Appendix
Having been favoured by the publishers of the Courant and Mercury with an inspection of such early volumes of their venerable journals as they respectively possess, I have caused a few curious but comparatively trivial paragraphs to be copied for insertion in this place. To these are added a few notices of a characteristic nature from other sources:
1720. Sep.
‘Edinburgh, September 19.—Upon the 17th instant, the Right Honourable the Earl of Wemyss was married to the only child of Colonel Charteris, a fortune of five hundred thousand pounds sterling, English money, which probably in a short time may be double that sum. But that is nothing at all in comparison of the young lady herself, who is truly, for goodness, wit, beauty, and fine shapes, inferior to no lady of Great Britain; all which the very noble earl richly deserves, being a most complete and well-accomplished gentleman, and the lineal representative of a most noble, great, and ancient family in Scotland of five or six hundred years’ standing,’ &c.—Contemporary Journal.
1722. Aug. 13.
‘Last week Sir Robert Sibbald of Kipps, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, died here in the 83d year of his age. He was a person of great piety and learning, and author of many learned and useful books, especially in natural history.’—C. M.
On the 11th November 1723, a number of people proceeding from Galashiels and its neighbourhood to attend a fair at Melrose, and crossing the Tweed in a ferry-boat at Nether Barnsford, near what afterwards became Abbotsford, were thrown by the oversetting of the boat into the water, then in flood, and eighteen of them drowned. A boy named Williamson, son of a tradesman in Galashiels, was preserved in a wonderful way. Thrown at first to the bottom of the river, he caught a man by the hair of his head, and was thus enabled to rise to the surface. There he was kept afloat by grasping, first by a bundle of lint, and then a sackful of gray cloth, letting go each in succession as it became saturated with water. Then a deal from the ‘lofting’ of the boat came near him, and he grasped it firmly below his breast. Meanwhile he was moving rapidly down the stream. There was a place where formerly a bridge had been, and where three piers yet stood in the water. It was with difficulty he got through one of the spaces, and over a cascade on the lower side of the bridge. Sometimes, thrown on his back, he was under water for thirty or forty yards, but he never let go the deal. At length, after going considerably more than a mile in this manner, he was taken up by the West-house-boat, the manager of which had been warned of his coming, and of his possible preservation, by a ploughman mounted on a horse which, escaping from the overset boat, had swum ashore, in time to admit of this rapid and dexterous movement—C. M.
1724. June 2.
There was this day buried in the Greyfriars’ Churchyard, the wife of Captain Burd of Ford, ‘thought to be the largest woman in Scotland.’ ‘Her coffin was a Scots ell and four inches wide, and two feet deep.’—E. E. C.
1725. Feb. 18 .
‘We hear that a Quaker woman is encouraged by our magistrates, in her proposal of setting up a woollen manufactory in this city, and obliging herself to employ all the strolling beggars in work, and to give them food and raiment.’—E. E. C.
Mar. 13.
‘Died William Clerk, brother to the deceased Sir John Clerk of Pennicuik; remarkable for his frequent peregrinations through Europe, which procured him the name of Wandering Will.’—E. E. C.
1728. Feb. 26.
Died Marjory Scott, an inhabitant of Dunkeld, who appears to have reached the extraordinary age of a hundred years. An epitaph was composed for her by Alexander Pennecuik, but never inscribed, and it has been preserved by the reverend statist of the parish, as a whimsical statement of historical facts comprehended within the life of an individual:
‘Stop, passenger, until my life you read,
The living may get knowledge from the dead.
Five times five years I led a virgin life,
Five times five years I was a virtuous wife;
Ten times five years I lived a widow chaste,
Now tirèd of this mortal life I rest.
Betwixt my cradle and my grave hath been
Eight mighty kings of Scotland and a queen.
Full twice five years the Commonwealth I saw,
Ten times the subjects rise against the law;
And, which is worse than any civil war,
A king arraigned before the subjects’ bar.
Swarms of sectarians, hot with hellish rage,
Cut off his royal head upon the stage.
Twice did I see old prelacy pulled down,
And twice the cloak did sink beneath the gown.
I saw the Stuart race thrust out; nay, more,
I saw our country sold for English ore;
Our numerous nobles, who have famous been,
Sunk to the lowly number of sixteen.
Such desolation in my days have been,
I have an end of all perfection seen!’771
Oct. 29.
‘A person, who frequents the [King’s] Park, having long noticed a man to come from a cleft towards the north-west of Salisbury Rocks, had the curiosity some days ago to climb the precipice, if possibly he might discover something that could invite him there. He found a shallow pit, which delivered him into a little snug room or vault hung with dressed leather, lighted from the roof, the window covered with a bladder. It is thought to have been the cave of a hermit in ancient times, though now the hiding-place of a gang of thieves.’—E. E. C.
Nov. 7.
‘Yesterday, one Margaret Gibson, for the crime of theft, was drummed through the city in a very disgraceful manner. Over her neck was fixed a board with spring and bells, which rung as she walked. At some inches distant from her face was fixed a false-face, over which was hung a fox’s tail. In short, she was a very odd spectacle.’—E. E. C.
Dec. 10.
‘A gentleman travelling to the south was attacked on Soutra Hill by two fellows armed with bayonets, who desired him to surrender his purse. The gentleman putting his hand beneath his jockey-coat, presented a pistol, and asked them whether that or |1728.| his money were fittest for them. They earnestly begged he would spare their lives, for necessity had forced them to it, and they had never robbed any save one countryman an hour before of 6s. 8d. The gentleman put them to this dilemma, either to receive his bullets or cut an ear out of each other’s heads; the last of which with sorrowful hearts they performed.’—E. E. C.
Dec.
The prospectus was issued of a weekly paper under the name of The Echo, to contain, besides news, literary matter for the instruction and amusement of society. The undertakers expressed themselves confident of assistance from ‘persons of taste, wit, and humour, with which they know our nation abounds.’ The price to be 2s. 6d. a quarter.—E. E. C.
Dec. 24.
‘A fire broke out in the house of William Gib in Kittlenaked, and burnt four cows to death; but how the fire happened is not known.’—E. E. C.
1729. Jan. 14.
‘We hear that the Lady Cherrytrees died some days ago in the 104th year of her age.’—E. E. C.
Jan. 28.
‘Yesternight, two women were committed to the Guard for walking the streets in men’s apparel.’—E. E. C.
Jan. 30.
‘Yesternight, a company of night-ramblers demolished a vast many windows in the Cowgate and Grassmarket, broke down the seat and loosed the railing before Scott’s Land, and played the like tricks in several other places.’—E. E. C.
Feb. 4.
‘There are just now fifty recruits in the Canongate gaol, belonging to Halket’s Regiment, ready to be transported to Holland.’—E. E. C.
Sep.
‘The Quakers are building a place of worship in Peebles’s Wynd. Though it be roofed, there is as yet no window in it; but some merrily observe these people have light within.’—E. E. C.
1730. Apr. 27.
‘On Thursday was interred, in the Greyfriars’ Churchyard, the corpse of Mr Andrew Cant, one of the ministers of this city at the Revolution, and since made a bishop of the clergy of the Episcopal Communion. He was esteemed a learned and eloquent preacher. He died in the 91st year of his age, and 64th of his ministry.’—E. E. C.
1731. Mar. 29.
‘Last Thursday night, Mr Cockburn, son to my Lord Justice-clerk, was married to Miss Rutherford, daughter to the Laird of Fernilie.’ [This lady was the authoress of the song, beginning ‘I’ve seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling,’ to the tune of the Flowers of the Forest.]—E. E. C.
Apr. 12.
‘There is one Mr David Burnet, officer of the Excise in Glasgow, died the 8th instant, and left £50 sterling to the poor of the parishes where he was officer in—namely, £10 to Edinburgh, £10 to Glasgow, £10 to Ayr, £10 to Hamilton, £10 to Carnwath, as an encouragement to these several places to deal kindly with the officers residing among them.’—E. E. C.
July 1.
‘Yesternight.... Ferrier, Esq., late Provost of Dundee, was married to the heiress of Coldingknows, a handsome young lady of a considerable fortune; and we hear that he was attended by persons of distinction.’—E. E. C.
Aug. 26.
‘Last Tuesday, died Mrs Heriot, late the widow of Mr James Watson, his Majesty’s Printer, by whom she had a very considerable estate, a great part of which comes to her present husband.’—E. E. C.
Aug. 30.
‘They write from Glasgow that one Robert Lyon is now living there, who was in the service of King Charles I.; aged 109 years. He has got a new set of teeth, and recovered his sight in a wonderful manner.’—E. E. C.
Dec. 21.
‘By a letter from Stonhive, we have an account that one John Anderson died there lately who could not be less than 108 years old, he having been about 16 at the fight of the Bridge of Dee, which happened in the 1639.’—E. E. C.
1731. Nov.
‘William Crawford, janitor of the High School at Edinburgh, somewhat in years, having been thrice proclaimed in the kirk, went thither with his friends, and stood some hours expecting his bride. At last he received a ticket from her in these terms: “William, you must know I am pre-engaged. I am so. I never could like a burnt cuttie. I have now by the hand my sonsie, menseful strapper, with whom I intend to pass my youthful days. You know, old age and youth cannot agree together. I must then be excused if I tell you I am not your humble servant.” The honest man, not taking it much to heart, only said: “Come, let us at least keep the feast on a feast-day. Dinner will be ready. Let us go drink, and drive care away. May never a greater misfortune attend an honest man!” Back to dinner they went, and from the company convened the bridegroom got a hundred merks, and all charges defrayed; with which he was as well satisfied as he who got madam.’—C. M.
Nov. 19.
‘Died William Eadie, bellman of the Canongate, Edinburgh, aged 120. He had buried the inhabitants of the Canongate thrice. He was 90 years a freeman, and married a second wife, a lusty young woman, after he was 100 years old.’—C. M.
1732. Apr. 9.
‘Died John Gray, master of the Rope and Sail Manufactory at Edinburgh; eminent for his unparalleled skill in cutting whalebone.’—C. M.
In April, it was intimated from Kirkcaldy, that Margaret White of that place, aged 87, has lately cut eight fresh teeth. ‘Her husband,’ moreover, ‘is in hopes she may bring him also a new progeny, as she has recovered, with her new tusks, a blooming and juvenile air.’
These were encouraging facts for the aged; but what were they in comparison with the case of Jean Johnston of Old Deer, in Buchan! Being aged 80, and the widow of three husbands, she lately married for her fourth a young man of eighteen, who had since bound himself apprentice to a wheel-wright. ‘She seems exceedingly well pleased with him, and remarks that, had it not been for the many changes of husbands she had been blessed with, she must have long ago been dead.’ She lived, too, in hopes of a fifth husband, should this one unfortunately not live long.
‘Thursday last,’ says the paper of June 5th, ‘a certain gray-haired hair-merchant in the Landmarket, aged between seventy and eighty, a very heavy and corpulent man, laid half a guinea that he should make the round of Hope Park in twenty minutes, which is reckoned about a Scots mile. He made it out in about nineteen minutes, but was so reduced before he reached the starting-post that he arrived there upon all-fours. On taking a dram, he reverted so well, that he offered to lay the same wager again instantly.’
The paper for 4th May related that, lately, ‘a young man, a merchant in Edinburgh, came to Leith to see a female friend take boat in order to cross the water. The boat being put off and near the pier-end before he came down, and he observing a rival in the boat with madame, was so exasperate, that in order to get at ’em, he jumped off the pier-end into the flood, and had actually perished by this passionate frolic, had not two of Montague’s regiment stepped down, and with both difficulty and danger, haled him out.’—C. M.
Feb. 6.
‘Died the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, Countess of Dalkeith, &c., aged about 90. She was relict of James Duke of Monmouth, natural son of Charles II., beheaded on Tower Hill, July 15, 1685. She had issue by the Duke, James, late Earl of Dalkeith, and Henry, late Earl of Deloraine. In 1688, she was again married to Charles Lord Cornwallis, and had issue a son and two daughters. By her death, an estate of £15,000 per annum, and the title of Duke of Buccleuch, descend to Francis, Earl of Dalkeith, her grandson.’—C. M.
Oct. 18.
Thomas Ruddiman gave in his paper an account of an incident at Musselburgh, such as a subsequent native, the late David M. Moir (Delta), would have delighted to paint in even |1732.| greater breadth. The magistrates, according to ancient annual custom, had to perform the ceremony of riding round the marches of their burghal property. On this occasion, they were attended by their vassals and the burgesses, to the number of 700, all of them of course mounted and in their best array. ‘The trumpets and hautboys marched in front; then the magistrates and town council, followed by the gentlemen vassals, with the town standard; after them the several incorporations, distinguished by their respective shining new standards, and headed by the masters of the crafts. In this good order they marched out to the Links, making a gay appearance. But, alas! while they were marshalling, an unlucky difference arose between the weavers and the tailors, which should have the pas or precedency. In order to prevent effusion of the blood of his majesty’s good subjects, they agreed to submit the merits of the cause to the magistrates. The tailors argued that, as the precedency had previously fallen to them by lot, no opposition could now be offered in that respect. It was alleged, on the other hand, that they—the weavers—were Men, and as such preferable at all events to Tailors. This signal affront could not be digested. Accordingly, to work they went, without waiting the decision of authority; and while the weaver squadron were filing off to take the post of honour, with Captain Scott at their head, Adjutant Fairley, who acted in that capacity to the tailor squadron, directed a blow at the captain’s snout, which brought him to the ground. Thus were the two corps fiercely engaged, and nought was to be seen but heavy blows, hats off, broken heads, bloody noses, and empty saddles; till at last the plea of manhood seemed to go in favour of the needlemen, who took Scott, hero of the weavers, prisoner, disarmed him, and beat his company quite out of the field, though far more numerous. It was with the utmost difficulty that the weavers got their standard carried off, which they lodged in their captain’s quarters under the discharge of three huzzas: ’tis true the conquering tailors were then off the field, and at a mile’s distance. The weavers allege, in excuse of their retreat, that the butcher squadron had been ordered up to assist the tailors, and that they did not incline to engage with these men of blood.’—C. M.
