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Scotland has always been
justly famed for the hospitality of its inhabitants. During the eighteenth
century in particular Edinburgh was the scene of a succession of social
functions of the most convivial and at the same time unostentatious kind.
Hosts were not ashamed of providing the simplest fare; guests were amply
satisfied with it. Barley broth, salt beef, with a boiled fowl and
“greens,” were standing dishes at dinner in every gentleman’s house, and
nobody would have dreamt of demanding anything more delicate. The beverage
offered to ordinary visitors consisted of home-brewed ale and a glass of
brandy, or, on any very special occasion, claret and brandy-punch. Food
was cheap and plentiful. Beef only cost two pence per pound, and it was
possible to purchase a whole lamb’s carcase for a shilling or
eighteenpence. [My Own Life and Times, 1741-1814, by Thomas Somerville,
pp.334-5.] Simple manners prevailed, and even in private houses there
was occasionally a dearth of crockery when an unusual number of guests had
to be entertained. Dr. Somerville in his Memoirs describes how it was
often necessary for a large company to make use of a single glass, and
repeats the lament of one Armstrong of Sorbie (Sorbet would have
been more appropriate), a noted toper, who, deploring in his latter days
the degeneracy of the times, declared that “it was a better world when
there were more bottles and fewer glasses.” [My Own Life and Times,
p.356.]
Scotland certainly clung to
primitive customs up to comparatively recent times. The disgusting habit
of throwing the household filth out of window at 10 P.M. every night when
the city drum was beaten – a practice which sometimes made it necessary
for residents to fumigate their bedrooms by burning brown paper –
prevailed in provincial towns not more than a hundred years ago. But a
country in which until 1750 there were only two turnpike roads, and where
the mail took five days to reach Edinburgh from London, might well be
considered backward in many things beside urban sanitation.
In some ways, however, this
primitive condition of affairs was not without its compensating
advantages. The extreme and almost ascetic simplicity which marked the
fashionable entertainments of the Scottish capital brought them well
within the range of all. The most impoverished younger sons could afford
to give select parties in those “Oyster Cellars,” which were long the
popular resort of Edinburgh society during the winter months. The
principal oyster-parties took place in a tavern in the Cowgate belonging
to an old woman of the name of Luckie Middlemass. Here the young bloods of
the day, accompanied by a bevy of fair friends, would spend the evening
pleasantly enough, surrounded by plates of oysters and flagons of rum or
brandy punch. Towards nightfall the tables were moved to one side, and the
guests, exhilarated by their repast, would bring the evening’s
entertainment to a close with an impromptu dance. The bill for a party of
this kind usually amounted to about two shillings a head, a modest sum,
the very thought of which must fill with envy the bosom of a modern host.
An English visitor to
Edinburgh in the year 1774 pays a generous tribute to the Scottish talent
for hospitality as well as to the national gift of obtaining the maximum
of amusement with the minimum outlay of cash. This he attributes to the
fact that the Scottish character closely resembles that of the French.
“That air of mirth and vivacity,” he says, “that quick and penetrating
look, that spirit of gaiety which distinguishes the French, is equally
visible in the Scotch. It is the character of the nation, and it is a very
happy one, as it makes them disregard even poverty.” [Letters from
Edinburgh written in the years 1774-5, by Captain Topham, p.64]
Nowhere is this facility for enjoyment seen to better advantage then in
the accounts of the somewhat ingenuous amusements of Edinburgh society.
In the summer time, when
the atmosphere of the Oyster Cellars became too oppressive to be pleasant,
parties were formed to visit the “Comely Gardens.” Along the shady paths
of this pleasant resort young people of both sexes could wander
hand-in-hand together, while their elders sat and listened to the
merciless moanings of the town band. There were no “water-chutes,” no
“switch-backs” in those days. There was no “monster wheel” in which young
couples could spend the greater part of the evening at an altitude which
kept them well out of the range of the basilisk eye of their chaperons.
But the quiet public gardens were as great a source of delight to the boy
and girl of that age as are to their descendants of today the more
elaborate haunts of West Kensington. Comely Gardens provided for the
society of Edinburgh those simple pleasures for which their contemporaries
in London sought at Ranelagh and Marylebone. They corresponded to
Vauxhall, the “New Spring Gardens” where Mr. Pepys “with my wife and Deb
and Mercer eat and walked;” [Pepys’ Diary, July 27, 1668.]
where Wycherley enjoyed a “cheesecake and syllabub”; where Addison and Sir
Roger de Coverley met; [Spectator, No.383, May 20, 1712.] where
Walpole, Fielding, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and all the “red-heeled
macaronis” of the day foregathered.
