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THIS year [1760] was
the most important of my life, for before the end of it I was united
with the most valuable friend and companion that any mortal ever
possessed. My youth had been spent in a vain pursuit; for my first
love, which I have mentioned as far back as the year 1735, had kept
entire possession till 1753, by means of her coquetry and my
irresolution. She was of superior understanding as well as beauty.
In this last she would have excelled most women of her time, had she
not been the worst dancer in the world, which she could not be
prevailed on to leave off, though her envious rivals laughed and
rejoiced at her persevering folly. Though she had a bad voice and a
bad ear, she was a great mistress of conversation, having both wit
and humour, and, with an air of haughty prudery, had enough of
coquetry both to attract and retain her lovers, of whom she had
many.
An early inclination
she had to a young gentleman who was prevented from marrying her,
and was soon after killed at the battle of Fontenoy, made her
difficult to please. I had never fairly put the question to her till
about the year 1752, when she expressly refused me. This made me
lessen the number of my visits, and made her restrain her coquetry.
Soon after another came in my way, whose beauty and attractions made
me forget the former, to whom, though she was inferior in sense and
even in beauty, yet being ten years younger, and having gaiety of
spirit, I became deeply enamoured, and was in full belief that I had
gained her affections, when I was informed that she had suddenly
given her hand to a young man in every respect, except in birth
perhaps, beneath her notice. In both those ladies I believe their
vanity prevailed against affection. They could not think of being
wife of a minister. The first attempted after this to ensnare me
again, but I escaped. To have done with her, and to justify me—two
gentlemen of my friends addressed her vehemently, Adam Ferguson, and
Robert Keith the ambassador. The first, who pleased her much, was
rejected for the same reason I was : he had been a clergyman, and
though in a more lucrative profession now, it was not higher. Her
rejection of the second, I believe, was owing chiefly to principle.
Though he was twenty-four years older than her, his rank was an
attraction which balanced that; but she could not bear the idea of
quarrelling with his daughters, some of whom were her companions,
and not much younger than herself. At last, after having rejected
rich and poor, young and old, to the number of half a score, she
gave her hand, at forty-five, to the worst-tempered and most foolish
of all her lovers, who had a bare competency, and which, added to
her fortune, hardly made them independent. They led a miserable
life, and parted; soon after which he died, and she then lived
respectably to an advanced age.
I owed my good
fortune to the friendship of John Home, who pointed out the young
lady to me as a proper object of suit, without which I should never
have attempted it, on account of the inequality of her age and mine,
for she was then just past seventeen when I was thirty-eight. I was
well acquainted with her sister and her as children, and saw that
they were very remarkable; the eldest, Sarah, for beauty and
elegance, accompanied with good sense and a grave and reserved
demeanour; the second for an expressive and lively countenance, with
a fine bloom, and hair of a dark flaxen colour. She had excellent
parts, though uncultivated and uncommon, and a striking cheerfulness
and vivacity of manner. After nine months' courtship, at first by
silent and imperceptible approaches, and for three months by a close
though unwarlike siege, I obtained her heart and hand, and no man
ever made a happier conquest; for, with a superior understanding and
great discernment for her age, she had an ease and propriety of
manners which made her to be well received, and indeed much
distinguished, in every company. Having lost her father and mother
when her sister was five years of age and she only two — the father,
on Christmas Day 1744, and the mother on the same festival in 1745,
of the small-pox — each of their trustees (for they were
co-heiresses of Heathpool in Northumberland, Kirknewton parish, then
only £180 per annum), Mr. Collingwood of Unthank, cousin german of
their mother, took the eldest under his care; and Mr. William Home,
minister of Polwarth, who had married their father's sister, Mary
Roddam, had the charge of the youngest. By this division, Sarah, the
eldest, had seemingly many advantages above her sister, for she
lived with superior people, who frequented, and were indeed allied
to, the best families in their county, attended the best schools in
Newcastle, and was one year in the first boarding-school in
Edinburgh ; and accordingly turned out an elegant and well-bred
woman, speaking perfectly good English, without the roughness
peculiar to the local dialect, and was admired, courted, and
respected wherever she went. Yet Mary, the younger, with no
advantage but that of living with an aunt of superior understanding
and great worth, though much uneducated, and having only one year of
the Edinburgh boarding-school, soon had her mind enlarged and her
talents improved by some instruction, and the conversation of those
who frequented us, insomuch that in not more than one year after our
marriage, she appeared not only without any seeming defect in her
education, but like a person of high endowments. Indeed, the
quickness of her parts and the extent of her understanding were
surprising, and her talent both in speaking and writing, and in
delicacy of taste, truly as admirable as any woman I ever knew. Add
to this that she was noble and generous in the highest degree,
compassionate even to weakness, and, if her friends were in
distress, totally forgetful and negligent of herself. I do not think
it is possible I could derive greater satisfaction from any
circumstance in human life than I did from the high approbation
which was given to my choice by the very superior men who were my
closest and most discerning friends, such as Ferguson, Robertson,
Blair, and Bannatine, not merely by words, but by the open,
respectful, and confidential manner in which they conversed with
her.
On the 14th of
October was made the important change in my situation, in John
Home's house, in Alison's Square, when lie was absent at Lord
Eglintoun's, who had become a favourite of the Earl of Bute's, very
much by John's means. He was, indeed, a very able as well as an
agreeable man, though his education had been sadly neglected. We had
sundry visits next day, and among the foremost came Sir Harry
Erskine and Mr. Alexander Wedderburn. I was not then much acquainted
with the first, but as he was older than me by several years, and
Fanny Wedderburn, [Daughter of Peter Wedderburn, Lord Chesterhall.]
of whom he was then in full pursuit, was as much older than my young
wife, I guessed that the real motive of this visit, as my friend
Wedderburn seldom did anything without a reason, was to see how such
an unequal couple would look on the day after their marriage.
We remained in
Edinburgh till Tuesday the 21st of October, when Baron Grant's lady
came in her coach to carry us to Castlesteads, some necessary
repairs in the manse not being yet finished. There I had the
pleasure to find that my wife could acquit herself equally well in
all companies, and had nothing to wish for in the article of
behaviour. We went home on Saturday morning, and the Grants followed
us to dinner, and were met by the Cardonnels.
While I was busy with
this important change in my domestic state, I was applied to by a
friend to write a satirical pamphlet in my ironical style against
the opposers of the Scotch Militia Bill, which had been rejected in
the preceding session. Being too much engaged to attempt anything of
that kind at the time, I proposed that it should be intrusted to
Adam Ferguson, then living at Inveresk, preparing his academical
lectures. My friend answered that he was excellent at serious works,
but could turn nothing into ridicule, as he had no humour: I
answered, that he did not know him sufficiently, but advised him to
go and try him, as he would undertake nothing that he was not able
to execute. This happened about the month of August, and Ferguson
having undertaken it, executed that little work called Sister Peg,
in the style of Dr. Arbuthnot's John Bull, which excited both
admiration and animosity. The real author was carefully concealed,
though it was generally ascribed to me, as I had written two small
pieces in the same ironical style. The public had no doubt but that
it was the work of one out of four of us, if not the joint work of
us all. The secret was well kept by at least ten or a dozen males
and females. This pamphlet occasioned a very ludicrous scene between
David Hume and Dr. Jardine, who was in the secret. David was a great
blab, and could conceal nothing that he thought for the honour of
his friends, and therefore it had been agreed to tell him of none of
our productions, except such as might have been published at the
Cross. He sent for Jardine, whom he first suspected of being the
author, who denying his capacity for such a work, he fixed on me
(never dreaming of Ferguson) ; and when Jardine pretended ignorance,
or refused to gratify him, he told him he had written it himself in
an idle hour, and desired Jardine to mention him as the author
everywhere, that it might not fall on some of us, who were not so
able to bear it. This I could not have believed, had not David
himself written me a letter to that purpose, which I shall
transcribe in the margin. [The letter will be found in the Life and
Correspondence of David Hume, ii. 88.—J. H. B.]