1733. Oct. 30.
A circumstance somewhat like the Tain entertainment, in honour of Governor Macrae, took place in Edinburgh, on this king’s birthday, which was observed with unusual rejoicings, on account of the recent stimulus to loyalty from the marriage of the Princess Royal to the Prince of Orange. ‘David Campbell, his Majesty’s Tailor for Scotland, came to this kingdom from Jamaica, purely on design to solemnise the day. He accordingly entertained at his lodgings in the Abbey his Majesty’s Blue Gowns [a set of licensed beggars, corresponding in number to the king’s years, which were now fifty], and at night he kept open table, where several gentlemen were entertained, all the royal healths were drunk, and those of every remarkable person of the illustrious name of Campbell, with the sound of trumpet and other music.’—C. M.
Oct.
The Caledonian Mercury gives a droll, chirping account of an association which, it is easy to see, had in view the prevention of an over-severe excise system for Scotland. Yesternight, says the paragraph, ‘there came on, at the Parrot’s Nest in this city, the annual election of office-bearers in the ancient and venerable Assembly of Birds; when the Game-cock was elected preses; the Blackbird, treasurer; the Gled, principal clerk; the Crow, his depute; and the Duck, officer; all birds duly qualified to our happy establishment, and no less enemies to the excise scheme. After which an elegant entertainment was served up; all the royal and loyal healths were plentifully drunk in the richest wines; the glorious 205; all the bonny birds, &c. On this joyful occasion nothing was heard but harmonious music, each bird striving to excel in chanting and warbling their respective melodious notes.’ The glorious 205, it may be remarked, were those members of the House of Commons who had recently thrown out a bill for increasing the tax on tobacco.
1734. Mar. 6.
‘John Park, some time dempster to the Court of Justiciary, and who lately stood a trial there for horse-stealing, was whipped through the city, pursuant to his sentence; |1734.| by which also he stands condemned to transport himself, never again to return to Scotland, on pain of being whipped quarterly till he is again transported. He is a very old man, with a graceless gray head, gray beard, and but one hand, having left the other in some scrape.’—C. M.
Apr. 19.
‘When Mr Adam Fergusson, minister of Killin, came to Perth to intimate the sentence of the commission (which looses Mr William Wilson’s pastoral relation in that burgh), Mr Fergusson was met in the suburbs by several of the inhabitants, who fell upon the gentleman, though vested with supreme authority, and attended by several armed men; yet they were all severely cudgelled, and obliged to retire, re infectâ.’—C. M.
July 12.
‘Died here, the Rev. Mr John Maclaren, one of the ministers of the city; esteemed a well-meaning man, and void of hypocrisy.’—C. M.
1735. Jan. 9.
‘On Saturday was se’nnight [Dec. 28, 1734], died at Balquhidder, in Perthshire, the famous Highland partisan, Rob Roy.’—C. M.
Jan. 24.
‘Died, in the 12th year of her age, the Lady Jane Campbell, fourth daughter to his Grace the Duke of Argyle.... His Grace has no male issue, but several daughters living, and it is the peculiar right of this family, that when they marry any daughters, their vassals are obliged to pay their portions, and are taxed in order to it, according to the number of their cattle.’—C. M.
Aug. 18.
We find at this time a beginning to that system of emigration to America by which the Highlands were so much depopulated during the eighteenth century. ‘The trustees for the colony of Georgia have projected a settlement of Highlanders from this country, and have actually sent round for Inverness and Cromarty a ship commanded by Captain Dunbar, to take in 160 men, women, and children, who are to be settled on the far boundary of the river Alatamaha, who will be a gallant barrier in case of a war with France and Spain. And Mr Oglethorpe, with the other trustees, are applying to the society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge to send a minister along with them who speaks Irish, with proper encouragement; and we are assured the society are so well satisfied with the project, that they have amply instructed their committee of directors to close in with it.’—C. M.
1736. Jan. 19.
‘The annual friendly meeting of the gentlemen of the name of Wilson, was held at the house of Jean Wilson, spouse to Arthur Cumming, periwig-maker, opposite to the City Guard; the Right Hon. Alexander Wilson, Lord Provost of the city, preses. There were present about forty gentlemen and others of that clan, who were served at supper by persons of the name. The entertainment was sumptuous, and choice wines went merrily round.’—C. M.
Jan. 21.
‘A very uncommon chain of events happened here [Lanark] t’other week. Elizabeth Fairy was proclaimed in order to marriage on Sunday, was accordingly married on Monday, bore a child on Tuesday; her husband went and stole a horse on Wednesday, for which he was banished on Thursday; the heir of this marriage died on Friday, and was decently interred on Saturday; all in one week.’—C. M.
Feb. 9.
‘The 4th inst., several young gentlemen of this place [Montrose] acted Mr Allan Ramsay’s celebrated Pastoral Comedy, for the diversion of the gentlemen and ladies of and about this town, with all the dresses suitable, and performed it with so much spirit and humour, as agreeably surprised the whole audience; to oblige whom they re-enacted it and the farce of the Mock Doctor two succeeding nights. The money taken, after deducting the necessary charges, being very considerable, was distributed among the poor.’—C. M.
Mar. 13.
‘This week, several gentlemen laid a wager that a horse, twenty-six years old, belonging to Mr. Pillans, brewer, should not draw 101 stone-weight up the West Bow to the Weigh-house; and yesterday it was surprisingly performed, one of the wagerers riding on the top of all.’—C. M.
July 9.
Nine unfortunate young women—‘very naked and meagre beings’—‘made an amende |1736.| honorable through the several streets of the city [of Edinburgh], the hangman attending them, and drums beating to the tune of Cuckolds-come-dig.’—C. M.
While Allan Ramsay was preparing his playhouse, an Italian female rope-dancer, named Signora Violante, performed in Edinburgh and some other Scottish towns. It was announced that she danced a minuet on the rope, as well as it could be done on the floor—danced on a board placed loosely on the rope—danced on the rope with two boys fastened to her feet—danced with two swords at her feet—the rope being no thicker than penny whip-cord. In Edinburgh, the scene of her performances was the ’Old Assembly Hall.’—C. M.
1738. Mar. 22.
‘A grand convention was held of the adherents to the seceding ministers of the Church of Scotland, in a square plain on Braid Hills, two miles south of this city. About 10 before noon, Mr Thomas Mair, minister of Orwel, in Kinross-shire, opened the service of the day (standing in a pulpit reared up within a tent), with a sermon from Jeremiah i. 5. At noon, Mr William Wilson, one of the ministers of Perth, preached from Ezekiel xxii. 24, and afterwards baptized ten children, brought thither some 20, some 30 miles off. At four afternoon, Mr Ralph Erskine, one of the ministers of Dunfermline, preached from Hosea xxiii. 9, &c. The apparent tendency of these sermons was to excite devotion and fervour, a renewal of solemn engagements, to deprecate sin in general, and those of this corrupt age in particular: and it was observed that it was no proper expedient either to wash away sin, or indemnify the sinner, to purchase indulgences at the hand of the kirk-treasurer, and some other tenets that savoured of a popish tincture were soundly lashed. There were about 5000 hearers at each sermon (I mean of the household of faith), some of whom from South Britain and Ireland, besides the ungodly audience, consisting of many thousands, some of whom set fire to furze; others hunted the hare around ’em to create disturbance, a certain huntsman having laid a plot to carry off the collection. The convention dispersed at 7 at night.’—C. M.
Apr. 7.
In consequence of a butcher’s dog going mad, and biting some others of her species, the magistrates of Edinburgh ordered the slaughter of all the butchers’ dogs in the city, and, commanding the seclusion of all other dogs whatsoever, put a shilling on the head of every one which should be found abroad. There then took place a crusade against the canine species, which seems to have been nearly the sole Scottish incident reported in London for the year. ‘The street cadies went very early into obedience to this edict; for the drum had scarce gone round to intimate the same, when they fell a-knocking on the head all suspicious or ill-affected curs, some of which they hanged on sign-posts, &c.; and with difficulty could they be restrained from killing the dogs that lead the blind about the streets, or attacking the ladies with their lap-dogs. A detachment of the City Guard was ordered down to the butcher-market, when they made very clean havoc of all the dogs there. Saturday, at noon, the town-officers being provided with large oaken clubs, went a dog-hunting, and killed every cur they could see or hear of; so that nothing was to be seen but chasing, hacking, and slashing, or heard other than the lamentation of butchers’ wives, &c., for the loss of Credit, Honesty, Turk, Twopenny, Cæsar, &c.’
Three days later, the magistrates of Leith ordered all the dogs of their town to be put to death. Accordingly, the curs were driven into the harbour, and drowned, or else knocked on the head. ‘Several gentlemen and others,’ it is reported, ‘have sent off their dogs to the country, and a certain writer has despatched his favourite Tipsy to Haddington in a cloak-bag. Patrick Kier in Multries-hill having tied up his dog, the beast gnawed the rope, and getting loose, rushed into the room on his master, and bit him severely. The dog was immediately killed, and Mr Kier carried to the sea and dipped.’—C. M.
1740. July 30.
Lord Lovat having occasion at this time to travel from his house of Beaufort, in Inverness-shire, to Edinburgh, with his two daughters, made an effort to get his coach |1740.| ready, and, after two or three days spent in its repair, set out on his journey. Passing through Inverness without stopping, he came the first night to Corriebrough. To pursue his own narrative, as given in a letter to a friend:772 ‘I brought my wheel-wright with me the length of Aviemore, in case of accidents, and there I parted with him, because he declared that my chariot would go safe enough to London; but I was not eight miles from the place, when on the plain road, the axle-tree of the hind-wheels broke in two, so that my girls were forced to go on bare horses behind footmen, and I was obliged to ride myself, though I was very tender, and the day very cold. I came with that equipage to Ruthven late at night, and my chariot was pulled there by force of men, where I got an English wheel-wright and a smith, who wrought two days mending my chariot; and after paying very dear for their work, and for my quarters two nights, I was not gone four miles from Ruthven, when it broke again, so that I was in a miserable condition till I came to Dalnakeardach, where my honest landlord, Charles M‘Glassian, told me that the Duke of Athole had two as good workmen at Blaire as were in the kingdom, and that I would get my chariot as well mended there as at London. Accordingly, I went there and stayed a night, and got my chariot very well mended by a good wright and a good smith. I thought then that I was pretty secure till I came to this place. I was storm-stayed two days at Castle Drummond by the most tempestuous weather of wind and rain that I ever remember to see. The Dutches of Perth and Lady Mary Drummond were excessively kind and civil to my daughters and to me, and sent their chamberlain to conduct me to Dumblain, who happened to be very useful to us that day; for I was not three miles gone from Castle Drummond, when the axle-tree of my fore-wheels broke in two, in the midst of the hill, betwixt Drummond and the bridge of Erdoch, and we were forced to sit in the hill, with a boisterous day, till Chamberlain Drummond was so kind as to go down to Strath, and bring wrights, and carts, and smiths to our assistance, who dragged us to the plain, where we were forced to stay five or six hours till there was a new axle-tree made, be that it was dark night before we came to Dumblain, which is but eight miles from Castle Drummond, and we were all much fatigued. The next day, we came to Lithgow, and the day after that we arrived here, so that we were twelve days on our journey by our misfortunes, which was seven days more than ordinary.’
1743. Jan. 10.
‘Friday [Jan. 7], died William Mackintosh of Borlum, Esq., aged upwards of 80 years of age. He has been prisoner in the Castle these 15 years for his accession to the Rebellion 1715.’—E. E. C.
Jan. 17.
‘On Thursday last [Jan. 13], died the Honourable Colonel John Erskine of Carnock. He was a True Old Whig.’—E. E. C.
Jan. 17.
‘Friday, the place of one of the Principal Clerks of this city was conferred on Mr William Forbes, writer, he paying, as a consideration for the same, in room of Mr Home deceased, £1410 sterling.’—E. E. C.
Apr. 14.
‘Thursday last, died at Sanquhar, William Kelloch, aged 111 years. He served the town as one of their common officers 96 years, and his son, now living, has served in the same station 70 years. He was a very honest man, had his senses to the last, and never made use of spectacles.’—E. E. C.
May 9.
‘Notwithstanding the late execution of Margaret Stewart for child-murder, yet we are told that two more new-born children have since been found dead, with marks of violence on them.’—E. E. C.
Notes
1. A very animated review of these affairs will be found in Mr Burton’s excellent History.
2. Collection of Papers, &c. London, Richard Janeway, 1689.
3. Account of the Pope’s Procession at Aberdene, &c., reprinted in Laing’s Fugitive Poetry of the Seventeenth Century.
4. Biographia. Presbyteriana, i. 221.
5. Under this title, a pamphlet, detailing the outing and rabbling of the clergy, was published in London in 1690.
6. Stewart’s Sketches of the Highlanders, i. p. 99, note.
7. Wodrow’s Analecta, i. 338.
8. Life and Diary of Lieutenant-colonel Blackader of the Cameronian Regiment. By Andrew Crichton. Edin. 1824.
9. Privy Council Record, MS., Gen. Register House, Edinburgh.
10. Home of Crossrig’s Diary. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1843.
11. Domestic Annals of Scotland, ii. 408, 432.
12. Acts of Scottish Parliament, ix. 12.
13. On the 12th February 1690, the Privy Council had under their notice the case of a man named Samuel Smith, who had been imprisoned in the Edinburgh Tolbooth for three years on a charge of theft, without trial, and ordained him to be set at large, there being ‘no probation’ against him.
14. Privy Council Record.
15. Privy Council Record, under February 22, 1698.
16. Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheil [by Drummond of Balhadics], p. 243.
17. Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheil, p. 254.
18. C. K. Sharpe in note to Law’s Memorials.
19. Privy Council Record.
20. Justiciary Record.
21. Mrs Gibb seems to have been the person who managed the transmission or carrying between Edinburgh and Haddington.
22. Privy Council Record.
23. Privy Council Record.
24. Privy Council Record.
25. Privy Council Record.
26. Privy Council Record.
27. Privy Council Record.
28. Scots Acts, iii. 310.
29. Privy Council Record.
30. Contemporary broadsides.
31. Domestic Annals, ii. 384.
32. Privy Council Record.
33. Privy Council Record.
34. A picturesque glimpse of the Highland marauding of this period was obtained some years ago at second-hand from the memory of William Bane Macpherson, who died in 1777 at the age of a hundred. ‘He was wont to relate that, when a boy of twelve years of age, being engaged as buachaille [herd-boy] at the summering [i. e., summer grazing] of Biallid, near Dalwhinnie, he had an opportunity of being an eye-witness to a creagh and pursuit on a very large scale, which passed through Badenoch. At noon on a fine autumnal day in 1689, his attention was drawn to a herd of black-cattle, amounting to about six score, driven along by a dozen of wild Lochaber men, by the banks of Loch Erroch, in the direction of Dalunchart in the forest of Alder, now Ardverikie. Upon inquiry, he ascertained that these had been “lifted” in Aberdeenshire, distant more than a hundred miles, and that the reivers had proceeded thus far with their booty free from molestation and pursuit. Thus they held on their way among the wild hills of this mountainous district, far from the haunts of the semi-civilised inhabitants, and within a day’s journey of their home. Only a few hours had elapsed after the departure of these marauders, when a body of nearly fifty horsemen appeared, toiling amidst the rocks and marshes of this barbarous region, where not even a footpath helped to mark the intercourse of society, and following on the trail of the men and cattle which had preceded them. The troop was well mounted and armed, and led by a person of gentlemanlike appearance and courteous manners; while, attached to the party, was a number of horses carrying bags of meal and other provisions, intended not solely for their own support, but, as would seem from the sequel, as a ransom for the creagh. Signalling William Bane to approach, the leader minutely questioned him about the movements of the Lochaber men, their number, equipments, and the line of their route. Along the precipitous banks of Loch Erroch this large body of horsemen wended their way, accompanied by William Bane, who was anxious to see the result of the meeting. It bespoke spirit and resolution in those strangers to seek an encounter with the robbers in their native wilds, and on the borders of that country, where a signal of alarm would have raised a numerous body of hardy Lochaber men, ready to defend the creagh, and punish the pursuers. Towards nightfall, they drew near the encampment of the thieves at Dalunchart, and observed them busily engaged in roasting, before a large fire, one of the beeves, newly slaughtered.
‘A council of war was immediately held, and, on the suggestion of the leader, a flag of truce was forwarded to the Lochaber men, with an offer to each of a bag of meal and a pair of shoes, in ransom for the herd of cattle. This offer, being viewed as a proof of cowardice and fear, was contemptuously rejected, and a reply sent, to the effect that the cattle, driven so far and with so much trouble, would not be surrendered. Having gathered in the herd, both parties prepared for action. The overwhelming number of the pursuers soon mastered their opponents. Successive discharges of firearms brought the greater number of the Lochaber men to the ground, and in a brief period only three remained unhurt, and escaped to tell the sad tale to their countrymen.’—Inverness Courier, August 17, 1847.
35. This post-boy appears to have been forty-four years old.
36. Lord Viscount Kingston was a cadet of the Winton family, and had delivered a Latin oration to Charles I., at his father’s house of Seton, in 1633.
37. In the parliament which sat down in September, robbing the post-packet was declared to be ‘robbery,’ to be punished with death and confiscation of movables.—Scots Acts.
38. Privy Council Record.
39. Privy Council Record.
40. Privy Council Record. The privileges of Mr Hamilton were confirmed by the Estates in June 1693.
41. Privy Council Record.
42. Privy Council Record.
43. A portrait of the house, and some particulars of the family, are to be found in Robert Stuart’s Views and Notices of Glasgow in Former Times, 4to, 1847.
44. This must have been Lady Raeburn (Anne Scott of Ancrum).
45. Probably his sister Isobel’s husband, described in Burke as Captain Anderson.
46. Acts of General Assembly, 1690, p. 18.
47. See page 10.
48. Melville Correspondence, p. 150. The parliament, on the 18th July 1690, gave a warrant for subjecting one Muir or Ker to the torture, in order to expiscate the truth regarding the murder of an infant, of which he was vehemently suspected.
49. Mr Burton, in his History of Scotland from 1689 to 1748, gives the following account of this nobleman: ‘The Earl of Crawford, made chairman of the Estates and a privy councillor, was the only statesman of the day who adopted the peculiar demeanour and scriptural language of the Covenanters. It is to him that Burnet and others attribute the severities against the Episcopal clergymen, and the guidance of the force brought to bear in the parliament and Privy Council in favour of a Presbyterian establishment.’
50. Melville Correspondence. Privy Council Record.
51. Privy Council Record.
52. Privy Council Record.
53. Privy Council Record.
54. Privy Council Record.
55. Burt’s Letters, i. 128.
56. A phrase of the time, found in the Privy Council Record.
57. John Callander, master-smith, petitioned the Privy Council in June 1689, regarding smith-work which he had executed for Edinburgh and Stirling Castles, to the amount of eleven hundred pounds sterling, whereof, though long due, he had ‘never yet received payment of a sixpence.’ On his earnest entreaty, three hundred pounds were ordered to be paid to account. On the ensuing 23d of August, he was ordained to be paid £6567, 17s. 2d., after a rigid taxing of his accounts, Scots money being of course meant. Connected with this little matter is an anecdote which has been told in various forms, regarding the estate of Craigforth, near Stirling. It is alleged that the master-smith, failing to obtain a solution of the debt from the Scottish Exchequer, applied to the English treasury, and was there so fortunate as to get payment of the apparent sum in English money. Having out of this unexpected wealth made a wadset on the estate of Craigforth, he ultimately fell into the possession of that property, which he handed down to his descendants.58 John Callander was grandfather of a gentleman of the same name, who cultivated literature with assiduity, and was the editor of two ancient Scottish poems—The Guberlunzie Man, and Christ’s Kirk on the Green. This gentleman, again, was grandfather to Mrs Thomas Sheridan and Lady Graham of Netherby.
58. Sir James Campbell’s Memoirs. A Week at the Bridge of Allan, by Charles Rogers, 1853, p. 334.
59. Justiciary Records.
60. Privy Council Record.
61. Privy Council Record.
62. Record of Convention of Burghs, MS. in Council Chamber, Edinburgh.
63. Anderson’s Prize Essay on the State of the Highlands in 1745, p. 95.
64. New Stat. Acc. of Scotland: Ross, p. 220.
65. Privy Council Record.
66. Dr John Brown: Locke and Sydenham, &c., 1858, p. 457.
67. The second edition of Tippermalloch was published in 1716, containing Dr Pitcairn’s method of curing the small-pox. It professes to be superior to the first edition, being ‘taken from an original copy which the author himself delivered to the truly noble and excellent lady, the late Marchioness of Athole, and which her Grace the present duchess, a lady no less eminent for her singular goodness and virtue than her high quality, was pleased to communicate to us and the public.’
68. Analecta Scotica, ii. 176.
69. Privy Council Record.
70. Crossrig’s Diary.
71. Kilravock Papers, Spald. Club, p. 388.
72. Privy Council Record.
73. Privy Council Record.
74. Life of Peden, Biogr. Presbyteriana, i. 112.
75. Privy Council Record.
76. Domestic Annals of Scotland, ii. 29.
77. Criminal Proceedings, a Collection of Justiciary Papers in Library of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
78. Macdonald of Glencoe bore the subordinate surname of M‘Ian, as descended from a noted person named Ian or John.
79. Addressed to Sir Thomas Livingstone, commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland.
80. See Papers Illustrative of the Political Condition of the Highlands from 1689 to 1696. Maitland Club. 1845.
81. Privy Council Record.
82. Privy Council Record.
83. This was the father of Mr Andrew Drummond, the founder of the celebrated banking-house in the Strand.
84. Privy Council Record.
85. From papers in possession of John Hall Maxwell, of Dargavel, Esq.
86. Privy Council Record. (See onward, under December 31, 1692, and July 13, 1697.)
87. Privy Council Record.
88. Fountainhall’s Decisions, i. 693.
89. Privy Council Record.
90. Fountainhall’s Decisions, i. 693.
91. Domestic Annals of Scotland, ii. 326.
92. Mem. of John Earl of Stair by an Impartial Hand, p. 7.
93. Murray’s Literary Hist. of Galloway, p. 155.
94. Privy Council Record.
95. Minutes of Merchant Company, MS. in possession of the Company.
96. Fountainhall’s Decisions, i. 518, 564.
97. Ibid., i. 525.
98. Ibid.
99. Privy Council Record.
100. Privy Council Record.
101. Privy Council Record.
102. Privy Council Record.
103. Privy Council Record.
104. Privy Council Record.
105. In July 1695, there was a further act ‘anent burying in Scots linen,’ ordaining that none should be used for sepulchral purposes above twenty shillings Scots per ell, and also commanding that the nearest elder or deacon of the parish, with one or two neighbours, should be called by the friends of deceased persons to see that the shroud was in all respects conform to the acts thereanent.
106. Wodrow Pamphlets, Adv. Lib., vol. 115.
107. Privy Council Record.
108. Acts of Scottish Parliament, ix. 429.
109. Privy Council Record.
110. Acts of Scottish Parliament, ix. 420.
111. See Domestic Annals of Scotland, ii. 398.
112. Privy Council Record.
113. Letter from a Gentleman in the Country to his Friend at Edinburgh, &c. Edin. 1696.
114. Privy Council Record.
115. Fountainhall’s Decisions, i. 590.
116. Privy Council Record.
117. Privy Council Record.
118. Privy Council Record.
119. Scottish Journal, ii. 200.
120. The troubles from the meeting-houses at Coldingham and two neighbouring parishes, led to their being entirely suppressed by the arm of the government in March 1700 [q. v.]
121. The above, and some other curious extracts from the parish register of Coldingham, are given in an interesting volume, entitled History of the Priory of Coldingham. By William King Hunter. Edinburgh, 1858.
122. Analecta, ii. 250. Wodrow tells us that Lady Dundee had been very violent against the Presbyterians, and ‘used to say she wished that, that day she heard a Presbyterian minister, the house might fall down and smother her, which it did.’
123. Analecta Scotica, i. 187. Wodrow’s Analecta, ii. 250.
124. William Livingstone survived his wife nearly forty years. In the Caledonian Mercury for February 6, 1733, is this paragraph: ‘We are assured private letters are in town, giving account, that on the 12th of last month, the Right Hon. the late Viscount Kilsyth died at Rome, in an advanced age, in perfect judgment, and a Christian and exemplary resignation.’
125. Privy Council Record.
126. A Summer’s Divertisement of Mathematical and Mechanical Curiosities, being an Account of the Things seen at the House of Curiosities, near Grange Park. Edinburgh: James Watson. 1695.
127. Nicolas’s spelling is here given literatim.
128. Privy Council Record.
129. From ‘a double of the oath’ in the Kilravock Papers, Spald. Club publication, p. 387.
130. Fountainhall’s Decisions, i. 629.
131. Privy Council Record.
132. ‘James Peedie of Roughill and John Anderson of Dowhill were the first merchants who brought a loading of cherry-sack into this city.’—M‘Ure’s Hist. Glasg., p. 250.
133. Arnot’s Criminal Trials, p. 163.
134. Chalmers’s Life of Ruddiman, p. 30. Bower’s Hist. Univ. of Edinburgh, ii. 153.
135. Privy Council Record.
136. Privy Council Record.
137. These legends appear to have been intended to read as follows: ‘Three years thou shalt have to repent, and note it well. Wo be to thee, Scotland! Repent and take warning, for the doors of heaven are already barred against thee. I am sent for a warning to thee, to flee to God. Yet troubled shall this man be for twenty days and three. Repent, repent, Scotland, or else thou shalt’——.
138. On the 7th of January 1696, the Privy Council gave licence to George Mossman, stationer in Edinburgh, to ‘print and sell a book entitled A True Relation of an Apparition, Expressions, and Actings of a Spirit which infested the House of Andrew Mackie, in Ring-croft of Stocking, in the Parish of Rerrick, &c.,’ with exclusive right of doing so for a year.