After a time, however, the
Comely Gardens were voted commonplace, slow, and vulgar, and the “lover’s
walks” and shady bowers were gradually deserted by the smart set of
Edinburgh. In those days, as now, it was enough to stamp a place or an
amusement as unfashionable to ensure its immediate decline in popularity.
To do “the right thing” was the one aim of society. The Scottish world of
fashion was so imbued with this idea that a contemporary writer declares
that if the famous Lord Monboddo who took it into his head to inform
mankind that they were originally born with tails, had got half-a-dozen
friends to support his theory, in a short time every man in the country
would have been feeling for his tail whenever he entered a room!
The dancing in Oyster
Cellars and the flirting in Comely Gardens were not by any means the only,
nor indeed the chief, amusement of the good people of Edinburgh. In the
year 1707 they system of holding weekly balls in the Assembly Rooms was
first inaugurated, and at once caught the public fancy. These
entertainments, which originally took place in the West Bow, but were
removed in 1720 to the Assembly Close, were managed by a committee of
seven gentlemen who styled themselves directors, and who in their turn
appointed some woman of fashion to superintend the social side of the
assemblies.
This novel venture was,
like all new schemes, regarded at first with suspicion and mistrust by
some of the more conservative members of the community, and it was not
without considerable opposition that the holding of weekly assemblies was
finally instituted. Among the “unco’ guid” of the Scottish capital there
was naturally a bigoted section which looked with horror upon the
introduction of such a pastime as dancing, and strenuously endeavoured to
rouse popular indignation against the harmless amusements of the Assembly
Rooms. [It had taken many years for dancing to be permitted at all in
Scotland. In the reign of James II. dancing might not be taught in private
or public without a licence from the magistrates. In 1681 the Duke of
York, then Commissioner, tried to introduce balls and plays at Holyrood.
But “the fanaticism of the times,” says Tytler of Woodhouselee, “could not
bear such ungodly innovations,” and these profane entertainments were
given up. The same fate befell a public masquerade which the citizens of
Edinburgh tried to get up in 1786.] By some, too, it was perhaps
thought that the introduction of dancing would tend to enervate the
Scottish character and encourage those habits of effeminacy which were
opposed to the simple tastes of the shrewd, level-headed inhabitants of
Edinburgh. The latter were already beginning to affect some of the airs
and graces of London society. The charge of dandyism had more than once
been brought against the young bucks of the Scottish capital. They were
conscious of a growing inclination to practise the “nice conduct of a
clouded cane” and otherwise emulate the doings of their more foppish
contemporaries in the south. The Tatler of the day published a
paragraph of a presumably facetious character dealing with this.
[Advertisement. The censor having lately received intelligence that the
ancient simplicity in the dress and manner of that part of the island
called Scotland begins to decay; and that there are at this time, in the
good town of Edinburgh, beaux, fops, and coxcombs: his late correspondent
from that place is desired to send up their names and characters with all
expedition, that they may be proceeded against accordingly, and proper
officers named to take in their canes, snuff-boxes, and all other useless
necessaries commonly worn by such offenders.” The Tatler, No.144,
March 11, 1709-10.] There was, as a matter of fact, but little fear
of Scotsmen becoming effeminate. Dandyism is a quality altogether foreign
to the Scottish blood. This is perhaps a pity, for surely no stage could
be more appropriate for setting off the beauties of a beau’s attire than
Princes Street. It is broader than Bond Street; it is finer and more
fashionable than Oxford Street. Here, as Lockhart once remarked, [Peter’s
Letters, vol. iii. p.109.] when the punch-bowl is empty and
“night’s candles are burned out,” the macaroni might stagger down the
steps of the Albyn Club and behold the “jocund day stand tip-toe on the
misty mountains’ tops” as the sun rose above Arthur’s Seat. But the
dandies themselves were missing. There was no Beau Brummel, No Nash, no
D’Orsay in Edinburgh. The very Arbitri Elegantiarum, the Dilettanti
Society, held their meetings in a tavern in one of the dirtiest closes of
the city, “braving the risk of an impure baptism from the windows” as they
entered or left.
