The Modern Athens / A dissection and demonstration of men and things in the Scotch Capital.

by Robert Mudie

Those sage counsels having been given and received, the loyalty of Athens was set fire to in a number of places, and anon the whole city was in a blaze. Lords of session, spies, men who had eaten flesh and drank wine for the glory of the throne, excisemen, crown-lawyers, holders and expectants of crown-patronages, address-grinders, beaconeers, and all the interminable file of that which had supported the loyalty and existence of Scotland in the worst of times, shone forth with first and fiercest lustre. In that great tattle-market (hereafter to be described,) the Parliament-house, you would have found the Tory barristers—the current of whose loyalty is seldom much broken by briefs, clubbing together, cackling as though they had been the sole geese of salvation to the capitol, and stretching their mandibles, and showing their feathers at the more-employed and laborious Whigs, as a race soon to be exterminated. The disposal of majesty himself was committed to the Great Unknown, who sagely counselled that they should make a still greater unknown of the King, by mewing him up in Dalkeith-house, where he could commune only with a few of the chosen; and, that they should bring him before the public only once or twice, to be worshipped and wondered at, more as a favour of their procuring, than of his own Royal pleasure. How little they knew of his Majesty, and how much they had overrated their own importance occurred not to them at the time, but they found it out afterwards.

The next weighty question was what the city should do in her municipal capacity; and, it was ordered in limine that the nightly tattoo of “The Flowers of Edinburgh,” which from time immemorial had been played in the streets, should be suspended during the solemnity, under pain of escheat of the instruments, allenarly for the private benefit and use of the Lord Provost and magistrates. Every one who has seen Edinburgh must know the perfect resemblance which her High-street—that street in which magistracy is pre-eminently dominant, and where shows are wont to be exhibited—bears to the back-bone of a red-herring. Westward you have the castle in form, in elevation, and in grandeur, the very type of the head; eastward, at the further extremity, you have the palace of Holyrood, which from its lowly situation among cesspools and bankrupts, and its usual gloomy and forlorn condition, may very properly be likened to the tail; the intermediate street is the spine; while the wynds and closes which stretch to the North Loch on the one side, and the Cow-gate on the other, are the perfect counterpart of the ribs. This High-street was cleared of some old incumbrances, had exhibition-booths erected along its whole extent; and it was expressly ordered that, as the King passed along, no frippery or foul linen should be exhibited from even the third garret windows; and, that during the whole sojourn of royalty, no man should enter the rendezvouses in the closes by the street end, but come in by the back stairs; more clerici, in the same fashion as during the sittings of the General Assembly. But, it would be endless to notice all the sagacious orders and prompt actings: suffice it to say, that every thing which could be thought of was ordered, and every thing ordered was done.

The people of the Athens are, even upon ordinary occasions, much more attentive to their dress than to their address; and, therefore, it was to be expected that they should be so upon so momentous an occasion. Besides the tailors’ boxes of which I had felt a specimen on my journey, there was work for every pair of sheers and needle in the city. Webs of tartan, wigs, pieces of muslin, paste diamonds, ostrich feathers, combs as well for use as for ornament, were driving over the whole place like snow-flakes at Christmas. But, the hurry and harvest were by no means confined to the Caledonian shop-keepers. The rumour had reached the purlieus of Leicester-square, and had been heard in the fashionable repositories of Holywell. The remnant of Jacob gathered themselves together, resolving to come in for their share of the milk and honey which was flowing in the new-made Canaan of Scotland; while the daughters of Judah put tires upon their heads, and thronged away to spoil the Amorites northward of the Tweed. It were impossible to describe the wares brought by the sons of Jacob,—it were needless to tell of those brought by the daughters of Israel. The plume which had nodded upon the brows of fifty queens at Old Drury, was refurbished to adorn some proud and pedigreed dame of the north; swords of most harmless beauty—having nothing of steel about them but the hilts, were crossed most bewitchingly in every thoroughfare, accompanied by old opera-hats, bag-wigs, buttons, and every thing which could give the outward man the guise and bearing of a courtier. Before these elegant repositories slender clerks and sallow misses might be seen ogling for the live-long day, and departing in sorrow at nightfall, because the small tinkle in their pockets was unable to procure for them even one morning or evening’s use of that garb, the fee simple of which had cost Moses seven shillings and sixpence, and the translation and transmission a crown-piece. Moses indeed found that he had something else than Ludgate-hill and Regent-street to contend with; for, every ribbon-vending son of the North had garnished his windows with trinkets and ornaments which, in appearance, in quality, and in price, would have done honour to Solomon himself.