139. Privy Council Record.
140. Caledonian Mercury, Nov. 20, 1732.
141. Privy Council Record.
142. From Information for his Majesty’s Advocate, &c., against James Edmonstoun of Newton.
143. Maclaurin’s Criminal Cases, p. 10.
144. Introductions, &c., to Waverley Novels, i. 255.
145. Acts of Scot. Par., ix. 452.
146. Hugh Miller’s Sketch-book of Popular Geology, pp. 13, 14.
147. Privy Council Record.
148. A few of the subscriptions are here subjoined: For £1000 each, the Faculty of Advocates, John Anderson of Dowhill, Provost of Glasgow, the Earl of Annandale; Alexander Brand, merchant in Edinburgh; James Balfour, merchant in Edinburgh; George Clerk, merchant in Edinburgh; Daniel Campbell, merchant in Glasgow; Sir Robert Dickson of Sorn-beg, Andrew Fletcher of Salton, the town of Glasgow, John Graham younger of Dougalston, the Earl of Haddington, Lord Yester, Sir David Home of Crossrig, Sir John Home of Blackader, Sir Alexander Hope of Kerse, William Hay of Drumelzier, Sir James Hall of Dunglass, Lockhart of Carnwath, William Livingstone of Kilsyth; George Lockhart, merchant in Glasgow; the Merchant House of Glasgow, the Marquis of Montrose, Sir John Maxwell of Pollock, Sir Patrick Murray of Auchtertyre, Francis Montgomery of Giffen, William Morison of Prestongrange, William Nisbet of Dirleton, Sir James Primrose of Carrington, the Countess of Rothes, the Countess of Roxburgh, Lord Ross, Lord Ruthven, William Robertson of Gladney, the Earl of Sutherland, the Earl of Southesk, Viscount Strathallan, Viscount Stair, Sir John Swinton, Sir Francis Scott of Thirlstain, Sir John Shaw of Greenock; Thomas Spence, writer in Edinburgh; John Spreul, alias Bass John, merchant in Glasgow; the Marquis of Tweeddale, Viscount Tarbat; Robert Watson, merchant in Edinburgh; George Warrender, merchant there; and William Wardrop, merchant in Glasgow: for £1200, the Merchant Company of Edinburgh: for £1300, James Pringle of Torwoodlee: for £1500, the Earl of Argyle, William Lord Jedburgh, and Patrick Thomson, treasurer of Glasgow: for £2000, Mr Robert Blackwood, merchant in Edinburgh; Sir Robert Chiesley, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, John Lord Glenorchy, Lord Basil Hamilton, the Earl of Hopetoun, the Earl of Leven; William Menzies, merchant in Edinburgh; the town of Perth, Sir William Scott of Harden: for £3000, Lord Belhaven, the Good Town of Edinburgh, the Duchess of Hamilton, the Duke of Queensberry, the Easter Sugarie of Glasgow, and Sir John Stuart of Grandtully.
149. Scots Acts, sub anno 1695.
150. [Sinclair’s] Statistical Account of Scotland, vi. 586.
151. In April 1703, John Dunbabbine, an Englishman, who in his own country had for several years followed the trade of pin-making ‘to the satisfaction of all those with whom he had any dealing,’ was now inclined to set up a work at Aberdeen, which he thought would be ‘very much for the advantage of the kingdom [of Scotland] and all the inhabitants thereof.’ All he required previously was his work being endowed with the privileges and immunities of a manufactory; which the Privy Council readily granted.
152. Privy Council Record.
153. Mr James Foulis and Mr John Holland are probably identical with the persons of the same names who received some encouragement from the parliament in April 1693, for the setting up of a manufacture of Colchester Baises in Scotland. See Domestic Annals, under that date.
154. See a pamphlet by Mr Holland, published in 1715, under the title of The Ruine of the Bank of England and all Publick Credit inevitable.
155. Exchange was not dealt in by the Bank of England, any more than the Bank of Scotland, during many of its earlier years.
156. Account of the Bank of Scotland, published in 1728.
157. Acts of Scottish Parliament, ix. 465.
158. Culloden Papers, Introduction, p. xliv.
159. Privy Council Record.
160. Patrick Walker’s Life of Donald Cargill, Biog. Pres., ii. 24.
161. Patrick Walker.
162. Ibid.
163. Privy Council Record.
164. Privy Council Record.
165. We have no means of knowing if this concert was connected with the enterprise of Beck and his associates, noticed under January 10, 1694. The name of Beck does not occur in the list of performers on this occasion.
166. W. Tytler, Trans. Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland, i. 506.
167. Ramsay’s Scribblers Lashed.
168. Through her, as daughter of William first Duke of Queensberry, her descendant, the Earl of Wemyss, succeeded in 1810 to large estates in Peeblesshire and the earldom of March.
169. Privy Council Record.
170. Privy Council Record.
171. See under Feb. 2, 1693.
172. Privy Council Record.
173. Ibid.
174. Privy Council Record.
175. Privy Council Record.
176. Printed informations in the case. Justiciary Records.
177. Acts of Scot. Parliament.
178. Privy Council Record.
179. The authority for this is a very bad one—the scurrilous book called Scots Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed; but on such a point, with support from other quarters, it may be admitted.
180. Calamy’s Account of his Own Life.
181. Watson’s Collection of Scots Poems, 1709.
182. Privy Council Record.
183. A tolerably full detail of Mr Hepburn’s persecutions is given in Struthers’s Hist. Scot. from the Union to 1748. 2 vols.
184. Privy Council Record.
185. Scots Acts, vol. iii.
186. See Domestic Annals, under date August 24, 1669.
187. Privy Council Record.
188. Privy Council Record.
189. Records of Parliament and Privy Council.
190. Acts of Scot. Parl., xi. 82.
191. Ibid.
192. Acts of Scot. Parl., xi. 111.
193. Privy Council Record.
194. Privy Council Record.
195. The above account of the prosecution of Aikenhead is derived from Howell’s State Trials, in which there has been printed a collection of documents on the case, collected by John Locke.
196. Preface to Two Sermons, &c., by Mr Lorimer.
197. Foun., Decisions.
198. Privy Council Record, under various dates.
199. Signed at Glasgow, December 31, 1696.
200. Domestic Annals, sub July 9, 1668, vol ii. p. 321.
201. Privy Council Record.
202. Justiciary Record.
203. New Stat. Acc. of Scotland, iv. Wigton, 226.
204. Criminal Proceedings, &c., MS., in possession of Ant. Soc. Scot.
205. New Stat. Acc. Scotland, ut supra.
206. Decisions, i. 522.
207. Privy Council Record.
208. A Voyage to St Kilda, &c., by M. Martin, Gent. 4th ed., 1753.
209. Macaulay’s History of St Kilda, 1766, p. 241.
210. Privy Council Record.
211. Ibid.
212. Privy Council Record.
213. Privy Council Record.
214. Letters from North of Scotland, ii. 134 (2d ed.).
215. Edin. Courant, May 1720.
216. Letters, &c., i. 135.
217. Arnot’s Crim. Trials, Anderson’s Hist. Fam. Fraser, Carstares’s State Papers.
218. Privy Council Record.
219. Privy Council Record.
220. Privy Council Record.
221. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 5.
222. Privy Council Record.
223. Privy Council Record.
224. Acts of General Assembly.
225. Wodrow Pamphlets, Adv. Lib.
226. Under extremity of suffering during the dearth, in September 1699, one David Chapman, belonging to Crieff, broke into a lockfast place, and stole some cheese, a sugar-loaf, and about four shillings sterling of money. His sole motive for the crime, as he afterwards pleaded, was the desire of relieving his family from the pains of want. Apprehended that day, he confessed the crime, and restored the spoil; yet, being tried by the commissioner of justiciary for the Highlands, he was condemned to death.
On a petition, the Privy Council commuted the sentence to scourging through the town of Perth, and banishment to the plantations.228
227. Published in 1702.
228. Privy Council Record.
229. Coltness Collections.
230. Polit. Works of A. Fletcher, edit. 1749, p. 85.
231. Privy Council Record. Fountainhall’s Decisions.
232. Scots Acts, iii. 628.
233. [Leslie’s] Survey of the Province of Moray, p. 280.
234. The father of the present Earl of Stair, Sir John Dalrymple, was born in 1726, and might have heard these particulars from his grand-uncle, the second President Dalrymple, who died in 1737. Sir John’s Memoirs of Great Britain are here followed, therefore, as the best authority available.
235. Dalrymple’s Memoirs.
236. Memoirs of John Macky, Esq., 1733, p. 205.
237. Acts of S. Parl., x. 136. Wodrow’s History, i. 320.
238. Privy Council Record.
239. Ibid.
240. This gentleman, who became Earl of Hopetoun, first of the title, was married, on the 31st August 1699, to ‘the very vertuous Lady Henrietta Johnston,’ daughter of the Earl of Annandale. A congratulatory poem on the occasion contains the following passage:
May Hopetoun flourish still with Lady Hen-
Rietta, and have a stock of good childrén.241
241. Wodrow Pamphlets, Adv. Lib.
242. See Blackwood’s Magazine, ix. 345.
243. Privy Council Record.
244. Ibid.
245. Of this fact, the use of the word siller for money generally in Scotland is a notable memorial.
246. Account of Bank of Scotland, p. 6.
247. Letter of Earl of Argyle, Carstares Papers, 458.
248. James Donaldson seems to have been engaged in the poetic elegy trade; that is, the writing of deplorations in verse on great personages for sale in the streets: see an example of his verse of this description under November 1695. He seems also to have been the author of Husbandry Anatomised, or an Enquiry into the Present Manner of Tilling and Manuring the Ground in Scotland, 12mo, 1697; and of A Picktooth for Swearers, or a Looking-glass for Atheists and Profane Persons, &c., small 4to, 1698. See Scottish Elegiac Verses, with Notes, 1847.
249. Privy Council Record.
250. Ibid.
251. Privy Council Record.
252. Privy Council Record.
253. Privy Council Record.
254. The Lord Rankeillor who assisted in giving things this favourable turn was paternal grandfather of Dr John Hope, well known towards the close of the last century as Professor of Botany in the Edinburgh University.
255. Quoted in Scots Magazine, Jan. 1810, ‘from a collection of pamphlets in the possession of Mr Blackwood.’
256. Privy Council Record.
257. The irascible temper of Fletcher is well known, and his slaughter of an associate in the Monmouth expedition is a historical fact. A strange story is told of him in Mrs Calderwood of Polton’s account of her journey in Holland (Coltness Collections). ‘Salton,’ she says, ‘could not endure the smoke of toback, and as he was in a night-scoot [in Holland] the skipper and he fell out about his forbidding him to smoke. Salton, finding he could not hinder him, went up and sat on the ridge of the boat, which bows like an arch. The skipper was so contentious that he followed him, and on whatever side Salton sat, he put his pipe in the check next him, and whiffed in his face. Salton went down several times and brought up stones in his pocket from the ballast, and slipped them into the skipper’s pocket that was next the water, and when he found he had loadened him as much as would sink him, he gives him a shove, so that over he hirsled. The boat went on, and Salton came down among the rest of the passengers, who probably were asleep, and fell asleep among the rest. In a little time, bump came the scoot against the side, on which they all damned the skipper; but, behold, when they called, there was no skipper; which would breed no great amazement in a Dutch company.’
258. Privy Council Record.
259. Privy Council Record.
260. Privy Council Record.
261. Ibid.
262. Criminal Proceedings, MS. Ant. Soc.
263. Privy Council Record.
264. Act. Parl. x. 284.
265. Letter of Mr Duncan Forbes of Culloden (father of the President). Culloden Papers.
266. Memoirs of Elizabeth West. Edinburgh, 1733.
267. D. Forbes’s Letter, ut supra.
268. Treatise on the Sanctification of the Lord’s Day.
269. Maitland’s History of Edinburgh, p. 202.
270. Elizabeth West.
271. Coltness Collections.
272. Historical Account of the Bank of Scotland, 4to, p. 6.
273. Diary of David Hume of Crossrig, p. 69.
274. Account of Bank of Scotland, p. 7.
275. Privy Council Record.
276. As to the troubles from the Coldingham meeting-house, see under March 24, 1694.
277. Privy Council Record.
278. A quaigh or drinking-cup.
279. Alluding to a controversy between two of the Aberdeen professors on a question which we have seen revived in great fervour in our own day.
280. Privy Council Record.
281. Alexander Duff was descended from a race of gentry in Morayshire—the Duffs of Muldavit—and it stems to have been by saving, prudence, and good management that he was enabled to increase his share of the family possessions, and so far advance the prospects of his house, that it was ennobled in the next generation, and now ranks among the eight or ten families of highest wealth in Scotland. There is a characteristic story about Braco surveying one day an extensive tract of country containing several tolerable lairdships, when, seeing the houses in various directions all giving out signs of being inhabited by their respective families, he said: ‘A’ that reek sall come out o’ ae lum yet!’ and he made good his word by ultimately buying up the whole of that district.
282. The above narration appeared in the Dumfries Journal (newspaper).
283. The system of culreach or repledgiation was one of great antiquity in Scotland, but last heard of in the Highlands. So lately as 1698, George Earl of Cromarty obtained a charter, giving him this among other powers: If any of the indwellers and tenants of his lands should happen ‘to be arrested or attached before any judge or judges, spiritual or temporal, in any time coming, to repledge and call them back to the privilege and liberty of the said court of bailiery and regality of Tarbat.’
284. Documents of the process in Spalding Club Miscellany, iii. 175.
285. Burns’s fine ode on Macpherson will be remembered:
Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Sae dantonly gaed he,
He played a spring and danced it round,
Beneath the gallows tree.
There was, however, an earlier celebration of the robber’s hardihood on a broadside, a copy of which will be found in Herd’s Collection of Scottish Songs (1776). See also a curious volume, entitled Scottish Ballads and Songs (Edinburgh, T. G. Stevenson, 1859).
A long two-handed sword is shewn in Duff House, the seat of the Earl of Fife, as that of Macpherson. It is a formidable weapon, 4 feet 3 inches long, and having a wavy-edged blade. It is obviously a mediæval weapon, yet, of course, may have been used in a later age.
March 4, 1701.—There was a petition to the Privy Council from Peter and Donald Brown, prisoners in the Tolbooth of Banff, representing that they had been condemned solely as ‘repute vagabond Egyptians,’ to be hanged on the 2d April. They claimed a longer day, ‘either for their relief or due preparation;’ and the Lords granted reprieve till the second Wednesday of June.
286. Edinburgh Encyclopædia, article ‘Steam-engine.’
287. Acts of S. Parl., x. 267.
288. Privy Council Record.
289. See a more remarkable case of the disappearance of a gentleman under March 1709.
290. See account for ‘Mrs Margaret’s wadding-cloaths,’ given in full in the Edinburgh Magazine for October 1817.
291. Memoir by Elizabeth Mure of Caldwell [a lady who died in 1795, at the age of eighty-one], Caldwell Papers, i. 264.
292. Privy Council Record.
293. Privy Council Record.
294. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii.
295. It was an old mode of advertisement in country towns, down to the author’s early years, to send an old woman through the streets with a wooden dish and a stick, to clap or beat upon it so as to gather a crowd, before whom she then gave her recital.
