Died at Paisley Abbey, of small-pox, the Countess of Dundonald, celebrated for her beauty, and not less remarkable for her amiable and virtuous character. She left three infant daughters, all of whom grew in time to be noted ‘beauties,’ and of whom one became Duchess of Hamilton, and the other two the Countesses of Strathmore and Galloway. The death of the lovely young Lady Dundonald of a disease so loathsome and |1710.| distressing, was deeply deplored by a circle of noble kindred, and lamented by the public in general, notwithstanding the drawback of her ladyship being an adherent of the Episcopal communion. Wodrow, who condemns the lady as ‘highly prelatical in her principles,’ but admits she was ‘very devote and charitable,’ tells us how, at the suggestion of Dr Pitcairn, Bishop Rose waited on the dying lady, while the parish minister came to the house, but was never admitted to her chamber. Wodrow also states, that for several Sundays after her death, the earl had sermon preached in his house every Sunday by Mr Fullarton, an Episcopalian, ‘or some others of that gang;’ and on Christmas Day there was an administration of the communion, ‘for anything I can hear, distributed after the English way.’ ‘This,’ adds Wodrow, ‘is the first instance of the communion at Yule so openly celebrate in this country’ since the Revolution.[[431]]
The last time we had the Post-office under our attention (1695), it was scarcely able to pay its own expenses. Not long after that time, in accordance with the improved resources of the country, it had begun to be a source of revenue, though to a very small amount. It was conducted for three years before the Union by George Main, jeweller in Edinburgh, with an average yearly return to the Exchequer of £1194, 8s. 10d., subject to a deduction for government expresses and the expense (£60) of the packet-boat at Portpatrick. Immediately after that time, the business of the central office in Edinburgh was conducted in a place no better than a common shop, by seven officials, the manager George Main having £200 a year, while his accountant, clerk, and clerk’s assistant had respectively £56, £50, and £25, and three runners or letter-carriers had each 5s. per week.
An act of the British parliament[[432]] now placed the Scottish Post-office under that of England, but with ‘a chief letter-office’ to be kept up in Edinburgh. The charge for a letter from London to Edinburgh was established at sixpence, and that for other letters at twopence for distances within fifty English miles, greater distances being in proportion. For the five years following the Union, there was an annual average gain of £6000—a striking improvement upon 1698, when Sir Robert Sinclair found he could not make it pay expenses, even with the benefit of a pension of £300 a year.
1711. Sep.
The light-thoughted part of the public was at this time regaled by the appearance of a cluster of small brochures printed in blurred type on dingy paper, being the production of William Mitchell, tin-plate worker in the Bow-head of Edinburgh, but who was pleased on his title-pages to style himself the Tinklarian Doctor. Mitchell had, for twelve years, been employed by the magistrates of the city as manager of the lighting of the streets, at the moderate salary of five pounds. He represented that his predecessor in the office had ten pounds; but ‘I took but five, for the town was in debt.’ The magistrates, doubtless for reasons satisfactory to themselves, and which it is not difficult to divine, had deprived him of his post. ‘Them that does them a good turn,’ says he, ‘they forget; but they do not forget them that does them an ill turn; as, for example, they keep on a captain [of the town-guard, probably] for love of Queensberry, for making the Union—I believe he never did them a good turn, but much evil to me, [as] he would not let me break up my shop-door the time of the fire, before my goods was burnt.’ The poor man here alludes to a calamity which perhaps had some share in driving his excitable brain out of bounds. Being now in comparative indigence, and full of religious enthusiasm, he took up at his own hands an office of which he boasted that no magistrate could deprive him, no less than that of giving ‘light’ to the ministers of the Church of Scotland, who, he argued, needed this service at his hands—‘otherwise God would not have raised me up to write to them.’ The ministers, he candidly informs us, did not relish his taking such a duty upon him, since he had never received any proper call to become a preacher: some of them called him a fool, and the principal of a college at St Andrews went the length of telling him to burn his books. But he acted under an inward call which would not listen to any such objections. He thought the spirit of God ‘as free to David and Amos the herds, and to James, John, and Simon the fishers, and Matthew and Levi the customers, as to any that will bide seven years at college.’ And, if to shepherds and fishermen, why not to a tin-plate worker or tinkler? ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ &c.
