MEMORABLE EDINBURGH.*
THE love of men—not of Scotchmen merely—for Edinburgh, which almost passes the love of women for Florence, is inex- haustible. Certainly, and as these two delightful books show, it has not been exhausted by the recent volumes—so admirable, although in different styles—of Mr. Oliphant and Mr. R. L. Stevenson. There is something intensely Scotch indeed in these volumes, for between them, they constitute "a house-to- house visitation" of Edinburgh, as thorough as that merciless canvass wnich has been taken from the methods of Scotch Pres- byterianism to be incorporated in those of Scotch politics. Mr. Ruskin would not, indeed, find the stones of Edinburgh so interesting as the stones of Venice, but, street for street, the grey old Northern city can fairly compare with its much more picturesque sister. This is of course due to the fact that Edinburgh was for such a lengthened period and in every sense but the commercial one, the capital of Scotland ; if Emeritus Professor Blackie and his friends had their way, it would be the capital once more. Every Scotchman of im- portance bad a house in Edinburgh ; and, for that matter, every Scotchwoman as well—for, up to the time when the Evangelical movement did for Scotland to some extent what Puritanism had done for England, it was the seat of fashionable assemblies, and the centre for gaieties of all sorts. For this reason the less ambitious of these two books—it would be unjust to use the word " pretentious " in regard to either of them—is, on the whole, perhaps the more interesting. Mr. Wilmot Harrison, who writes it, is quite an expert in the kind of literature to which it belongs. He had written on memorable London houses and memorable Dublin houses before he tackled Edinburgh. Taking the city- * (1.) The Book of Old Edinburgh. By John Charles Dunlop and Alison Hay. Dunlop.—(2) Memorable Edinburgh House,. By Wilmot .Harrison. Edin- burgh : Oliphant. Anderson, and Ferrier. 1893.
although upon a plan of his own—street by street, and house by house, he succeeds in presenting his readers with brief biographies of some of the ablest Scotchmen of more than one generation, and even of more than one century. Possibly enough, Mr. Harrison is occasionally too eulogistic in his criti- cisms. Thus Henry Erskine was a good man, and, as his times went, a sincere politician; but in spite of his being an in- veterate punster, it is going too far to say that he was "an ex- quisite humourist." As a rule, however, Mr. Harrison refrains from expressing any opinion of his own upon either his major or his minor heroes, but contents himself with quoting from others. His book is, in fact, a delightful mosaic in which such works as those of Lord Cockburn and Dean Ramsay figure prominently. One stumbles in his pages on the most delightful oddities of Scotch character. Who recalls any- thing of Professor Adam Ferguson, the author of Roman History, except that it was at his house that Burns and Scott met for the first and only time P Yet he had a philosophy of physiology almost as good as Cornaro's, and quite as effectual in practice. Attacked by paralysis, he eschewed wine and animal food, "but huge masses of milk and vegetables disap- peared before him. In addition, his temperature was regulated by Fahrenheit, and often, when sitting quite comfortably, he would start up and put his wife and daughters into com- motion, because his eye had fallen on the instrument, and he was a degree too hot or too cold." Yet, at the age of seventy-two, he started for Italy with but a single companion, to prepare for a new edition of his Roman History ; nor did he die till he had attained the age of ninety-two. Mr. Harrison has occasion also, in the course of his visitation of the well- known residential district of George Square, to tell the story of Dr. Alexander Adam, rector of the High School, and author of a work on Roman antiquities, which, although it has been superseded, is not yet quite forgotten. He must have been a man of extraordinary industry, even for Scotland.
When at college, he lived on oatmeal and small beans, with an occasional penny loaf, in a lodging which cost him fourpence a week. In later life he devoted himself absolutely to the work of teaching; in addition to his classes in the High School, he appears to have had for his private pupils some of the most eminent Scotchmen of his day. Brougham said of him, "Dr.
Adam was a teacher of the greatest merit, and a man dis- tinguished by qualities very rarely found in combination with his literary eminence." Even Scott, who thought his instructor vain, describes him as "Dr. Adam, to whom I owed so much." In his last moments, his thoughts, in his delirium, were with his pupils ; and just before he expired, he was heard to say, "It grows dark, boys ; you can go; we must do the rest to-morrow." Again, we have a significant glimpse of the habits of the Scot- tish clergy during the period which preceded the rise of Evan- gelicalism, in the account which is given of the Rev. Sir Henry Wellwood Moncrieff, a member of a Scottish family
distinguished during several generations in connection both with Church and State, who died in 1827. The Sunday
suppers of Sir Henry seem, from what Cockburn says, to have been notable in their way and day :—
" This most admirable and somewhat old-fashioned gentleman was one of those who always dined between sermons, probably without touching wine. He then walked back—look at him— from his small house in the east end of Queen Street to his church, with his bands, his little cocked hat, his tall cane, and his cardinal air ; preached, if it was his turn, a sensible practical sermon ; walked home in the same style, took tea about 5, spent some hours in his study ; at 9 had family prayers, at which he was delighted to see the friends of his sons, after which the whole party sat down to roasted hares, goblets of wine, and his powerful talk."
But there is not a dull page in Mr. Wilmot Harrison's book. Doubtless, he has omitted several notable houses and persons.
Thus, we observe that, not without reason, a complaint has been made in Scotland of his not having, in his visitation of Chester Street, taken note of the fact that in one of its houses there lived for a time that eminent public writer, politician, and humourist, Alexander Russel. Russel was, at all events, quite as deserving of the immortality Mr. Harrison can give as his old opponent, Mr. Duncan McLaren. But, on the whole, it must be considered at once surprising and satis- factory that Mr. Harrison's omissions have been so few.
The other of the two books on Edinburgh which we have bracketed together, and which, in many respects—including the illustrations, which are exquisite—is the more ambitious, is the outcome of the International Exhibition that was held in
the Scottish capital seven years ago. It also deals with houses, —but houses that must be accounted historical. It reproduces, in part at all events, that Edinburgh in which the eerie genius of Mr. Stevenson finds pleasures old and new. We have here "The Laus-Deo House," and "The Cunzie House," and " Major Weir's House," and " Symson the Printer's House," and "The Oratory of Mary of Guise," and "Cardinal Beaton's House," and "The Nameless House." Sometimes indeed this eeriness is more in name than in house. Thus there is nothing ghastly or even ghostly about the "The Nameless House." It is merely a good specimen of the old architecture of Edinburgh, in which an undoubtedly picturesque effect was secured by means of what are known as dormer windows and crow- stepped gables. But although on the lintel there are en- graven the letters "V. P." and "A. V.," there is no historical clue to any inhabitants of the house, and one is forced to say almost helplessly with the authors of this book that the name- lessness is typical of the now forgotten units of "the people who dwelt within its walls,—part of the unnoted and un- numbered population of the old city,—
' Who have worked their work, and reap
The unfathomable sleep' of the dead within its old churchyards." One of the most interesting and massive of the old houses of Edinburgh that are left standing is known as Robert Gourlay's house, which was built in 1569. Gourlay seems to have been a re- markable specimen of the canny—and perhaps a trifle Pharisaic—Scot. Ostensibly he was only a messenger-at- arms in connection with the Abbey of Holyrood, with a salary of 240 a year. But he would appear to have made what must in these days have been accounted a large fortune, by bold commercial speculations, and it seems to have been generally understood that "he profited by his lowlier duties so near the fountain-head of authority to know when to operate." It is still less to his credit that, in 1574, he should have been ordered to make public repentance in the Church for trans- porting wheat out of the country during a dearth.
Previous page