296. Analecta, i. 10.
297. Sir John had entered at the bar in the preceding year, and it is not improbable that he came into acquaintance with Steuart in a professional capacity.
298. Copy of the sentence printed in Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, from one in the possession of the late Alexander Macdonald, Esq.
299. That is, the eighteenth century.
300. [Sinclair’s] Stat. Acc. of Scot., xviii. 578.
301. Collection of papers in Oxenford Castle.
302. Ed. Ev. Courant, Nov. 21, 1743.
303. Alluding, probably, to the affair of the Impostor Roderick. See under June 1, 1697.
304. Copy of a Letter anent a Project for Erecting a Library in every Presbytery, or at least County, in the Highlands, from a Reverend Minister of the Scots Nation, now in England, to a Minister in Edinburgh. Edinburgh, 1702. Small 4to, 6 leaves.
305. Wodrow Pamphlets, vol. xciii.
306. Analecta Scotica, ii. 366; iv. 235.
307. Anderson’s Prize Essay on the State of Knowledge in the Highlands.
308. See under October 6, 1697.
309. A district on the south side of Loch Ness, in Inverness-shire.
310. Privy Council Record.
311. The daughter of the late peer.
312. Privy Council Record.
313. Mr Campbell had, in 1709, an action at law against Mungo Campbell of Netherplace, for recovery of fifty pounds which he charged for attendance upon him, and performance of the operation of lithotomy. It was represented on the other side that he had done his work with an unskilfulness which resulted in some most distressing injuries to his patient, and the Lords held that the seventeen guineas already paid was guerdon sufficient.—Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 510.
314. Dalyell’s Musical Memoirs of Scotland, p. 132.
315. Edinburgh Evening Courant.
316. Edinburgh Evening Courant, December 30, 1725.
317. Edinburgh Evening Courant.
318. From a description of the presbytery of Penpont, App. to Symson’s History of Galloway. Edin. 1823.
319. A fairy legend connected with the Dow Loch, and illustrating the superstitious feeling with which it was regarded, has been communicated by a friend:
‘The farmer of Auchen Naight, near the Dow Loch, was not in opulent circumstances. One day, during the pressure of some unusual calamity, he noticed, to his surprise, a cow browsing tranquilly by the side of the lake, and, on nearer inspection, found it to be a beautiful animal of large size, and perfectly white. She allowed herself to be driven home by him without resistance, and soon commended herself greatly to his wife by her tameness and exceeding opulence in milk. The result of her good qualities, and also her fruitfulness, was that a blessing seemed to have come with her to his house. He became rich in the possession of a herd of twenty fine cattle, all descended from the original White Cow.
‘After some years had elapsed, and all his other cattle had been used up, the goodman had to consider how he was to provide a winter’s “mart” for his family—that is, a bullock to be killed and salted according to the then universal practice of the country. Should it be the mother or one of her comely daughters? The former was still in fine condition, highly suitable for the purpose; but then the feeling connected with her—should they sacrifice in this manner the source of all their good-fortune? A consideration that she might fail in health, and be lost to them, determined them to make her the mart of the year. It is said that, on the morning which was to be her last, she shewed the usual affection to her mistress, who came to bid her a mournful farewell; but when the butcher approached with his rope and axe, she suddenly tore up the stake, and broke away from the byre, followed by the whole of her progeny. The astonished goodman and his wife were only in time to see the herd, in which their wealth consisted, plunge into the waters of the Dow Loch, from which they never re-emerged.’
320. Privy Council Record.
321. His lordship died in 1714.
322. Privy Council Record.
323. Caledonia, i. 881, note.
324. Arnot’s Hist. Edinburgh, 4to, p. 195. It would appear that the combativeness of the cock furnished in those days no insignificant part of the amusements of the English people. We find in the London newspapers of March 1720, the following paragraph, speaking strongly of the prevalence of the sport: ‘On the last Monday of the month, there will be kept a famous cocking betwixt the gentlemen of Shropshire and Cheshire, at Mr George Smith’s, at the Red Lion, at Whitchurch.’
325. Reliquiæ Scoticæ (Edin. 1828).
326. [Sinclair’s] Stat. Acc. Scot. iii. 378.
327. This tourist’s manuscript, after lying for many years in the possession of Mr Johnes of Hafod, was printed by Mr Blackwood of Edinburgh in 1818.
328. Dom. Ann. of Scotland, ii. 494.
329. Ibid. ii. 282.
330. Privy Council Record.
331. A term expressive of a tough, lean person.
332. Domestic Annals of Scotland, i. 68.
333. Ibid. ii. 318.
334. Ibid. ii. 401.
335. Letters of Lady Margaret Burnett, Edinburgh, 4to, 1828, p. 63.
336. Acts of Scot. Parl., xi. 66, 221.
337. Edinburgh, December 6, 1725.—‘Died Alexander Nisbet of that Ilk, so well known by being author of several elaborate Treatises of Heraldry, one of which treatises is now at the press, and will be shortly published, the author having finished the manuscript long before his death.’—Edinburgh Evening Courant.
338. Acts of Scot. Parl., xi. 85.
339. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 203.
340. By Andrew Bell in Cornhill, London.
341. Boswell. Tour to the Hebrides, p. 401.
342. Anderson’s Hist. Fam. of Fraser, p. 110.
343. Miscellanies, p. 189.
344. John Brand, in his Description of Orkney and Zetland, 1703, says, with reference to the population of the latter group of islands: ‘Not above forty or fifty years ago, almost every family had a Browny, or evil spirit so called, which served them, to whom they gave a sacrifice for his service; as, when they churned their milk, they took a part thereof, and sprinkled every corner of the house with it for Browny’s use; likewise, when they brewed, they had a stone, which they called Browny’s Stone, wherein there was a little hole, into which they poured some wort for a sacrifice to Browny. My informer, a minister in the country, told me that he had conversed with an old man, who, when young, used to brew, and sometimes read upon his Bible, to whom an old woman in the house said, that Browny was displeased with that book he read upon, which if he continued to do, they would get no more service of Browny. But he being better instructed from that book, which was Browny’s eyesore, and the object of his wrath, when he brewed he would not suffer any sacrifice to be given to Browny, whereupon the first and second brewings were spilt, and for no use; though the wort worked well, yet in a little time it left off working, and grew cold; but of the third browst or brewing he had ale very good, though he would not give any sacrifice to Browny, with whom they were no more troubled. I had also from the same informer, that a lady in Unst, now deceased, told him that when she first took up house, she refused to give a sacrifice to Browny; upon which the first and second brewings misgave, but the third was good, and Browny not being regarded nor rewarded, as formerly he had been, abandoned his wonted service. They also had stacks of corn called Browny’s Stacks, which, though they were not bound with straw-ropes, or any way fenced, as other stacks use to be, yet the greatest storm of wind was not able to blow any straw off them.
‘Now, I do not hear of any such appearances the devil makes in these isles, so great and many are the blessings which attend a Gospel dispensation.’
345. Harrington’s Nugæ Antiquæ, by Park, 2 vols. 1804, i. 369.
346. Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheil, 4to (Abbotsford Club), 1842, p. 24.
347. This investigation occurred in the year 1665.
348. Identical with Charles Hope of Hopetoun introduced under December 22, 1698.
349. Original document quoted and abridged in a volume called The Court of Session Garland. Edinburgh: T. G. Stevenson. 1839.
350. Analecta, iii. 364.
351. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 125.
352. See Court of Session Garland, p. 20.
353. Published in 1754.
354. Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopædia, art. ‘Burnett, James.’
355. Privy Council Record.
356. Petition against Mr Greenshields, 1709, Defoe’s History of the Union, p. 21.
357. Privy Council Record.
358. Minutes of the Session of Torryburn, printed in a Collection of Tracts on Witchcraft, by David Webster. Edinburgh: 1820.
359. Lord Anstruther was the same judge and privy-councillor whom we have seen concerned in the case of Aikenhead. He published a volume of Essays, in which he speaks not very handsomely of the fair sex. ‘It is true,’ says he, ‘woman is subject to man; he is her head; but I may question if it was not rather inflicted as the punishment of her sin, than sprung from the prerogative of our nature. But it may be thought we retain some resentment at the first cause of our misery, and by our innate love to the sex, they continue to be the bane of human life.’—Scottish Elegiac Verses, note. p. 175.
360. Acts of S. Parl., xi. 180.
361. Hume of Crossrig’s Diary. Stevenson, Edin. 1843.
362. Memorial by his Lordship, Culloden Papers, p. 35.
363. Chamberlayne’s Pres. State of Great Britain, 1718.
364. Privy Council Record.
365. Account of the Bank of Scotland, p. 7.
366. Privy Council Record.
367. Account of the Bank, &c., p. 8.
368. Anderson’s Essay on the Highlands, 1827, p. 142.
369. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 527.
370. Book of the Thanes of Cawdor (Spald. Club), p. 417.
371. This anecdote is related in a memoir of President Forbes (Scots Magazine, 1802), as having been derived from his lordship’s own conversation.
372. Broadside of the time.
373. Privy Council Record.
374. Analecta Scotica, i. 238.
375. Analecta Scotica, ii. 59.
376. The town of Kirkcaldy was at the same time favoured with a like imposition on its beer, with certain little drawbacks or burdens, as ten pounds a year to the professor of mathematics in King’s College, Aberdeen, and twenty-five to the seven macers of parliament.
377. Colonel Erskine had purchased the earl’s estates in 1700.
378. Wodrow’s Analecta, i. 273.
379. Essays on a Land Mint, Edinburgh, 1706. It would appear, from the records of parliament, that Dr Hugh Chamberlain was the author of this scheme.
380. Crim. Proc., MS. Ant. Soc.
381. Wodrow’s Analecta, iv. 115.
382. Wilson’s Life of Defoe (3 vols., 1830), passim.
383. Maclaurin’s Criminal Cases, p. 21. Wood’s Peerage.
384. Contemporary broadside.
385. Defoe’s Hist. of Union, p. 591.
386. Statutes at large, v. 149.
387. Domestic Annals, ii., 311.
388. Scots Acts, iii. 810.
389. Hist. Acc. of the Bank of Scotland, p. 9.
390. Introduction to Anderson’s Diplomata, reprint 1773, p. 174.
391. Hist. Union, p. 598.
392. Historical Account of the Bank of Scotland, p. 10.
393. Ruddiman, Introduction to Diplomata.
394. Wood’s History of Cramond, p. 39, note.
395. Edinburgh Gazette, Nov. 4, 1707.
396. Wodrow reports a wild tale about the discovery of the guilty man. It is to the effect that Lady Craigcrook, a twelvemonth after the fact, dreamed she saw the murderer, whom she recognised as an old servant, kill the woman, and then hide the money in two old barrels filled with trash. Her husband made inquiry, and finding the man possessed of a suspicious amount of money, got him apprehended, and had his house searched, when he found his bags, which he readily identified, and a portion of the missing coin.—Analecta, iv. 171.
397. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 409.
398. Parish Register of Spott.
399. Defoe’s Hist. Union, pp. 602, 604.
400. Analecta, i. 218.
401. Mr Strang, who quotes this passage in his amusing book on the Clubs of Glasgow, states that these four gentlemen were Mr Cunninghame of Lainshaw, Mr Spiers of Elderslie, Mr Glassford of Dougalston, and Mr Ritchie of Busby—the estates here named being all purchased out of their acquired wealth.
402. This anecdote was related to me by Sir Walter Scott, as derived from his mother, who had received part of her education under the care of the Hon. Patrick’s widow.
403. [Mackie’s] Journey through Scotland, 1723, p. 194.
404. The Customs and Excise in England brought in respectively £1,341,559 and £947,602.
405. ‘Mum, a species of fat ale, brewed from wheat and bitter herbs, of which the present generation only knew the name by its occurrence in revenue acts of parliament, coupled with cider, perry, and other excisable commodities.’—The Antiquary, chap. xi.
406. This is partly shewn by the small sum (£431) set down in the year 1748 for ‘spirit imported.’
407. For the statistics of this article, the author is indebted to a manuscript volume containing an abstract of the Scottish Excise revenues, which has been kindly shewn to him by the gentleman above adverted to.
408. Genealogical Deduction of the Family of Rose of Kilravock, Spald. Club publication, p. 397.
409. The entire poem was published in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1813.
410. Burt’s Letters, i. 194.
411. Letters, i. 193.
412. See a small volume containing all these acts, printed by the heirs of Andrew Anderson, Edinburgh, 1709.
413. State Trials, fol. v. 630.
414. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 556.
415. Dom. Annals of Scot., ii. 424.
416. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 554.
417. Act, Town Council of Edinburgh.
418. Wodrow Coll. of Pamphlets. Adv. Lib.
419. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 518.
420. Edinburgh Ev. Courant, April 7, 1724.
421. Decisions, ii. 524.
422. Forbes’s Journal of the Session, 1714, p. 352.
423. Broadside printed by Reid, Bell’s Wynd, Edinburgh, 1709.
424. Wodrow’s Analecta, i. 237.
425. Ibid., iv. 288.
426. Caledonian Mercury, passim.
427. Analecta, i. 283.
428. Scots Magazine, 1771.
429. Hist. Acc. Bank of Scotland, p. 10.
430. Letter of Campbell of Burnbank. Argyle Papers, p. 187.
431. Analecta, i. 309, 313.
432. 9 Anne, c. 10.
433. ‘The Tinklarian Doctor, in one of his singular pamphlets addressed to the French king, and commencing: “Old Lewis, may it please your majesty,” asks, “I would fain ken, Lewis, if ever you heard of me, for many times I have heard of you, and more in the pulpits than anywhere else; and if you were as oft at your own kirks in France as you are in our pulpits in Scotland, you’d be very sib [akin] to the kirk—so nearest the kirk, nearest the devil.”‘—Maidment’s Collection of Pasquils, p. 74.
