1712, July
Dr Pitcairn, the prince of wits and physicians in his day, being an
Episcopalian and a Jacobite, moreover a man of gay and convivial habits,
did not stand in good repute among the severer of the Presbyterian
clergy. Regarding many things connected with religion from a peculiar
point of view, which was not theirs, he sometimes appeared to them, by the
freedom of speech he assumed on such points, and by the cast of comicality
which he gave them, to be little better than an unbeliever. Wodrow in his
Renfrewshire parish heard of him and his associates with serious concern.
It was reported, he tells us, that ‘Dr Pitcairn and others do meet very
regularly every Lord’s Day, and read the Scriptures, in order to lampoon
and ridicule it. It‘s such wickedness that, though we had no outward
evidences, might make us apprehensive of some heavy rod.’
The Rev. James Webster, one of the
Edinburgh clergy of that day, was distinguished by the highest graces as
an evangelical preacher. He had been a sufferer under the ante-Revolution
government, and hated a Jacobite with a perfect hatred. To the Jacobites,
on the other hand, his high Calvinism and general severity of style were a
subject of continual sarcasm and epigram; and it is not unlikely that
Pitcain had launched at him a few jokes which he did not feel over meekly.
In a poem of Pitcaum’s, Ad Ademas, there is, indeed, a passage in
which Mr Webster, as minister of the folbooth kirk, a part of St Giles’s,
is certainly glanced at:
‘Protinus AEgidii triplicem
te confer
in aedem,
Tres ubi Cyclopes fanda nefanda
boant.’
Perhaps this very remark gave rise to all
that followed.
One day, in a company where the
magistrates of Edinburgh were present, Mr Webster fell into conversation
with Mr Robert Freebairn, the bookseller. The minister complained that, in
his auctions, Freebairn sold wicked and prohibited books; in particular,
he had lately sold a copy of Philostratus’s Ljfe of Apollonius Tyanmus,
which deists and atheists were eager to purchase, because it set forth
the doings of that impostor as on a level with the miracles of Jesus. It
being insinuated that these auctions ministered to an infamous taste, Mr
Freebairn asked Mr Webster to ‘condescend upon persons;’ whereupon the
latter unguardedly said: ‘Such persons, for example, as Dr Pitcairn, who
is known to be a professed deist. As a proof of what I say, at that very
sale where you found so many eager to purchase the Life
of
Apollonius,
when some one remarked that a copy of the
Bible hung heavy in comparison on your hands, Pitcairn remarked: “No
wonder, for, you know, Verbun Dei menet in aeternum,” which was a
direct scoffing at the sacred volume.’
Pitcairn, having this conversation
reported to him by Freebairn, took it with lamentable thin-skinnedness,
and immediately raised an action against Webster before the sheriffs for
defamation. Webster advocated the ease to the Lords, on the ground that
the sheriffs were not the proper judges in such a matter; and, after a
good deal of debating, the Lords, considering that the pursuer skewed too
much keenness, while the defender appeared willing to give reasonable
satisfaction, recommended the Lord-justice Clerk ‘to endeavour to settle
the parties amicably;’ and so the affair seems to have ended.’
In the early part of this month, the
Rev. Mr Wodrow made an excursion into Galloway, and noted on the
way several characteristic circumstances. ‘I find,’ he says, ‘they have
no great quantity of straw, and necessity has learned them to make
thrift of fern or breckaus, which grow there very throng (close). They
thatch their houses with them
. . . .
stript of the leaves
. . . .
and say it lasts six or eight years in
their great storms.’ He adverts to the moat-hills near some of the
parish churches, and great cairns of stones scattered over the moors. Of
a loch near Partan, he says: ‘There seem to be tracks of roads into it
upon all bands;’ a description reminding us of the glacial grooves and
scratches seen on rocks dipping into several of the Scottish lakes. ‘I
notice,’ he says, ‘all through the stewartry (of Kirkcudbright) the
houses very little and low, and but a foot or two of them of stone, and
the rest earth and thatch. I observe all the country moorish. I noticed
the stones through many places of far more regular shapes than in this
country (Renfrewshire). On the water of Ken they are generally spherical
(boulders). Through much of the moorish road to Crogo, they are square
and long. The strata that with us lie generally horizontally, there in
many places lie vertical.’