But wherefore should I waste time on the ornaments of individuals, when the garnishing of the whole city was before my eyes,—when, from the pier of Leith to the farthest extremity of Edinburgh, every act of the coming drama stood rubric and impressed upon men and women, and things. The first, important enough upon all occasions, had now put on looks of ten-fold wisdom and sagacity. The second, all bewitching as they are in their native loveliness, were subjecting their necks to the process of bleaching by chlorine gas, laying their locks in lavender, sleeping in “cream and frontlets,” and applying all manner of salves and unctions to the lip, in order to make it plump and seemly for the high honour of royal salutation. I have no evidence that any daughter of the North fed upon the flesh of vipers in order to induce fairness in her own, as little have I evidence that there was need for such a regimen; I did hear, however, that the lady of one baronet took up her lodgings for two successive nights in a warm cow’s-hide, and that she of a senator of the college of justice wrought wonders upon her bust by a cataplasm of rump-steak, but I cannot vouch for the facts, or set my probatum to them as successful experiments in kaleiosophy. So much for the first blush of preparation with the men and women; I need not add, that like the streams of Edina, it became rich as it ran.

The attitudes of things were a good deal more diversified and puzzling; and, perhaps the shortest way of getting rid of them would be to adopt the laundress’ phrase, and say they were “got up;” but this, though summary and in the main correct, would neither be just nor satisfactory,—because, in all modern stage displays, the actors would cut but a sorry figure were it not for the scenery.

As, however, the scenery arises out of the drama itself, while the actors have an existence and character off the boards, it will be necessary to premise an outline of the plot. That was arranged into the following acts, with as many interludes public and private as could be crammed into the time and space. The King was to land—to be received by whoever should be accounted the greatest and most loyal man in Scotland, which some said was Lord President Hope, some Bailie Blackwood, some Sir Walter Scott, others Sir Alexander Gordon, of Culvennan, a few Principal Baird, and even Professor Leslie had his own vote and another—he was to shake hands with Bailie Macfie, of Leith, (with his glove on as it were,) then he was to pass along streets, through triumphal arches, over bridges, and in at gates, to the ancient palace of the Holyrood, where the old throne from Buckingham-House had been darned and done up for his reception, by way of reading him an introductory lecture upon Scotch economy. Such was to be the first act of the drama, and the preparations for it were peculiarly splendid. The line of progress, which was both long and broad, was to be thronged with people; the devices and mottoes were to be got up, to let the King know that an illumination was coming; the ladies were instructed to fidget and wriggle in the windows, by way of hint that there would be a dance; the presence of Sir William Curtis made it certain there would be turtle-soup; the curl of the Reverend Dr. Lamond’s nose threatened a sermon; the archery and men with white sticks pointed to a procession; the hungry looks of the Burgh magistrates and local men in authority, had obvious reference to a levee; the pouting lips of the ladies rendered a drawing-room indispensable; and the bevies of breechless Highlanders and bandy-legged Southerns in similar costume, were pretty sure tokens of a theatrical exhibition,—and, from the extreme officiousness of Glengarry, the Kouli Khan of all the Celts, it was pretty apparent that that exhibition could be nothing else than Rob Roy—that prince of chieftains and cow-stealers. Thus, while the first act was to be perfect in itself, it was shrewdly contrived that it should develop the sequence and economy of the others; but still, to make assurance double-sure, the gazette writer for Scotland, who had been a sinecurist since the creation, was kept drudging at delineations of doings and programmes of processions from morning till night, and sometimes from night till morning.

