From a period subsequent to 1727 till after the year 1753, the
Tailors’ Hall in the Cowgate[264] was used as a theatre by itinerating
companies, who met with some success notwithstanding the incessant
hostility of the clergy.[265] It was a house which in theatrical
phrase, could hold from £40 to £45. A split in the company here
concerned led to the erection, in 1746-7, of a theatre at the bottom
of a close in the Canongate, nearly opposite to the head of New
Street. This house, capable of holding about £70—the boxes being
half-a-crown and pit one and sixpence—was for several years the
scene of good acting under Lee, Digges, Mrs Bellamy, and Mrs Ward. We
learn from Henry Mackenzie that the tragedy of _Douglas_, which first
appeared here in 1756, was most respectably acted—the two ladies above
mentioned playing respectively Young Norval and Lady Randolph.[266] The
personal elegance of Digges—understood to be the natural son of a man
of rank—and the beauty of Mrs Bellamy were a theme of interest amongst
old people fifty years ago; but their scandalous life was of course
regarded with horror by the mass of respectable society. They lived in
a small country-house at Bonnington, between Edinburgh and Leith. It is
remembered that Mrs Bellamy was extremely fond of singing-birds, and
kept many about her. When emigrating to Glasgow, she had her feathered
favourites carried by a porter all the way that they might not suffer
from the jolting of a carriage. Scotch people wondered to hear of ten
guineas being expended on this occasion. Persons under the social ban
for their irregular lives often win the love of individuals by their
benevolence and sweetness of disposition—qualities, it is remarked,
not unlikely to have been partly concerned in their first trespasses.
This was the case with Mrs Bellamy. Her waiting-maid, Annie Waterstone,
who is mentioned in her _Memoirs_, lived many years after in Edinburgh,
and continued to the last to adore the memory of her mistress. Nay,
she was, from this cause, a zealous friend of all kinds of players,
and never would allow a slighting remark upon them to pass unreproved.
It was curious to find in a poor old Scotchwoman of the humbler class
such a sympathy with the follies and eccentricities of the children of
Thespis.
[Illustration: Tailors’ Hall, Cowgate.]
While under the temporary management of two Edinburgh citizens
extremely ill-qualified for the charge—one of them, by the bye, a Mr
David Beatt, who had read the rebel proclamations from the Cross in
1745—a sad accident befell the Canongate playhouse. Dissensions of
a dire kind had broken out in the company. The public, as usual, was
divided between them. Two classes of persons—the gentlemen of the
bar and the students of the university[267]—were especially zealous
as partisans. Things were at that pass when a trivial incident will
precipitate them to the most fearful conclusion. One night, when
_Hamlet_ was the play, a riot took place of so desperate a description
that at length the house was set on fire. It being now necessary for
the authorities to interfere, the Town-guard was called forth, and
marched to the scene of disturbance; but though many of that veteran
corps had faced the worst at Blenheim and Dettingen, they felt it as a
totally different thing to be brought to action in a place which they
regarded as a peculiar domain of the Father of Evil. When ordered,
therefore, by their commander to advance into the house and across
the stage, the poor fellows fairly stopped short amidst the scenes,
the glaring colours of which at once surprised and terrified them.
Indignant at their pusillanimity, the bold captain seized a musket,
and placing himself in an attitude equal to anything that had ever
appeared on those boards, exclaimed: ‘Now, my lads, follow _me_!’
But just at the moment that he was going to rush on and charge the
rioters, a trap-door on which he trod gave way, and in an instant the
heroic leader had sunk out of sight, as if by magic. This was too much
for the excited nerves of the guard; they immediately vacated the
house, leaving the devil to make his own of it; and accordingly it
was completely destroyed. It is added that when the captain by-and-by
reappeared, they received him in the quality of a gentleman from the
other world; nor could they all at once be undeceived, even when he
cursed them in vigorous Gaelic for a pack of cowardly scoundrels.
[Illustration: Old Playhouse Close.]
The Canongate theatre revived for a short time, and had the honour
to be the first house in our city in which the drama was acted with
a license. It was opened with this privilege by Mr Ross on the 9th
December 1767, when the play was _The Earl of Essex_, and a general
prologue was spoken, the composition of James Boswell. Soon after,
being deserted for the present building in the New Town,[268] it fell
into ruin; in which state it formed the subject of a mock elegy to the
muse of Robert Fergusson. The reader will perhaps be amused with the
following extract from that poem:
‘Can I contemplate on those dreary scenes
Of mouldering desolation, and forbid
The voice elegiac, and the falling tear!
No more from box to box the basket, piled
With oranges as radiant as the spheres,
Shall with their luscious virtues charm the sense
Of taste or smell. No more the gaudy beau,
With handkerchief in lavender well drenched,
Or bergamot, or [in] rose-waters pure,
With flavoriferous sweets shall chase away
The pestilential fumes of vulgar cits,
Who, in impatience for the curtain’s rise,
Amused the lingering moments, and applied
Thirst-quenching porter to their parched lips.
Alas! how sadly altered is the scene!
For lo! those sacred walls, that late were brushed
By rustling silks and waving capuchines,
Are now become the sport of wrinkled Time!
Those walls that late have echoed to the voice
Of stern King Richard, to the seat transformed
Of crawling spiders and detested moths,
Who in the lonely crevices reside,
Or gender in the beams, that have upheld
Gods, demigods, and all the joyous crew
Of thunderers in the galleries above.’