The worthy martyrologist received from a
Galloway minister, on this tour, an account of the witches who were rife
in the parish of Balmaclellan immediately after the Revolution. ‘One of
them he got discovered and very clear probation of persons that saw her
in the shape of a hare; and when taken she started up in her own shape.
When before the judge, he observed her inclinable to confess, when of a
sudden, her eyes being fixed upon a particular part of the room, she
sank down in the place. He lifted her up and challenged her, whether her
master had not appeared in that place. She owned it was so, confessed,
and was execute. All this process is in the records of the presbytery,
of which I am promised ane abstract.”
Wodrow seems to have had a taste for
geology, though the word did not then exist He thus wrote to Edward
Lluyd, August 26, 1709: ‘My house (is) within a quarter of a mile of the
Aldhouse Burn, where you and I were lithoscoping. My pastoral
charge does not allow me that time I once had, to follow out these
subterranean studies, but my inclination is just the same as when I saw
you, or rather greater, and I take it to be one of the best diversions
from more serious work, and in itself a great duty, to view and admire
my Maker in his works, as well as his word. I have got together some
stone of our fossils hereabout, from our marl, our limestone, &c.”
The Edinburgh Courant newspaper
contains several notices of a flood which happened this day in the west
of Scotland, generally admitted to be the greatest in memory. Wodrow,
who calls it ‘the greatest for ane age,’ says it prevented all
travelling for the time between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The lower parts
of the western city were, as usual on such occasions, deep in water, to
the ruin of much merchandise, and the imprisonment of (it is said)
twelve hundred families in the upper parts of the houses. A boat sailed
about in the Briggate. The house of Sir Donald Macdonald—a gentleman
regarded with great jealousy in Glasgow on account of his unpopular
religion—is described in one account as immersed to the depth of three
fathoms; which is probably an exaggeration. But we may believe Wodrow
when he tells us that ‘the water came up to the well in the Saltmarkct.’
Great anxiety was felt at Glasgow for
the safety of the fine old bridge, which had its arches ‘filled to the
bree.’ Vast quantities of country produce and of domestic articles of
all descriptions were brought down on the surface of the Clyde and other
rivers of the province involved by the flood. Several lives were lost.
At Irvine and other parts of Ayrshire, as well as in Renfrewshire,
bridges were carried away, and great general damage inflicted. ‘A man
and a woman were lost upon the water of Kelvin, and if the Laird of
Bardowic had not sent his boat from his loch, to the said water of
Kelvin, there had been a great many more people lost therein.’
If we are to believe the observant
minister of Eastwood, the whole air at this season seemed ‘infected.’ He
notes the frequency of madness in dogs, and that, owing to various
epidemics, as ‘the galloping fever,’ sore throat, and measles, scarce a
third of the people of Glasgow were able to appear in church.
I am told,’ he adds, ‘the Blantyre
Doctor did presage this evil harvest and the floods; and they talk, but
whether true or false I know not, that there is to be another and
greater flood, wherein the Clyde shall be three steps up the Tolbooth
stair in Glasgow.’
1712, Dec
Mr Robert Monteath was at this time preparing his celebrated Theater of
Mortality, a collection of the sepulchral inscriptions existing
throughout Scotland. It had already cost him ‘eight years’ sore travel,
and vast charges and expenses.’ He now advertised for assistance in his
task, ‘desiring all persons who have any valuable epitaphs, Latin, prose
or verse, English verse only, or any historical, chronological, or moral
inscriptions,’ to send just and
authentic copies of them to him
‘at his house in the College Wynd, Edinburgh.’ He took that opportunity of
stating his hope that ‘all generous persons will cheerfully subscribe his
proposals in a matter so pious, pleasant, profitable, and
national.’
1713, May 1
Died, Sir James Steuart, Lord Advocate for Scotland, aged about
seventy-eight, greatly lamented by the Presbyterians, to whom he had ever
been a steadfast friend. The General Assembly, in session at the time,
came in a body to his funeral, which was the most numerously attended ever
known in Edinburgh, the company reaching from the head of the close in
which his lordship lived, in the Luckenbooths, to the Greyfriars’
Churchyard. For several years, bodily infirmity confined him to a chair;
but his mind continued clear to the last. Sir James had shewn some
unsteadiness to his principles in the reign of James II., but nevertheless
was forced to fly his country, and he only returned along with King
William, whose manifesto for Scotland he is understood to have written.
