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 BOOKS AUTHORS AND EVENTS
 
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 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 OF 
 
 BOOKS AUTHORS 
 AND EVENTS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES BERTRAM 
 
 AUTHOK OK 
 " THE HARVEST OF THE SEA " ETC 
 
 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE 
 
 14 PARLIAMENT STREET S-W 
 
 MDCCCXCIII
 
 fR 
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The present being an age of literary and 
 professional reminiscences, I offer no apology 
 for following the fashion, and I trust that 
 what is said in these pages may be found to 
 possess some interest, more especially to per- 
 sons desirous of being introduced behind the 
 scenes of literature. 
 
 Full fifty years having elapsed since my con- 
 nection with publishing first began, many of 
 the more or less celebrated characters with 
 whom I have been in touch have gone over 
 to the majority, but of not a few the memory 
 is still green. Sir Walter Scott, Francis 
 Jeffrey, Thomas de Ouincey, " The Ettrick 
 Shepherd," " Christopher North," John Gibson 
 Lockhart, are still names to conjure with ; 
 and, though I can tell little or nothing of them, 
 or of others less famous that may be con- 
 sidered extraordinary, still some of my gossip 
 
 821503
 
 VIU PREFACE 
 
 may prove interesting, and serve to supply 
 a touch here and there for a more comprehen- 
 sive picture of the authors, books and events 
 of the thirties and forties of the present 
 century. 
 
 J. G. Bertram. 
 Glasgow, 1891.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 James Glass Bertram, the writer of these 
 "Memories," was born in 1824, at the little 
 border village of Tillsmouth. While he was 
 yet a child his parents, who were in humble 
 circumstances, removed first to the town of 
 Haddington, and again to the vicinity of Edin- 
 burgh. His early boyhood was spent in the 
 village of Davidson's Mains, and he received his 
 education at the neighbouring school of Slate- 
 ford. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed 
 to Mr. William Tait, the proprietor of TaUs 
 EdinburgJi Magazine, in whose employment he 
 rose, before he had attained his majority, to 
 the position of managing clerk and cashier. 
 This situation, however, he soon abandoned 
 for the stage, and it is to be regretted that he 
 did not devote a chapter of his " Memories " 
 to his experiences as a strolling player, the 
 little book which he founded on them —
 
 X • MEMOIR 
 
 " Glimpses of Real Life " — being no longer in 
 print. Finding himself, after three years' trial, 
 unable to gain a living as an actor, Mr. 
 Bertram returned to Edinburgh, and en- 
 deavoured to establish himself as a bookseller 
 and news agent ; but this failing of success, he 
 earned a livelihood for the next few years by 
 contributing to Chambers s Journal, Hoggs 
 Instructor, and similar periodicals. In 1855 
 he was appointed editor of the North Briton, 
 one of the numerous penny newspapers estab- 
 lished on the abolition of the compulsory 
 stamp. It was published twice a week, and 
 seems to have been conducted on the lines 
 of what is now called " the New Journalism." 
 It was the first newspaper to introduce the 
 serial story as a regular part of its contents ; 
 and the first to publish " interviews." After a 
 somewhat noisy, and tolerably successful, career 
 of fifteen or sixteen years, the North Britons 
 fortunes began to decline, and Mr. Bertram, 
 who had latterly been proprietor as well as 
 editor, was obliged to part with the paper in 
 1872. He continued to be editor, however, 
 for another year, after the expiry of which he
 
 MEMOIR XI 
 
 moved westward to assist in the establishment 
 of a new Conservative morning paper, the 
 Glasgow Neivs. It never attained financial 
 success, and Mr. Bertram soon lost his post 
 of assistant editor. In 1856, while managing 
 the North Briton, he had attempted to set up 
 a halfpenny morning paper called the Bawbee 
 — in this venture also he was a pioneer — but 
 only a few numbers appeared. A somewhat 
 less unfortunate speculation was a weekly 
 edition of the North Briton, called the Scottish 
 Thistle, which came to an end in 1859. 
 
 During the period covered by these news- 
 paper editorships Mr. Bertram's energies were 
 by no means absorbed by journalism. He 
 produced a three-volume novel entitled " The 
 Stolen Heir," which had some success both in 
 serial and book form ; and the previously 
 mentioned semi-autobiographical " Glimpses 
 of Real Life, as seen in the Theatrical World 
 and Bohemia." This appeared in 1864, and 
 about the same time the author composed a 
 pantomime founded on " The House that Jack 
 Built," which had a long run at the Theatre 
 Royal, Dundee, whose manager had com-
 
 Xll MEMOIR 
 
 missioned it. He also wrote an " Entertain- 
 ment " for two performers, which, with able 
 interpreters, achieved some success. 
 
 These employments did not exhaust Mr. 
 Bertram's versatility, for early in the sixties he 
 took up the serious study of our Fisheries, 
 visiting the chief centres of the industry both 
 in Great Britain and on the Continent. He 
 also acted occasionally as special correspondent 
 for various newspapers at Fishery Exhibitions. 
 The knowledge thus gained resulted, as was 
 natural, in the chief literary work of his life — 
 the well-known, popular and practical " Harvest 
 of the Sea," brought out by Mr. Murray in 
 1865, and several times reprinted. In the 
 preface to a revised and expanded edition 
 which appeared in 1873, Mr. Bertram said : — 
 
 " The ' Harvest of the Sea ' has been a 
 great success — not because it has sold so well 
 that a third edition is now called for, and that 
 the critics and reviewers have praised it highly, 
 but because it has led to a continuous discus- 
 sion of fishery economy ever since the volume 
 was issued from Albemarle Street, and has 
 therefore, in the best sense, fulfilled its
 
 MEMOIR XIU 
 
 mission. All fishery subjects are now dis- 
 cussed with calmness, as well as increased 
 
 knowledge Common sense has 
 
 triumphed, and much in our fishery economy 
 that was wrong has been made right." 
 
 About 1870 Mr. Bertram compiled for the 
 late John Camden Hotten " A History of the 
 Rod," which was published under the assumed 
 name of the " Rev. W. M. Cooper, B.A.", and 
 ran into several editions. 
 
