Edinburgh Under Sir Walter Scott

by W. T. Fyfe

From this time, however, his remarkable figure ceased to be seen in Edinburgh. His last years were spent mostly in rural retirement, and he died at St. Andrews in 1816.

CHAPTER XIV

'Jupiter' Carlyle—Noble Looks—Friend of Robertson and John Home—The Play of Douglas—Anecdote of Dr. Carlyle—Dr. Joseph Black—Latent Heat—His personal Appearance—Anecdote of last Illness—His History of Great Britain—Forerunner of the Modern School.

Of the other eighteenth-century Edinburgh worthies in Cockburn's little gallery, the best-known name is that of 'Jupiter' Carlyle, the minister of Inveresk. Carlyle's fame, or notoriety, what you will, came from his intimate relations with the eminent characters of his time, such as Hume, Blair, Home, and Adam Smith. If he was not great himself, his wise counsels aided his friends to achieve greatness. The charm of his manners was extraordinary, and his countenance and bearing so nobly imposing as to suggest the classical eke-name of Jupiter. While he lived, Carlyle and culture were synonymous. Cockburn, who scarcely appreciated his value, admits the grace and kindness of his manner, and says that he was one of the noblest-looking old gentlemen he almost ever beheld. Carlyle was a conspicuous figure in the General Assembly. He was a firm ally of Principal Robertson, whose moderate policy was exactly to the mind of the extremely 'Broad' minister of Inveresk. Great excitement was aroused by his open support of his friend Home in producing the play of Douglas. It is said that he took part in the private rehearsal of the play, and made a distinct hit as Old Norval. At the third public representation he was present in the theatre, and witnessed the extraordinary success of Home's piece. The play was received by crowded audiences for many successive nights with universal and vociferous applause. 'Where's your Shakespeare noo?' was the triumphant shout of a patriotic but uncritical admirer. The play of Douglas, though rejected by the keen judgment of Garrick as 'totally unfit for the stage,' has passages of fine rhetoric, and shows at least an easy mastery of elegant language. The author Home was suspended by the General Assembly for his audacity in writing a play while he was a minister of the Church of Scotland. A few years after, he received a pension of £300 a year, which enabled him to spend the remainder of his life in happiness and peace. Carlyle, his neighbour and constant friend, has done full justice to the amiable qualities of Home, who was the liberal friend of struggling merit in the hour of need. Carlyle died in 1805 at the age of eighty-four, and Home in 1808, aged eighty-six.

Dr. Carlyle was a famous bon vivant. His physical powers were fortunately adequate to carry him through in any company. It is strange and amusing in these days to think of a man like him sitting through the prolonged convivialities of his clubs and parties. For Carlyle, both as a divine and an aristocrat, was the very pink of propriety. He would have deplored excess in himself as he did in others. He was, in fact, a very temperate gentleman, and his conduct was admirable and exemplary. The respect that was paid to his merits was only increased by the fact that he could drink his four or five bottles of wine with impunity—nay, with advantage. He was often the better, never the worse, of his wine. One evening he was leaving Pinkieburn House, where he had dined, and wending his way home with all his usual Olympian dignity. An old woman-servant stood at the side-door, beholding the minister with reverent admiration. 'Ay,' she was heard to say, 'there goes Dr. Carlyle, the good man—as steady as a wall, and he's had his ain share o' four bottles o' port.'