Great general learning, legal skill, and
worldly policy, marked Sir James Steuart; but the most remarkable
characteristic of the man, considering his position, was his deep piety.
Wodrow, who speaks of him from personal knowledge, says: ‘His death was
truly Christian, and a great instance of the reality of religion….He had a
great value for religion and persons of piety. He was mighty in the
Scriptures; perfectly master of [them]; wonderful in prayer. That winter,
1706—7, when he was so long ill, he was in strange raptures in his prayers
sometimes in his family. He used to speak much of his sense of the
advantage of the prayers of the church, and in a very dangerous sickness
he had about thirteen years ago, he alleged he found a sensible turn of
his body in the time of Mr George Meldrum’s prayer for him. He never fell
into any trouble but he gave up his name to be prayed for in all the
churches of the city of Edinburgh. His temper was most sweet and easy, and
very pleasant. He was a kind and fast friend, very
compassionate and charitable.’
May 11
The Lord Drummond, eldest son of the exiled Earl of Perth, and his wife,
Jean Gordon, daughter of the Duke of Gordon, had a son and heir born to
them, the same who afterwards took a conspicuous part in the rebellion of
1745, which he did not long outlive. Politics, long adverse to the house
of Drummond, smiled on the birth of this infant heir, for never since the
Revolution did the Whig interest seem more depressed. Lord Drummond was
encouraged by these circumstances to take a step which would have been
dangerous a few years before. It is related as follows by Wodrow: ‘The
baptism of my Lord Drummond’s son [was performed in October] at his own
house by a popish bishop with great solemnity. The whole gentlemen and
several noblemen about, were gathered together; and when the mass was
said, there were very few of them went out. Several justices of peace and
others were there. This is a fearful reproach upon the lenity of our
government, to suffer such opeu insults from papists.’
Two months later, Wodrow notes: ‘The
papists are turning very open at Edinburgh, and all over Scotland there is
a terrible openness in the popish party.’ It is alleged in a popular
contemporary publication, that there were fully forty Catholic priests
living with little effort at concealment in Scotland; some of them very
successful in winning over ignorant people to their ‘damnable errors;’
while one Mr Bruce, a popish bishop, had his ordinary residence in
Perthshire, where he had his gardens, cooks, and other domestic servants,
and thither the priests and emissaries of inferior rank resorted for their
directions and orders Their peats and other fuel were regularly
furnished them …..[they had] also their mass-house, to which their blind
votaries resorted almost as publicly as the Protestants did to their
parish churches.
Oct 20
Died Dr Archibald Pitcairn, a man in most respects so strongly contrasted
with his recently deceased countryman, Sir James Steuart, as to impress
very strongly the absurdity of trying to ascribe any particular line of
character to a nation or any other large group of people. To nearly every
idea associated with the word Scotsman, Pitcairn, like Burns and many
other notable Caledonians, stands in direct antagonism: he was gay,
impulsive, unworldly, full of wit and geniality, a dissenter from
Calvinism, and a lover of the exiled house of Stuart. Conviviality
shortened his life down to the same measure which a worn-out brain gave to
Walter Scott—sixty-one years. But he parted with the world in great
serenity and good-humour, studying to make his last year useful for the
future by writing out some of his best professional observations, and
penning cheerful verses to his friends on his death-bed. In these, to the
refutation of vulgar calumnies, he failed not to express his trust in a
future and brighter existence:
‘Animas morte carere cano:
Has ego, corporibus profugas, ad Sidera mitto,
Sideraque ingressis otia blanda dico.’