 After leaving the Glasovza News in 1874, 
 Mr. Bertram did not ag-ain attach himself to 
 the permanent staff of any newspaper, but 
 gave himself up for the remainder of his 
 industrious life to miscellaneous journalism 
 and literature, contributing largely to the 
 provincial weekly press, and to periodicals of 
 every degree. He had always taken much 
 interest in all kinds of sports, and for some 
 years wrote regularly in Bailys Magazine. He 
 described "The Out-Door vSports of Scotland," 
 and compiled a volume of " Sporting Anec- 
 dotes," both works being issued under the 
 pseudonym of " Ellangowan." His latest pub- 
 lications were "The Blue Ribbon of the Turf"
 
 XIV MEMOIR 
 
 (1890), and "A Mirror of the Turf," both 
 purporting to be written by " Louis Henry 
 Curzon." The proof sheets of the "Mirror" 
 were revised during the last months of the 
 author's life, and he did not live to see it issue 
 from the press. Mr. Bertram had always 
 enjoyed excellent health until he was attacked 
 by influenza in the spring of 1891. From the 
 effects of this he never fully recovered, and he 
 passed away on March 3, 1892, in his sixty- 
 eighth year. 
 
 Mr. Bertram has a claim to remembrance as 
 one of the earliest pioneers of cheap and 
 popular journalism, and as the author of " The 
 Harvest of the Sea"; also, perhaps, as a 
 strikingly typical example of the literary " man 
 of all work," whose career extended over two 
 generations. By surviving friends he is re- 
 membered as a kindly and pleasant companion, 
 whose native cheerfulness never failed him 
 during a long and chequered life. 
 
 The portrait of Sir Walter Scott, which 
 forms the frontispiece to this volume, is a re- 
 production of the engraving by F. C. Lewis, 
 after the picture by A. Geddes.
 
 CO NTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 Preface • . . . vii 
 
 Memoir ........ ix 
 
 'Prentice Days i 
 
 Mr. Tait and his Literary and Political 
 
 Friends ....... 29 
 
 Thomas de Quincey 61 
 
 "The Trade" in Edinburgh .... 80 
 
 Trade Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott . 99 
 
 The "Edinburgh Review" . . . . no 
 
 "Blackwood's Magazine" 120 
 
 William and Robert Chambers . . . 127 
 
 Cheap Periodicals — "Chambers's Journal," &c. i 3 7 
 
 Trade Visits to London and Glasgow . . 146 
 
 Celebrities and "Characters" . . . 167 
 
 Some Events 184 
 
 Literary and Lf.gal Hospitalities . . . 194
 
 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 'PRENTICE DAYS 
 
 I 
 
 Fifty-four years ago, at the age of thirteen 
 (or to be more precise, in the year 1837), I 
 entered the warehouse of Mr. Tait, the pro- 
 prietor of Taifs Edinbitrgh Magazine, then a 
 well-known and prosperous periodical, in the 
 capacity of junior apprentice and boy-of-all- 
 work. 
 
 The first great fact impressed upon me on 
 arriving at 78, Princes Street, where Mr. 
 Tait's business was then carried on, was that, 
 contrary to my fond anticipations, I should 
 have very little time for reading. As a country 
 boy at a time when books were anything but 
 plentiful in such poor houses as my father's, I 
 used to think no life could be more enjoyable 
 than that of a bookseller or printer with 
 
 B
 
 2 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 probably little to do but pass half the day in 
 reading" the "Arabian Nights," or narratives of 
 the adventures of shipv/recked sailors. That 
 was a matter on which I was speedily dis- 
 illusioned, for what with work in the ware- 
 house and message-going outside of it, my 
 time was well occupied. Apprentices in the 
 year 1837 were never allowed to be idle, and 
 work in big bookshops was then both harder 
 and rougher than it is in similar places to-day. 
 
 While in " Tait's," during the first year or 
 two of my apprenticeship, any day of my life 
 passed pretty much as follows : — The shop 
 required to be opened every morning punctually 
 at eight o'clock, and as I lived at Morningside 
 (now a part of the city, but then a village two- 
 and-a-half miles distant from Mr. Tait's ware- 
 house), it was necessary I should be up and 
 dressed by half-past six o'clock. Breakfast 
 being hurried over, my day's work began by a 
 smart walk to the head-clerk's lodgings in 
 St. James's Square to obtain the keys of the 
 shop, which had then to be opened, a business 
 of no small difficulty for a young lad. The 
 first process was to take off and lower Into an
 
 'prentice days 
 
 area nineteen heavy window-shutters. In this 
 toilsome and, on wet or stormy mornings, 
 disagreeable and sometimes dangerous work, 
 the senior apprentice should have taken an 
 active part, but that young gentleman seldom 
 put in his appearance till he was too late to be 
 of much use. The fires, if it were winter time, 
 had next to be laid and lifyhted, and coals to be 
 brought from the cellar. This accomplished, 
 my next duties were to sweep the floor and 
 dust the counter and desks in the front shop, 
 in the course of which an occasional brief pause 
 in my work was made that I might take a peep 
 at the contents of some book, the title of which 
 took my fancy. 
 
 The sort of work indicated did not, as my 
 readers will suppose, take my boyish fancy. 
 After, the first few days, when the excitement 
 consequent on the novelty of my position had 
 subsided, I felt as if I would rather be once 
 more among the haymakers, or engaged in a 
 job which used to have many charms for me — 
 that of carrying the bag for the partridge- 
 shooters ; and happy memories of oft-enjoyed 
 rambles on Braid or Pentland Hills in search 
 
 B 2
 
 4 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 of the bramble and the blackberry would recur 
 as I lifted down the ponderous shutters, deemed 
 necessary at that period for the protection of 
 shop-windows. 
 
 But to resume the narrative of my day's 
 work. About a quarter past nine would arrive 
 the head-clerk, who at once proceeded to open 
 the business letters, and to hand over to the 
 assistants those containing' orders for books or 
 magazines, for in addition to publishing his own 
 magazine Mr. Tait supplied a considerable 
 number of country customers with whatever 
 miscellaneous works they sent for. The books 
 wanted generally required to be " collected " 
 from other booksellers or publishers, and to 
 collect them formed, as I speedily found, a 
 portion of my daily work, involving a two or 
 three hours' tramp round "the trade." On my 
 return, the goods obtained were charged to the 
 customers, invoices made out, and packing 
 proceeded with. The parcels had then to be 
 taken to one or other of the coach offices at the 
 east end of Princes Street, or to the quarters 
 of the carriers in the Grassmarket or Candle- 
 maker Row; and, being the younger apprentice.
 