His Majesty George
ii. died on the 25th of October, which put the whole nation in
mourning. John Home came to town for a night or two, on his way to
London, with Lord Eglinton, when began his greatness, for he might
really have been said to have been the second man in the kingdom
while Bute remained in power, which influence he used not to his own
advancement to wealth or power—for he never asked anything for
himself, and, strange to tell, never was offered anything by his
patron—but for the service of his friends, or of those who, by
flattery and application, acquired the title of such, for he was
easily deluded by pretences, especially to those of romantic valour.
The celebrated Colonel Johnston, afterwards Governor of Minorca,
owed to him his being restored to the line of preferment of which
the late King had deprived him, for his insolent behaviour to a
country gentleman in the playhouse; and George Johnstone likewise.
[The former, James Johnston, became subsequently Governor of Quebec.
George Johnstone was Governor of West Florida, and author of
Thoughts on our Acquisitions in the East Indies. - J.H.B.]
Towards the end of
December I went to Polwarth with Mr. Home, my wife's uncle, and one
of her guardians, and went to Unthank to visit Mr. Collingwood the
other, with Forrester the attorney, to settle our affairs—a trusty
fellow, who had already made a large fortune, and, what amused me
much, taken the tone of a discontented patriot so strongly against
the ministry of his Grace, that they were obliged in a year or two
to let him have a share in the management. Alexander Collingwood of
Unthank, Esq., the cousin-german of my wife's mother, was weak and
vainglorious, proud of his family, and in all, and above all, of his
wife, whom he obliged us to visit, and whom we found very handsome
and very clever —too much so for the squire.
We returned by
Langton, as we had come, where lived Alexander Davidson and his
wife--two worthy people, who had acquired an independent estate by
farming, which had not been frequently done at that time. [Heathpool],
our estate, lies three miles from Langton, south-west, up Beumont
Water, and is a beautiful Highland place. I had not been absent
above five or six days, and found my wife at my father's, where she
was the joy and delight of the old folks. At that time, indeed, she
was irresistible ; for to youth and beauty she added a cheerful
frankness and cordiality in her manner, which, joined with an
agreeable elocution and lively wit, attracted all who saw her, which
was not relished by my old flame, who, in the midst of forced
praise, attempted a species of detraction, which was completely
foiled by the good-humoured indifference, or rather contempt, with
which it was received. This young lady, of uncommon parts and
understanding, but a degree of vanity on account of trifling or
imaginary qualities, ended her career at last in a very exemplary
manner, as I have before stated.
Early in this year
(1761) my wife's elder sister, Miss Roddam, paid. us a visit, and
remained with us till she was married. She was a beautiful and
elegant young woman, somewhat taller than her sister, and was a
finer woman; but she was grave and reserved; and though she had good
sense, and was perfectly hearty, she was not only inferior to her
sister in point of understanding, but in that lively and striking
expression of feeling and sentiment which never failed to attract.
They were knit
together with the most sisterly love, in which, however, the younger
surpassed, not having one selfish corner in her whole soul, and
being at all times willing to sacrifice her life for those she
loved. This young lady soon attracted our friend Dr. Adam Ferguson's
warmest addresses, to the ardour of which she put an end as soon as
he explained himself, for, with a frankness and dignity becoming her
character, she assured him that, had she not been inviolably engaged
to another gentleman, she would not have hastily rej ected his
addresses, as his character and manner were very agreeable to her,
and therefore prayed him to discontinue his suit to her, as she
could not listen to him on this subject, but would be happy in his
friendship, and the continuance of a society so pleasing to her.
With this he reluctantly complied, but frequented our house as much
as ever till she was married.
The gentleman she was engaged to was John Erasmus Blackett, Esq.,
the youngest brother of Sir Edward Blackett, Bart., of Malfen, [Matfen:
inherited by Sir Edward Blackett through his marriage with Anne,
daughter of Oley Douglas of Matfen. Sir Walter Blackett Coverley
should read Sir W. B. Calverley. Mr. Calverley was heir to a
baronetcy in his own right, and complying with his uncle's (Sir
William Blackett) wishes, he married his cousin (see p. 435),
assumed the name of Blackett and latterly became Sir Walter
Calverley Blackett,] in Northumberland—a man of large fortune, who
represented the elder branch of the Blackett family, then in Sir
Walter Blackett Coverlet', who was the nephew of the late Sir
William Blackett of Newcastle. John E. Blackett was a very handsome
young man, of about thirty, who had been bred at Liverpool with Sir
[ ] Cunliffe, and was now settled partner with Mr. Alderman Simson,
an eminent coal-dealer in Newcastle. John Blackett was called
Erasmus after Erasmus Lewis, who was secretary to Lord Oxford in
Queen Anne's time, and an intimate friend of
his father's, John Blackett, Esq. of [ ], in Yorkshire, who never
was baronet, having died before his uncle, Sir Edward Blackett. John
Erasmus was at this time a captain and paymaster in his brother's
regiment of Northumberland Militia, lately raised, and quartered at
Berwick since March or April 1760. As Miss Roddam was not of age
till March, the marriage was delayed till after that time, when she
could dispose of her moiety of the estate. As this did not shake
Miss Roddam, that quieted a suspicion which some of her friends
entertained that he meant to draw off. But he came and visited us in
the end of January, when every shadow of doubt of his fulfilling his
engagement was dissipated.
I was only afraid
that a man so imperfectly educated as he had been, and of ordinary
talents, could not long predominate in the breast of a young lady
who had sense and sensibility enough to relish the conversation of
the high-minded and enlightened philosopher, who had enough of the
world, however, to be entitled to the name of the Polite
Philosopher.
I returned with Mr.
Blackett in the beginning of February to Berwick and Wooler, where I
met the trustees, where the estate was let to Ralph Compton, the
second son of our former tenant, for the usual term, and rose from
£i8o per annum to £283. Before we parted, Mr. Blackett settled with
me that he would come to us in April, and complete his engagement.
He went on from Alnwick, and I to the roup at Wooler.
He came, accordingly,
at the time appointed, from Berwick, attended by a brother captain,
Edward Adams, whose mother was a Collingwood, a grandaunt of the
young ladies. They came first to my house for a day, and went to
Edinburgh, where we followed them two days after, where the young
couple were married by Mr. Car of the English chapel, as they were
both Episcopalians.
The day after the
marriage Blackett gave us a handsome dinner at Fortune's, for which
he only charged half-a-crown a-head, and said he then never charged
more for the best dinner of two courses and a dessert which he could
set down. Mr. Ferguson dined with us. Next day they came to
Musselburgh for two days, and then departed for Newcastle through
Berwick, where the regiment still was. There-,was one thing very
remarkable of that regiment, which, though six hundred strong, from
all parts of the county, yet lost not one man for one year and four
months. So much for the healthiness of Berwick.