A few months before his death, Pitcairn
had. completed a volume of his medical essays, to which he prefixed a page
strongly significant of his political predilections: it contained the
following words in large characters: ‘To GOD AND HIS PRINCE this Work
is humbly Dedicated by Artichibald Pitcairn,’ with the date, ‘June 10,
1713,’ being the well-known birthday of the said prince—namely, the
Chevalier St George. Where practical matters are concerned, one sees in
this volume the acuteness and good sense which gave the author his
professional eminence. In theoretical matters, we find the absurdities
which may be said to have been inseparable from medical science before
either physiology or organic chemistry was understood. The phenomena of
digestion are described by Pitcairn as wholly physical and mechanical. It
is also rather startling to find him patronising poultices of ovine and
bovine excreta, and powders made of the human skull.
The volume was published posthumously, and
in the friendly biography prefixed to it, we find a charming professional
portrait— always ready to serve every one to the utmost of his power, and
even at the risk of his own life—never sacrificing the health of his
patients for any humour or caprice
—
not concerned about fees
—
went with greater cheerfulness to those
from whom he could expect nothing but good-will, than to persons of the
highest condition —often, where needful, left marks of his charity, as
well as his art, with the sick. This virtue of charity was indeed quite
his own in its manner, for he usually conducted it in such a way that
those benefiting by it remained ignorant of his being their benefactor.’
It is also stated of him that he was of ‘a pleasant engaging humour; that
life sat easy upon him in all circumstances; that he despised many, but
hated none.
In a country journey, Pitcairn discovered
the learning and genius of Thomas Ruddiman, and he succeeded in bringing
this remarkable man into a position which enabled him to exercise his
talents. Ruddiman afterwards repaid the favour by gathering the many
clever Latin poems of his patron, which he gave to the world in 1727. They
are chiefly complimentary to the famous men on the cavalier side, or
directly expressive of his political feelings; but some are general, and
include such happy turns of thought as make us regret their not being in
English. One of the most noted of his pieces was a brief elegy on the
death of Dundee, which was translated into English by Dryden; and it must
be acknowledged as something for a Scottish writer of Latin verses
in that age, to have had men like Dryden and Prior for translators.
One cannot but reflect with pleasure on
such connections amongst men of genius as that bctween Pitcairn and
Ruddiman; and the association of ideas leads us to another anecdote
connected with Pitcairn and to a similar purport. When the learned
physician acted as professor at Leyden, he had amongst his pupils two men
of great eventual eminence, Herman Boerhaave and Richard Mead, both of
whom entertained a high sense of the value of his instructions. A son of
Pitcairn having forfeited his life by appearing in the rebellion of 1715,
Mead, then in great favour in high places, went to Sir Robert Walpole to
plead for the young man’s pardon. ‘If I have been able,’ he said, ‘to save
your or any other man’s life, I owe the power to this young man’s father.’
The claim was too strong, and put in too antithetic terms, to be resisted.
My
old friend Alexander Campbell, editor of Albyn’s Anthology, was
intimately acquainted with a maiden daughter of Pitcairn, who lived till
the closing decade of the eighteenth century. He spoke of having once
asked her to accompany him to the theatre, to see Mrs Siddons, when the
old lady said gaily: ‘Aih, na, laddie; I have not been at ony play-house
since I gaed to ane in the Canongate wi’ papa, in the year ten.’
Nov
‘This month there was an incident at Glasgow which made a very great noise
in the country. Mr Gray (one of the clergy) was visiting (his flock), and
in some house meets with one Andrew Watson, a journeyman shoemaker, lately
come into the town from Greenock.’ On inquiry, he learned that this man
did
not attend his ministrations, and, asking
the reason, he was told it was because he, the minister, had taken the
oath of abjuration. He seemed a stiff, pragmatical fellow, and in the
course of an altercation which ensued, he called Mr Gray perjured. A lay
elder, accompanying Mr Gray, resented this expression of the shoemaker,
and reported it to Bailie Bowman, who, sending for Watson, demanded if he
called Mr
Gray perjured. ‘Yes, and I
will
so call every one who takes the oath of
abjuration.’ ‘Do you own Mr Gray as your minister?’ ‘I will own no one who
took that oath.’ ‘Do you own the magistrates?’ ‘No, if they have taken
that oath,’ Here was a rebel for the worthy magistrates and ministers of
Glasgow to be cherishing in their community. It was not to be borne.