 PRENTICE DAYS 5 
 
 the duty of burden-bearer, as a matter of course, 
 devolved upon me. 
 
 After dinner, for which an hour was allowed, 
 parcels and letters had to be delivered in 
 various parts of the city, and, as the day 
 approached for publication of the magazine, 
 there were proofs to be taken to contributors, 
 or " copy " to the printing-house in St. James's 
 Square, or to the Editor, Mrs. Johnstone, who 
 then resided at Laverockbank, near Newhaven. 
 Sometimes I would be required to rush madly 
 to the General Post Office in Waterloo Place 
 to catch the London mail with some belated 
 missive of importance. 
 
 Postage in the days to which I am referring 
 was a serious tax. Many of Mr. Tait's letters 
 and those of his friends were therefore enclosed 
 in the parcels which were frequently despatched 
 to Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall and Co., of 
 Stationers'- Hall Court, who were agents for 
 the magazine. These were posted in London, 
 and a considerable saving thereby effected : a 
 shilling, I believe, on each letter. In similar 
 fashion, letters came from London to be posted 
 in Edinburgh, many of which were, however,
 
 6 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 handed to me to deliver. To hunt for franks 
 for letters to political personages not at the 
 time in Parliament was part of my business 
 occasionally : franks for business letters were 
 never asked for by Mr. Talt. Once I was sent 
 to the house of Mr. Gillon, then, I think, 
 member for Linlithgowshire, with Instructions 
 to be sure and find him and get the desired 
 franks. It took me four hours to run him 
 down, and I found him at last in a bathing- 
 machine on the beach at Portobello ! As soon 
 as the honourable member had finished his 
 toilet, I presented my packet, which he looked 
 at with some curiosity, then he took stock of 
 me, bursting into a very hearty laugh ; after 
 driving me up to Tait's shop in his dog-cart, 
 he gave me sixpence, and then greatly amused 
 Mr. Tait and some friends who were with him 
 by describing the circumstances under which 
 he had been captured. 
 
 When the hour arrived for shutting shop — 
 nominally eight o'clock, but in practice a good 
 deal later — I was generally pretty well used up, 
 but in spite of my fatigue the nineteen heavy 
 shutters had to be lifted from the area and
 
 'prentice days 
 
 screwed to the window, and finally the key had 
 to be carried by me to the head-clerk's, or to 
 Mr. Tait's dwelling-house. But even after the 
 key had been deposited, my work was not 
 always finished. As all places, no matter at 
 what point of the compass they were situated, 
 were supposed to be "on my way home," or, 
 if they were not, the distance or the time 
 involved not being thought of any consequence 
 in the case of an apprentice, it was my fate to 
 have a constant succession of letters or parcels 
 to deliver after hours. Often enough in those 
 toilsome days it was ten o'clock ere I reached 
 my father's house, and not seldom eleven had 
 struck before I sat down to my frugal supper, 
 a meal over which, from sheer fatigue, I many 
 a time fell asleep. 
 
 I used sometimes to think that kindling fires 
 and sweeping floors was an eccentric way of 
 learning to be a bookseller, but such was a 
 universal custom of the trade, and it was too 
 sacred to be departed from for my benefit. The 
 sorrows which occasionally befell apprentices 
 fifty years since may be illustrated. One 
 bitterly cold November night, after the shop
 
 8 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 had been closed, I was sent off to deliver a 
 letter at a house near Murrayfield, a distance ot 
 two or three miles from the warehouse : whilst 
 on my way there, a heavy shower of sleet 
 began to fall, and as my great-coat was not 
 of much account, I speedily became drenched 
 to the skin, and my hands numbed with cold ; 
 so that, when I arrived at the house with the 
 letter, I was really in a pitiable condition. 
 " Wait ! " said the servant, and presently, as I 
 stood shivering in the cold lobby, there came 
 to me a lady carefully muffled in a warm shawl ; 
 " Boy, tell your master," she said, "I will come 
 into town to-morrow, if I can take out my 
 horses ; and see ! take this letter as fast as you 
 can to the General Post Office, it must be 
 posted to-night, so lose no time. William, shut 
 the door." 
 
 That lady must have seen that my clothes 
 were drenched, in fact a pool of water had 
 dripped from them on to the floor ; but this 
 gave her no concern ; she did not say " Boy, 
 come in and w^arm yourself, and I will give you 
 a cup of tea." No! it was "William, shut the 
 door " ; so I faced again the biting blast, and I
 
 'prentice days 
 
 am not ashamed to say that I indulged in a 
 good cry, the wet, cold and hunger, proving 
 too much for me. Happily, at the corner of 
 Hope Street, when I got back, I encountered 
 my master's brother, Mr. Charles Tait. He 
 started at seeing me. "James!" he said, 
 " where on earth have you been, and where are 
 you going ? " I told him, but seeing I was 
 wet and shivering with cold, he took me into a 
 public-house close by, saying to the landlord, 
 "Look here, Mr. Mcintosh, make up a tumbler 
 of negus piping hot for this boy, and give him 
 a thick slice of bread, and a lump of that cold 
 fowl, and let him dry his clothes at the fire." 
 Thus refitted, I made my way to the post 
 office, a full mile away. Whilst nearing home 
 I met my excellent mother coming in great 
 anxiety to seek for me ; she had become 
 alarmed, for it was past twelve o'clock. Next 
 day Mr. Charles Tait called at his brother's 
 shop, and told my story ; the head-clerk got a 
 scolding for sending me to Murrayfield at such 
 a late hour, and the lady was, I believe, pretty 
 smartly rebuked by Mr. Tait for her conduct 
 in the matter. That lady never in the future
 
 lO SOME MEMORIES 
 
 got much of my respect ; a short time after- 
 wards I was again sent to her house, this 
 time in the course of the forenoon, when I had 
 a long wait. On leaving she offered me a 
 penny, but, although pence were then, as 
 now, much esteemed by message-boys, I had 
 the courage to refuse the coin promptly. 
 
 I have often since its occurrence thought 
 of that little adventure, and its happy ending 
 through the kindness of Mr. Charles Tait. 
 His brother, my employer, was a most humane 
 man, who would never himself have thought 
 of oppressing any of his servants, but the zeal 
 of head-clerks often outruns their discretion ; 
 and though I was none the worse for my 
 hardships, I tell the story for the benefit of 
 present-day booksellers' apprentices, who are 
 never called upon, so far as my knowledge 
 goes, to endure such trials. Some ladies, to 
 whose houses I was occasionally sent, were 
 much more humane than the Murrayfield 
 dame. Mrs. Johnstone, for instance, who 
 lived at a great distance from Mr. Tait's ware- 
 house, was ever considerate of the wants, both 
 of publishers' boys and printers' devils.
 