The efforts of the “weaker
brethren to frustrate the holding of assemblies were fortunately
unsuccessful. [Even the clergy refrained from censure. “There were
fanatics in those days,” says Lord Cockburn (Journal, vol. ii.
p.197.), “but they let good society alone; and there was a race of
agreeable and rational clergymen whose sense of decorum was not shocked by
polite company, nor their piety deemed wasted if it was not all given to
the poor or the pulpit.”] Their clamouring did not gain the public
ear. There were plenty of broad-minded citizens of Edinburgh who realised
that dancing could hardly be called a vice, and that the proposed weekly
balls would not seriously affect public morality. Their sentiments were
aptly voiced in a letter addressed to the managers of the Assemblies by
Allan Ramsay as an introduction to one of his poems. [The Fair Assembly].
“It is amazing,” he says, “to imagine that any one is so destitute of good
sense and manners as to drop the least unfavourable sentiment against the
Fair Assembly. It is to be owned, with regret, that the best of things
have been abused. The church has been, and in many countries is, the chief
place for assignations that are not warrantable. Wine, one of Heaven’s
kindly blessings, may be used to one’s hurt. The beauty of the fair, which
is the great preserver of harmony and society, has been the ruin of many.”
Then, bursting into song, he continues:-
“Sic as against th’
Assembly speak,
The rudest souls betray,
When matrons, noble, wise, and meek,
Conduct the healthfu’ play;
Where they appear, nae vice dare keek,
But to what’s good gives way,
Like night, soon as the morning creek
Has usher’d in the day.
Dear Ed’nburgh, shaw thy
gratitude,
And of sic friends make sure,
Wha strive to mak our minds less rude,
And help our wants to cure;
Acting a gen’rous part and good
In bounty to the poor;
Sic virtues, if right understood,
Should ev’ry heart allure.”
In spite, therefore, of the
grumbling of a prejudiced minority, the holding of assemblies soon became
one of the most popular entertainments of the capital. [In some
respects the good people of Edinburgh do not seem to have been as
particular as their descendants of today. “Promiscuous bathing has been
very much in fashion this season,” writes William Creech in 1785 (Edinburgh
Fugitive Pieces (1815), p.220), “and the decency of an awning to the
bathing-machines is not yet adopted; to the great satisfaction of the rude
and the ill-bred, who triumph in insulting modesty.”] Tickets of
admission were sold at “s.6d. a-piece (a charge which included such modest
refreshments as tea, coffee, and sandwiches, and cannot therefore be
considered excessive), and the proceeds of the entertainments were divided
between the Charity Workhouse and the Royal Infirmary. The lady whose
important duty it was to direct and control the dancing sat at the head of
the room, wearing as a badge of office a large gold medal engraved with a
motto and device “emblematical” (as we read in Arnot’s History of
Edinburgh) “of Charity and Parental Tendencies.” Her power was
autocratic; her will was law; but, as may be readily imagined, her office
was by no means a sinecure.
Pre-eminent among those
queens who held each in turn their petty court in the Assembly Rooms of
the capital stands Miss Nicky Murray, a daughter of Lord Stormonth, who
for many years filled the post of Mistress of the Ceremonies with grace
and distinction. Her rule, though arbitrary, was distinguished by a
display of common sense and uncommon tact which ensured her popularity in
the hearts of all her subjects. When “the Assembly Close received the
Fair,” wrote Sir Alexander Boswell, in his poem on Edinburgh,
“Order and elegance
presided there;
Each gay Right Honourable
had her place,
To walk a minuet with
becoming grace.
No racing to the dance,
with rival hurry;
Such was thy sway, O famed
Miss Nicky Murray!”
This famous lady directress
lived in a flat, in a small tenement house styled Smith’s Land, at the
head of Baillie Fyfe’s Close, which was then an aristocratic quarter of
the town. She was a woman of the old-fashioned feudal type, who never
troubled to disguise her favour for the Jacobite cause and her hopes that
the exiled Stuarts might some day enjoy their own again. Her father had
entertained Prince Charles Edward at Perth, on his way to Culloden. This
occasion was particularly memorable to Miss Nicky, who had signalised it
by insisting upon making with her own fair hands the bed in which her
illustrious guest was to pass the night. Let us hope that the prince
displayed adequate gratitude.
Mistress Murray’s
management of the public assemblies gave complete satisfaction to all
concerned. No one ever dreamt of opposing her will or attempting to
supplant her. But hers must have been a troublesome task, and one that
required patience, activity, and good sense.