Bailie Bowman clapped the man up in jail, till it should be determined
what was to be his ultimate fate. After a day or two, the magistrates sent
for him, and questioned him as he had been questioned before, when he not
only gave the same answers, but subscribed a paper disowning both
ministers and magistrates, on the ground of their having taken the
aforesaid oath. ‘They kept him in prison ten or twelve days, but could
make nothing of him. They offered to let him out if he would confess he
had given offence to the magistrates; but that he would not do.’ There
were some who cried out against this procedure as ‘persecution,’ and they
took care that the man did not want for maintenance. The last we hear of
the matter is, that the magistrates ‘resolve to banish him the town.’
‘Wodrow, who relates this occurrence, soon after makes the
observation, that ‘the Presbyterians are ill termed bigot and
narrow-spirited:’ that character ‘does best agree to papists and
prelatists.’
Dec
It was remarked that an unwholesome air prevailed at this time, causing
many hasty deaths, and favouring small-pox, of which eighty children died
within a little time in Eglesham parish. ‘I hear it observed’; says
Wodrow, ‘that in the summer-time never was known such a quantity of flees
(flies.)’
1714, Jan 10
Campbell of Lochnell having died about this day, his son, a Jacobite, kept
the corpse unburied till the 28th, in order that the burial might be
turned to account, or made use of, for political purposes. It was
customary for the obsequies of a Highland chief or gentleman to be
attended by a vast multitude of people, who usually received some
entertainment on the occasion. It seems to have been understood that those
who came to Lochnell’s funeral were making a masked demonstration in
favour of the exiled Stuart. Those of the opposite inclination deemed it
necessary to attend also, in order to be a check upon the Jacobites. Hence
it came to pass, that the inhumation of Lochnell was attended by two
thousand five hundred men, well armed and appointed, five hundred being of
Lochnell’s own lands, commanded by the famous Rob Roy, carrying with them
a pair of colours belonging to the Earl of Breadalbane, and accompanied by
the screams of thirteen bagpipes. Such a subject for a picture !
Feb
Keeping in view the article under September 1690, regarding the marriage
of Walter Scott of Kelso with Mary Campbell of Silvercraigs, we may read
with additional interest a letter by that person, written from Glasgow to
his wife in February 1714, giving an account of the peculiar arrangements
regarding her father’s funeral:
‘Glasgow,
Feb. 2, 1714.
‘My Dear—I left Edinr upon fryday
the
29th ‘of the last. Dean of (Guild) Allane
nor your sister either durst venture to travel! to Glasgow with (me), on
account of the season, but said that Mr Bell, Lisis younge husband, was
there, whom Dean of Guild Allane had trusted with any business that could
bee done for him. I called at Lithkow and saw Lissie, who was very kinde,
was at Kilsyth all that night, came to Glasgow the next day, beeing
Saturday, at twelve of the clock, and at two of the clock that day went
down to the chesting of your father. He was buried yesterday att four
a clock afternoon, beeing Monday the first instant, very devoutlie and
honourablie, for Blythswood had ordered all things proper and suitable to
a nicety. All the gentlemen in the place, the magistrates, and the
citiezens of best esteem and substance, accompanied the funerall in very
good order. I carried his head, Blythswood on my right, and Alex. Bell,
Lissies husband, on my left hand; other nerest relations and Sr James
Campbell of Auchinbrook carried all the way. After the funerall, there was
prepared in the large room of the Coffeehouse a very handsome and genteele
treat, to which the Magistrates and Gentlemen and friends were invited.
The treat consisted of confections, sweet breads, and bisket of divers
sorts, very fine and well done, and wines. There were at it upwards of
thirtie. Wee are this day to look to his papers in presence of Bailie
Bowman and town-clark, wherof you shall have account of after this. I have
sent a letter to Sir Robert Pollock just now, whose answer I will wait. I
am like to stay five days after this here, and the time I may stay in Edir
depends on my success from Sir Rot Pollock. In the mean time let Robie
be making himself ready, for his master told Dean of Guild that be
thought he would bee readie to saul about the middle of this instant. When
I come to Edt I shall know whither it will be needfull to send for him
before I come home myselfe or not I recommend you all to the protection of
God, and am,
‘My dear, your
‘W. SCOTT.