 'prentice days II 
 
 Magazine-time brought extra duties, involv- 
 inof all hands beinof at work at six o'clock in 
 the morning to pack the supplies of " Tait " 
 for London, usually four heavy bales, each 
 containing seven hundred copies, which required 
 to be got ready by the hour at which they 
 would be sent for by the General Steam 
 Navigation Company. At the beginning of 
 each month, too, there fell to be collected from 
 the various agents a large number of English 
 magazines for Mr. Tait's customers, as also a 
 few copies of " Blackwood " ; and at the con- 
 tents of some of these I often contrived to get 
 a surreptitious " read." 
 
 On arriving at " No. 78 " with my bundle of 
 magazines and other serials, they were quickly 
 made up for the customers and placed in my 
 hands for delivery, a work which involved long 
 walks and ascents of common stairs ; as many, 
 perhaps, as sixty copies of these periodicals 
 requiring to be distributed in different parts of 
 the city. Another oft-recurring duty was the 
 delivery of the catalogues of Thorpe, Bohn, 
 and one or two other London dealers in second- 
 hand books to their customers in Edinburgh,
 
 12 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 who seemed, as I then thought, to have 
 nothing to do but to sit in their Hbraries and 
 wait for them. Among the number, some ten 
 or a dozen in all, a few were always in a state 
 of feverish impatience for their "Thorpe" — 
 notably Mr. Maidment, Mr. Maitland, and 
 Mr. John Shank More. " Has my ' Thorpe' 
 not come yet ? " was a frequent question, and 
 " Let me have it the moment it arrives," would 
 be a parting instruction, so that when, on 
 occasion, I was sent with the packet after the 
 shop had been closed, I used to curse "Thorpe" 
 with great vigour. 
 
 Then with the beginning of each month the 
 delivery of " the magazine." There were 
 probably not less than i8o subscribers to 
 attend to, the majority of the deliveries falling 
 to the share of the younger apprentice, as, 
 indeed, did all the roughest work of every 
 description. Many a weary " headful " of 
 parcels did I, during the period of my appren- 
 ticeship, bear to the carriers' quarters, or to the 
 coach offices, for transport to the country towns 
 of Scotland. Such was my apprentice-life in 
 1837. Its reward was fixed for the first year
 
 'prentice days 13 
 
 at ten pounds, " to be paid quarterly," with an 
 advance of two pounds for the second year, and 
 two more for the third. After serving three 
 years I was to be paid whatever sum I might, 
 in Mr. Tait's opinion, be worth, and, as I well 
 recollect, that was fixed at twenty-five pounds. 
 As may be supposed, while engaged in 
 distributing my large share of the magazine 
 delivery every month for a period of two years, 
 I could scarcely fail to pick up a few odds and 
 ends of character among Mr. Tait's customers. 
 One old gentleman, a retired merchant, used to 
 watch for me as I came to his door, and asking 
 me to " sit down and rest myself," gave me at 
 considerable length his opinion of the contents 
 of the previous number. I soon discovered 
 that no reply was expected, the old gentleman's 
 delight evidently being to find a listener. My 
 silent listening was invariably rewarded by a 
 glass of ginger-wine and a slice of seed-cake ; 
 vv^hile at New Year time I was presented with 
 a bright new shilling. 
 
 Mr. G. H. Girle, a leather-merchant, and 
 town-councillor, and a most genial man, was 
 kind enough to give me a cup of tea on any
 
 14 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 very cold winter evening on which my duty 
 took me to his house. He had been educated 
 at Christ's Hospital, and his juvenile experi- 
 ences there, which he related to me, were often 
 amusing, but the details of the remorseless 
 "birch" administration of the great school in 
 his time used to make my flesh creep. Mr. 
 Girle wrote a history of his Blue-coat days, 
 which he was anxious should appear in "Tait," 
 and one day, at his request, I carried the MS. 
 to the warehouse, but it did not appear in the 
 magazine. He read it, however, to the boys 
 of " George Heriot's Hospital," of which great 
 institution he was one of the " Governors," and 
 it was printed for private circulation, but I have 
 been unable to find a copy of the pamphlet. 
 
 Another worthy with whom I became 
 acquainted was a wealthy " Manchester man," 
 retired from business. " Is it not deplorable," 
 he would say to me, " that a man with an 
 income of three thousand pounds a year should 
 be obliged to live on pease-meal brose .'* Here 
 am I, able to buy every luxury, and yet that is 
 all I am allowed to eat — just at the time, too, 
 when I had been looking forward to no end of
 
 'prentice days 
 
 feasting. Oh ! it's hard. Yes ! it's hard ; 
 
 I wonder why Providence cursed me with a 
 liver that doesn't work." 
 
 It would have been more polite, perhaps, in 
 these desultory reminiscences, if I had begun 
 with the lady-subscribers, some of whom, living 
 in far-away parts of the south side of Edin- 
 burgh, were wont to employ me to execute a 
 varietv of commissions for them in the business 
 parts of the city. Most of them were much 
 interested in the magazine. One, " a poor old 
 maid," as she modestly described herself, told 
 me she occasionally wrote a little poetry, and 
 in time confided to me, as a profound secret, 
 that she had sent a few verses to the magazine, 
 in the hope of their being printed in the section 
 called the " Feast of the Poets." Having 
 ascertained the title of the poem, in the course 
 of a few days I visited the printing-office, and 
 asked Mr. Archibald, the overseer, if he had 
 seen it. " Oh yes ! " he said, " there it is," 
 handing me the proof; and on my telling him 
 that it was written by a friend of mine, he 
 allowed me to take it away. On the following 
 Sunday afternoon I walked to the house of the
 
