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But now the trumpet, terrible from far,
In shriller clangors animates the war;
Confederate drums in fuller concert beat,
And echoing hills (Pentland) the loud alarm repeat.
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Having presented the gallant Commander-in-Chief, en déshabille, it may not be amiss to enliven my
page with a few other anecdotes of an individual who played so conspicuous a part in the
later politics and history of the country. And I must begin with the notice of a dog of
mine, because thereby hangs a tale. His lordship, I need hardly relate, married the
Countess of Loudon, one of the wealthiest and
noblest matches in Scotland. After his return to his residence in Queen-street, with his
bride, it so happened that a perverse pointer, which Mr.
Elliott had permitted me to keep in his stables behind the house, at the end
of a very short piece of garden ground, either took it into his head to begin, or
vehemently to continue, a bad custom, hitherto unchecked by any neighbour whom it might
annoy,—viz., that of howling a serenade throughout the livelong night. This was worse than
marrowbones and cleavers, or the nuptial clangors of street-bands, and I was not surprised
at an application from his lordship to abate the nuisance; which was immediately done, and
Ponto
| 60 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
Soon after this, there was a grand field-day of the Volunteers, and an awful sham-battle fought, in which the company in the First or Gentleman’s Regiment, to which I belonged,—the left Grenadiers, under Captain Sir John Marjoribanks—behaved with great gallantry, and only retreated from the spirited defence of an old stone wall in obedience to signal, and not from apprehension of the assailing force of Highland Caddies, though it must be confessed that Donald, in the heat of running, and firing, and climbing, had almost wrought himself into that sort of Celtic paroxysm which could hardly distinguish between a mock fight and a real one. We, nevertheless, retreated, I assure you, leisurely (as ought to have been stated in the general orders after the battle), crossed a green field in tolerable order, and re-formed, in conjunction with other troops destined to the daring attack upon Craigmillar Castle. The castle was stoutly defended at the practicable breach made by the operations, during many years, of Major-General Time, and the foremost of the rash, forlorn hope, were beaten back by the blank cartridges from the guns of the besieged, which literally tumbled a few over, and blew the feathers out of the hats of others. Observing this disaster, Colonel Hope directed a coup-de-main. We popped round an angle of the walls, took the enemy en revers, and gloriously achieved the triumph of the day by marching through the captured castle and drawing up in line on the other side. The only casualty was a hare killed, whose seat was disturbed amid the hottest of the manoeuvres; and the greatest alarm created by several ramrods having been discharged in the excitement of the moment, at the concluding feu-de-joie, among the crowd of spectators, fortunately without effect.
| EDINBURGH—STORIES | 61 |
Alas, where are the warriors who fought with me on that immortal occasion?—the bruit of which doubtless helped to dispel Buonaparte’s Boulogne dream, and save Britain from invasion. Where are my brave comrades of that northern prototype of the storming of Badajoz and San Sebastian? At least ninety-five in the hundred of them are in their lowly graves; no foreign levy can touch them now, after life’s fitful fever they sleep well, and soon will all the rest be, with their trophies, swept away, and leave no living chronicler of this memorable fight. There were, I believe, above five thousand Volunteers in the field, and though we can at all times bear the powder of a harmless joke upon the subject, it is no unimportant precedent to look back upon the effect of the Volunteer system, at a very dangerous crisis of England’s fate. The thing may have to be done again; and it ought never to be forgotten that arms entrusted to the disaffected, converted them into loyalty and patriotism—such was the result of confidence: and that when an alarm of invasion was actually spread in consequence of an accidental lighting of the beacons, from twenty to twenty-five thousand resolute and well-armed men (with hardly a single absentee), marched in the night for the defence of the Capital, from between the Tweed and Forth, and from the ancient kingdom of Fife. There was small temptation to land troops, however bold and disciplined, upon a coast so guarded, though by raw levies, accustomed only to parades, training, and mimic war.