434. In the catalogue of a sale by Messrs Puttock and Simpson, Leicester Square, London, June 1860, the following group of articles occurs:
‘157 Mitchell (Will.), the “Tinklarian Doctor” of Edinburgh, Tracts by, viz.:
‘Inward and Outward Light to be Sold. A wonderful Sermon preached by the Tinklarian Doctor William Mitchell, in the sixty-first year of his age, concerning Predestination. 1731.
‘Second Day’s Journey of the Tinklarian Doctor. 1733.
‘Short History, to the Commendation of the Royal Archers, with a Description of six of the Dukes in Scotland, especially Argile, written by the Tinklarian Doctor, with a remarkable Colloquy in Verse at the end, entitled One Man’s Meat is another Man’s Poison. 1734.
‘Voice (The) of the Tinklarian Doctor’s last Trumpet, sounding for the Downfall of Babylon, and his last Arrow shot at her, &c. 1737.
‘Prophecy of an Old Prophet, concerning Kings, and Judges, and Rulers, and of the Magistrates of Edinburgh, and also of the Downfall of Babylon, which is Locusts, who is King of the Bottomless Pit. Dedicated to all the Members of Parliament (1737).
‘Revelation of the Voice of the Fifth Angel’s Trumpet, &c. Edinburgh, 1737.
‘Tinklarian Doctor’s Dream, concerning those Locusts who hath come out of the Smoke of the Pit, and hath Power to hurt all Nations, &c. The author refers to the Earl of Hyndford, and wishes he had the knowledge of the hangman of Perth! Edinb. 1739.
‘Tinklarian (The) Doctor’s Four Catechisms, all published separately. [Edinburgh] 1736, 1737, 1738.’
The auctioneers add: ‘A singular and remarkably rare collection of eleven tracts. [The author] appears to have been a bookseller or petty chapman in a small way. The most illiterate (and sometimes obscene) language, applied to the aristocracy, is used in these works, and the most severe animosity is displayed towards the Catholics (in the advertisements at the end), because they would not accept, or purchase for a penny, the Light, &c. The works of this author are unmentioned by all Bibliographers, and we can trace only a single piece in the British Museum under the heading of the Tinklarian Doctor, but none of the above, neither do any occur in several other public libraries where reference has been made.’
435. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 667.
436. Crim. Proc. MS. Ant. Soc.
437. Wodrow’s Analecta.
438. Ibid.
439. History of the Art of Printing, Edinburgh, 1713.
440. Lee’s Memorial for the Bible Societies, 1824, p. 168.
441. Watson was a man of some merit, and deserves to be remembered as the first publisher of a collection of Scottish poetry. His death, with the style of ‘his majesty’s printer,’ on the 24th September 1722, is noticed by the Edinburgh Courant. He appears to have thriven by his patent, as the paragraph stating his widow’s death, a few years later, adverts to the considerable means which had been left to her, and which she then left to a second husband.
442. Brochure of two pages, Miscellany Papers, Adv. Lib.
443. Wodrow’s Analecta.
444. Wodrow Correspondence, index.
445. Wodrow MSS., Adv. Lib., and printed entire in A New Book of Ballads, Edinburgh, 1844. Lockhart admits that Cockburn was not one of the most respectable of the Episcopal clergy.
446. Strange News from Scotland, or Scotch Presbyterian Piety evidently proved by the Regard they shew to Consecrated Churches; a late Instance whereof may be seen at this Day at Dunglass, belonging to Sir James Hall, Bart., near Cockburnspath. Sold by J. Morphew, near Stationers’ Hall. 1712.
447. Courant newspaper, quoted in Reliquiæ Scoticæ.
448. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 735, 738.
449. Sir Hugh Dalrymple’s report of the case, quoted in Burton’s Criminal Trials, i. 55.
450. ‘The building of Inversnaid Fort was contracted for by —— Nasmyth, builder in Edinburgh, grandfather of Alexander Nasmyth, the well-known landscape-painter. One winter-night, Mr Nasmyth and his party of workmen were roused from sleep in their lodging at the rising fort by some travellers, who piteously beseeched shelter from the snow-storm. On the door being opened, Rob Roy’s men rushed in, and began to abuse the poor masons in a shocking manner; could scarcely be restrained from taking their lives; and finally drove or dragged them half-naked through the snow to a place where they dismissed them, after taking them solemnly bound by oath never to come back to that country. Mr Nasmyth, being held by government to a contract which he could not fulfil, was seriously injured in his means by this affair; but its worst consequence was the effect of the exposure of that dreadful night on his health. He sunk under his complaints about eighteen months after.’—Information communicated by Mr James Nasmyth, late of Patrickcroft, near Manchester.
451. Alamode, ‘a kind of thin silken manufacture.’—Johnson.
452. Fountainhall’s Decisions.
453. Analecta, ii. 76.
454. These expressions are from the Engagement to Duties, printed in Struthers’s Hist. Scot. from Union to 1748.
455. Analecta, i. 322.
456. Fountainhall’s Decisions, ii. 756.
457. Wodrow’s Analecta, ii. 85, 86.
458. Analecta Scotica, i. 877.
459. Courant newspaper, Reliquiæ Scot.
460. Analecta, ii. 206.
461. Wodrow’s Analecta, ii. 254.
462. P. Rae’s History of Rebellion of 1715–16, p. 40.
463. A congenial spirit, Matthew Prior, produced a sort of paraphrase of this piece:
‘In total death suppose the mortal lie,
No new hereafter, nor a future sky,
Yet bear thy lot content, yet cease to grieve,
Why, ere Death comes, shouldst thou forbear to live?
The little time thou hast ’twixt instant now
And death’s approach, is all the gods allow:
And of this little hast thou aught to spare
To sad reflection and corroding care?
The moments past, if thou art wise, retrieve
With pleasant memory of the bliss they give;
The present hour in present mirth employ,
And bribe the future with the hope of joy.’
464. Analecta, ii. 261.
465. From a private letter, dated Edinburgh, Feb. 20, 1714, Analecta Scotica, i. 14.
466. His son Robert, father of Walter Scott, W.S. The youth was designed for the sea, but became disgusted with it in consequence of a shipwreck on the first voyage, and settled as a farmer at Sandyknowe, near Kelso.
467. Journal of Mr James Hart (Edinburgh, 1832), preface.
468. This play was entitled Marciano, or the Discovery, and was described on the title as having been ‘acted with great applause before his Majesty’s High Commissioner and others of the Nobility at the Abbey of Holyroodhouse on St John’s Night.’
469. George Chalmers, Life of Ramsay, quoting the Scots Courant for August and December, 1715. The Tennis Court still exists, but reduced to the condition of a smith’s workshop.
470. Alex. Maxwell to R. Wodrow, Edin., Feb. 15, 1715, in Private Letters, now first printed from Orig. MSS. Edin. 1829.
471. Preface to the Journal of Mr James Hart. Edinburgh, 1832.
472. Meaning the total solar eclipse which happened on the 29th of March 1652, of which see an account in Domestic Annals, vol. ii. p. 215.
473. Historical Summary of the Post-office in Scotland. By T. B. Lang. (For private circulation.) Edinburgh, 1856.
474. Justiciary Record. Sir John, soon after his collision with Mr Houston, was actively engaged in raising volunteers at Greenock for the suppression of the Rebellion.
475. Hist. Acc. Bank of Scotland, p. 10.
476. Orig. letter in Paper Office, quoted by George Chalmers, Caledonia, i. 870, note.
477. Private Letters, &c., Edin., 1829, p. 17.
478. Life of Carstares, prefixed to his State Papers. Edinburgh, 1774.
479. Notes on Old Tolbooth, Scottish Journal, p. 299.
480. Chalmers’s Life of Ruddiman, p. 37.
481. Justiciary Record.
482. Caldwell Papers, i. 235.
483. St James’s Evening Post.
484. Newspaper advertisements.
485. See Domestic Annals under those dates.
486. Reports of the Commissioners, fol.
487. The original subscription list is in possession of N. Fergusson Blair, of Balthayock, Esq.
488. Burton’s History of Scotland, ii. 218.
489. Colonel Patrick Vans of Barnbarroch.
490. Scottish Elegiac Verses, 1842.
491. See Lockhart’s Life of Scott, index.
492. Justiciary Record.
493. Notes to Peveril of the Peak.
494. Pope’s Works, Roscoe’s ed., ix. 34, 35.
495. The Scots Courant.
496. Scots Courant, Oct 24, 1716.
497. A Treatise on Forest Trees, in a Letter, &c., published at Edinburgh in 1761.
498. Perhaps Sir Archibald was wrong here. See the account of Baldoon Park in this volume, under the date October 1696.
499. Spalding Club Miscellany, ii. 97.
500. The above facts are gathered from an anonymous volume, published in 1729, entitled An Essay on the Means of Enclosing and Fallowing Scotland.
501. MS. of Graham of Gartmore, App. to Burt’s Letters, 2d ed., ii. 349.
502. Gordon of Ellon, son to a farmer in Bourtie—a merchant in Edinburgh, and once a bailie there, and a rich man. By him the house of Ellon was built anew in a handsome style.—View of Diocese of Aberdeen, Spal. Club, p. 301 (written about beginning of the 18th century).
503. In February 1721, John Webster, a gardener, having committed murder upon a young woman named Campbell, ‘on Heriot’s Hospital ground, behind our town-wall,’ was tried in the barony of Broughton, and condemned to die.
504. Celebrated Trials, iii. 272 (name and date of incident there given erroneously). Scottish Journal, Oct. 23, 1847. Contemporary confession. Notes and Queries, Dec. 1859, quoting three numbers of the contemporary newspaper, the Scots Courant.
505. Broadside reprinted in Analecta Scotica, i. 246.
506. Letter of Rev. Mr Murray, dated Comrie Manse, 2d July, 1717; Ant. Scot. Transactions, iii. 296.
In a letter of Mr James Anderson, editor of the Diplomata Scotiæ, to his son, Edinburgh, June 20, 1717, it is noted, as a recent event, that ‘Rob Roi surrendered to D. Atholl, but not meeting with such things as he expected, has made his escape.’—MSS., Adv. Library.
507. Steele’s Correspondence, edited by John Nicholls. 2 vols. 1787.
508. Streams from Helicon, 1720, p. 48.
509. He wrote to his daughter on the 17th September and 7th October, 1720, from Edinburgh.—Steele’s Letters.
510. Analecta Scotica, i. 16.
511. Cibber’s [Shiels’s] Lives of the Poets, iv. 118.
512. Gibson’s History of Glasgow, 1777, p. 208. It was asserted that the duties paid to government for tobacco brought to Glasgow between August 1716 and March 1722, amounted to no more than £2702. A representation for the Glasgow merchants shewed that the real sum was £38,047, 17s. 0¾d.—Edin. Ev. Courant, Jan. 21, 1723.
513. Wodrow’s Analecta, iii. 129.
514. The City of Edinburgh’s Address to the Country, Ramsay’s Poems, i. 19.
515. Journey through Scotland [by Macky?], 1723, p. 274.
516. Edinburgh Evening Courant, June 14, 1722. ‘On Tuesday last [19th January 1725], being the birthday of Prince Frederick, there was an extraordinary appearance of ladies and persons of distinction, at a musick opera in this city.’—Ibid.
517. M‘Gibbon died on the 3d October 1756, bequeathing the whole of his means to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
518. ‘My Lord Colville died in March last, and about Culross it is very currently believed that he has appeared more than once, and has been seen by severals. Some say that he appeared to Mr Logan, his brother-in-law [minister of Torry]; but he does not own it. Two of his servants were coming to the house, and saw him walking near them; and, if I remember, he called to them just in the same voice and garb he used to be in; but they fled from him, and came in, in a great fright. They are persons of credibility and gravity, as I am told.”521
519. Arnot’s Hist. Edinburgh, p. 379.
520. Adam Craig died in October 1741. For this and several facts involved in the above article, I have to express my obligation to Mr David Laing’s Introduction to Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum.
521. Wodrow’s Analecta, iii. 519.
522. Analecta Scotica, i. 195.
523. Ibid. ii. 830.
524. From documents printed in Law’s Memorials.
525. George Chalmers’s Life of Ruddiman, p. 83.
526. Edin. Ev. Courant, Feb. 18, 1850.
527. Those who are desirous of further light upon the Marrow Controversy, may be referred to Struthers’s History of Scotland from the Union, &c., 2 vols. 8vo, which, by the way, is a book entitled to more notice than it has received. The worthy author, a self-educated working-man, has been led by his own taste to give details, not elsewhere to be easily met with, of the ecclesiastical proceedings of the earlier half of the eighteenth century, all of which he treats in the spirit of a strenuous old-fashioned west-country Presbyterian. He is copious and severe about the Jacobite and Episcopalian movements, but slights the troubles of the Catholics as ‘beneath the dignity of history.’
528. Letter of Alexander Jaffray of Kingsmills, to Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk.—Spalding Club Miscellany, ii. 98.
529. Jaffray’s letter, as above.
530. ‘London, September 3, 1720.—Last Wednesday, the York Buildings Company sent down to Scotland about sixty thousand pounds in guineas, guarded by a party of horse, being part of the purchase-money for forfeited estates. The same is to be lodged in the Exchequer at Edinburgh.’—Newspapers of the day.
531. The Commissioners, who were engaged in their task for nearly nine years, seem to have had £1000 per annum each.
532. 5 George I. cap. 20. Statutes at large, v. 152.
533. Mr James Drummond, on the 26th May 1720, writes from Blair-Drummond to ‘Mr David Drummond, Treasurer of the Bank, Edinburgh:’ ‘I’m heartily glad the Bank holds out so well. Ther’s great pains taken in the countrey to raise evill reports upon it. I had occasion to find so in a pretty numerous company the other day; yet I did not find any willing to part with your notes at the least discount.’—MSS. in possession of N. Fergusson Blair of Balthayock.