 1 6 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 poetess, fully three miles from my home, that I 
 might gratify her with a sight of her production 
 in print. She was somewhat surprised to see 
 me, but when I told her that her poem was to 
 appear in the next " Feast," and that I was 
 the bearer of a proof of it, she was quite over- 
 powered, and, I really believe, felt much 
 inclined to kiss the bearer of the glad tidings, 
 for it was her first appearance in print. She 
 made me stay and dine with her, and insisted 
 on my drinking two glasses of sherry ; and I 
 found that I had made not merely one, but 
 three good women happy, for the poetess had 
 no sooner looked over the proof than she rushed 
 away to the kitchen to show it to her two 
 maids. When bidding me good-bye, she asked 
 me to bring her an extra copy of the magazine, 
 to be sent to a brother in the West Indies ; 
 and when next delivery-day came round I was 
 treated with distino-uished consideration. Onlv 
 one more story of my magazine subscribers, and 
 I have done with them. It is of a lady who 
 seemed never to tire of questioning me about 
 Mrs. Johnstone, of whom she said to me one 
 day, " She writes good novels, but I must say,
 
 PRENTICE DAYS I 7 
 
 although she has written * Meg Dods,' she 
 keeps a very bad cook, and never gives her 
 friends a morsel they can eat. It's not quite 
 so easy to teach a cook as to write about 
 cookery." That was the way in which that 
 good lady settled Mrs. Johnstone's pretensions. 
 Shop discipline during the days of my 
 apprenticeship was severe. The creak of the 
 master's boots struck terror to the souls of his 
 assistants, especially when conscience told them 
 they were idling or skulking ; even a glance at 
 a newspaper could not be indulged in without 
 some cunning device being adopted to conceal 
 what was being done. Not only the master, 
 but also the head-clerk was addressed as " Sir." 
 Strict discipline was not confined to Mr. Tait's 
 shop, but common to all such establishments. 
 The head-clerk was first-lieutenant, and conse- 
 quently had much in his power, so far as 
 arranging the work was concerned. In Tait's 
 that functionary was greatly disliked, being a 
 hard task-master and a person of overbearing- 
 manners; still he had to be propitiated. He 
 had many private messages of his own, which 
 I had to attend to ; and, generally speaking, he 
 
 c
 
 l8 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 played the petty tyrant to perfection, fawning 
 on his employer and bullying those beneath 
 him, so that when he fell, no one mourned his 
 fall. His fall illustrated to me vividly one of 
 my copy-book legends, and about a year later 
 the same text troubled my mind. My shop- 
 mates invited me to a feast of oysters in 
 Mrs. Dow's well-known tavern in Shakespeare 
 Square. These oysters were the first I had 
 tasted, and I enjoyed them exceedingly, but I 
 was alarmed when I found that the feast had 
 been provided by the sale of a quantity of 
 waste-paper, the proceeds of which ought to 
 have been placed in the shop-till. I hinted my 
 doubts about the matter to the senior appren- 
 tice, and quoted my text in aid of my argument, 
 but " it was custom," and he laughed at my 
 scruples. We had, however, an occasional 
 social meeting to which no objection could be 
 taken. At New Year time, when we each 
 received a present of money from our employer 
 by way of "hansel," we used to join purses in 
 providing a little feast in one of the many 
 taverns of the Fleshmarket Close, most of 
 which were famed for their beef-steaks and
 
 PRENTICE DAYS 1 9 
 
 marrow-bones. The special house of our 
 affections was kept by a famous man in his 
 hne of business ; his charges, however, were 
 moderate, the bill incurred by our little party 
 of five would not exceed seven shilllnes. For 
 this we enjoyed a good supply of beef-steaks, 
 with vegetables, cheese and biscuits, and per- 
 haps three bottles of that "prime Edinburgh 
 ale," which was the usual accompaniment of 
 such humble feasts, and even of some more 
 pretentious. 
 
 Apprentices, fifty years ago, had few 
 pleasures at their command, and half-price to 
 the shilling gallery of the theatre at rare 
 intervals was a treat to be talked about for 
 days before and after. A Saturday-night in 
 Ducrow's or Cook's circus was looked forward 
 to as a fearful joy, when either of these enter- 
 tainers was announced as coming to the city. 
 There were also humbler places of amusement, 
 where songs and recitations were given, one of 
 these being "Whitefield Chapel," In Carrub- 
 ber's Close, which was frequently visited by 
 pleasure-loving but impecunious lads like my 
 self. Another of our chief delights on " Fast- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 days" and other holidays, was to walk to Roslin 
 and Hawthornden, taking modest refreshment 
 by the way, at what were called " fish-houses " : 
 roadside "publics," where, when you ordered 
 your bottle of ale (then the commonest of all 
 liquid refreshments) you were presented with a 
 liberal cut of well-salted cod or ling, a pawky 
 plan of the publicans to increase your thirst, so 
 as to make the " other bottle " inevitable. 
 Such trips made happy days for us ; they 
 lightened the dull drudgery of shop-sweeping, 
 fire-lighting and parcel-packing. 
 
 The frequenting of taverns was a feature of 
 Edinburgh social life in the days of my youth, 
 supper being the meal chiefly indulged in, and 
 I have many a time seen jovial parties 
 assembled in these houses on the occasion 
 of my being sent with letters to which 
 answers were required. My employer's brother, 
 Mr. C. B. Tait, was in the habit of giving his 
 friends an occasional supper-party at the 
 " Rainbow," having for his guests some jolly 
 fellows such as P. S. Eraser, a well-known 
 bon-vivant and humourist ; Mr. W. H. Murray, 
 manager of the Edinburgh theatres ; the
 
 'prentice days 21 
 
 Chevalier Galll; Sir William Allan, the painter; 
 John Wilson, the vocalist, and other men who 
 told good stories or sang good songs. Ap- 
 prentices, of course, contented themselves with 
 humbler hostelries ; and as for such grand 
 places as the "Cafe Royal," in Register Place, 
 and the " Rainbow," on the North Bridge, no 
 bookseller's apprentice, or even head-clerk, 
 would, for a moment, have thought of entering 
 them. At that time society in Edinburgh was 
 split into a series of "cliques"; and these 
 groups of men of kindred feeling, or allied in 
 business or politics, were accustomed to meet 
 in such taverns as those named, and hold 
 " high jinks " till the chiming of the small 
 hours warned them to think of their homes. 
 A great treat of our apprentice days, rare 
 enough certainly, but enjoyed exceedingly, was, 
 when the exchequer would admit of it, to walk 
 on a Saturday afternoon to Newhaven, and 
 partake of a fish-dinner at Mrs. Clarke's — then 
 a famous name in that department of the 
 Scottish cuisine. She provided several courses 
 of well-cooked fish, grateful to the voracious 
 appetite of youth ; a splendid feast, including
 
 2 2 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 perhaps a dozen oysters to each person as a 
 hors dceiivre, which cost tenpence a head ; so 
 that for about sixteenpence one could not 
 only dine, but accompany the dinner with a 
 modicum of ale as well, and spare a penny 
 besides to the waitress. Poor lads like myself, 
 however, who were always hungry, were glad 
 enouofh of the humbler fare which came oftener 
 in our way. Many a time and oft, in going on 
 a collecting mission to Oliver and Boyd's (or, 
 as the firm was generally designated in the 
 trade, " O. and B."), did I indulge in a boiling- 
 hot pennyworth of black- pudding, confectioned 
 in a small shop close to Tweeddale Court, where 
 that firm, then as now, carried on business ; on 
 the cold wintry days such a refection was 
 greedily enjoyed. 
 
