GOLDSMITHS.
The goldsmiths of those days were considered a superior class of tradesmen; they appeared in public with scarlet cloak, cocked hat, and cane, as men of some consideration. Yet in their shops every one of them would have been found working with his own hands at some light labour, in a little recess near the window, generally in a very plain dress, but ready to come forth at a moment’s notice to serve a customer. Perhaps, down to 1780, there was not a goldsmith in Edinburgh who did not condescend to manual labour.
As the whole trade was collected in the Parliament Close, this was of course the place to which country couples resorted, during the last century, in order to make the purchase of silver tea-spoons, which always preceded their nuptials. It was then as customary a thing in the country for the intending bridegroom to take a journey, a few weeks before his marriage, to the Parliament Close, in order to buy the silver spoons, as it was for the bride to have all her clothes and stock of bed-furniture inspected by a committee of matrons upon the wedding eve. And this important transaction occasioned two journeys: one, in order to select the spoons, and prescribe the initials which were to be marked upon them; the other, to receive and pay for them. It must be understood that the goldsmiths of Edinburgh then kept scarcely any goods on hand in their shops, and that the smallest article had to be bespoken from them some time before it was wanted. A goldsmith, who entered as an apprentice about the beginning of the reign of George III., informed me that they were beginning only at that time to keep a few trifling articles on hand. Previously another old custom had been abolished. It had been usual, upon both the occasions above mentioned, for the goldsmith to adjourn with his customer to John’s Coffee-house,[82] or to the Baijen-hole,[83] and to receive the order or the payment, in a comfortable manner, over a dram and a caup of small ale; which were upon the first occasion paid for by the customer, and upon the second by the trader; and the goldsmith then was perhaps let into the whole secret counsels of the rustic, including a history of his courtship—in return for which he would take pains to amuse his customer with a sketch of the city news. In time, as the views and capitals of the Parliament Close goldsmiths became extended, all these pleasant customs were abandoned.[84]
HERIOT’S HOSPITAL
from Greyfriars’ Churchyard.