My younger sister,
Janet, a beautiful, elegant, and pleasing young woman, was married
at London, where she had gone to be with her sister, on August 3oth,
1760, with Captain Thomas Bell, a nephew of Provost Bell's, who had
been captain of a trading vessel in the Mediterranean, and having
been attacked by a Spanish privateer, took her after a short
engagement, and got ;i000 as his share of the prize. He was a very
sensible, clever man, much esteemed by his companions, and had
become an insurance broker.
On the first of July
this year my wife brought me a daughter, and my sister gave a son to
Thomas Bell on the 6th of the same month. He was the first of eight
sons she had, seven of whom were running, of whom Carlyle, whom we
took in 1782 at two years old, is the youngest, who are all alive in
1804, and eight daughters all well married, and have many children.
His Grace Archibald
Duke of Argyle died early in spring, as suddenly almost, and at the
same age of seventy-seven, as His Majesty, George II., had done in
October preceding. On this occasion Lord Bute wrote a very kind
letter to Lord Milton, the friend and sub-minister of Argyle,
lamenting his loss, and assuring him that there should be no change
in respect to him. Adam Ferguson was with Milton when he received
this letter, to whom he gave it after reading it, saying, " Is this
man sincere ? " to which Ferguson, on perusal, "I have no doubt that
he was so when he wrote it." Milton declined being longer employed;
and it was well, for he soon fell into that decline of mental powers
which lasted till his death in 1766. Lord Bute tried to make his
brother, Stuart M'Kenzie, [James Stuart Mackenzie was Lord Bute's
only brother, who married Lady Elizabeth Campbell, second daughter
of John Duke of Argyle, and sister of the Countess of Dalkeith (see
p. 313). Mr. Mackenzie was minister at Turin, and on the death of
Archibald Duke of Argyle was recalled by his brother to take up the
government of Scottish affairs. "He has been described as most
amiable, remarkably cheerful and pleasant in society, with very
simple tastes and no ambition." With reference to his position as
"sub-minister" for Scotland, Mr. Stuart Mackenzie wrote —"They [the
ministers headed by Grenville] demanded certain terms, without which
they declined coming in; the principal of which was, that I should
be dismissed from the administration of the affairs of Scotland, and
likewise from the office of Privy Seal. His Majesty answered that as
to the first, it would be no great punishment, he believed, to me,
as I had never been very fond of the employment; but as to the
second, I had his promise to continue it for life."—Mitchell MSS.]
succeed Milton, but he neither had talents nor inclination. Baron
Mure, who was a man of business and of sound sense, was employed
while Lord Bute was in power.
In this year I lost
my grandfather and grandmother Robison, truly respectable people in
their day. He died first, at the age of eighty-six, and she, who was
half a year younger than him, gave way to fate just six months after
him.
When my wife was
perfectly recovered, I found myself under the necessity of carrying
her to Newcastle to visit her sister, to whom she was most tenderly
attached. Mr. Blackett was then living in Pilgrim Street, a small
but very pleasant house near the gate. This was in the beginning of
October, when the judges were in town, and a great crowd of company.
Mr. Blackett's brother Henry, the clergyman, was then with him, who
was an Oxonian, a good scholar, and a very agreeable man of the
world. We were visited by all their friends in Newcastle and in the
neighbourhood, and made many agreeable acquaintances. Sir Walter
Blackett was one who lived in a fine old house, directly opposite to
M r. Blackett. He was a very genteel, fine-looking man, turned of
forty, who had not been happy with his lady, the daughter (natural)
of his uncle, Sir William Blackett, who had left him and her heirs
of his estate, provided they intermarried. He fulfilled the will
most cordially, for he was in love with his cousin; but she
reluctantly, because she did not care for him. By report she was of
superior understanding to him; for he was not a man of remarkable
parts, but strong in friendship, liberality, and public spirit; and
he had a great fortune, not less than £20,000, with which he amply
gratified his own disposition. He was ostentatious, and fond of
popularity, which he gained by his public charities ; but lived to
lose it entirely. He was long member from the town of Newcastle, but
never would ask any favours of ministers, while in the mean time he
brought in a clever colleague, a Mr. Ridley, who got all the favours
from ministers, having both Sir Walter's interest and his own, by
which the credit of the former with his townsmen was much shaken.
Our sister, Mrs.
Blackett, luckily proved a great favourite of Sir Walter's, as his
cousin, John Erasmus, had been before, to whom he gave the payment
of his lead mines, which being very productive, was a place of
profit.
Mr. Collingwood of
Chirton was another valuable acquaintance : he was Recorder of the
town, and a lawyer of great ability. Though but the second brother,
he had acquired the family estate in consequence of the dissipation
of the elder, who was representative of an ancient family, and whose
son is Vice-Admiral Collingwood, the husband of Mrs. Blackett's
eldest daughter. [In the Recollections occurs this interesting note
regarding Admiral Collingwood's family, written in 1804:—"To amuse
myself I am going from home first to my niece Mrs. Admiral
Collingwood's at Morpeth and her two daughters, who are among my
nearest cousins. She is an excellent person with plain good sense
and such an excellent heart that it can be no effort to love her,
had even her near relation to, and her most affectionate filial love
for, the person I loved best not recommended her to my choice."] The
Recorder had acquired Chirton by marriage ; for a laird of Roddam,
one of the five families in the county who were proprietors before
the Conquest, having been an attorney at Newcastle, had purchased
the estate of Chirton, which he left to his two daughters, Mary and
Elizabeth, one of whom married a Mr. Hilton Lawson, and the other
Mr. Collingwood, while the ancient manor of Roddam went by entail to
his nephew, Admiral Roddam. There were two houses at Chirton, only
divided from each other by a road; and by far the best was the
possession of Mary, the eldest sister, and her husband Lawson, which
had, in the end of the seventeenth century, belonged to Archibald,
the first Duke of Argyle, who had built or repaired it as a
convenient place between London and Inverary on his journey to and
from the capital. It was at this house that he died, on one of those
journeys. This house is now the possession of Adam de Cardonnel
Lawson, Esq., which was left to his mother, Ann Hilton, by her
cousin Hilton Lawson ; because if her brother, a Rev. Mr. Hilton,
had not died, he would have fallen heir to that and several other
estates of Mr. Lawson's. This gentleman is the son and heir of my
old friend Mansfelt de Cardonnel, formerly mentioned.
Those families
adopted our two wives as their relations, as their father was a
descendant of the family of Roddam, and their mother of that of
Collingwood of Unthank, who was related to both.
At this period there
were not many conversible gentlemen in Newcastle, which made one
value Mr. Collingwood the more; for the men were in general very ill
educated, while the ladies, who were bred in the south, by their
appearance and manners, seemed to be very unequally yoked. The
clergy at the time were almost all underbred, there being only one
vicar in the town, and the rest only curates or lecturers. Sometimes
a neighbouring clergyman of university education accepted of a
lectureship for the sake of living in town in the winter, though the
salaries were no more than £100; yet, had it not been for the
ladies, the state of society would have then been disagreeable. For
many years past it has been totally different.