 Another gastronomic treat was to indulge in 
 one of " Spence's hot pies," in his tavern in 
 Hunter Square, a favourite haunt of appren- 
 tices who, like myself, were not able because of 
 the distance to go home to dinner, and 
 required either to bring a " piece in their 
 pockets," or be provided with a few coppers to 
 purchase their mid-day meal. My own allow-
 
 'prentice days 23 
 
 ance was twopence-halfpenny per diem, and I 
 never, like Oliver Twist, asked for more ; for, 
 at the well-known eating-house in the east end 
 of Rose Street kept by kindly Jenny Anderson, 
 it provided a substantial meal — say, excellent 
 sheep's-head broth, a savoury trotter, and a 
 penny loaf. 
 
 Many an Edinburgh man of good repute 
 and high position has, in the days of his 
 apprenticeship, sat at the humble board of 
 Mrs. Anderson, who kept two dining-rooms — 
 one for those who had a cut from the joint of 
 the day; the other for the "kail-suppers," as 
 Jenny's servant called her mistress's humbler 
 customers. I remember very well meeting 
 there a bright young fellow, who afterwards 
 became Master of the Merchant ^^,Company ; 
 and others who rose to be town-councillors and 
 magistrates. But there were apprentices who 
 could not even attain to the luxury of sheep's- 
 head broth. One sturdy boy used to bring 
 with him to the shop a handful of oat-meal, 
 which, by the aid of boiling water, a pinch of 
 salt and a spoon, he made into "brose," and 
 gladly ate for his dinner. His father, who was
 
 24 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 ploughman on a farm two miles from Edin- 
 burgh, lived to see his son gain a great 
 reputation as a politician and journalist. 
 
 I trust none of my readers will think such 
 details of 'prentice life too sordid for the 
 dignity of print. They are given their place 
 as genuine contributions to the stock of infor- 
 mation for that half of the world which is 
 reputed to be anxious to know how the other 
 half lives. They interested me much at the 
 time, for (I am not ashamed to say) I was 
 always hungry. On days when Mr. Tait 
 accepted an invitation to an impromptu dinner 
 at some tavern, or at the house of a friend, a 
 message would be sent to his housekeeper of 
 his change of plans ; and as the boy who 
 conveyed it was usually invited to " sit down " 
 to a portion of what was being prepared for 
 the master, I was glad enough to be the 
 messenger. 
 
 A word or two of my colleagues. In the 
 course of his business career Mr. Tait 
 employed many assistants, but my knowledge 
 only extends to some half-dozen of them. 
 One became in his latter days a zealous
 
 'prentice days 25 
 
 missionary on behalf of Mormonism ; and the 
 last news I heard of him was of his suffering 
 martyrdom by being well-ducked in an English 
 mill-pond. Another of Mr. Tait's apprentices 
 enriched himself as a "tally-man" in the 
 manufacturing districts of England. George 
 Troup became a keen politician and theologian, 
 and an active, earnest and clever debater, well 
 known in his time as the editor of several 
 Scottish journals, among others, of the WiinesSy 
 when it became a daily paper. W. F. Watson 
 attained deserved success as a bookseller in 
 Princes Street, where besides books he dealt 
 in autographs, portraits, and drawings relating 
 to Edinburgh. My immediate companions 
 were agreeable enough. My fellow-apprentice 
 came from Berwick-on-Tweed, and lived in 
 lodgings ; he was something of a dandy in his 
 way — always wanting new clothes ; and as 
 postage was high, he communicated with his 
 parents by means of pasting printed words 
 upon a newspaper, " Want trousers," or " Send 
 new coat " ; such requests forming the burden 
 of his correspondence. "Tommy," one of the 
 assistants, "passing rich on forty pounds a
 
 26 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 year," used to make our mouths water by more 
 or less imaginative tales of splendid suppers at 
 which he was entertained by his friends. 
 
 Much is being said and written now-a-days 
 about the influence of books on the formation 
 of character ; let me therefore mention that my 
 prime favourites while at Tait's were "Cobbett's 
 Advice to Young Men," and Charles Knight's 
 " Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties " ; 
 which I read over and over again with great 
 zest, and, I hope, much benefit. As a matter 
 of course I also read Taifs Mazazine resfu- 
 larly, making myself familiar with its contents 
 even before its publication ; the elaborate 
 reviews of many of the best books of the 
 period affording me the opportunity of picking 
 up a considerable amount of useful informa- 
 tion. Curiously enough, the reading of the 
 " Waverley Novels" was to me a task of 
 difficulty ; and I am ashamed to say that I 
 have only read four of them, " Guy Manner- 
 ing," "The Heart of Midlothian," " The Bride 
 of Lammermoor," and " St. Ronan's Well." 
 " Waverley," although attempted more than 
 once, failed to attract. My father, who was in
 
 'prentice days 27 
 
 the employment of Mr. Cadell, Sir Walters 
 publisher, brought home " The Monastery," 
 the "Fortunes of Nigel," and several others, 
 much to the delight of my mother, who never 
 could understand how so voracious a reader as 
 myself did not take to them ; but so it was, and 
 now my children express the same surprise, and 
 unsuccessfully recommend me to try once more. 
 The novels of John Gait were always much 
 to my taste. I fancy I have read every book 
 that came from his pen, including his " Lives 
 of the Players " ; and once every year I peruse 
 " Sir Andrew Wyllie," also that most realistic 
 production, the "Annals of the Parish": both 
 books undeserving of the neglect which has 
 befallen them. As an apprentice I was a 
 subscriber to the Mechanics' Library, from 
 which I borrowed a great supply of books — 
 my tastes lying largely in the direction of 
 biography. The " Pursuit of Knowledge 
 under Difficulties," notwithstanding the similar 
 series of books of Mr. Smiles, is still worth the 
 attention of young men in search of wholesome 
 reading ; while " Cobbett's Advice " reads like 
 a romance. Another book I read with much
 
 28 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 zest was the autobiography of Lackington, the 
 bookseller, a copy of which amusing and 
 instructive work I still possess and read 
 occasionally. 
 
