From Convivial Caledonia, Inns and Taverns of Scotland, and Some Famous People Who Have Frequented Them, by Robert Kempt, London: Chapman and Hall, LD., 1893; pp. 67-84.
CHAPTER IV.
CELEBRATED TAVERNS OF AULD REEKIE.
King George the Fourth is coming down,
To see his friends in Embro’-town;
To hold his court, and wear the crown
O’ Scotland’s kings, and a’ that.
And a’ the chieftains o’ the north,
Lords, leddies, lairds, and men of worth,
Are flocking to the Firth o’ Forth.
To welcome him, and a’ that.
. . . . . .
Meantime, wi’ mony a bonnie sang,
The streets and squares of Embro’ rang;
Minstrels, and music-bells, ding-dang,
Play’d loyal tunes, and a’ that.
. . . . . .
Then fill your goblets till they foam;
And when the King’s dispos’d to roam,
He’ll look on Scotland as his home,
And come again, and a’ that.
JOHN MAYNE’S “The King’s Welcome to Scotland,”
15th August, 1822.
EDINBURGH was famous for its taverns and tavern life from the middle of the last to the early part of the present century. 68 Nearly all the old howfs and haunts have now been swept away by the ruthless besom of modern sanitary and municipal reform. We shall only briefly note a few of these now historical places. When Dr. Johnson visited Auld Reekie on his way north, in 1773, he lodged at the “White Horse Inn,” near the foot of the Canongate. It was while here that he met with that “unlucky specimen of Scottish cleanliness” referred to by his biographer. “He asked to have his lemonade made sweeter, upon which the waiter, with his greasy fingers, lifted up a lump of sugar and put it into it. The doctor, in indignation, threw it out of the window.” This hostelrie was supposed to be the oldest in the city. Some forty or fifty years ago it was partitioned into dwellings of the lowest class, and it became more remarkable for its ruinous, picturesque aspect than for its sanitary condition. But its quaint gables, its stone fore stairs, and wooden galleries have, within the past year or so, disappeared, 69 along with other venerable surroundings, to make way for much-needed improvements. The building had for generations been a favourite subject for artists. At the date of Johnson’s visit, Boswell’s town house was in St. James’s Court, in the Lawnmarket, where lived also David Hume, the historian. Indeed, all the noteworthy taverns as well as the residences of the leading citizens were either in that historic thoroughfare, the High Street, or in the courts and closes running from it. Take Carruber’s Close, associated as it is with both Allan Ramsay and Robert Burns. The earliest of Ramsay’s poetical efforts that can now be traced is in an epistle addressed “To the Most Happy Members of the Easy Club,” in the year 1712. Three years afterwards this convivial society humorously appointed him their poet laureate. At the foot of the close Ramsay built a playhouse (converted subsequently into a Methodist chapel), and in a tenement called the Clamshell Land adjoining, Burns was a frequent guest with 70 two of his earliest friends, Robert Ainslie and Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, both of whom resided there. The Anchor Close was notable as the location of the “Douglas Tavern,” one of the howfs of Burns. Here he would forgather to hold high jinks with Willie Nicol and other bosom cronies after he had quitted the drawing-rooms of the respectable philosophers and grand ladies of Edinburgh. There, also, was the printing office of his friend William Smellie, from whose press emanated the chief literary works of the latter half of the last century. At the foot of this close lived the mother of the poet Drummond of Hawthornden. In the Stamp Office Close stood the mansion of the 9th Earl of Eglinton; it became better known to the citizens by the name of “Fortune’s Tavern.” In the last century the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly held his levees and dinners at this tavern, and referring to what was the custom of Edinburgh advocates when he went to the Bar, Sir Walter Scott says, “They 71 drank claret of Bayle’s, Fortune’s, and Walker’s, and ate oysters in the Covenant Close.” When the union with England was brought about, the councillors of the city subscribed the deed in a tavern afterwards known as the “Union Tavern,” in Hunter Square. “Shakespeare’s Tavern,” which occupied a site adjoining the old Theatre Royal, where now stands the General Post Office, was another place of merry meetings in the long ago. It was the house where actors most did congregate.
Touching Scott’s above-quoted remark as to the custom of eating oysters in the Covenant Close, it may be noted that this had long been a favourite form of conviviality among the upper classes of Edinburgh. It was all the vogue at the time of Dr. Johnson’s visit to the Scottish capital, for we have a very lively account of an entertainment of the kind, in 1775, in Topham’s letters from Edinburgh. That gossip writes to his friends in London: — “There is a species of entertainment in Edinburgh 72 which seems to give more real pleasure to the company who visit it than either Ranelagh or the Pantheon. The votaries to this shrine of pleasure are numerous, and the manner is entirely new. This shrine of festivity is nothing more than an Oyster-cellar, and its votaries the first people in Edinburgh. A few evenings ago I had the pleasure of being asked to one of these entertainments, by a lady. At that time I was not acquainted with this scene of ‘high life below stairs,’ and therefore, when she mentioned the word Oyster-cellar, I imagined I must have mistaken the place of invitation; she repeated it, however, and I found it was not my business to make objections, so agreed immediately. You will not think it very odd that I should expect, from the place where the appointment was made, to have had a gartie tête-à-tête. I thought I was bound in honour to keep it a secret, and waited with great impatience till the hour arrived. When the clock struck the hour fixed on, away I went, and inquired if 73 the lady was there. ‘Oh, yes,’ cried the woman, ‘she has been here an hour or more.’ I had just time to curse my want of punctuality, when the door opened, and I had the pleasure of being ushered in, not to one lady, as I expected, but to a large and brilliant company of both sexes, most of whom I had the honour of being acquainted with. The large table round which they were seated was covered with dishes full of oysters, and pots of porter. For a long time I could not suppose that this was the only entertainment we were to have, and I sat waiting in expectation of a repast that was never to make its appearance. This I soon found verified, as the table was cleared and glass introduced. The ladies were now asked whether they would choose brandy or rum punch? I thought this question an odd one, but I was soon informed, by the gentleman who sat next me, that no wine was sold here. The ladies, who always love what is best, fixed upon brandy punch, and a large bowl was immediately introduced. 74 The conversation hitherto had been insipid, and at intervals: it now became general and lively. The women, who, to do them justice, are much more entertaining than their neighbours in England, discovered a great deal of vivacity and fondness for repartee. A thousand things were hazarded and met with applause, to which the oddity of the scene gave propriety and which could have been produced in no other place. The general ease with which they conducted themselves, the innocent freedom of their manners, and their unaffected good nature, all conspired to make us forget that we were regaling in a cellar; and was convincing proof that, let local customs operate as they may, a truly polite woman is everywhere the same. Bigoted as I know you to be to more fashionable amusements, you yourself would have confessed that there was in this little assembly more real happiness and mirth than in all the ceremonies and splendid meetings at Soho. When the company were tired of conversation, they 75 began to dance reels, their favourite dance, which they perform with great agility and perseverance. One of the gentlemen, however, fell down in the most active part of it, and lamed himself, so the dance was at an end for that evening. On looking at their watches, the ladies now found it was time to retire; the coaches were therefore called, and away they went, and with them all our mirth.”
The “Poker Club” flourished in the Scottish capital during at least two decades. It was formed not long after Culloden, primarily, “to promote the attainment of a national militia,” for the independence of Scotland. The Scotch Militia Bill had been thrown out of the House of Commons, though a militia force had been granted to England. Naturally this caused great dissatisfaction among the leading men in Edinburgh, who considered that Scotland had been insulted. It was thought in London that there was too strong attachment to the Stuart cause to trust the people generally with the use of arms. 76 However, the club certainly had its convivial side as well. It met at dinner once a fortnight during the sitting of the Court of Session, and its members, numbering about seventy, included nearly all the most distinguished characters then residing in Edinburgh. Among others were David Hume, Dr. Adam Smith, Dr. James Gregory, Lord Melville, Lord Kames, Lord Elibank, John Home, Dr. Hugh Blair, Dr. Robertson, Lord Minto, John Clerk of Eldin, Professor Ferguson, and Sir William Pultney. Lord Adam writes of the club that “it was, according to all accounts, a club which had great social charms, by a combination of learning and wit, humour and patriotism, and good fellowship, which led to convivial exhilaration, but not to excess. It continued for more than twenty years in great vigour.” The name chosen for the club had of course reference to a well-known household instrument, the intention being to stir up and kindle the patriotic spirit of the Scotch against what they regarded as a national insult.
77 A noted bon vivant in his day was Dr. Alexander Webster, minister of the Tolbooth Kirk, and a contemporary of Dr. Alexander (Jupiter) Carlyle. Webster was one of the five-bottle men of a notoriously convivial age — men with whom, as Lord Cockburn said of a brother Judge, Lord Hermand, drinking was a virtue. Dr. Webster’s capacity to put away liquor brought him the nickname of Dr. Bonum Magnum, and he had also the capacity to be nearly always able, like the Baron of Bradwardine to carry his drink discreetly, even after he had seen all his friends under the table. The Magistrates of Edinburgh used to hold frequent festivals at the “Star and Garter,” in Writers’ Court (otherwise called Clerihugh’s), and at all their meetings they made it their endeavour to have the doctor, his conversation being always considered as a great treat. Though his indulgences were frequent, yet he was, withal, so worthy a man and so eloquent a preacher, that he lived and died respected, and almost 78 venerated by his congregation. Such was his popularity that, as one writer puts it, there seemed actually to be a conspiracy among the citizens of Edinburgh to wink at his failings. Sometimes, when he was observed walking through the streets at two or three o’clock in the morning, passers-by would only observe, “Ah! there’s Dr. Webster, honest man. He’s been ta’en out o’ his warm bed, I’se warrant, at this untimeous hour o’ nicht, to see some puir body. Worthy man! — zealous Christian! he doesna weary in weel-doing, I trow. It maun be sair on the puir man’s health, this nicht wark; but it will a’ tell to his ain guid in the end o’ the day.” Another good story of him has been current in Edinburgh for many a day, though, like the former anecdote, it is not in Dean Ramsay. On one particular occasion, when, rather later and rather more intoxicated than usual, Dr. Webster was stepping softly along the pavement, a friend who met him could not 79 help remarking, “Ah, doctor, doctor, what would the Tolbooth Whigs say if they saw you just now?” “Deed,” answered the doctor, with his wonted readiness of reply, “they just wadna believe their ain een,” implying that so prejudiced were they in his favour that they would not trust the evidence of their own senses to condemn him.