Agreeably to the usual fashion, numerous dinner parties took place in the
evening of Craigmillar’s Saint Crispin; and it was about eleven o’clock when I
strolled homeward up Queen Street. Still inflamed by military ardour, with the addition of
a little wine (and it might be whiskey toddy) I was particularly struck in the moonlight by
the two wooden
| 62 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
At this period under the auspices of his
lordship, as Grand Master, the union of the ancient and modern Freemasons
was perfected, and one of the most magnificent sights ever witnessed, even in Edinburgh,
with its lofty and irregular buildings, affording such scopes for scenes of the kind, was
displayed. The grand procession moved from the Parliament Square down the High Street, and
by the North Bridge, to the Theatre, which was converted into a spacious saloon for the
splendid assemblage; and the
| EDINBURGH—STORIES | 63 |
Still endeavouring to preserve a few scattered traits of the individuals and period now on hand, I may recur to song and anecdote, such as were wont to delight the ear or set the table in a roar. Sheridan wrote and sung entertaining lyrics far above average merit—I wonder if any traces of them exist; his son Frank, too early lost, as an inheritor of his family’s genius, assured me he knew of none being preserved:—and short rich stories used to embellish the conversation, most quaintly told by Lord Elcho and similar original characters—a separate race, by-the-by, numerous in those days, but almost obliterated now by the changes in society. Oddities are becoming every day more rare. The dramatic art has no peculiarities to work upon. People are all about as like each other as flocks of sheep; and seem to move, talk, act, and perform their parts just as if they were all shaped after the same pattern. One of Sheridan’s compositions on the disbanding of the army was an amusing specimen. I can still recollect two verses: after disposing of the higher ranks—
“Says the captain, ‘I’ll go home Where my wife and children cry;’ Says the lieutenant, ‘I’ll to my lass, For the devil a wife have I.’ |
Says the Serjeant, ‘I’ll to the highway, Better do that than do worse;’ Says the corporal, ‘I’ll go too . . . . So stand and deliver your purse!’” |
The robbing his superior, the Monsieur Halbert, as a beginning, was a happy thought, and indicative of great fitness for the occupation. As a companion in prose I quote (from memory) the droll old Lord Elcho:—
“I once presided (said he) over a jolly company when it was more
customary than it now is, and the more’s the pity, to call upon every guest in
turn for a song or a tale, under the penalty, in case of refusal or non-compliance, of
a strong tumbler of salt and water. I, at last, came to a contumacious chap, who
protested that he could neither sing a song or tell a tale. This would not pass with
me, and especially as I had had my eye upon this Billy for some time, and did not at
all like his jeering leers and scoffing manners. So I said to him peremptorily,
‘Well, sir, if ye can do neither the one nor the other, you must oblige me by
tossing off the tumbler I will now order to be brought to you.’
‘Stop,’ he cried hastily, ‘let me try first?’ Silence ensued,
and he proceeded—‘There was once a thief who chanced to find a church-door open,
of which carelessness he took advantage and stepped in, not to worship, but to carry
off whatever of portable he could find. He put the cushions under his arms, hid as much
as he could, and impudently wrapt the pulpit cloth about him like a plaid. But lo and
behold, whilst he was thus employed the sexton happened to pass by, and seeing the
church-door open, got the key and locked it; so that when our sacrilegious friend
thought he had nothing to do but to slip out as he slipt in, he discovered that he was
a close prisoner and all egress stopped. What to do he knew not; but at last it struck
him that he might succeed in letting himself down to the ground by the bell-rope.
Accordingly, with it in hand, he swung gently off; and you may be certified set up a
ringing that alarmed the neighbourhood. In short he was captured with his booty upon
him as soon as he reached
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“I have never ventured to insist upon a gentleman drinking salt and water since.”
At or about this time, the day before or day after, as “Moore’s Almanac” used to express it, for, in such matters, I do not like to be closely particular, the flirtations provoked by the military gave rise to many little scandals, and Raeburn’s clever caricatures embodied some of them in ludicrous and piquant style. They did not extend to scan, mag., but only to a sportiveness and freedom of manner which I merely notice as another proof of the difference then existing between London and Edinburgh—the latter more resembling a country village than a populous city; and also the difference which fifty years has made in both, and throughout the land. The dispute between two beauties of the best kith and kin, as to who had the handsomest limbs, the same to be shown beneath a curtain behind which their persons were hidden, and the decision entrusted to two or three gallant officers, was a real case in point. Such frolics would not be tolerated in 1852, but in 1802, though they incurred some censure they did not involve disgrace.
As a literary observer, I should be doing injustice to the civilising and
refining influence of letters, if I did not offer my opinion that the alterations for the
better in Edinburgh, commencing soon after the date to which my preceding descriptions
apply, were attributable, in an eminent degree, to the springing up of an independent
national system of literature there. From gross living and hereditary coarseness, the
inhabitants were suddenly awakened to questions of general importance, and requiring the
exercise of intellect
| 66 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
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