 " Can you tell me," I am sometimes asked, 
 "how many booksellers' apprentices have risen 
 to eminence either as authors or as professional 
 men ? " but it is a question I am unable to 
 answer. I do not myself know of any ; and I 
 have heard Mr. Tait say that, although some 
 have ultimately acquired distinction as book- 
 sellers, he could not remember more than two 
 (whom he did not name) who rose to fame in 
 professional circles.
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS LITERARY 
 AND POLITICAL FRIENDS 
 
 William Tait and Tail's Magazine were, 
 from the year 1832 to 1846, known over the 
 length and breadth of the land. Mr. Tait 
 began business in company with his brother 
 Charles (who had been apprenticed to Adam 
 Black) several years before he began the issue 
 of his magazine, but " C. B.," as he was called 
 by his friends (his name was Charles Bertram 
 Tait), left the bookselling business to be 
 carried on by William, and started as an 
 auctioneer in the same department as Scott's 
 friend, John Ballantyne, namely, the disposal 
 of books, pictures, bi'-ic-a-brac and wine. Mr. 
 William Tait, although described by Mr. De 
 Ouincey as being " a patrician gentleman of 
 potential aspect and distinctively conservative 
 build," was an ardent reformer in politics, and 
 had in his day figured as an " annuity-tax "
 
 30 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 (church-rate) martyr. The politics of his 
 magazine naturally reflected — and sometimes 
 strongly — his own opinions as a philosophical 
 radical, but, on the whole, it was more of a 
 literary than a political organ. Its working 
 genius was Mrs. Johnstone, a novelist and 
 critic of some ability, who was also the author 
 of the well-known cookery-book familiarly 
 known as "Meg Dods " ; while Mr. Tait 
 conducted the necessary correspondence with 
 the actual and would-be contributors. It was 
 Mrs. Johnstone, however, who generally passed 
 judgment on the articles offered, and she was 
 herself a large contributor, both in fiction and 
 criticism ; many of the long and admirable 
 reviews of important new books, for which the 
 magazine was famous, coming from her pen. 
 She also contributed every month the entire 
 "Literary Register" — concise notices of cur- 
 rent literature — which added considerably to 
 her labours. 
 
 Mr. Johnstone, it was good-naturedly said, 
 helped his v/ife — by handing her books of 
 reference, and mending her pens; but this 
 report was probably unfair to him, for he was
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 3 1 
 
 a clever man, and ably edited an abridgment 
 of Dr. Jamieson's "Scottish Dictionary." He 
 had been a schoolmaster, and Mrs. Johnstone 
 one of his pupils ; and they were a much- 
 attached couple. Tait had a respectable 
 staff of contributors, among whom I recall 
 Lady Blessington ; while (giving the/^i- to the 
 ladies), Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Howitt, Miss Mitford, 
 Miss Meteyard, and among the men, who were 
 either on the staff or who wrote frequently in 
 its pages, figured Edwin Chad wick, J. R. 
 Chorley, John Gait, Sir William Molesworth, 
 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, John Stuart 
 Blackie, Dr. Bowring, Thomas De Ouincey, 
 W. Edmondstoune Aytoun, Theodore Martin, 
 Joseph Hume, Richard Cobden, Ebenezer 
 Elliott, David Vedder, William Howitt, John 
 Banim, John Hill Burton, the Rev. Philip 
 Harwood, two of whom, at least. Sir Theodore 
 Martin and Professor Blackie, still live to enjoy 
 the fame gained on this and other fields. 
 
 It has been often stated that Alexander 
 Russel, the famous editor of The Scotsman, 
 was a contributor to Taifs Magazine, but I 
 believe his connection with it was confined to
 
 2,2 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 one number, to which he supplied the article 
 under the standing heading " Political 
 Register," when the regular contributor re- 
 sponsible for that portion of the contents, 
 Mr. J. J. Darling, W.S., was disabled by ill- 
 ness. When I was an apprentice to the 
 publisher, Russel was a " reading-boy " at the 
 printer's, Peter Brown. Russel was a couple 
 of years or so my senior, but we struck up an 
 acquaintance and used to talk a good deal 
 about angling, which throughout life was his 
 favourite pastime. The brilliant journalist of 
 the future was indebted to Mr. Tait and to 
 Mrs. Johnstone for his start as a newspaper 
 editor ; and after he had been for some time 
 conducting provincial papers (at Berwick, 
 Kilmarnock and Cupar Fife) It was Mr. Tait 
 who recommended him to Mr. Charles 
 MacLaren, the editor of T/ie Scots7iian, in the 
 fortunes of which journal Russel was destined 
 to play so brilliant a part. In those days of 
 his apprenticeship, however, no one, so far as 
 I know, anticipated the unsurpassed success 
 which Russel attained as a journalist and 
 editor.
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 33 
 
 One of the principal features of Tait was 
 the annual " Feast of the Poets " ; a collection 
 of unused miscellaneous poems contributed to 
 the magazine during the year and "saved " for 
 the September number. I recollect on one 
 occasion, near the date of the Feast, when Mr. 
 Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe was calling on 
 Mr. Tait, and had to wait for some little time 
 as the master was engaged. At length Mr. 
 Tait s visitor came forth, a man of meagre 
 aspect, Mr. Sharpe, looking at him as he left 
 the shop, said to Mr. Tait, " A poet, I think ? " 
 "Yes!" said the publisher. "Poor fellow," 
 was the rejoinder, "he looks as if he were 
 hungering for your Feast." Some of Mr. 
 Tait's visitors among the poets would not from 
 their appearance have excited commiseration. 
 David Vedder, in particular, was a jolly-looking 
 fellow, and there was one lady among the band 
 of similar aspect.
 
