody told him that a lady present was a near
relation of his benefactor; upon which the grateful Italian prostrated
himself before her, kissed her hands, and acted so many fantastic
extravagances, after the foreign fashion, that she was put extremely
out of countenance.
On the west side of the street, immediately to the south of the
Canongate Kilwinning Mason Lodge, there is a neat self-contained house
of old fashion, with a flower-plot in front. This was the residence
of —— Anderson, merchant in Leith, the father of seven sons, all
of whom attained respectable situations in life: one was the late Mr
Samuel Anderson of St Germains, banker. They had been at school with Mr
Henry Dundas (afterwards Lord Melville); and when he had risen to high
office, he called one day on Mr Anderson, and expressed his earnest
wish to have the pleasure of dining with his seven school companions,
all of whom happened at that time to be at home. The meeting took place
at Mr Dundas’s, and it was a happy one, particularly to the host, who,
when the hour of parting arrived, filled a bumper in high elation to
their healths, and mentioned that they were the only men who had ever
dined with him since he became a public servant who had not asked some
favour either for themselves or their friends.
The house adjoining to the one last mentioned—having its gable to the
street, and a garden to the south—was, about 1780, the residence of
the Earl of Wemyss. A Lady Betty Charteris, of this family, occupied
the one farthest to the south on that side of the street. She was a
person of romantic history, for, being thwarted in an affair of the
heart, she lay in bed for twenty-six years, till dismissed to the world
where such troubles are unknown.