Edinburgh Under Sir Walter Scott

by W. T. Fyfe

An interesting notice appeared recently in a local paper regarding Scott and his family's connection with St. George's Episcopal Church in York Place, Edinburgh. He seems to have become a member of what he (in the person of Paulus Pleydell) calls 'the suffering and Episcopal Church of Scotland—the shadow of a shade now' after his marriage had set him free from the customs of George Square. The Scott family pew in St. George's was No. 81, afterwards No. 85, and the article states that this fact is attested on a brass plate fixed on the pew, as well as by a written statement contained in a closed glass case hung inside the church porch. It was the incumbent of St. George's that officiated at the marriage of Sophia Scott to John Gibson Lockhart. The worshippers in the quaint old church to this day, it is said, take great pride in the memory of the most illustrious member of their historic flock.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The Mercantile Class in Edinburgh—The Town Council—Political Corruption—Petty Tyranny—The Town Clerk—James Laing, Head of the Police—His Methods with Disturbers of the Peace—Anecdotes of Laing and Dugald Stewart.

At the end of the eighteenth century there was no social intercourse between the aristocratic, which was, generally speaking, the educated, class and the mercantile portion of the community. Wealth had not yet become a passport into 'society.' Birth and ancestry, on the contrary, were so, however poor the possessor of an old name might be. The professions, especially that of law, were still mainly recruited from noble or gentle families. As yet also, no traders in Edinburgh had made great fortunes or could afford social display. As individuals, therefore, business people were of no account. Politically, having no votes they had no direct power, and in all public matters their general attitude was one of complete subserviency to their betters. This, of course, was looked upon by both classes as the natural state of things, and explains the humble place occupied by the shopkeeping characters in the Waverley Novels. Lord Cockburn, speaking of the city government, records that everything of that kind was managed by the town council: light, water, education, trade, the Port of Leith, the streets, the poor, the police. He describes the Council Chamber as a low, dark, blackguard-looking room, entering from a covered passage, on the site of the present Signet Library. The chamber was a low-roofed room, very dark and very dirty, with some small dens off it for clerks. 'Within this Pandemonium sat the town council, omnipotent, corrupt, impenetrable. Nothing was beyond its grasp; no variety of opinion disturbed its unanimity, for the pleasure of Dundas was the sole rule for every one of them. Silent, powerful, submissive, mysterious, and irresponsible, they might have been sitting in Venice.' Speaking of Scottish town councils in general, our authority uses even stronger language. 'Many of the small ones were in the lowest possible condition of public and private morality. In general, they were sinks of political and municipal iniquity, steeped in the baseness which they propagated, and types and causes of the corruption that surrounded them.' This is just the picture that one would draw, if inclined to be censorious and not yielding to any sense of humour, from the very interesting series of facts recorded in John Galt's book, The Provost. Depend upon it, there was a good deal of human nature even in an 'unreformed' town council. Of their corrupt subservience to the powers in place there can be no doubt, but they had at least as much of the great quality of efficiency as their reformed successors. Such as they were, they were generally the best men of the best class in each community, and few men of the same type could now be got to enter the popularly elected body. And what would we not give now for the old peace and quietness? The silence would indeed be cheaply bought at the price of the mystery and irresponsibility. Conscience is the only guarantee against corruption, which may flourish like a green bay-tree under popular election. In 1799, it seems, Mr. Smith, a councillor of Edinburgh, electrified the city by a pamphlet in which he showed that the burgh was bankrupt. What subjects would Mr. Smith not have found for his financial genius if he had lived in 1899? What pamphlets might Mr. Smith have printed on 'the Edinburgh Cable Tramways and their cost,' or on 'the Usher Hall Sinking Fund.' Verily, life in a city might be tolerable but for our town councils.

The old town council had a very simple method of getting their work done. They just left everything to the town clerk and the manager of police. This seems to be the modern method, minus the vulgar talk and reports in the newspapers. The town-clerk was Mr. John Gray. Would he were here to-day: a man who could hold his tongue and do jobs quietly! Peace to the ashes of the good Gray: a judicious man, with a belly, white hair, and decorous black clothes; famous for drinking punch; a respectable and useful officer, devoted to his superiors, and chock-full of municipal wisdom. The manager of police was James Laing, about whom we have anecdotes which endear him to the heart of every lover of quiet. James was a hater of noise at untimely hours. He may have been prevented from writing his reminiscences by the rowdy din and uproar which seems to have been then, as it is now, at all hours of the night (constant up to midnight, in the small hours sporadic) as remarkable a feature of residential Edinburgh as its deadly east wind. Fortunately, James had the power, now defunct and obsolete, of making the police operate. One evening the usual demoniac orgy of noise was proceeding, driving peaceful citizens to profanity and despair. The whole devil's tattoo was caused by a mere handful of tipsy hooligans—six or eight baker lads, it seems, of respectable though humble parentage. James set the police in motion, the lads were promptly arrested, and next morning, when the master baker growled 'Ubi est ille apprentice?' echo answered promptly, 'Non est inventus.' A lawyer, however, who took an interest in the family of one of them, went that morning, greatly daring, to James Laing to inquire, when he was told he need give himself no trouble; 'they are all beyond Inchkeith by this time.' With a promptness of device only equalled by his firmness of purpose, this benefactor of suffering humanity had sent the disciples of Din to exert their demoniac disturbances on the high seas! They had, in fact, been shipped on board a tender in Leith Roads, which James knew was to sail that very morning. After this, one is not astonished to learn that the great Laing was a philosopher and entertained an immense reverence for Dugald Stewart. Stewart used to tell an anecdote which proves that Laing, besides discovering the best means of preserving quiet in the streets, had also solved the problem of finding healthy employment for the police in their 'hours of idleness.' The Professor was walking very early one morning in the Meadows, when he saw a band of men within the enclosure busily engaged apparently in turning up the turf. Upon going up to them, he found his friend Laing commanding the operations, who explained that in these short light nights there was nothing going on with the blackguards, 'and so, ye see, Mr. Professor, I've just brought oot the constables to try our hands at the moudieworts.' They were catching moles.