The balls opened at four or
five o’clock in the afternoon. [Later on, in 1783, they met at 8 or 9
P.M., and the Lady Directress sometimes did not appear till 10 P.M.
Country dances were substituted for the stately minuets, and the dance
often degenerated into a game of romps.] Mistress Murray was
immediately surrounded by a group of clamorous chaperons, eager that their
debutantes should not be overlooked. The room where these dances were held
was so small that it was impossible to allow all the guests to take part
at the same time. The dancers were consequently divided into different
“sets.” It was the duty of the lady directress to assign the guests to
their various places, and she was constantly besieged, now by fond and
anxious mothers urging the claims of their respective daughters, now by
impetuous lovers begging to be given tickets for those particular “sets”
in which they could be sure of meeting the objects of their choice. To
satisfy all and give offence to none was a task which might well have
appalled the most tactful of women, but Miss Murray was more than equal to
it.
Dancing in the public
Assembly Rooms must in any case have been a doubtful pleasure. The door of
the hall was so situated that a draught of cold air streamed in, flooding
the room from end to end, and bearing with it clouds of smoke from the
torches of the footmen who stood at the entrance waiting to escort their
mistresses home. The unfortunate dowagers sat and shivered with cold, and
the dancers themselves were half suffocated by fumes from the flambeaux of
their domestics. The set of printed rules which hung up in one corner of
the Assembly-room contained, amongst others, the following regulations,
which give a curious glimpse of the character of the entertainments, but
scarcely call for further comment: “No lady to be admitted in a
night-gown, and no gentleman in boots.” “No misses in skirts and jackets,
robecoats, nor stay-bodied gowns, to be allowed to dance in country
dances, but in a sett by themselves.”
We are always told that
Englishmen take their pleasures sadly, but if the account of the Edinburgh
assemblies given by Oliver Goldsmith is to be believed, it must be
admitted that in comparison with such social pastimes in vogue north of
the border in 1753 (when the author wrote), the modern suburban Garden
Party of Zenana Mission Meeting may truthfully be characterised as a
rollicking form of entertainments.
Goldsmith describes the
only assembly which he attended as the most melancholy and depressing
function that it is possible for the human mind to conceive. One end of
the room, he tells us, was taken up by the ladies, who sat dismally in a
group by themselves. At the other end stood their pensive potential
partners, but “no more intercourse was allowed between the sexes then
there is between two countries at war.” [The Works of Oliver Goldsmith,
Ed. by Peter Cunningham, vol. iv. P.401. (London, 1854.)] The ladies,
indeed, might ogle, and the gentlemen might sigh, but an embargo was laid
on any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady
directress fixed on a gentleman and lady to dance the minuet, which they
did with a formality that approached despondence. “After five or six
couples had thus walked the gauntlet,” continues the writer, “all stand up
to country dances, each gentleman furnished with a partner from the
aforesaid lady directress; so they dance much and say nothing, and thus
concluded the assembly.” [Ibid.] After watching this lugubrious
performance, Oliver Goldsmith told a Scottish gentleman that such silent
ceremonial as was habitual in the Assembly Room reminded him of the
ancient processions of Roman matrons in honour of Ceres. The Scotsman,
however, patriotically snubbed Oliver for his pains, telling him plainly
that he was a pedant and a prig, which was probably true. Goldsmith was,
indeed, prejudiced in his point of view. At the time he wrote so
captiously of the amusements of his hosts he was poor and unknown, and
like Burns under similar circumstances, felt out of place amid such
fashionable surroundings. He doubtless agreed with Talleyrand that life
would be tolerable but for its pleasures. “An ugly and a poor man is
society for himself,” said he, in relating his experiences, “and such
society the world lets me enjoy in great abundance.” [The Works of Oliver
Goldsmith, vol. iv. P.402.]
To obtain a less depressing
and perhaps more truthful picture of the Assembly Rooms, we must turn to
the writings of Captain Topham, that fashionable traveller and man of the
world whose high opinion of the social delights of Edinburgh finds
eloquent expression in the series of amusing letters which he wrote from
the Scottish capital in 1774. He, at any rate, did not attribute the gift
of silence to his Scottish friends. “Whenever the Scotch of both sexes
meet,” he writes, “they do not appear as if they had never seen each other
before, or wished never to see each other again; they do not sit in solemn
silence, looking on the ground, biting their nails, and at a loss what to
do with themselves; and, if some one should be hardy enough to break
silence, start, as if they were shot through the ear with a pistol: but
they address each other at first sight and with an impressement
that is highly pleasing.” [Letters from Edinburgh, p.66. (1776.)
With the ladies in particular he expresses himself as charmed. The men, as
he explains, are naturally cold and reserved, but that is the very reason
why the women shine so brightly in society. “To rouse the latent spark” –
buried deep in the Scotsman’s bosom – “every effort is necessary,” says
the gallant captain, so that it is in the interest of the ladies to be
“perfect mistresses in the art of pleasing, and, indeed, they are arrived
at such perfection in it as to be excelled by none in Europe.” [Letters
from Edinburgh, p.255.] To see them at their best, he adds, is to
see them at their entertainments.
If these entertainments
were successful it was mainly due to the energy and skill of the queen of
the revels, Mistress Nicky Murray. She was remarkable for her impartiality
in the disposal of debutantes, and, as we are told by Robert Chambers,
[Traditions of Edinburgh, vol. ii. p.30.] “never failed to give due
preference to a beauty without forgetting the claims of titled
precedence.” She could, nevertheless, be very unpleasant to any persons
who offended against the unwritten canons of polite society. One wretched
man, whose parentage was quite obscure and who had made his money in
trade, instead of inheriting it or acquiring it by the sweat of other
people’s brows like a gentleman, had the effrontery to put in an
appearance at one of the assemblies over which Miss Murray presided. He
was immaculately dressed – since nothing can prevent money, however
honestly earned, from purchasing clothing of the very latest fashion.
There was, in fact, little against him, save the unfortunate accident of
birth. But no sooner had this wretch entered the room than the lady
directress strode up to him and administered a few scathing comments on
the subject of his unwarrantable intrusion. Thus addressed, the miserable
parvenu realised the enormity of his offence and beat a hasty and
undignified retreat from the presence of his social superiors. It is
perhaps refreshing to think that two hundred years ago there was one door
in Great Britain which could not be opened with a key of gold: against
which millionaires might batter and hurl their purses in vain. We may,
indeed, be inclined to smile at the prejudices and inconsistencies of a
society which refused admittance to a self-made nouveau-riche of
low birth, and yet welcomed the presence of Lord Kirkcudbright, a peer
haberdasher, who combined business and pleasure by selling white gloves to
his fellow-guests; yet it is doubtful whether our modern money-worship,
which throws open every door, from that of the fashionable ballroom to
that of the House of Lords itself, to the owner of millions, is not a
characteristic of the times even more ignoble than that displayed by our
ancestors.
It was the fashion in
Edinburgh for ladies to go to bed early, and the assemblies closed
punctually at eleven o’clock. But when that fateful moment arrived, a rush
was always made by the younger and more energetic dancers to beg the
good-natured Nicky for a few minutes’ grace. Their entreaties were usually
vain. Mistress Murray’s views on the subject of retiring at a respectable
hour were not easily to be shaken. With a wave of her fan she stopped the
musicians in the middle of their tune. The assembly broke up at once, the
guests departed to their homes – the ladies to sleep, the gentlemen to
foregather with genial boon-companion and toast their late partners with
sufficient enthusiasm to superinduce a condition of pleasurable coma, from
which they were with difficulty roused next morning. Claret was the only
drink on such occasions, and was partaken of from huge pewter mugs, each
of which held about a quart. There existed certain rigid rules of
etiquette which prevented gentlemen from drinking too much in the presence
of the fair sex. “They never thought of committing any excess,” says
Lockhart, [Peter’s Letters, vol. i. p.108] “except in taverns and
at night!” where –
“Beakers drained and seats
o’erthrown,
Showed in what sport the
night had flown.”
It had, in fact, been made a matter of serious
aggravation in the offence of a gentleman of rank, tried before the Court
of Justiciary, that he had allowed his company to get drunk in his house
before it was dark, even in the month of July! As for the ladies – of whom
the same writer declares that never in any evening he spent in London did
he see “a greater number of fine women, and of different kinds too,” than
that which met his delighted gaze at a party in Edinburgh [Ibid., p.47.]