534. The arrangement of the Friendly Society consisted simply in a combination of house-proprietors, each paying in 100 merks per £1000 Scots, or a fifteenth of the value of the property, as a stock out of which to compensate for all damage by fire.
535. The Scribblers Lashed. Ramsay’s Poems, i. 316.
536. From a contemporary account appended to Satan’s Invisible World Discovered.
537. Private Letters, &c.
538. See under September 1711.
539. Dr Mitchell’s Strange and Wonderful Discourse concerning the Witches and Warlocks in Calder, quoted in Sharpe’s edition of Law’s Memorials.
540. Edin. Evening Courant.
541. Ibid.
542. Bishop Keith’s Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops.
543. Edin. Evening Courant.
544. From the documents printed in Criminal Trials illustrative of the Heart of Mid-Lothian. Edinburgh, 1818.
545. Edinburgh, 1835.
546. Private Letters, &c., p. 29.
547. Sir Walter Scott mentions this little fact in the Border Minstrelsy.
548. For a short time before the insurrection, he had acted as factor to Sir John Preston of Preston Hall, in Mid-Lothian, now also a forfeited estate, but of minor value.
549. Memorial of William and Robert Ross to the Commissioners on Forfeited Estates. Report of Commissioners, printed for Jacob Tonson, 1724.—Traditional and topographical notes from a relative of Donald Murchison.
550. It may be curious to contrast with the above account of the fight of Aa-na-Mullich, framed mainly from authentic documents, the following traditionary account, which has been communicated by Mr F. Macdonald, residing at Druidag Lodge, Lochalsh.
‘The first encounter that this famous man [Donald Murchison] had with the royal commissioner and troops was at the pass of Aa-na-Mullich, about a hundred yards from the end of Loch Affaric. He stationed himself and his Kintail men at the pass, on the north side of the river which empties itself into Loch Affaric, on a place called Tor-an-beithe, or Birch Hillock, where they had a good view of the enemy some miles off. On advancing towards this pass, Captain Monro of Fearn [mistake for Ross of Easterfearn], the royal commissioner, sent his son forward to reconnoitre on horseback, and when he appeared on the opposite side of the river, the poor fellow was shot at once, receiving a mortal wound. Upon hearing the report, and that Monro’s son was shot, the bulk of the royal troops wheeled round, and took to their heels, leaving Captain Monro with very few of his men to help in the painful duty of conveying his wounded son back. In this emergency, he implored Murchison to lend him some of his men to assist in carrying the wounded young man till he should be able to join his own fugitive troops; which, with his wonted generosity, he immediately complied with. They constructed a litter the best way they could, and retraced their steps to Beauly, which, however, they did not reach before the young man died. Murchison and his men followed, lest those troops who formerly fled should turn round and assault the men he had given to assist them. He followed as far as Knockfin on the heights of Strathglass.’ [Mr Macdonald ends by quoting two or three stanzas of a Gaelic poem composed by an old woman at Beauly, as they were passing with the dead body.]
551. Edinburgh Ev. Courant.
552. Caledonian Mercury, May 7, 1722.
553. Wodrow Correspondence, ii. 640.
554. Arnot’s Crim. Trials, p. 335.
555. Wodrow Correspondence, ii. 646.
556. Cal. Mercury, Aug. 7, 1722.
557. Caledonian Mercury.
558. English contemporary journals. Broadside account of the skirmish. Information from Lochcarron, MS.
559. Wade’s Report in App. to 2d ed. of Burt’s Letters, 1822, vol. ii. p. 280.
560. Lockhart Papers.
561. MS. poem on Wade’s Roads in Scotland, dated 1737, in possession of the Junior United Service Club.
562. The traditional account of Donald Murchison, communicated by Mr F. Macdonald, states that the heroic commissioner had been promised a handsome reward for his services; but Seaforth proved ungrateful. ‘He was offered only a small farm called Bundalloch, which pays at this day to Mr Matheson, the proprietor, no more than £60 a year; or another place opposite to Inverinate House, of about the same value. It is no wonder he refused these paltry offers. He shortly afterwards left this country, and died in the prime of life near Conon. On his death-bed, Seaforth went to see him, and asked how he was. He said: “Just as you will be in a short time,” and then turned his back. They never met again.’
563. Wodrow’s Analecta, ii. 368.
564. New Statistical Account of Scotland, art. Tranent.
565. ‘The brave Locheil, as I heard tell,
Led Camerons on in clouds, man.’
Contemporary Ballad.
566. Edinburgh Ev. Courant, Jan. 29, 1723.
567. Edinburgh Ev. Courant, April 1, 1723. Scot. Elegiac Verses, p. 247.
568. MS., Advocates’ Library.
569. Letter by Andrew M‘Dowall (subsequently Lord Bankton) and J. M‘Gowan. Nugæ Scoticæ, Edinburgh, 1829.
570. Edinburgh Ev. Courant, May 1723.
571. From pamphlets published by Sir Alexander Murray.
572. Probably some attempt had been made to turn to account the foliated gypsum beds which exist near Kelso.
573. Poem on the Highland Roads, Wade’s MSS., in possession of Junior United Service Club.
574. Edin. Ev. Courant, August 22, 1743.
575. Memoirs of George Baillie of Jerviswood and of Lady Grizel Baillie, &c. 1822.
576. Chalmers’s Brit. Poets, xiv. 576.
577. Celebrated Trials, 6 vols. 1825. Vol. iii. p. 395.
578. Memoirs of Lady Grizel Baillie.
579. Edin. Ev. Courant, May 9, 1723.
580. Wodrow’s Analecta.
581. This was the place of worship which Dr Johnson attended when in Edinburgh in 1773. It is now demolished.
582. Analecta.
583. It may be satisfactory to local antiquaries to know that this hall was situated in what was consequently called the Assembly (latterly, Old Assembly) Close, on the south side of the High Street. The assembly to be held on the 25th May 1736 was advertised as to take place ‘in their new hall, behind the City Guard.’ This last site was that afterwards occupied by a building used as an office by the Commercial Bank, now the Free Church of the Tron parish. A rent of £55 was paid for this new hall, which continued to be used for fifty years, although confessedly too small, and very inconvenient.
584. Burt’s Letters, i. 193.
585. The Horn Order and Crispin Knights are satirised in several pasquils of the time of Queen Anne as fraternities practising debauchery to an unusual degree. A satire on the Union says:
The Canongate know no cabals,
Nor knights of the Horn order;
And lights were not put out at balls,
When I was a dame of honour.
The Crispins, and the Crispin pins,
Wore things unknown unto us;
We ladies then thought shame to sin,
It cost pains to undo us, &c.
Maidment’s Collection of Pasquils, il. 75.
586. Burt’s Letters, i. 193.
587. Caledonian Mercury, November 14, 1723.
588. Edinburgh Ev. Courant.
589. Letters from the North of Scotland, ii. 143.
590. Chalmers’s Life of Ruddiman, p. 75.
591. Wodrow’s Analecta, iii. 142.
592. Mortgage.
593. Burt’s Letters, ii. 73.
594. Alexander Pennecuik, of Edinburgh, has a poem entitled A Curse on the Clan Macphersons, occasioned by the News of Glenbucket being murdered by them:
‘May that cursed clan up by the roots be pluckèd,
Whose impious hands have killed the good Glenbucket!
Villains far worse than Infidel or Turk,
To slash his body with your bloody durk—
A fatal way to make his physic work!
Rob Roy and you fight ’gainst the noblest names,
The generous Gordons and the gallant Grahams.
Perpetual clouds through your black clan shall reign,
Traitors ’gainst God, and rebels ’gainst your king,
Until you feel the law’s severest rigour,
And be extinguished like the base Macgregor!’
Pennecuik’s Poems, MS., Adv. Lib.
595. Wade’s MSS., in possession of Junior United Service Club.
596. Edinburgh Ev. Courant, April 9, 1724.
597. Private Letters, &c., p. 37.
598. Analecta.
599. Letter of John Maxwell of Munshes, writing, in 1811, from personal recollection of the incidents.—Murray’s Lit. Hist. Galloway, p. 337.
600. Wodrow’s Analecta, iii. 152, 157, 170.
601. ‘A ewe which has given over bearing.’—Jamieson.
602. That is, a native of Ireland.
603. Letter of John Maxwell of Munshes to W. M. Herries of Spottes, dated February 1811.—Murray’s Lit. Hist. of Galloway, Appendix, p. 337.
604. See Domestic Annals of Scotland, under September 1583.
605. Caledonian Mercury of the day.
606. Edin. Ev. Courant.
607. Lovat’s Memorial to the King, Burt’s Letters, 2d ed., ii. 264, App.
608. Letter of General Guest, Spalding Club Miscellany, iii. 229.
609. Edinburgh Ev. Courant, September 6, 1725. This paper remarks that the extent of country which belonged to the late Earl of Seaforth, and disarmed on this occasion, was no less than sixty miles in length and forty in breadth.
610. Lockhart Papers.
611. Miscellany Papers, Adv. Lib.
612. Ed. Ev. Courant.
613. D. Webster’s Account of Roslin Chapel, &c., Edinburgh, 1819.
614. Transactions of the Society of Improvers.
615. Caledonian Mercury, July 1735.
616. [Sinclair’s] Stat. Acc. Scot., xx. 74.
617. [Sinclair’s] Stat. Acc. Scot., viii. 525. A drawing and description of a winnowing-machine used in Silesia appears in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1747, as a thing unknown in England.
618. Old Mortality, chap. vii.
619. Newspapers of the day.
620. Introduction to the Pirate—a novel, it need scarcely be remarked, founded on the story of Gow.
621. ‘London, March 29, 1720.—Sunday evening the Duke of Douglas and the Earl of Dalkeith fought a duel behind Montague House, and both were wounded.’—Newspapers of the day.
622. Wodrow’s Analecta, iii. 208.
623. Lockhart Papers. Wodrow’s Analecta, iii. 210, et seq. Contemporary narration.
624. See antea, under February 1697.
625. Sinclair’s Statistical Acc. of Scotland, article ‘Erskine.
626. Notice from the Edinburgh Post-office, Nov. 23, 1725.
627. Caledonian Mercury, Oct. 1733, and Jan. 1734.
628. Edin. Ev. Courant.
629. Chamberlayne’s Present State of Great Britain for the years cited.
630. Scottish Journal, p. 208.
631. Wodrow’s Analecta.
632. New Stat. Acc. of Scot., vi. 157.
633. Scrap-book of Dugald Bannatyne, quoted in New Stat. Acc. of Scot., vi. 231.
634. Smollett’s Humphry Clinker.
635. Ramsay’s Works, i. 285.
636. Arnot’s History of Edinburgh, p. 366.
637. Mr Jackson had heard that Aston’s theatre was ‘in a close on the north side of the High Street, near Smith’s Land. A Mrs Millar at that time was esteemed a capital actress, and was also a very handsome woman. Mr Westcombe was the principal comedian. The scheme was supported by annual tickets, subscribed for by the favourers of the drama.’—Hist. Scot. Stage, p. 417.
638. Arnot’s Hist. Edinburgh, p. 366.
639. Analecta Scotica, ii. 211.
640. ‘Edinburgh, April 9, 1728.—Yesterday, Tony Astons, elder and younger, stage-players, were committed prisoners to the Tolbooth. ’Tis said they are charged with the crime of carrying off a young lady designed for a wife to the latter.’—Ed. Ev. Courant.
641. Private Letters, &c.
642. Wodrow’s Analecta, iii. 309.
643. Printed by James Duncan, Glasgow, 1728, pp. 168.
644. Wodrow’s Analecta, iii. 318.
645. MS. in possession of the Junior United Service Club.
646. Struan Papers, MS. The Earl of Mar, writing to Struan from Paris, January 6, 1724, says: ‘Our poor friend John Menzies has been very near walking off the stage of life; but I now hope he may still be able to act out the play of the Restoration with us, though he must not pretend to a young part.’ Among Struan’s published poems is ‘an Epitaph on his Dear Friend John Menzies;’ from which it would appear that Menzies had died abroad, and been buried in unconsecrated ground.
647. History of the Robertsons of Struan.... Poems of Robertson of Struan, Edinburgh, no date, p. 167.
648. Feb. 4, 1755. ‘At London, Edmund Burt, Esq., late agent to General Wade, chief surveyor during the making of roads through the Highlands, and author of the Letters concerning Scotland.’—Scots Mag. Obituary.
649. Burt’s Letters, ii. 189.
650. This poem exists in MS. in the library of the Junior United Service Club, London.
651. Usquebaugh, whisky.
652. Library of the Junior United Service Club, London, to which body I have to express my obligations for the permission to inspect and make extracts.
653. Letters, &c. i. 77.
654. This road was completed in October 1729. See onward.
655. Select Transactions of the Society of Improvers.
656. Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Dalloway’s ed., iii. 127.
657. Gentleman’s Magazine, iii. 515.
658. Cyc. of Pract. Medicine, iii. 749.
659. Analecta Scotica, ii. 322.
660. Boswelliana, privately printed by R. Monckton Milnes, Esq.
661. Edinburgh Ev. Courant.
662. Hist Acc. of the Bank of Scotland, 1728.
663. Analecta, iii. 476.
664. A Letter containing Remarks on the Historical Account of the Old Bank, by a Gentleman concerned in neither Bank. Edin., James Davidson & Co., 1728.
665. This is a statement of the pamphlet last quoted, p. 30.
666. In British Museum, 8223 C
2 (b
2).
667. Analecta, iii. 302.
668. Burt’s Letters from the North of Scotland, 2d ed., i. 230.
669. Sharpe’s Introduction to Law’s Memorials, cvi.
670. Scott’s Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 328.
671. Representation by the linen-drapers at the bar of the House of Commons, Jan. 1720.
672. Letter in the Paper-office, quoted by Chalmers, Caledonia, i. 873, note.
673. Analecta, iii. 452.
674. Private Letters, &c., p. 59.
675. Edinburgh Ev. Courant.
676. Mr Wodrow relates that, about the same time, a number of ministers in England met occasionally together under the name of the Orthodox Club, and ‘frequently their conversation is gay and jocose’—‘gay and’ being here a Scotch adverb meaning considerably.