CHAPTER XXIX

Public Condition of Edinburgh in 1800—Ostracism of Dugald Stewart—The Whigs—Their Struggle for Power—The Infirmary Incident—Dr. Gregory—His Pamphlets—Characteristics—Family Connection with Rob Roy.

Youthful friendship and their simple, kindly way of life counteracted the effects of political feeling as concerned Scott and his Whig friends. Under his humble roof the happiness of the little household was never apparently marred by the intrusion of the soul-poisoning virus of party spite. Had the conditions been reversed, had his political friends been out of power, the difference would not have been great—to him or his. His saving gift of humour would always have prevented him from exaggerating the miseries of the losing side into horrors and persecution. Occupied intellectually with the fascinating vistas of romantic literature and blessed with the sympathy of a charming, brave-hearted wife, and too diffident of his merits to resent the slow advent of professional success, he could never have been chilled and narrowed into a political prig wailing over the injustice of the times. For all that, it was a bad time for many of his professional compeers. From their (that is, the Whig) point of view, the public condition in 1800, and for the preceding ten years, was at once painful and humiliating. Their very political creed subjected them to the suspicion of disloyalty. Their cry of Reform was ill-timed, for who will trouble with repairs to his house when his next-door neighbour's house is being plundered and set on fire? Distrust begot dislike, and dislike grew to detestation. 'The frightful thing,' says one who lived through it, 'was the personal bitterness. The decent appearance of mutual toleration, which often produces the virtue itself, was despised, and extermination seemed a duty. This was bad enough in the capital; but far more dreadful in small places, which were more helplessly exposed to persecution. If Dugald Stewart was for several years not cordially received in the city he adorned, what must have been the position of an ordinary man who held Liberal opinions in the country or in a small town, open to all the contumely and obstruction that local insolence could practise, and unsupported probably by any associate cherishing kindred thoughts? Such persons existed everywhere; but they were always below the salt.' One may admire the pertinacity of such men, the forerunners of Reform, while regretting the bitterness of feeling engendered on both sides. The great mistake of the Tory party lay in blindly confounding these theoretical politicians with the great mass of the people. In snubbing their opponents they insulted the people, and created a store of hatred against themselves which a century has not exhausted. To this day the 'practical' Liberal politician knows that a hundred clever speeches will have less effect in a Scottish constituency than simply getting his opponent well saddled with the epithet of 'Tory.' The 'regeneration' for which the Whigs of 1800 waited, and which their successors of 1832 thought they had accomplished, turned out to be the institution of a plutocracy. The twentieth century will perhaps experiment in pure democracy, now that the manual workers have begun to feel the power which they owe to the tireless efforts of the Whigs.

That public opinion was not altogether powerless even in 1800, is proved by the 'Infirmary' incident. At that time a wellnigh incredible arrangement prevailed in the hospital. Dr. Sangrado held sway for one month, and then Dr. Cuchillo got his turn. The members of the Colleges of Physicians and of Surgeons were the medical officers, and they attended the hospital by a monthly rotation, so that the treatment of the patients was liable to be totally altered every thirty days. A proposal was now made to put an end to the absurdity. The change was advocated by Dr. James Gregory, the celebrated professor, who was then the acknowledged head of his profession in Scotland. He wrote a pamphlet, strongly worded and personal, as was his nature, but convincing. In spite of the opposition of the colleges and the majority of the doctors, Gregory prevailed. The public was unanimous, the managers were convinced, and a resolution was passed that there should henceforth be permanent medical officers.

Dr. Gregory was a great fighter. He came of a remarkable family, the Gregories of Aberdeen, originally an offshoot of the MacGregor clan, and proprietors of Kinardie in Banffshire. His great-grandfather was James Gregory, inventor of the 'Gregorian' reflecting telescope. His grandfather and his father were both distinguished medical professors. It was his father Dr. John Gregory, who counted kin with Rob Roy and entertained the bold outlaw more than once at Aberdeen. On one occasion MacGregor proposed to carry James, then a boy of eight or nine, to the Highlands and 'make a man of him.' The story is told in the Introduction to Rob Roy of 1829. Scott there describes James Gregory as 'rather of an irritable and pertinacious disposition'; and says that his friends were wont to remark, when he showed symptoms of temper, 'Ah! this comes of not having been educated by Rob Roy.' Lord Cockburn calls Gregory 'a curious and excellent man, a great physician, a great lecturer, a great Latin scholar, and a great talker; vigorous and generous; large of stature, and with a strikingly powerful countenance. The popularity due to these qualities was increased by his professional controversies, and the diverting publications by which he used to maintain and enliven them. The controversies were rather too numerous; but they were never for any selfish end, and he was never entirely wrong. Still, a disposition towards personal attack was his besetting sin.'