At a grand dancing
assembly our ladies were gratified as much as they could be, for
Mrs. Blackett had the honour of dancing with the Duke of Portland,
and her sister with Viscount Torrington, and had the approbation of
a very numerous company for their genteel appearance and good looks.
His Grace had come
down to take care of his parliamentary interest, having great
estates in the northern counties. He was opposed in Cumberland by
Sir James Lowther, who, after a ten years' war, drove the beaten
Duke, with infinite loss of money, out of the north. Lowther went
off conqueror, but more detested than any man alive, as a shameless
political sharper, a domestic bashaw, and an intolerable tyrant over
his tenants and dependents. John Home cried him up as the bravest
and most generous of men; and he flattered and obliged John because
he had the ear of Lord Bute, whose eldest daughter, an amiable and
patient woman, he had married and abused. Home prevailed with him to
prefer George Johnstone, the Governor of Florida, to Admiral Elliot,
for one of his seats in Parliament, though lie was by no means the
best man of the two; but what was still more flattering to John, in
two duels he was involved in (neither of which, however, took
place), he took him for his second. John cried him up for every good
quality, while Ferguson, who had seen him often, said lie thought
him a very stupid man. Bob Hume, who lived nine months in his house
in London, attending his cousin, Sir Michael Fleming, with whom lie
went to Groningen, thought him a capricious, and sometimes a brutal,
head of a family. Robert Adam told me many stories of him, which
made me conclude that he was truly a madman, though too rich to be
confined.
As Mrs. C. had never
been in that country before, we made several excursions in the
neighbourhood, such as to Tynemouth and Durham; and on our return
home visited the Roddams, though there were only there the old lady
and her two daughters. The Admiral, who succeeded his elder brother
in a few years, built himself a handsome house, and improved the
place. He had three wives, but no children.
In the beginning of
1762 was instituted the famous club called "The Poker," which lasted
in great vigour down to the year 1784. About the third or fourth
meeting, we thought of giving it a name that would be of uncertain
meaning, and not be so directly offensive as that of Militia Club to
the enemies of that institution. Adam Ferguson fell luckily on the
name of "Poker," which we perfectly understood, and was at the same
time an enigma to the public. This club consisted of all the
literati of Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, most of whom had been
members of the Select Society, except very few indeed who adhered to
the enemies of militia, together with a great many country
gentlemen, who, though not always resident in town, yet were zealous
friends to a Scotch militia, and warm in their resentment on its
being refused to us, and an invidious line drawn between Scotland
and England. The establishment was frugal and moderate, as that of
all clubs for a public purpose ought to be. We met at our old
landlord's of the Diversorium, now near the Cross, the dinner on the
table soon after two o'clock, at one shilling a-head, the wine to be
confined to sherry and claret, and the reckoning to be called at six
o'clock. After the first fifteen, who were chosen by nomination, the
members were to be chosen by ballot, two black balls to exclude the
candidate. There was to be a new preses chosen at every meeting.
William Johnstone, [William Johnstone was the third son of Sir James
Johnstone, third baronet of Westerhall. The eldest son James (see p.
188) succeeded to the baronetcy, and William by his marriage with
the only daughter of Daniel Pulteney assumes that name, and on his
wife's death acquired the property. He was created Sir William
Pulteney, and on the death of his brother Sir James Johnstone,
succeeded him as fifth baronet of Westerhall. At his death in 1805
Sir William was reputed one of the wealthiest men in the British
Empire; but according to the Rev. Thomas Somerville (Memoir of my
Life and Tinges), the baronet did not live according to his
position,] Esq., now Sir William Pulteney, was chosen secretary of
the club, with a charge of all publications that might be thought
necessary by him, and two other members with whom he was to consult.
In a laughing humour, Andrew Crosbie was chosen Assassin, in case
any officer of that sort should be needed; but David Hume was added
as his Assessor, without whose assent nothing should be done, so
that between Plus and minus there was likely to be no bloodshed.
This club continued
to be in great perfection for six or seven years, because the
expense was moderate, while every member was pleased with the
entertainment as well as the company. During these seven years, a
very constant attendant told me that he never observed even an
approach to inebriety in any of the members. At the end of that
period, by means of an unlucky quarrel between one or two of the
members and our landlord, who was an absurd fool, the club left his
house and went to Fortune's, the most fashionable tavern in town,
where the dinners were more showy, but not better, and the wines
only dearer; but the day's expense soon came to three times as much
as the ordinary bill at Thomas Nichol-son's, which made many of the
members, not the least conversible, lessen the number of days of
attendance; and what was worse, as the club had long drawn the
attention of the public, many members were admitted whose minds were
not congenial with the old members. When this change seemed to be in
danger of essentially hurting the club, a few of us had recourse to
a plan for keeping the old members together, which was that of
establishing a new club, to be called the "Tuesday," to meet on that
day, and dine together, without deserting the Poker. This lasted for
two years at Sommer's tavern ; for we did not go to Nicholson's, for
fear of giving offence. In the mean time, the Poker dwindled away by
the death or desertion of many of the members who had lately been
brought in, and then we broke up the Tuesday, and frequented the
Poker. I found in the hands of Ferguson a list of this club, taken
in 1774, and wrote by Commissioner James Edgar, to which, in other
hands, were added the new members as they were elected. I have seen
no list previous to this ; but from 1762 to '84, sundry members must
have died, two of whom I remember—viz., Dr. Jardine and Ambassador
Keith; Dr. Gregory, too, might be added, but he did not attend above
once or twice. The amount of the whole on this list is sixty-six.
[The list has been already printed in the Supplement to Tytler's
Life of Karnes, with some inaccurate extracts from Carlyle's MS.
This is the best extant account of this curious institution, and
nothing of value could be added to it even from the minutes of its
proceedings, which the Editor saw in the hands of the late Sir Adam
Ferguson.—J. H. B.] When James Edgar was in Paris with Sir Laurence
Dundas, his cousin, during the flourishing state of this club, he
was asked by D'Alembert to go with him to their club of literati at
Paris; to which he answered that he had no curiosity to visit them,
as he had a club at Edinburgh, with whom he dined weekly, composed,
he believed, of the ablest men in Europe. Similar to this was a
saying of Princess Dashcoff, when disputing one day with me at
Buxton about the superiority of Edinburgh, as a residence, to most
other cities in Europe, when, having alleged sundry particulars in
which I thought we excelled, none of which she would admit of—"No,"
says she, "but I know one article which you have not mentioned, in
which I must give you the precedency; which is, that of all the
sensible men I have met with in my travels through Europe, yours at
Edinburgh are the most sensible." Let me add one testimony more,
that of the Honourable General James Murray, Lord Eli-bank's
brother, a man of fashion and of the world. Being at the Cross (the
'Change) one day, just before the hour of dinner, which by that time
was prolonged to three o'clock, he came up to me, and asked me if I
had yet met with his brother Elibank. I answered, "No; was he
expecting him in town that day?" "Yes," said he; "he promised to
come, and introduce me to the Poker." "If that is all your
business," replied I, "and you will accept of me as your introductor,
I shall be glad of the honour; and perhaps your brother may come
late, as he sometimes does." He accepted, and the club happened to
be very well attended. When we broke up, between seven and eight
o'clock, it being summer, and I was proceeding down street to take
my horse to Mussel-burgh, he came up with me, and exclaimed, "Ah,
Doctor! I never was so much disappointed in all my life as at your
club, for I expected to sit silent and listen to a parcel of pedants
descanting on learned subjects out of my range of knowledge; but
instead of that, I have met with an agreeable, polite, and lively
company of gentlemen, in whose conversation I have joined and
partaken with the greatest delight." As Murray was a very acute and
sensible man, I took this as a very high compliment to the manners
as well as the parts of our club. ["Although the great object of
these meetings was national, of which they never lost sight, they
had also happy effects on private character by forming and polishing
the manners which are suitable to civilised society, for they
banished pedantry from the conversation of scholars, and exacted the
ideas and enlarged the views of the gentry and created in the
several orders a new interest in each other which had not taken
place before in the country."—Graham's Scottish Men of Letters
(Carlyle MSS.).]
In April this year
Mrs. C. went to Newcastle, to attend her sister, who was to lie-in
of her first child. I went with her to Langton in Northumberland,
and returned home, Mrs. B. having met her there.
I attended the
Assembly of which I was a member, for the first time out of my
course, when Dr. Trail of Glasgow was Moderator. He put upon me the
three addresses which were sent up from this Assembly to the King,
the Queen, and the Princess-Dowager of Wales, on the marriage of
their Majesties, which were thought to be well composed, especially
that to His Majesty. This even met with the approbation of the
Commissioner, [Charles, Lord Cathcart,] though not pleased with me,
when on one of the preceding years I had helped to raise bad humour
against him for inviting Whitefield to dine at his table, and
another year he had entertained [a design] of dissolving the
Assembly before the second Sunday. To be sure, the business before
us was but slack, yet had we allowed the precedent to take place, we
should never have recovered that Sunday more.
On the last day of
this Assembly I learned, to my great joy, that my friend Dr. William
Wight was presented by the King to the vacant chair of History at
Glasgow. As he was my near relation, his advancement, in which I had
a chief hand, was very pleasing ; and as he was the most agreeable
of all men, his coming near me promised much enjoyment.
Towards the end of
June I was earnestly requested by William Johnstone, Esq., now
Pulteney, to accompany his uncle, Lord Elibank, on some jaunt, to
take him from home, as he had just lost his lady, and was in bad
spirits. I agreed, on condition that he would take the road which I
wished to go, which was to Newcastle, to bring home Mrs. Carlyle.
This was agreed to, and I went to him in a day or two, and we set
out on the 27th of June ; and as he travelled with his own horses,
we did not arrive there till the 29th to dinner. My fellow-traveller
was gloomy, and lamented his wife very much, who had been a beauty
in her youth, and was a Dutch lady of fortune, the widow of Lord
North and Grey. He himself was now turned sixty, and she was ten
years older. She was a weak woman, but very observant of him, and
seemed proud of his wit and fine parts, and had no uneasiness about
his infidelities, except as they affected his prospects in a future
world. She had a large jointure, which he lost, which added to his
affliction. But she had brought a large sum besides, and, falling in
with his humour of saving, from being a very poor lord she had made
him very wealthy. When he arrived at Newcastle, he was at first
overcome with the sight of my wife, who was well acquainted with his
lady; but her sympathy, and the gentle manners of her sister,
attracted his notice. He had by nature very great sensibility ; he
admired, and had once loved, his wife, whom he was conscious he had
injured. In this tender state of vexation, mixed with grief and
penitence, he met at Newcastle with a very handsome young lady, Miss
Maria Fielding, a niece of Sir John Fielding, whose manners,
softened by his recent loss and melancholy appearance, so much
subdued him, that he fell suddenly in love, and was ashamed and
afflicted with his own feelings, falling into a kind of a hysterical
fit. Mrs. Carlyle told me afterwards that she had made him confess
this, which he said he did because he saw she had found him out.
Hearing that some of his friends were at Harrogate, he left us on
the fourth or fifth day, and went there: at this place there was
plenty of gay company, and play, and every sort of amusement for an
afflicted widower, so that his lordship soon forgot his lady and her
jointure, and Maria Fielding, and all his cares and sorrow, and
became the gayest man in the whole house before the month of July
elapsed.
As we were to go
round by Dumfries to visit my sister Dickson, who had fallen into a
decline, and was drinking goats' whey in the neighbourhood, we
proposed to take the road to Carlisle from Newcastle; and Mrs.
Carlyle not being very strong, we got Mr. Blackett's chaise for the
first day's journey. After you have got ten or twelve miles west
from Newcastle, the country becomes dreary and desolate, without a
single interesting object but what employs the curious research of
the antiquarian—the remains of that Roman wall which was constructed
to prevent the inroads of the barbarians on the Roman provinces or
the defenceless natives. The wall in many parts is wonderfully
entire; and while it demonstrates the art and industry of the
Romans, brings full in our view the peace and security we now enjoy
under a government that unites the interest and promotes the common
prosperity of the whole island. We slept at Glenwhilt, a paltry
place, and got to Brampton early next day, but had to send to
Carlisle for a chaise, as I did not choose to carry Mr. Blackett's
any further. This place, as is noted in an account of Dr. Wight, is
remarkable for the birth of three persons in the same year, or
nearly so, who got as high in their respective professions as they
possibly could—Dr. Thomas, a son of the rector of the parish, who
came to be Bishop of Rochester; Mr. Wallace, a son of the attorney,
who arrived at the dignity of Attorney-General, and would have been
Chancellor had he lived; and Dr. William Wight, the son of the
dissenting minister, who lived to be Professor of Divinity in
Glasgow.
It was late in the
afternoon before the chaise came from Carlisle, for which I had
sent, so that we not only breakfasted but dined here, when the
cheapness, not less than the goodness, of our fare was surprising,
as 4s. 6d. was the whole expense for Mrs. Carlyle's dinner and mine,
and Blackett's servant, and two horses, mine having gone on to
Carlisle. The environs of Carlisle are beautiful, and Mrs. Carlyle
was much pleased with them. The road from thence to Dumfries is
through a level country, but not very interesting, being at that
time unimproved, and but thinly inhabited. The approach to Dumfries
on every side is pleasing.
My sister Dickson was
down at Newabbey, ten miles below Dumfries, on the west side of the
Nith, for the sake of goats' whey. We went down next day, but found
her far gone in a decline, a disorder which had been so fatal to our
family. She was well acquainted with Mrs. Carlyle's character before
she met her, which she did with the most tender and cheerful
affection. Her appearance, she told me, even surpassed all she had
heard; and for the two days they remained together, there never was
a closer union of two superior minds, softened by tenderness and
adorned with every female virtue. It was difficult to part them, as
they were sure they would meet no more: many confident promises were
made, however, to lighten as much as possible the melancholy
parting, which my sister performed with such angelic gaiety as led
Mrs. Carlyle into the belief that she thought herself in little
danger. I knew the contrary. One thing she did—which was, to confirm
me in the opinion of what an excellent mind it was to which I was
united; but this needed no confirmation. After this scene, Dumfries
and the company of our other friends was irksome, so we made haste
to meet my mother, who had taken the road home from Penrith, having
been so long absent from my father. We found our little girl in
perfect health.