677. Private Letters, &c., p. 61.
678. State Trials, ix. 26. Arnot’s Crim. Trials, p. 190.
679. Private Letters, &c., p. 64. Mr Lindsay was soon after lord provost and member for the city, in which latter capacity he made a remarkably good speech in the House of Commons on the bill for taking away the privileges of the corporation in consequence of the Porteous Riot. See Gentleman’s Magazine, vii. 457.
680. What seems sufficient to set this matter in a clear light is the fact that, up to this time, such a thing as a sawn deal was unknown in the Spey Highlands; they could only split a tree, and chip the pieces into something like a deal; and some of the upper rooms of Castle-Grant are actually floored of wood prepared in this manner.
681. At the end of the voyage, he took the curragh upon his back, and trudged back to the point of departure. An example of this primitive kind of canoe was exhibited at the archæological museum connected with the British Association at Aberdeen, September 1859.
682. [Leslie’s] Survey of the Province of Moray, 1798, p. 267. Anderson’s British Poets, viii. 655.
683. Analecta, passim.
684. Private Letters, &c., p. 66; also newspapers of the day.
685. Wodrow’s Analecta, iv. 97.
686. See under the year 1716 for some notice of her Grace’s services to the country as a promoter of agricultural improvements.
687. Faculty Records, quoted in Analecta Scotica, ii. 170. The plate of Sallust is now shewn under a glass-case in the Advocates’ Library.
688. Biog. Memoirs of William Ged. Nichols, London, 1781. To a daughter of Ged, it was proposed that the profits of this publication, if any, should be devoted; hence it may be inferred that the family continued poor.
689. Mores’s Narrative of Block-printing, with Notes, apud Topham and Willett’s Memoir on the Origin of Printing. Newcastle, 1820.
690. Maitland’s History of Edinburgh, p. 460.
691. Arnot’s History of Edinburgh, p. 546.
692. Gentleman’s Magazine, v. 555.
693. The remaining verses of the poem are thus given in the Scots Magazine for June 1773:
‘Ah! where is now th’ innumerous crowd,
That once with fond attention hung
On every truth divine that flowed,
Improved from thy persuasive tongue!
’Tis gone!—it seeks a different road;
Life’s social joys to thee are o’er;
Untrod the path to that abode
Where hapless Penury keeps the door.
Drummond! thine audience yet recall,
Recall the young, the gay, the vain;
And ere thy tottering fabric fall,
Sound forth the deeply moral strain.
For never, sure, could bard or sage,
Howe’er inspired, more clearly shew,
That all upon this transient stage
Is folly, vanity, or woe.
Bid them at once be warned and taught—
Ah, no!—suppress th’ ungrateful tale—
O’er every frailty, every fault,
Oblivion, draw thy friendly veil.
Tell rather what transcendent joy
Awaits them on th’ immortal shore,
If well they Summer’s strength employ,
And well distribute Autumn’s store.
Tell them, if Virtue crown their bloom,
Time shall the happy period bring,
When the dark Winter of the tomb
Shall yield to everlasting Spring.’
694. Letter by a clansman of the deceased. Edin. Ev. Courant.
695. Culloden Papers, p. 111. Edin. Ev. Courant, Oct. 9, 1729. This chronicle adds: ‘They named the bridge where the parties met Oxbridge.’ A statement which appears somewhat inconsistent with one already made in our general account of the Highland roads.
General Stewart of Garth, in his interesting book on the Highland Regiments, makes an amusing mistake in supposing that General Wade here condescended to be entertained by a set of cearnochs, or cattle-lifters.
696. Notes to 2d ed. of Burt’s Letters. There being a distinction between natural tracks, such as formerly existed in the Highlands, and made roads, and ‘made’ being used here in a secondary and technical sense, it is not absolutely necessary to suppose, as has been supposed, that the author of this couplet was an Irish subaltern quartered at Fort William.
697. In May 1711, the ‘relict’ of Sir John Medina, limner, advertised her having for sale ‘a great many pictures of several of the nobility, gentry, and eminent lawyers of this nation,’ at her lodging, ‘the first stone land above the Tron Church, second story.’—Ed. Ev. Courant.
698. Daniel Wilson states, in his work, Edinburgh in the Olden Time, that Scougal possessed Sir James Steuart’s house in the Advocates’ Close, and there fitted up an additional floor as a picture-gallery.
699. The document is fully printed in the Edin. Annual Register for 1816.
700. Caledonian Mercury.
701. Analecta, iv. 86, 162.
702. Minutely narrated in Burnet.
703. Caledonian Mercury, April 6, 1724.
704. Sir D. Brewster’s Life of Sir Isaac Newton, 1855, i. 57
705. Edin. Ev. Courant.
706. Stewart’s Highland Regiments, i. 49.
707. Dom. Annals, under March 1, 1701.
708. French, commère, a godmother.
709. An Essay on the Means of Inclosing Scotland, 1729, p. 229.
710. Records of the Bank, quoted in Chalmers’s Caledonia, i. 873, note.
711. Edin. Ev. Courant.
712. Wodrow’s Analecta.
713. Domestic Ann. Scot., ii. 495.
714. See under June 24, 1736.
715. It is rather curious that, in a subscription for the relief of the sufferers by a fire in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, in 1725, ‘Colonel Francis Charteris, £4, 4s.’ is the only contribution from a private individual. Uncharitable onlookers would probably consider this as intended for an insurance against another fire on the part of the subscriber.
716. Private Letters, &c., p. 80.
717. Gentleman’s Magazine, ii. 674.
718. Caledonian Mercury.
719. Cal. Mercury, August 8, 1732.
720. Chalmers’s Life of Ruddiman, p. 136.
721. Caledonian Mercury, May and July 1733.
722. Caledonian Mercury, February 14, 1734.
723. Historical Register for 1721, p. 253.
724. July 21, 1744, died at his seat of Orangefield, in the shire of Ayr, James Macrae, Esq., late governor of Fort George.
725. The son, Captain James Macrae, was a person of most unhappy history, having shot an innocent gentleman in a duel, and obliged, in consequence, to leave his native country.
726. Caledonian Mercury, July and August 1733.
727. See under 1718, pp. 440, 441 of this volume.
728. A riding of the stang, attended with tragical results, happened in March 1736. George Porteous, smith at Edmondstone, having severely beaten and abused his wife, was subjected to the ignominy by his neighbours; which so highly ‘affronted’ him, that he went and hanged himself.—Caledonian Mercury.
729. Caledonian Mercury, passim.
730. Edinburgh newspapers, passim.
731. James VII.’s First Parliament, chap. 12.
732. [Sinclair’s] Stat. Acc. Scot., xviii. 362.
733. Wodrow Pamphlets, vol. 275.
734. From Mein’s original paper, apparently prepared for publication, 1735. MS. in possession of Society of Antiquaries.
735. Act of Town Council, August 29, 1740. Robert Mein died in 1776, at the age of ninety-three.
736. Amongst the papers of General Wade, in the possession of the Junior United Service Club, is a letter addressed to him by a lady who felt interested in behalf of Porteous. It is here transcribed, with all its peculiarities of spelling, &c., as an illustration of the exceptive feeling above adverted to, and also as a curious memorial of the literary gifts then belonging to ladies of the upper classes. The writer appears to have been one of the daughters of George Allardice of Allardice, by his wife, Lady Anne Ogilvy, daughter of the fourth Earl of Findlater:
‘I dute not Dear general waid but by this time yon may have heard the fattel sentence of the poor unhappy capt porteous how in six weeks time most dye if he riceve not speedy help from above, by the asistance of men of generosity and mercy such as you realy are it is the opinion of all thos of the better sort he has been hardly deelt by, being cond’mned but by a very slender proof, and tho he was much provokted by the mob and had the provest and magestrets order to fire which th’y now sheamfuly deney nor had he the leeberty to prove it tho even in his own defence, but the generous major powl will assure you of the trouth, and yet tho the capt had thos crule orders it is proven my [by] commiserer wesly mr Drumond doctor horton and severel other gentel men of undouted crided he realy did not make use of them, that there eyes were fixed on him all the while and have declar’d upon oth he deed not fire, true it is he presented his firelock in hopes to frighten the mob when ane unlucky felow at the same time and just by the capt fired which lead the two witness into the fatel mistake that has condmn’d him the unfortenat pannal both befor and after the dismal sentence protested befor god and the judges he was entierly inesent puting all thes circomstances to gether the miserable state he now is in most draw your generous pity on his side ther’for dr general waid continwa your uswal mercy and plead for him and as our sex are neturly compassinot and being now in the power of the quin, so generous a pleader as you may easely persuad, considring it is a thing of great concquenc to the whol army which yourself better knou then I can inform the duke of buccleugh, marques of Lowding [Lothian] Lord morton geneal myls all the commissioners and chiff baron are to join ther intrest with yours in this affair, by your own generous soul I beg again Dear sir you will do whats in your power to save him, thos that think right go not through this poor short life just for themselves which your good actions shou you oft consider, and as many just now put a sincer trust in your generous mercy I am sure they will not be disapointed throgh aney neglect of yours let this letter be taken notes of amongst the nomber you will reseve from your frinds in Scotland in behalf of the unfortunat capt which will intierly oblidg
Dear general waid
your most affectionate and most
obident humble servant
Catharine Allardice.
‘you would be sory for the unexresable los I have had of the kindest mother, and two sisters I am now at Mrs Lind’s where it would be no smal satesfaction to hear by a Line or two I am not forgot by you drect for me at Mr Linds hous in Edenburg your letter will come safe if you are so good as to writ Mr Lind his Lady and I send our best complements to you, he along with Lord aberdour and mr wyevel how has also wrot to his sister mrs pursal go hand in hand togither makeing all the intrest they can for the poor capt and meet with great sucess they join in wishing you the same not fearing your intrest the generals Lady how is his great friend were this day to speak to the Justes clarck but I have not since seen her, so that every on of compassion and mercy are equely bussey forgive this trouble and send ous hop’
737. Caledonian Mercury.
738. Statutes at large, vi. 51.
739. In November 1737, the poet is found advertising an assembly (dancing-party) ‘in the New Hall in Carrubber’s Close;’ subscription-tickets, two for a guinea, to serve throughout the winter season.—Cal. Merc.
740. Caledonian Mercury.
741. Newspapers of the time.
742. Caledonian Mercury.
743. Daily Post, Aug. 17, 1738, quoted in Household Words, 1850.
744. His name was William Smellie. The fact is stated in his Memoirs by Robert Kerr, Edinburgh, 1811.
745. Scots Magazine, January 1739.
746. Scottish Journal, p. 313.
747. Houghton’s Collections on Husbandry and Trade, 1694.
748. Arnot’s History of Edinburgh, 4to, p. 201.
749. Robertson’s Rural Recollections, 1829.
750. ‘The man has not been dead many years who first introduced from Ireland the culture of the potato into the peninsula of Cantyre; he lived near Campbelton. From him the city of Glasgow obtained a regular supply for many years; and from him also the natives of the Western Highlands and Isles obtained the first plants, from which have been derived those abundant supplies on which the people there now principally subsist.’—Anderson’s Recreations, vol. ii. (1800) p. 382.
751. ‘This singular individual died at Edinburgh [January 24, 1788]. In 1784, he sunk £140 with the managers of the Canongate Poor’s House, for a weekly subsistence of 7s., and afterwards made several small donations to that institution. His coffin, for which he paid two guineas, with “1703,” the year of his birth, inscribed on it, hung in his house for nine years previous to his death; and it also had affixed to it the undertaker’s written obligation to screw him down with his own hands gratis. The managers of the Poor’s House were likewise taken bound to carry his body with a hearse and four coaches to Restalrig Churchyard, which was accordingly done. Besides all this, he caused his grave-stone to be temporarily erected in a conspicuous spot of the Canongate Churchyard, having the following quaint inscription:
“HENRY PRENTICE,
Died.
Be not curious to know how I lived;
But rather how yourself should die.“‘
—Contemporary Obituaries.
752. Scots Magazine, Oct. 1740. Act of Town Council, Dec. 19, 1740.
753. Scots Magazine, July 1741.
754. Moncrieff’s Life of John Erskine, D.D., p. 110.
755. Scots Magazine, July 1742.
756. Scots Magazine, Oct. 1712. New Statistical Acc. Scot., art. ‘Lochbroom,’ where many curious anecdotes of Robertson, called Ministeir laidir, ‘the Strong Minister,’ are detailed.
757. Lays of the Deer Forest, by the Messrs Stuart.
758. Edin. Ev. Courant, Nov. 15, 1743.
759. Spalding Club Miscellany, ii. 87.
760. Old Statist. Acc. of Scot., xv. 379.
761. Domestic Ann. of Scot., ii. 392.
762. Memorabilia of Glasgow, p. 502.
763. Newspaper advertisement.
764. Jones’s Glasgow Directory, quoted in Stuart’s Notices of Glasgow in Former Times.
765. Culloden Papers, p. 233.
766. Appendix to Burt’s Letters, 5th ed., ii. 359.
767. Tour in Scotland, i. 225; ii. 425.
768. Gentleman’s Magazine, xvi. 429.
769. Scots Magazine, 1750, 1753, 1754.
770. Tour through the Highlands, &c. By John Knox. 1787, p. 101.
771. [Sinclair’s] Stat. Acc. Scot., xx. 424. The minister’s version is here corrected from one in the Gentleman’s Magazine for January 1733; but both are incorrect in the historical particulars, there having been during 1728 and the hundred preceding years no more than six kings of Scotland.
772. Printed in Spalding Club Miscellany, ii. 7.
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