Of the celebrated Dr. Carlyle, above mentioned, the late Dr. Lindsay Alexander of Edinburgh could recall hearing, when a child, one of the servants of Pinkieburn tell of Carlyle’s dining there, and following him with admiring gaze as he left the house on his homeward path. “There he gaed, decent man, as steady as a wall, after his ain share o’ five bottles o’ port.” Like Dr. Webster, his friend Dr. Carlyle was esteemed by every one as possessing all the gifts and graces of the elect. Another Scotch doctor of festive habits, in his instance a medical one, had an experience probably unique among 80 members of that faculty. Dr. Fordyce, a physician of high standing, sometimes drank at dinner more than was good of him. He was summoned one evening to see a lady patient, when he was more than half seas over, and conscious that he was so. Feeling her pulse, and finding himself unable to count its beats, he muttered, “Drunk, by Jove!” Next morning, recollecting the circumstance, he was greatly vexed, and just as he was thinking what explanation of his behaviour he would offer to the lady, a letter from her was put into his hand. She knew too well, said the writer, that he had discovered the unfortunate condition in which she was when he last visited her, and she entreated him to keep the matter secret in consideration of the enclosed (a hundred pound bank-note).
In the novel of “Guy Mannering” is given an amusing account of the meeting of Colonel Mannering and Dandie Dinmont with Councillor Pleydell at the aforesaid 81 Clerihugh’s of which that legal luminary was an habitué, and where clients could consult him as readily as at his own chambers. Describing one of his sederunts at the tavern, Pleydell tells Mannering, “there we sat birling till I had a fair tappit hen under my belt.” A tappit hen was a pewter measure or stoup holding three quarts of claret served from the tap, with the figure of a hen upon the lid. In later times the name was given to a glass bottle of the same dimensions. These are rare apparitions, adds the novelist, among the degenerate topers of modern days.
Nor must we forget that so great an Aberdeenshire celebrity was Peter Williamson, of kidnapped fame, was for many years in Edinburgh, tavern-keeper, author, publisher, printer all in one. The handsome sum of 300l., which he obtained in name of damages, for false imprisonment, from certain worthy Magistrates of Aberdeen in 1768, would give Peter a 82 good start in business. His first tavern was opened within the large hall of the old Parliament House “for the service of the lawyers, litigants, and miscellaneous loungers, who, during the Session time, filled the open space of the hall for three or four hours each day.” Here, Williamson, while serving refreshments to customers, also sold the printed story of his really interesting adventure in America, and found time to write sundry tracts on general subjects. One of these is entitled “A Nominal Encomium on the city and Council of Edinburgh, by Peter Williamson, the Indian Chief, Parliament House; printed by Williamson in one of his new portable printing presses, 1769.” Poor Robert Ferguson — “a fine-hearted, ill-fated ‘writer chiel,’ who knew no medium between severe labour and deep drinking,” says George Gilfillan — was at that time driving a quill in the Sheriff-Clerk’s office. He must have been a frequenter of the little tavern, judging from the following 83 lines in the poet’s verses on the “Rising of the Session”: —
This vacance is a heavy doom
On Indian Peter’s coffee-room;
For a’ his china pigs are toom,
Nor do we see
In wine the succcar biskets soom,
Light as a flee.
Williamson, after a time, removed to other premises, as we learn from another of his tracts, without date, containing a collection of moral maxims and wise sayings, “printed for and sold by Peter Williamson, vintner, in the head of Forrester’s Wynd, Lawnmarket.” To this enterprising and somewhat eccentric, but upright man, as one of his biographers calls him, is due the credit of having published the earliest Edinburgh Directory, and of having been the first to establish a penny post for that city and suburbs, truly about the most useful vintner, we should say, that ever filled a flagon or broached a barrel. And it is satisfactory to know that his postal scheme was rewarded by a pension from 84 Government. Coming nearer our own times, the names of Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd recall the glorious “Noctes Ambrosianæ.” Ambrose’s, in West Register Street, where the meetings were held, is now numbered with the things that were, but pleasant associations, not few, cluster round the “Café Royal,” close by, the “Ship,” the “Rainbow,” and other Auld Reekie resorts of younger generations.