Dr. Joseph Black, the eminent chemist, lived in Edinburgh from 1766 to his death in 1799. He was Professor of Chemistry in the University, but his delicate health seems to have disabled him from continuing the researches so fruitfully pursued in Glasgow (1756-66). His fame rests on the discovery of Latent Heat, and he seems to have been the first to apply hydrogen gas in raising balloons. Looking at his portrait, one realises the remarkable truth and felicity of Cockburn's word-picture: 'A striking and beautiful person; tall, very thin, and cadaverously pale; his hair carefully powdered, though there was little of it except what was collected into a long thin queue; his eyes dark, clear, and large, like deep pools of pure water. He wore black speckless clothes, silk stockings, silver buckles, and either a slim green silk umbrella, or a genteel brown cane. The general frame and air were feeble and slender. The wildest boy respected Black. No lad could be irreverent towards a man so pale, so gentle, so elegant, and so illustrious. So he glided like a spirit through our rather mischievous sportiveness unharmed. He died seated with a bowl of milk on his knee, of which his ceasing to live did not spill a drop; a departure which it seemed, after the event happened, might have been foretold of this attenuated philosophical gentleman.' We shall not omit the companion picture to this touching scene, the even more tranquil death of Dr. Robert Henry, the historian. Four days before his death, he wrote to Sir Harry Moncrieff the strange message: 'Come out here directly. I have got something to do this week, I have got to die.' Moncrieff obeyed the summons, and sat with him alone for what turned out to be the last three days of his life. During this time, as he sat in his easy-chair, now dozing, now conversing, a neighbouring minister, who was a notorious and much-dreaded bore, came to call. 'Keep him out,' cried the doctor, 'don't let the cratur in here.' It was too late, the cratur entered, but when he came in, behold the doctor to all appearance fast asleep. Moncrieff at once taking in the situation, signed to the intruder to be silent. The visitor sat down, apparently to wait till Dr. Henry might awake. Every time he offered to speak, he was checked by solemn gestures from Moncrieff or Mrs. Henry. 'So he sat on, all in perfect silence, for above a quarter of an hour; during which Sir Harry occasionally detected the dying man peeping cautiously through the fringes of his eyelids to see how his visitor was coming on. At last Sir Harry tired, and he and Mrs. Henry pointing to the poor doctor, fairly waved the visitor out of the room; on which the doctor opened his eyes wide, and had a tolerably hearty laugh; which was renewed when the sound of the horse's feet made them certain that their friend was actually off the premises. Dr. Henry died that night.' His one work, a remarkable pioneer production, was the History of Great Britain. Though severely criticised at the time of its publication, the work certainly deserves Cockburn's praise of 'considerable merit in the execution.' Its author, however, has the credit, apart from the intrinsic value of his own attempt, of having discovered the new and fruitful idea of making history display the internal growth of the nation as well as its political development. In short, Henry was the forerunner of Macaulay and Green.

CHAPTER XV

The 'Meadows' one Hundred Years ago—A Resort of great Men—Vixerunt fortes—Their Intimacy and Quarrels—Hume and Ferguson—Home, the happy—His boundless Generosity—Sympathy with Misfortune—Home and Edinburgh Society—Sketch by Scott—'The Close of an Era.'

Time's changes have altered the state of the 'Meadows.' This park is now surrounded by houses, a tramway line passes half-way down its south side, and a constant stream of passengers between north and south makes its Middle Walk a busy thoroughfare. The privacy is gone for ever that made it in the eighteenth century 'so distinctly the resort of our philosophy and our fashion.' It is now a noisy playground for the flannelled fools at the wicket and the muddied oafs at the goal. In the corners are swings, parallel bars, etc., for the use of little children. But in the days of Scott's boyhood, it was possible to enjoy a quiet, meditative stroll in these still suburban fields. And the great learned and legal luminaries made the Meadows their resort for talk or for quiet meditation. The lofty yet simple character of the men of this great generation, but still more their strong nationality, combined with their graceful manners and extraordinary benevolence, made a strong impression on the imagination of Scott. The brilliance of the succeeding era, which he himself created, never quite made up to his mind for what was lost. The change was inevitable, but to him the men whom as a boy he had seen in the Meadows or on the streets of Edinburgh, the geniuses whose works and reputation had then only been known to him by name, remained always the ideal figures of Scotland's literary and scientific greatness. He was struck also by the breadth of mind which they had, almost without exception, and which he, almost alone, carried over into the next century: for those great men were like a family of amiable brothers, free from jealousy and eagerly ready to make common cause of each individual's fame. In reviewing Mackenzie's Life of Home for the Quarterly in 1827, he speaks of them in this touching strain: 'There were men of literature in Edinburgh before she was renowned for romances, reviews, and magazines:

"Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona";