“London and death gar thee look dool,”
sings Allan Ramsay. Holyrood was at an end, save for the election of representative Peers. At the first after the Union it was noted that all elected were loyal to the English government, “a plain evidence of the country’s slavery to the English Court.” A fruit-woman paraded the courts of the palace bawling most lustily, “Who would buy good pears, old pears, new pears, fresh pears—rotten pears, sixteen of them for a plack.” Remember that pears is pronounced “peers” in Scots and the point of the joke is obvious.
In the suburb of the Pleasance a tailor called Hunter had erected a large house which folk named Hunter’s Folly, or the Castle of Clouts. Gillespie, the founder of Gillespie’s Hospital, was a snuff merchant; when he started a carriage the incorrigible Harry Erskine suggested as a motto:
“Wha wad hae thocht it
That noses had bocht it?”
Harry was usually more good-humoured. A working man complained to him of the low value of a dollar, which he showed him. Now, from the scarcity of silver at the time, a number of Spanish dollars were in circulation, on which the head of George III. had been stamped over the neck of the Spanish King; the real was some sixpence less than the nominal value. Erskine gravely regretted that two such mighty persons had laid their heads together to do a poor man out of a sixpence. Not that the lawyers always had the best of it. Crosby, the original Counsellor Pleydell in Guy Mannering, was building a spacious mansion in St. Andrew Square. His home in the country was a thatched cottage. “Ah, Crosby,” said Principal Robertson to him one day at dinner, “were your town and country house to meet, how they would stare at one another.”
ANDREW CROSBIE, “PLEYDELL”
From a Painting in the Advocates’ Library, by permission of the Faculty of Advocates
Nor did the people always get the laugh. Walter Ross, an Edinburgh character of the eighteenth century, had built a square tower in his property on the north side of the New Town; in this were all the curious old stones he could procure. The people called it Ross’s Folly, and notwithstanding his prominently displayed threats of man-traps and spring guns they roamed at will over his domain. Somehow or other he procured a human leg from the dissecting room, dressed it up with stocking, shoe, and buckle and sent the town-crier with it, announcing that “it had been found that night in Walter Ross’s policy at Stockbridge,” and offering to restore it to the owner!
A more innocent pleasantry is ascribed to Burns. A lady of title, with whom he had the slightest acquaintance, asked him to a party in what was no doubt a very patronising manner. Burns never lost his head or his independence in Edinburgh. He replied that he would come if the Learned Pig was invited also. The animal in question was then one of the attractions of the Grassmarket. To balance this is a story of a snub by a lady. Dougal Geddie, a successful silversmith, had donned with much pride the red coat of a Town Guard officer. He observed with concern a lady at the door of the Assembly Rooms without an attendant beau. He courteously suggested himself “if the arm of an old soldier could be of any use to her.” “Hoot awa’, Dougal, an auld tinkler you mean,” said the lady.