The Tinkler’s Testament, which was the great work of Mitchell, was heralded by an Introduction, dedicating his labours to Queen Anne. He claimed her majesty’s protection in his efforts to illuminate the clergy, and hinted that a little money to help in printing his books would also be useful. He would willingly go to converse with her majesty; but he was without the means of travelling, |1711.| and his ‘loving wife and some small children’ hindered him. This brings him to remark that, while he lived upon faith, ‘my wife lives much upon sense,’ as the wives of men of genius are very apt to do. After all, ‘although I should come, I am nothing but a little black man, dull-like, with two scores upon my brow and a mole on my right cheek;’ which marks ‘I give to your majesty, in case any person come up in a counterfeit manner;’ nevertheless, ‘if I had clothes, I would look as big as some gentlemen.’[[433]]
In this pamphlet, Mitchell abuses the ministers roundly for neglect of their flocks, telling that for six years the pastor of his parish had never once inquired for him. They would go and play at bowls, alleging it was for their health, and allow suffering souls to perish. It was as if he were employed by a gentleman to make lanterns—took the money—but never made the articles required, for want of which the gentleman’s servants were hindered in their work, and perished in pits. ‘Now whether think ye an immortal soul or my lanterns of most value? I will sell a good lantern at ten shillings [Scots], though it be made of brass; but the whole world cannot balance one soul.’
The Tinkler’s Testament he dedicated to the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland, telling them ‘not to be offended, although I be set over you by providence,’ nor ‘think that I shall be like the bishops that were before me—necessity gives me a right to be your overseer—necessity that hath neither law nor manners.’ ‘I know you will not hear of a bishop over you, and therefore I shall be over you, as a coachman to drive you to your duty.’ He saw their deficiencies in what had happened in his own case. In his evil days, they never told him sufficiently of his sins. He might almost have supposed he was on the way to heaven for anything they said to him. It was affliction, not their ministrations, which had loosed him from the bonds of sin. Their own preachings were cold and worthless, and so were those of the young licentiates whom they so often engaged to hold forth in their stead. Here he applied another professional parable. ‘You employ me to make a tobacco-box. I spoil it in the making. Whether is you |1711.| or I obliged to pay the loss? I think ye are not obliged to pay it. Neither am I obliged to take these sermons off your hand.’ ‘Perhaps,’ he adds, ‘you trust in your elders.’ But ‘I may keep strange women in my house for them; I may stay out till twelve o’clock at night and be drunk for them: a cart-horse, when he comes up the Bow, may teach them their duty, for it will do its duty to the outmost of its power; and before it will disobey, it will fall to the ground.’ In short, the Tinkler had been used by these clergy with a lenity which he felt to be utterly inexcusable.
It is to be feared that the Tinkler was one of those censors whom no kind of conduct in persons of authority will please, for we find him in this brochure equally furious at the ministers for not preaching evangelical discourses, and for being so slack in telling their flocks of the weighty matters of the law. He threatens to tell very sad things of them at the great day, and yet he protests that it is not from hatred to them. If such were his feelings, he would not be at the pains to reprove them; still less would he have ever given Dean of Guild Neilson a speaking-trumpet for a seat in the kirk, not worth twenty shillings sterling, seeing it is but a back-seat, where he may fall asleep, and the minister never once call on him to sit up. ‘This,’ however, ‘is only a word by the by.’
One great charge which the Tinkler has to make against the clergy is, that they are afraid to preach freely to the consciences of men, for fear of angering the great. ‘If ye be feared to anger them, God will not be feared to anger you. “Cry aloud and spare not; tell the poor their transgressions, and the great folk their sins.”’ Then he proposes to relate something of the justice he had himself experienced. ‘The Laird of Cramond hath laid down a great cairn of stones before my shop-door, which takes away my light. They have lain near these two years (because he is rich). If I lay down but two carts-full, I believe they would not lie twenty-four hours. I pursued a man at court; I could both have sworn and proved that he was owing me; yet, because he had a blue cloak and a campaign wig, the judge would not take his oath, and would not take my word. I had a mind to buy a blue cloak, that I might get justice; but I was disappointed by the dreadful fire. I bought some wool from a man. He would not give it out of his house till I gave my bill. The goods was not weighed, and I feared they came not to so much money; yet the man persuaded me if it was not so, he would |1711.| restore me the money back. I believed his word, because I am a simple man. So I pursued the man, thinking to get my money. The judge told me I would get no money, although there were a hundred pounds of it; so I went home with less money than I came out.... Ye will say, what is the reason there is so little justice; I shall tell you my opinion of it. I have a vote for choosing our deacon. A man comes to me and offers me a pint to vote for such a man. I take it because he never did me no ill, and because I am a fool-body. I vote for the man. So fool-tradesmen make fool-deacons, and fool-deacons make fool-magistrates, and fool-magistrates make fool-ministers. That is the reason there is so little justice in the city.’ The crazy whitesmith has here touched a point of failure in democratic institutions which wiser men have overlooked.