THE COUNT OF ALBANY.
While the Count of Albany was thus dreamily looking towards London, and the Scottish poet was playfully hesitating in his allegiance, there was a Jacobite whose neck was once very near the noose of the halter, but who now was a man whom the Hanoverian king delighted to honour.
There is no more perfect illustration of the now utter nothingness of Jacobitism than may be found in an incident which took place at St. James’s this year, namely, the knighting of a man who had fought at Culloden and forged notes in the service of Charles Edward, whom he looked upon as his king, and which king was still existing in Italy. That man was the celebrated engraver, Robert Strange.
ROBERT STRANGE.
Strange was an Orcadean lad, who was early destined to study law, but who, hating the study, entered on board a man-of-war, out of intense love of the sea, and grew sick of it in half a year. He turned to what he hated, and seated himself on a high stool in the law office of his brother David, in Edinburgh. But there the real natural bent of his genius declared itself, and he was discovered, after drawing drafts of deeds, leases and covenants, drawing portraits, buildings, and landscapes, on the back of them. David was a sensible man: he straightway articled his brother Robin to Cooper, the celebrated engraver, for six years. Robin served his time with credit to himself. The world of art still profits by Robin’s assiduity. He was out of his time, and twenty-three years of age when, in 1744, bonnie Isabella Lumisden’s beauty made prisoner of his soul. ‘No man may be lover of mine,’ said Isabella, ‘who is not ready to fight for my prince.’ Strange, forthwith, became Isabella’s slave and Charles Edward’s soldier. Isabella’s father, also her better known brother, Andrew Lumisden, and herself, were uncompromising Jacobites. Robin became as ultra as any of them. His first contribution to the cause was an engraved likeness of Charles Edward. His second was his plate of a promissory note, for the paper currency by which the Jacobite army was to pay its way, the note to be duly cashed after the Restoration of the Stuart dynasty! Robin became the prince’s ‘moneyer,’ and a gentleman of his Life Guards. Strange went through it all, from the first fray to the overthrow at Culloden. He escaped from the field, played a terrible game of hide-and-seek for his life, and at last reached Edinburgh. His old master Cooper is quoted by Robin’s biographer, Dennistoun, as his authority for saying that, ‘when hotly pressed, Strange dashed into the room where his lady (Isabella Lumisden), whose zeal had enlisted him in the fatal cause, sat singing at her needlework, and, failing other means of concealment, was indebted for safety to her prompt invention. As she quietly raised her hooped gown, the affianced lover quickly disappeared beneath its ample contour; where, thanks to her cool demeanour and unfaltering notes, he lay undetected while the rude and baffled soldiery vainly ransacked the house.’ Strange escaped, but he returned to Edinburgh, where he privately engraved portraits of the chiefs in both factions, and drew designs for fans, which were sold in London as well as in Edinburgh.
STRANGE’S ADVENTURES.
There is a mystery as to how such a double offender as Strange—rebel soldier and fabricator of fictitious bank-notes—was allowed to live unmolested in Edinburgh. He himself, though now never ‘wanted,’ in a police sense, grew uneasy. He married Isabella Lumisden in 1747, and for some years he was better known to the Jacobite colony at Rouen,—and in other cities—than he was at home. Mrs. Strange devoted her children to the Jacobite cause. In the cap of her first-born, a daughter, she fastened a couple of white roses; and she wrote of her second, Mary Bruce:—‘I have taken great care of her education. For instance: whenever she hears the word whig mentioned, she grins and makes faces that would frighten a bear; but when I name the Prince, she kisses me and looks at her picture; and greets you well for sending the pretty gumflower. I intend she shall wear it at the coronation.’ The Jacobite lady hoped to see that, and to let her windows at great profit when James III. should pass by there to Holyrood.
STRANGE IN LONDON.
Strange led a somewhat wandering life, but always for great purposes of art, while his family remained in Scotland. He was even in London, all Jacobite and unpardoned as he was, in the year of the accession of George III.; in which year Walpole wrote to Mann, at Florence:—‘I am going to give a letter for you to Strange, the engraver, who is going to visit Italy. He is a first-rate artist, and by far our best. Pray countenance him, though you may not approve his politics. I believe Albano’ (the residence of the Chevalier de St. George) ‘is his Loretto.’
In Italy, Jacobite Strange not only triumphantly pursued his career as an engraver, but proved himself a far more profitable agent in purchasing foreign pictures for English connoisseurs at home, than Hanoverian Dalton. In 1765, he was applying to Lord Bute, as a loyal subject, to be allowed to live without fear of molestation in London. After the death of the old Chevalier, this liberty was granted to whomsoever cared to apply for it. Strange and his family then settled in fashionable Castle Street, Leicester Square. The Whigs in the Society of Artists raised obstacles to his being elected a member; but ultimately the Jacobite disappeared in the glory of the artist. The somewhat ignoble scattering of the old Chevalier’s servants caused Andrew Lumisden, his under-secretary of state, to look anxiously towards the English metropolis. His sister was anxious he should take leave with all becomingness. She wrote to him from, now dingy, Castle Street:—‘I entreat the person whom I never saw’ (Cardinal York) ‘but, even for his father and family’s sake, I ever loved, to, if possible, patch up things so as, in the eyes of the world, you may bid a respectful farewell. I could walk barefoot to kneel for this favour.’