– it is to be feared that even they too were occasionally addicted, alas!
to a slight overdose of alcohol. A writer in the Edinburgh Magazine
[August 1817] has stated that in the eighteenth century, though it
was a disgrace for ladies to be seen drunk, it was none at all to be a
trifle intoxicated in good company. [An old story, which recounts the
adventures of three respectable middle-aged spinsters of Edinburgh, gives
point to this indictment. After spending a merry evening together, these
ladies started to go home to bed in a distinctly inebriate condition,”
brimming over with happy laughter.” When the trio reached the Tron Church
they were brought to a sudden halt by the shadow of the steeple which the
moon threw across the street. After a brief confabulation the ladies came
to the mournful conclusion that they were standing on the brink of a
shallow river. With the courage born of excessive stimulant they sat down
on the edge of the street, removed their shoes and stockings, kilted their
skirts up to the knee, and proceeded to wade bravely across to the safe
moonlight on the other side.] But at any rate the Assembly Rooms were
never the scene of any orgy, male or female.
That the assemblies made
for the social welfare of the community there is little doubt. The young
men of the day learnt manners there, while the young ladies continued the
lessons in deportment which they had begun in the schoolroom. “The young
Gentlemen have a Hauteur,” sys Daniel Defoe, in recounting his
journey through Scotland somewhere about the year 1720, “which makes good
the French saying, ‘Fier comme un Ecossais.’” [A Journey Through Scotland,
p.198. (1723).] Never in any nation, says the traveller, had he
seen an “assemblage of greater beauties” than those he met in Edinburgh.
“The Ladies,” he continues, “are particular in a stately, firm way of
walking, with their Joints extended, and their Toes out.” [Ibid.,
p.274.] Nor was Defoe the only person to notice this. Captain Burt,
who visited Scotland in 1758, commends the “upright, firm yet easy manner
of the ladies walking in Edinburgh.” [Letters from a Gentleman in the
North of Scotland, p.102. (1759.)] And no doubt they owed the
elegance of their gait, their “extended joints” and pointed toes, to the
instruction of the dancing-master. If he was responsible for their
graceful bearing, the credit for their perfect manners much be assigned to
the directress, who kept such an eagle eye upon her wards. The Assembly
Rooms were, indeed, an excellent training-ground for the young of either
sex, and both residents and tourists found them singularly attractive.
Alexander Campbell, one of the latter, declares that the heart must indeed
be insensible which “feels not the influence of female charms, while
beholding a select party of Scottish ladies on the night of an Assembly.”
[A Journey from Edinburgh through Parts of North Britain vol. ii.
p.181.] A French writer, too, of that day declares that they provided
everything that the heart of the most fastidious could desire. All that
might charm the eye, flatter the senses, or gratify the soul, was, in his
opinion, to be found within the four walls of the Assembly Rooms. He
thinks it necessary, however, to add a word of warning for those who are
about to enter the precincts of this earthly Elysium. He begs them very
earnestly to be careful of their conduct, to behave with particular
decorum, “for the slightest gesture or glance which might wound Modesty,
will be observed and repressed by the Lady Directresses, persons whom
merit and distinguished virtue, as well as their high birth, have rendered
worthy of the noble trust of which they acquit themselves with consummate
prudence and universal approbation.” [L’Eloge d’Ecosse et des Dames
Ecossoises, par Mr. Freebairn, p.17. (Edin., 1727.) (This Mr. Freebairn
may have been the printer whose services were retained by the Earls of Mar
and Breadalbane to publish revolutionary leaflets at the time of the
“’45,” or else perhaps the well-known publisher for whom Thomas Ruddiman
did so much excellent work. His admiration for Scottish ladies was
boundless. “Je prendrai seulement la Liberté de dire,” he says, “pour
reliever encore leur Gloirs, que les DAMES ECOSSOISES ont receu leur beau
Teint, et tous leurs autres Agremens seulement du Ciel. Elles ne menagent
point l’Avantage de rouge, de blanc, pour offrir un Visage nouveau, à nos
Regards trompés.” Ibid., p.38.)]
In the year 1775 the
Assembly Rooms were moved to better quarters in Bell’s Wynd, and, later
on, to a new hall in George Street. The pleasant gatherings which Mistress
Nicky superintended so capably continued to play an important part in the
social life of Edinburgh for many years. That charming directress died,
however, in 1777, and after her death the popularity of the assemblies
seems to have waned. Finally, when the rooms in which they were held were
burnt to the ground in 1824, these entertainments came to an abrupt and
definite conclusion. |
