With the fall of the Stuarts and the establishment of Presbytery, a sour feeling against the stage prevailed in Scotland. Mr. R. Chambers attributes a later improved feeling to the Southern gentlemen who were sent northward to hold office, and who took with them tastes which were gradually adopted; at first by Episcopalians, and later by Presbyterians themselves.

There is a smith's shop near Holyrood, which, in 1715, was part of a Tennis Court, which, in that year, and just before the outbreak, was converted into a theatre. It was well attended, and furiously denounced; even solemn kirk folk flocked to listen to the old and modern playwrights, despite the threats of their ministers that, from all such, they would withhold the "tokens to the Sacrament of the Supper." The presbytery of Edinburgh fulminated every species of menace against the new stage and its upholders, but the latter had a fatally amusing comment to make on such fulminations. Only the year previously, three of these very ministers, Mitchell, Ramsay, and Hart, sent as a deputation to congratulate George I. on his accession, rested on their way at Kendal, where there was a little theatre, whither these good men repaired to see Congreve's "Love for Love" acted, and thought nobody would tell of their backsliding!

The Scottish Tennis Court theatre did not prosper even so well as that in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Eleven years after the above date, although we hear of a performance of Otway's "Orphan," with a prologue by Allan Ramsay, it is in "private;"[67] but adverse critics are informed, that they will have to support their opinions, by the duello, in the King's Park.

In the same year, 1726, Anthony Aston, that erratic actor, "after a circuit round the Queen of Isles," as another prologue by Mr. Allan Ramsay said of him, re-appeared in Edinburgh with a theatrical company.

"The dastards said, 'He never will succeed:'

What! such a country look for any good in,

That does not relish plays, nor pork, nor pudding!"

Aston had to contend against the utmost efforts of the clergy and magistracy. Nevertheless, ruling elders, who were peers of the realm, Lords of Session and other amateurs, went and wept at graceful Westcombe and handsome Mrs. Millar, in the "Mourning Bride," and a son of Bishop Ross, and master of the Beaux' Coffee House, charged a commission of a penny on every playhouse ticket sold in his establishment. Then, even Lord Grange, the most profligate ruffian in all Scotland, was alarmed for Scottish morals, when he heard that Allan Ramsay had founded a circulating library, and was lending out English playbooks. The magistrates, moved by that arch-villain, Grange,—than whom there was not a man so given to drink, devilry, and devotion,—sent inspectors to learn from Ramsay's books the names of his subscribers. Allan had timely warning; and he destroyed his list before the obnoxious jurors presented themselves. The pulpits re-echoed with denunciations against acting and episcopacy, and men who were carried to the theatres in sedans,—oh! what had come to Scottish thews and sinews, when such a spectacle as this was to be seen in old Edinburgh!

In 1733 and 1734, Shakspeare was in the ascendant at the theatre at the Tailors' Hall, in the Cowgate, varied by the works of Gay, Congreve, and Mrs. Centlivre; pantomime, ballet and farce; with excellent scenery, and machinery,—the troop occasionally visiting Dundee, Montrose, and Aberdeen. Dramatic taste spread to schools, where the pupils began to act plays. While this was confined to "Cato," "Julius Cæsar," and the like, there was no harm done; but when the Perth schoolboys, at Candlemas 1735, took to acting "George Barnwell," the Kirk Session once more bestirred itself, and shut up the house built by Allan Ramsay, in Carrubber's Close.[68] Subsequently, Ryan, the actor, laid the first stone of a new theatre in the Canongate, which was opened in 1746, but without sanction of law, which, however, was not so rigorous as in earlier days, when Lord Somerville, to screen a principal performer from stern pains and penalties, engaged him in his household, as butler! To this theatre, in 1756, the Rev. John Home, then thirty-two years of age, brought his tragedy of "Douglas." He had been the successor of Blair (of the Grave), in the living of Athelstanford; and had left it, to fight against the Pretender, at Falkirk, where he was captured. The reverend warrior ultimately escaped to England. Collins dedicated to him his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands. Home returned northward, full of the love of poetry, and powerful in the expression of it. His great dramatic essay was a grievous offence against the laws of his church, to the practical duties of which he had again surrendered himself. Had it not been that Sarah Ward was willing to help author and friends, even the reading of "Douglas" would never have come off. Sarah lent her sitting-room in the Canongate, to Home; and Digges was present and silent, for once, with Mrs. Ward, to enact audience. The characters were thus cast; and a finer group of intellectual persons sitting as they could best catch the light, in an obscure room of the Canongate, cannot well be imagined. Lord Randolph (or Barnard, according to the original cast) was read by Robertson; Glenalvon, by the greater historian, David Hume; Old Norval, by the famous Dr. Carlyle, the minister of Musselburgh; and Douglas, by Home, in right of authorship. Lady Randolph was allotted to Professor Ferguson; and the part of Anna was read by Dr. Blair, the minister of the High Church, and author of the once popular sermons!

But the Presbyteries of Edinburgh and Glasgow speedily denounced author, play, dramatists, and dramas generally, as instruments and children of Satan; and excommunicated, not only Home, but actors and audiences, and all abettors and approvers! The triumph of the play compensated for everything. The nation confirmed the sentiment of the critic in the pit, whose voice was heard in the ovation of the first night, exultantly exclaiming, "Weel, lads, what do ye think o' Wully Shakspeare noo?" The tragedy was offered to Garrick, who refused it. Mrs. Cibber, in Lady Randolph, would extinguish Norval! Rich accepted it, as readily as Garrick had declined it; and in March 1757 London confirmed the judgment of the city in the north. Gray declared that Home had retrieved the true language of the stage, which had been lost for a century. The Prince of Wales conferred a pension on the expelled minister, and Sheridan sent to Home a gold medal, worth ten guineas.