Soaring ambition of the 'stickit solicitor,' and melancholy blindness of the great man who took the conceited 'cratur' on his own valuation! But the ill-omened 'Bulmer of Kelso' had not yet descended on the Canongate, when an event happened which may be regarded as summing up and crowning the transformation of old Edinburgh. It was a sort of postscript to the change which the last generation had seen effected with such startling and tragic rapidity. This was the removal (in 1801) of the family of Lord Chief Baron Sir James Montgomery from their famous residence, Queensberry House in the Canongate. Queensberry House was acquired by the first Duke of Queensberry from Lord Halton, afterwards Earl of Lauderdale. The Duke is said to have practically rebuilt it and made it, both inside and out, one of the finest mansions in the country. To-day there is nothing suggestive of former grandeur about the building, except its size and the massive wall which fronts it. The name 'Queensberry House' is painted on the gate and is also on a brass plate at the bell-handle. The building looks like a modern barrack, the windows having been pointed and freshened up for the visit of King Edward: very proper treatment for a 'House of Refuge,' if not for Queensberry House. In this mansion, 'Kitty, beautiful and young,' the wife of Charles, third Duke, used to lead the aristocratic society of Edinburgh in the days of the first and second Georges. She was the friend of Prior, who celebrated her as 'the Female Phaeton,' and half a century later Horace Walpole added two lines to the poem:—
'To many a Kitty Love his car will for a day engage,
But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, obtained it for an age.'
Under 'Old Q.' the mansion in the Canongate was dismantled. Sir James Montgomery resided in it till 1801, when he resigned his seat as Chief Baron, and retired to the country. 'I believe' (says Cockburn) 'he was the last gentleman who resided in that historical mansion, which, though now one of the asylums of destitution, was once the brilliant abode of rank and fashion and political intrigue. I wish the Canongate could be refreshed again by the habitual sight of the Lord Chief Baron's family and company, and the gorgeous carriage, and the tall and well-dressed figure, in the old style, of his Lordship himself. He was much in our house, my father being one of his Puisnes. Though a remarkably kind landlord, he thought it his duty to proceed sometimes with apparent severity against poachers, smugglers, and other rural corrupters; but as it generally ended in his paying the fine himself, in order to save the family, his benevolence was supposed to do more harm than his justice did good. He died in 1803.'
On the occasion of Montgomery's retirement Robert Dundas was appointed Lord Chief Baron, and Charles Hope became Lord Advocate. His short career was signalised by a somewhat rash and high-handed proceeding against Morison, a Banffshire farmer, who had dismissed a ploughman for absenting himself without leave in order to attend a volunteer drill. The matter led to a motion of censure in the House of Commons, which was not carried, but considerable odium was stirred. Hope in his defence had spoken of the Lord Advocate as vested with the whole powers of the state, both military and civil. An English newspaper reported Hope's return to Scotland in this satirical paragraph:—'Arrived at Edinburgh, the Lord High Chancellor of Scotland, the Lord Justice-General, the Lord Privy Seal, the Privy Council, and the Lord Advocate, all in one post-chaise, containing only a single person.'
Lord Cockburn has very properly defended the memory of Hope from all imputation of injustice. This act, he says, was entirely owing to a hot temperament not cooled by a sound head. 'In spite of all his talent and all his worth, had he continued in the very delicate position of Lord Advocate, his infirmity might have again brought him into some similar trouble. It was fortunate therefore that the gods, envying mortals the longer possession of Eskgrove, took him to themselves; and Hope reigned in his stead. He was made Lord Justice-Clerk in December 1804.'
It was Hope that carried through the Schoolmasters Act of 1803, by which the heritors were compelled to build houses for the schoolmasters. The Act prescribed that the houses (!) need not contain more than two rooms including the kitchen. The provision was considered shabby even in those days, but it was all that could be got out of Parliament then. Hope told Lord Cockburn that he had considerable difficulty in getting even the two rooms, and that a great majority of the lairds and Scottish members were indignant at being obliged to 'erect palaces for dominies.'
CHAPTER XXXVI
Anecdotes of R. P. Gillies—His Picture of Scott—'Border Press' at Abbeyhill—Britain armed for Defence—Scenes in Edinburgh—'Captain' Cockburn.
The eccentric R. P. Gillies seems to have made Scott's acquaintance about this time. This gentleman, of whom Scott, with his usual tenderness to the unfortunate, says 'a more friendly, generous creature never lived,' seems to have been in sore distress about 1825-26. He is frequently mentioned in Scott's Journal, sending numerous 'precatory letters' while Scott's own troubles were at the worst. Both Lockhart and Scott made efforts to assist him. Gillies about the year 1851 brought out his Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, in which he says that Scott was 'not only among the earliest but most persevering of my friends—persevering in spite of my waywardness.' One of R. P. G.'s whims, being a rather clever calligraphist, was to imitate some other person's handwriting, and he used to continue for months writing in imitation of some one or other of his friends. A fresh idea, however, had struck him at the time he was engaged on certain translations from the German which Lockhart had got Constable to undertake to publish for him. He wrote the whole with a brush upon large cartridge paper, and when it was finished, two stout porters were required to carry the huge bales to the publisher's office. The result was, as might have been expected, that Constable drew back from so tremendous an undertaking. It is amusing to find that the monstrous MS. was welcomed by another Edinburgh publisher, who paid £100 for it and issued the book under the title of The Magic Ring.
We are indebted to the same R. P. G. for some interesting remarks on Scott's appearance in 1802: 'At this early period, Scott was more like the portrait by Saxon, engraved for the Lady of the Lake, than any subsequent picture. He retained in features and form an impress of that elasticity and youthful vivacity, which he used to complain wore off after he was forty, and by his own account was exchanged for the plodding heaviness of an operose student. He had now, indeed, somewhat of a boyish gaiety of look, and in person was tall, slim, and extremely active.'