It was this year, in
September, that on the death of Hyndman I succeeded him in the place
of Almoner to the King, an office of no great emolument, but a mark
of distinction, and very convenient, as my stipend was small, for I
kept my resolution to defer a prosecution for an augmentation till
my patron was of age. ["When Dr. Carlyle got what was described as
an exorbitant augmentation, Lord Gardenstone, who differed in almost
every respect from his brother Auchinleck, told the Court that the
Doctor was a fine fellow, in whose company their Lordships would be
delighted ; but in order to enable him to give them a dinner, it
would be proper they should give him something handsome, which the
tithes could well afford."—Ramsay's Scotland and Scotsmen.] I had
reason to expect this office, not only by means of John Home, now
having much of Lord Bute's ear, but from the friendship of Sir
Gilbert Elliot and Sir Harry Erskine, who were friends of Lord Bute.
Charles Townshend, too, had made application at this time, though he
failed me before.
The death of Hyndman
was a disappointment to Robertson in the management of the Church,
which he had now in view. By his preference of Hyndman, he had
provoked Dick, who was a far better man, and proved a very
formidable and vigorous opponent ; for he joined the Wild or
High-flying party, and by moderating their councils and defending
their measures as of ten as he could, made them more embarrassing
than if they had been allowed to follow their own measures. Hyndman
was a clever fellow, a good preacher, and a good debater in church
courts. Cuming had adopted him as his second, and had helped to
bring him from Colinton to the West Church. Being unfortunate in his
family, he had taken to tippling and high politics. He finished his
constitution, and became apoplectic. Cuming and he had quarrelled,
and Robertson, without adverting to his undone constitution.
[The sentence is left unfinished: the intention seems to have been
to say, that Robertson made him second in command to himself as
leader of the Church. Hyndman is referred to in Chap. III., and on
several other occasions. A notice of him will be . found in Morren's
Annals of the General Assembly, ii. 402. - J.H.B.]
It was in about the
end of this year that my sister Bell, and her two children then
born—William and Jessie—came down to pay my father and mother a
visit, and stayed between their houses and ours till the month of
June 1763.
Thomas Cheap, consul
at Madeira, my friend, came to Edinburgh in the beginning of the
year [1763], to visit his friends and look out for a wife. After
having been plied by two or three, he at last fixed on Grace Stuart,
a very pretty girl, and carried her. This pleased his sister well,
who was always looking after quality; for her mother, Lady Ann, was
a sister of the Earl of Murray. This courtship occasioned several
pleasant meetings of private parties at Chrystal's, a tavern in the
parish, where Dr. Robert Finlay, now possessor of Drummore,
displayed such qualities as he had; for he was master of one of the
feasts, having lost a dinner and a ball to the Consul's sister. Ann
Collingwood made a good figure in the dance, but Grace Collingwood
surpassed her.
About the end of
April, my sister, and my wife, and [I, paid] a visit to our friends
in Glasgow, where we were most cordially received by my old friends,
Mr. Dreghorn and sundry other merchants, who were connected with Mr.
Bell in Airdrie, particularly Robin Bogle and the Dunlops. Dr. Adam
Smith and Dr. Black, as well as Dr. Wight, were now here, though the
last had not yet got into his house. We had many agreeable meetings
with them, as well as with our mercantile friends. It was there that
I saw No. 45, when just published by Wilkes, of which Smith said, on
hearing it read, "Bravo! this fellow will either be hanged in six
months, or he will get Lord Bute impeached." ["The plot thickens:
Mr. Wilkes is sent to the Tower for the last North Briton [No. 45],
a paper whose fame must have reached you. It said Lord Bute had made
the King utter a great falsehood in his last speech. This hero is a
bad fellow as ever hero was, abominable in private life, dull in
parliament, but they say very entertaining in a room, and certainly
no bad writer, besides having had the honour of contributing a great
deal to Lord Bute's fall,"—Walpole to Mann.] Supping with him in a
company of twenty-two, when a certain young peer was present, after
a little while I whispered him that I wondered they had set up this
man so high, as I thought him mighty foolish. "We know that
perfectly," said he; "but he is the only lord at our college." To
this day there were not above two or three gentlemen's chaises in
Glasgow, nor hackney-coaches, nor men-servants to attend at table ;
but they were not the worse served.
Soon after we
returned home in the beginning of flay, my sister and her children
returned to London, but took the way by Dumfries to visit their
friends there.
Dr. Robertson was
Moderator of the Assembly this year, and being now Principal of the
University of Edinburgh, had it in his power to be member of
Assembly every year. He had lost Hyndman, but he had now adopted Dr.
John Drysdale, who had married his cousin, one of the Adams, a far
better man in every respect; for he had good talents for business,
though his invincible modesty prevented his speaking in public. He
now managed the Highland correspondence, and became extremely
popular in that division of the Church. Robertson had now Dr. Dick
as his stated opponent, who would have been very formidable had he
not been tied up by his own principles, which were firm in support
of presentations, and by his not having it in his power to be a
member of Assembly more than once in four or five years, on account
of the strict rotation observed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh.
Andrew Crosbie, the
advocate, was another constant and able opponent of Dr. Robertson
and his friends, though hampered a little by the law of patronage.
His maternal uncle, Lord Tinwald, the Justice-Clerk, who was his
patron, being dead, he wished to gain employment by pleasing the
popular side. Fairbairn, the minister of Dumbarton, was another
opponent—brisk and foul-mouthed, who stuck at nothing, and was
endowed with a rude popular eloquence; ["A plain country clergyman,
but of infinite native humour, Fairbairn, minister of Dumbarton,
whose talent for enlivening a debate by pleasantry, or turning the
laugh against his adversary by sarcasm, not rude, though keen, I
have seldom heard equalled by any debater whatever."—Henry
Mackenzie's Life of Home.] but lie was a mere hussar, who had no
steady views to direct him. He was a member of every Assembly, and
spoke in every cause, but chiefly for plunder—that is, applause and
dinners—for he did not seem to care whether he lost or won.
Robertson's soothing manner prevented his being hard-mouthed with
him.
Dr. Robertson had for
his assistants [not only] all the Moderate party in Edinburgh and
the neighbourhood, but many clergymen annually from the most distant
Synods and Presbyteries; who, now that the debates of the Assembly
were carried on with freedom, though still with great order, were
very good speakers and able debaters. There were very few of the lay
elders of much consideration who opposed him; and Henry Dundas (Lord
Melville), who was in himself a host, coming next year to our aid,
[added greatly to our strength, and made the business fashionable,
for till then] many of the superior elders deserted the Assembly,
insomuch that I remember one year, that when a most important
overture was debated there was neither one of the Judges nor of the
Crown lawyers in the Assembly. [The passage in brackets is in the
MS., but not in the Author's hand.]
In May this year we
had a visit from the Blacketts, who did not stay long; and having an
appointment with Dr. Wight to go for a few weeks to Harrogate, we
set out in the beginning of July, and on our way passed some days in
Newcastle, where Wight, who was a stranger, made his usual
impression as one of the most agreeable men they had ever seen. When
we arrived at the Dragon, in Harrogate, however, Wight's vivacity
was alarmed at the shyness of the English, who are backward to make
up to strangers till they have reconnoitred them a while. Wight was
much enraged at this, and threatened either to leave the place, or
to breakfast in a private room. I prevailed with him to have his
table set in the long room, where our demeanour being observed by
the company, we were soon relieved from our awkward situation by an
invitation from two ladies, who had no men with them, to come to
their breakfast-table, according to the custom of the place at this
time. We found them very agreeable, and were envied for our
good-luck. When we entered the dining-room at two o'clock, we were
no longer strangers, and took our places according to the custom of
the house. There were two tables in the dining-room, which held
between thirty and forty apiece, and our places were at the bottom
of that on the right hand, from whence we were gradually to rise to
the top of the room as the company changed, which was daily.
Harrogate at this
time was very pleasant, for there was a constant succession of good
company, and the best entertainment of any watering-place in
Britain, at the least expense. The house we were at was not only
frequented by the Scotch at this time, but was the favourite house
of the English nobility and gentry. Breakfast cost gentlemen only
2d. apiece for their muffins, as it was the fashion for ladies to
furnish tea and sugar; dinner, 1s.; supper, 6d.; chambers, nothing;
wine and other extras at the usual price, and as little as you
please; horses and servants at a reasonable rate. We had two
haunches of venison twice a-week during the season. The ladies gave
afternoon's tea and coffee in their turns, which, coming but once in
four or five weeks, amounted to a trifle. The estates of the people
at our table did not amount to less than £50,000 or £60,000 per
annum, among whom were several members of Parliament ; and they had
not had the precaution to order one newspaper among them all, though
the time was critical ; but Andrew Millar, the celebrated
bookseller, supplied that defect, for he had two papers sent to him
by every post, so that all the baronets and great squires—your Sir
Thomas Claverings, and Sir Harry Grays, and Drummond of
Blairdrurmond—depended upon and paid him civility accordingly ; and
yet when he appeared in the morning, in his old well-worn suit of
clothes, they could not help calling him Peter Pamphlet; for the
generous patron of Scotch authors, with his city wife and her niece,
were sufficiently ridiculous when they came into good company. It
was observed, however, that she did not allow him to go down to the
well with her in the chariot in his morning dress, though she owned
him at dinner-time, as he had to pay the extraordinaries.
As Wight had never
been in York, we went down early on a Sunday morning, when we heard
that the Archbishop and the Judges were to be in the Cathedral. We
had Dr. Hunter, M.D., who at that time frequented Harrogate, for our
guide; but he was kept in such close conversation that he mistook
the road, and led us two miles out of our way, so that we had but
just time to breakfast before we went to church, when the service
being begun, we entered the choir, where it was crowded to the door.
Our eyes were delighted with such a magnificent show, but our ears
were not so highly pleased, for no part of the service seemed to us
to suit the grandeur of the scene. We were invited to dine with Mr.
Scott from Madeira, Thomas Cheap's partner; but Wight had engaged to
dine with the Honourable Archdeacon Hamilton, whose education he had
superintended for a year at Glasgow, and with whom lie was well
acquainted in Ireland, where his preferment lay. His beautiful wife
had eloped from him with a Sir George Warren, and he had received
her again, and was living privately at York till the story became
stale. Wight extolled her beauty and her penitence—and, if I
remember right, they continued to live together, and had sons and
daughters. We passed the evening with Mr. Scott, who had with him a
large party of Americans—Mr. Allen, Justice-General of Pennsylvania,
and his two sons and daughters, fine young people indeed, the eldest
of them not yet twenty years of age: with them there was also a Mr.
Livingstone, and, I think, a sister of his also. Mr. Allen was a man
very open and communicative, and as he was of Scottish extraction,
his grandfather having fled from Stirlingshire to escape the cruel
persecutions of the Presbyterians by Lauderdale and James II., he
seemed partial to us as clergymen from Scotland. He said he intended
to have gone as far as Edinburgh, but found he should not have time
at present, but was to leave his sons in England to complete their
education. He wished us to stay all next day, and come an hour in
the forenoon to examine his lads, to judge to what a length young
men could now be brought in America. This we declined, but agreed to
dine next day, and bring on such conversation as would enable us to
judge better of the young men than any formal examination.
There was a
circumstance that I shall never forget, which passed in one of our
conversations. Dr. Wight and I had seen Dr. Franklin at Edinburgh,
as I have formerly related: we mentioned this philosopher to Mr.
Allen with the respect we thought due, and he answered, "Yes, all
you have said of him is true, and I could add more in his praise;
but though I have now got the better of him, he has cost me more
trouble since he came to reside in our State than all mankind
besides; and I can assure you that he is a man so turbulent, and
such a plotter, as to be able to embroil the three kingdoms, if he
ever has an opportunity." Franklin was after this for several weeks
in Edinburgh with David Hume, but I did not see him, having been
from home on some jaunt. In 1769 or '70 I met him at an invited
dinner in London, at John Stuart's, the Provost's son I think it
was, where he was silent and inconversible, but this was after he
had been refused the office of Postmaster-General of America, and
had got a severe dressing from Wedderburn, then Solicitor or
Attorney-General. We returned to Harrogate in the evening, where Mr.
Scott and his wife joined us next day.
It was my good
fortune at dinner to sit next Mr. Ann, a Roman Catholic gentleman of
Yorkshire, who was very agreeable, and knew the whole company; but
it was our misfortune to lose our new friends very fast, for at the
end of a fortnight I was at the head of a table, above thirty, and,
I remember, had to divide a haunch of venison among fifteen of them
without getting any portion of fat for myself—"but what signifies
that, when you have an opportunity of obliging your friends?" as Sir
J. Dalrymple said to me one day when we had a haunch at the Poker,
flattering me for a good piece, for he was a gourmand. But it was
wonderful to observe how easily we united with our new friends who
took the places of the deceased, for most of them were in reality so
to us. We fell in by accident with a very agreeable man, a Colonel
Roberts, who was lieutenant-colonel of the Royal Irish, and had been
in that country for three years, and had so completely caught the
brogue that it was impossible at first to think him an Englishman
born and bred, which he nevertheless was, and nephew to Lord
Egremont, Secretary of State at the time. This gentleman, by
ill-luck, had been directed to the Salutation Inn, which was the
Quakers' house, of excellent entertainment, but indifferent company.
He took much to Wight and me, and we would fain have drawn him to
our house, but he would not for the world affront the good people,
with whom he had lived a week. So we compromised the matter, and
went sometimes to dine at his house, and he returned the visit and
came to ours. He was truly a man of sense, and of much reading, and
a great master of conversation: he was the first whom I met with who
struck out an idea that has been followed since; for, talking much
of Hume's and Robertson's Histories, he said that Hume appeared to
him to be the Homer and Robertson the Virgil of British
historians,—a criticism that has of late been confirmed by Dugald
Stewart's quotation.
Our friend Captain
Francis Lindsay was at the Granby, who sometimes dined with us, as
we did one day with him, when we understood that Lord Clive and his
train were to dine there; and he had arrived the evening before, of
which Lindsay informed us, and we went in due time to dinner. Clive
was an ill-looking man, with the two sides of his face much unlike,
one of them seeming distorted as with the palsy. When we entered the
long room, he was sitting at a table in a window with a great many
papers before him, which he had received with that day's post. It
was by those despatches that he had learned that his jagire ["A
rent-charge which had been granted him by the Nabob, and which on
the seizure of the territory on which it was charged, by the East
India Company, Lord Clive insisted that the Company should continue
to pay. It was about twenty-five thousand pounds per annum." Note by
Croker to the following reference by Walpole. "The East India
Company, yesterday, elected Lord Clive—Great Mogul; that is, they
have made him Governor-General of Bengal and restored his jaghire."]
was taken from him. Lindsay had watched his countenance from the
moment he got them, but could perceive no change in the muscles of
his face, which were well suited to bad news. But he must have known
before this time what had happened. He sat at some distance from me
on the opposite side, but he seemed to converse with nobody during
dinner, and left the table immediately after. There were
half-a-dozen people with him, among whom were his favourite
secretaries, both jolly fellows, who loved a glass of claret, which
Lindsay recommended to them, and which was truly good.
Thomas Cheap, my
friend from Madeira, who had been married at Inveresk with Grace
Stuart, came to Harrogate, according to his promise, to visit
Lindsay and me. He came to the Dragon, and remained four days with
us. She was very handsome and spirited, and made a great impression.
Robert Berry and his beautiful wife were there at the same time, and
it could not be doubted that she was the finer woman of the two ;
yet our fair Caledonian had so much frankness and spirit, and danced
so exquisitely, that she carried off all hearts, insomuch that there
was a sensible degree of regret and gloominess in the company for a
quarter of an hour at least after she left it.
Wight and I rode one
day to Hackfell, a place of the Aislabies, a few miles beyond Ripon,
through a most delightful country, no part of which is finer than
Ripley. Hackfell consists of a few wooded hills on both sides of a
valley, terminating in a fine village on the banks of a small river,
called Masham. There are fine walks cut through the woods, which
make the place very delightful. Many such are now in Scotland, since
our great proprietors have found the way to lay open the secret
beauties of their romantic domains to strangers. Not being able to
reach Harrogate to dinner, we tried to get something at Grewelthorpe,
the adjacent village ; but there was no fire in the house, nor
anything indeed, but very bad oat bread and some ordinary cheese.
Rummaging about in the awmry, however, I found at last about two
pounds' weight of cold roast-veal, which was a great prize,
especially now that two gentlemen had joined us, an Hanoverian
nobleman, and a Dr. Dod from London—not he of infamous memory, but
another of perfect good character and very agreeable manners. We
visited many fine places in the neighbourhood, and particularly
Hare-wood, the seat of Squire Lascelles, now Lord Hare-wood, where
there is a very fine house built by Robert Adam,and then not
inhabited. The house might have had a finer site, had it been a
quarter of a mile more to the north, where there is a full view of
one of the finest vales in Yorkshire. Next year I visited this place
again with my wife and the Blacketts, and having been rebuked by Sir
David Dalrymple [Lord Hailes] for having omitted it before (because
I was ignorant of its curiosity), I went into the village church and
saw the monument of the Chief-Justice Gascoigne, a native here, who
had arrested Henry V., when Prince of Wales, for a riot.
Harrogate abounded
with half-pay officers and clergymen. The first are much the same at
all times, ill educated, but well bred; and when you now and then
meet with a scholar such as Colonel Roberts, or my old friend whom I
knew when Lieutenant Ward at Musselburgh—a little stuttering fellow,
about the year 1749, who had read Polybius and Caesar twice over,
and who rose to be a general and commander of the cavalry in
Ireland—you will find him as intelligent as agreeable. Of the clergy
I had never seen so many together before, and between this and the
following year I was able to form a true judgment of them. They are
in general —I mean the lower order—divided into bucks and prigs; of
which the first, though inconceivably ignorant, and sometimes
indecent in their morals, yet I held them to be most tolerable,
because they were unassuming, and had no other affectation but that
of behaving themselves like gentlemen. The other division of them,
the prigs, are truly not to be endured, for they are but
half-learned, are ignorant of the world, narrow-minded, pedantic,
and overbearing. And now and then you meet with a Tara avis who is
accomplished and agreeable, a man of the world without
licentiousness, of learning without pedantry, and pious without
sanctimony; but this is a rara avis.
This was the first
time I had seen John Bull at any of his watering-places, and I
thought it not difficult to account for his resort to them. John is
an honest and worthy person as any in the world, but he is seldom
happy at home. He has in his temper a shyness that approaches to
timidity, and a deference for the opinion of his servant that
overawes him, and keeps him in constraint at home, while he is led
into unreasonable expense. At his watering-places he is free from
these shackles; his reserve is overcome by the frankness of those he
meets; he is master of his servants, for he carries only two with
him; and the man of £10,000 per annum can spend no more than the man
of £500, so that the honest man finds himself quite unfettered, and
is ready to show his kind and sociable disposition; he descends from
his imaginary dignity by mixing with those who are richer than
himself, and soon shows you what he really is, viz, the very best
sort of man in the world. The late wars have been very favourable to
the improving and disclosing his character, for instead of going
into France, where he was flattered, laughed at, and plundered, he
is now obliged to make all his summer excursions round his own
country, where his heart expands; and, being treated as he deserves,
returns home for the winter happy and much improved.
At this period
everything was cheap and good at Harrogate, except wine, which,
unless it was their claret, which was everywhere good and
reasonable, was very bad indeed. John Bull, however, has little
taste, and does not much care ; for provided he goes to bed muzzy,
whether it be with his own native drink, ale, or sophisticated port,
he is perfectly contented.
As I designed to
convey Wight to Dumfries, and Captain Lindsay was going by Lochmaben
to visit his brother James, the minister, we agreed to set out
together, and made a very agreeable journey. Some part of the road
was dreary after we passed Sir Thomas Robertson's, which is a fine
place, and where there is an inscription fairly acknowledging that
the family took its rise from a Scotch pedlar. When we approached
Appleby, we were delighted with the appearance of the country,
which, being a mixture of hill and dale, of wood and water, of
cultivated and uncultivated, is far more pleasing to the eye and the
imagination than those rich plains which are divided into small
squares or parallelograms, which look like bleach-fields for cotton,
on the banks of the Clyde or Leven. At Penrith we resolved to stop a
day, to rest our horses, and to take the opportunity of going to
visit the lake Keswick, of which we had heard so much. Next morning
we took a post-chaise and four and drove thither, over a rough road,
through a barren country to the village, at a distance of eighteen
miles. We were unlucky, for it proved a rainy afternoon, so that we
could not sail on the lake, and saw everything to great
disadvantage. We returned to Penrith, where we had good
entertainment and excellent claret.
Next morning we set
out northwards, and separated from Captain Lindsay when we came to
Long-town, for he went to Lochmaben, and we took the road to
Dumfries, where, after staying a few days, I took the road home by
Moffat, and Wight went over to Ireland, once more to visit his
friends there. I found my wife and little daughter in good health,
with a fair prospect of another ere long. My wife had supposed that
I had some scorbutic symptoms, which had been removed by Harrogate
waters.
The remainder of the
season passed on as usual, but I was not any more from home, except
now and then in Edinburgh at the Poker Club, which ceased to meet by
the 12th of August, and reopened on the 12th of November.
Luke Home, our aunt
Home's youngest son, came to us to be at the school a year or two
before, and remained four years. Their daughter, Betty, came after,
and stayed two or three years. On the first day of December this
year my wife brought me a second daughter, which, after trying in
vain to nurse, she gave to a very faithful and trusty woman in
Fisherrow, who, after remaining one quarter with us, we allowed to
take the child to her own house, where she continued to thrive to
our entire satisfaction. |