When the whole matter had been planned,—when the officers of the household for Scotland had got their robes of state,—when the archers had learned to walk without treading down the heels of each other’s shoes,—when the tailor, the barber, and the dancing-master had done the needful upon the Provost and Bailies,—when the tails of the Highland chiefs had run quarantine,—when the edge of the parsons’ appetites had been a little blunted,—when the wonted tattoo had ceased,—when lamps had been hung upon the front of every house,—when the ladies had drilled themselves in train-bearing, by the help of sheets and table-cloths, and learned to do their salutations without any inordinate smacking,—and when the elements of dazzling and of din had been collected upon all the heights, in the likeness of bone-fires, and bombs, and bagpipes,—it wanted only the placing of the royal foot upon the pier at Leith, to bring all those mighty things into forward and fervent action.

Amid all those mighty preparations, there was one thing which was very remarkable, and which throws perhaps more light both upon the morale of the spectacle and the feelings of the people, than any other that could be mentioned. The Scots, generally, are allowed to be a people of song and of sentiment. There is a feeling in their melodies, an alternate pathos and glee in their songs, and an enthusiasm and romance in their legends, which are perhaps not equalled, and certainly not surpassed by those of any nation in the world. This may with truth be said of the nation, taking the average of times and of places; and, when it is considered that the Modern Athens holds herself up to the world as a sort of concentrated tincture or spirit of all that is fine or feeling in the country,—as being the throne of learning—the chosen seat of sentiment and of song; furthermore, when upon this occasion there was gathered in and about the Athens, all the lights which are acknowledged as shining, and all the fires which are recognised as burning, in taste and talent throughout Scotland; it must be acknowledged, that something might have been expected to go upon record worthy of such a people at such a time. It had been known that the great Seneschal of all those royal musters,—the ears of the Lord Advocate, the mouth of the Lord President, the eyes of the Lord Provost—to hear, to speak, and to stare, at mighty things as it were;—it had been known that, at the mere loosening of a bookseller’s purse-strings, his verse had flowed rapid as the Forth, and his prose spread wide as its estuary; and surely it was not too much to hope that he would consecrate in song, or conserve in story, an event which was so congenial to his avowed sentiments, and which must have been (from the fond and forward part he played in it) so gratifying to his individual vanity. When, too, it was recollected that this famed and favoured servant of the muse had gone, invited or not invited, to London at the Coronation, lest the Laureat should break down under the compound pressure of solemnity and sack, and the glory slide into oblivion for the want of a fit recorder, it was surely to be hoped that he would have done justice to the royal show in his own country, and in his own city. But, ecce ridiculus mus! the pen which had been so swift, and the tongue which had been so glib at the bidding of a mere plebeian bookseller, were still and mute when a king was the god, and an assembled nation the worshippers. He who had made the world to ring again with the shouts of Highland freebooters, and the din of whose tournaments yet sounds in our ears, failed at the very point of need! “Ah, where was Roderick then! One blast upon his bugle horn” had been worth all the senseless vulgarity from Princes’-street, and all the piddling inanity of Tweedale-court. It was wished for, it was called for, it was imperious upon every principle—not of consistency merely, but of gratitude; but it came not; and all that stands recorded as having come from his otherwise fluent pen upon the occasion, is a paltry and vulgar drinking song, which it would disgrace the most wretched Athenian caddie to troll in the lowest pot-house of the Blackfriars wynd.

If one whose piping is so gratefully received and so amply rewarded, and whose loyalty has been withal so abundant and so profitable, remained mute or degenerated into mere foolery upon the occasion, what could be expected from the provincial and unhired dabblers in verse, who write only to the casual inspiration of love or liquor, and melt in madrigals or madden in catches according as Cupid or Bacchus holds the principal sway! Nothing, I maintain, and therefore the Great Unknown is guilty not only of his own omission, but of that of all his countrymen. If he had done as he ought,—done in a way worthy of himself—putting the occasion entirely out of the question, there is not a doubt but the whole drove would have been at his heels. As the case stands, whatever may be the comparative merits of the Whig becks and Tory booings, the poetic eclat of the visit of George the Fourth must succumb to that of the descent of Jamie in sixteen hundred and eighteen.