 34 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 II 
 
 A plan, not less judicious than praiseworthy, 
 adopted by Mr. Tait was to encourage new 
 writers of promise, and he was constantly on 
 the outlook for such. In the early days of 
 Tait magazine writers were not so numerous 
 as they are to-day, nor could articles be 
 obtained from so wide a circle. The Editor 
 was therefore in the habit of reading every 
 paper received in the hope of discovering a 
 fresh hand who could be utilized. It was not 
 in those days a custom for ec^itors to com- 
 municate with all men of affairs who have 
 made a name, and ask them to write papers for 
 their periodicals on subjects on which they 
 may or may not be authorities. That is a new 
 fashion. Even now, there are, of course, 
 exceptions to this mode of editing, and some 
 editors are still at work who certainly peruse 
 offered MSS. with ready attention. But in 
 cases in which the proprietor edits his own 
 magazine, no trouble, or, at any rate, not much, 
 is taken to find new men, such as was taken by
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 35 
 
 Mr. Tait and Mr. Blackwood. There is a 
 New Magazinism as well as a " New Journ- 
 alism," and the good old-time " all-round " 
 writer is now apt to be left out in the cold, the 
 kind of " copy " he purveys not being much in 
 favour with editors of the modern school. No 
 sooner does some question force itself on the 
 public notice, than those who have got it up, 
 and some of those who have taken part in its 
 agitation, are invited to discuss it in the reviews 
 and magazines, and also in the pages of some 
 of the many cheap popular periodicals. Those 
 who pay the piper have of course the hest right 
 to call the tune. I (as a humble contributor of 
 the old school) make no complaint ; all I wish 
 to do is to chronicle the changes that have 
 taken place in literary fashions. 
 
 As to the amount of remuneration paid to 
 general contributors at the present time, it is 
 much the same, I fancy, as it was fifty years 
 ago. Authors have no trade union, and never 
 seem to strike for an increase of wages. Mr. 
 Tait paid his contributors at the rate of four- 
 teen guineas per sheet of sixteen pages — and 
 capacious double-column, thousand-word pages, 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 they were — quotations included, when such 
 were necessary to the article. Two or three 
 writers were rewarded more liberally, such as 
 Mr. De Ouincey and Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, 
 the latter receiving twenty guineas for his 
 sketch of the " Eglinton Tournament " (twenty 
 pages-long), and he was paid, I think, at the 
 same rate for two or three other papers. Mrs. 
 Johnstone, as working editor, received monthly 
 a sum of twenty pounds for her writings and 
 her literary supervision. 
 
 As to the present-day rates paid by maga- 
 zines, I have in my possession an offer from 
 one of them, proposing that the writer (a 
 specialist) of a pretty long paper on an 
 important subject should accept fifty copies of 
 the magazine (a somewhat pretentious shilling 
 one) as a quittance for his article. Another 
 shilling periodical offered at the rate of five 
 shillings a page for good matter, a market for 
 which was ultimately found at four times that 
 rate. There are certain periodicals which offer 
 a guinea to any person who will steal a suitable 
 story for them, but they give nothing at all 
 to the author of the stolen goods. There are
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 37 
 
 periodicals, too, which make a great parade 
 of the high rate they pay for " original " matter, 
 but as they seem very rarely to contain any, 
 the bank account of the proprietors does not 
 suffer seriously. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Sometimes an offered contribution acquired 
 an interest apart from its literary quality. I 
 remember one which had a tragedy connected 
 with it. A young woman came one day to the 
 office, bringing with her a long ballad of her 
 own composition. She inquired eagerly if she 
 could see Mr. Tait, but he was far away from 
 home at the time. On being told so the poor 
 woman was much distressed, and with tears in 
 her eyes was turning towards the door. " Can 
 I do anything for you ? " I asked, and heard a 
 pitiful tale. Her father had died suddenly that 
 morning, her mother was ill and confined to 
 bed, while her only brother was in the West 
 Indies. She sometimes wrote verses, and 
 several pieces from her pen, she told me, had 
 appeared in the newspapers. "And this is a 
 long ballad story — there are a hundred verses
 
 38 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 — I wanted to show Mr. Tait, in the hope that 
 he would put it in his magazine, as we have no 
 money to pay for my father's funeral ; I am a 
 white-seam sewer to business, but father's 
 illness has taken all our money, and we have 
 nothing in house." I tried, but in rather a 
 lame fashion I fear, to comfort her. The 
 young woman handed me the MS., and it 
 happily occurred to me that I might raise a 
 little money for her, for I could not help 
 believing her story, and, going at once into the 
 printing-office, I got a few verses of the ballad 
 put into type. " It's not bad, really," was the 
 verdict of Mr. McPhail, the overseer, ''it clinksP' 
 I then told him the girl's story, and having 
 communicated with the " father of the chapel," 
 the speedy result was a subscription of twenty- 
 three shillings, which was made up by the 
 overseer and myself to two pounds. I at once 
 got another pound from Mr. Tait's next-door 
 neighbour, and I ventured on the Magazine's 
 account to add another, in the hope that the 
 poem might be used. Mr. McPhail kindly 
 undertook to carry the money to the mother 
 and daughter (I had told the girl that we would
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 39 
 
 send to her), to whom his feet no doubt were 
 beautiful as he crossed their threshold. A 
 respectable funeral (always a matter of impor- 
 tance to the humbler classes in Scotland) was 
 the result ; and although Mrs. Johnstone did 
 not find the poem to be up to the mark, Mr. 
 Tait was not displeased at what had been done, 
 and returned the MS., in person, to its author, 
 with kind words and, I have little doubt, with 
 another pound-note. 
 
 That is rather a long story. Here is a 
 shorter one. One day there came bustling 
 into the shop an excited Irishman, to ask for 
 the editor ; he, too, had a bundle of MS. 
 
 " I'm a comedian, sir, and I'm out of an 
 engagement. Here are half-a-dozen excellent 
 original Irish stories. I don't ask you to read 
 them off-hand, but they are good enough, I 
 can tell you. What I want, Mr. Tait, is a 
 couple of pounds to take me to Liverpool, where 
 there is a place in the theatre ready for me." 
 
 After some further explanations the man got 
 what he asked, but his stories were found to be 
 impudent plagiarisms and paraphrases from the 
 works of Mrs. S. C. Hall.
 
 40 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 Incidents of this kind were of almost fre- 
 quent occurrence ; people would bring forged 
 letters of introduction, and although Mr. Tait 
 was a very shrewd man, and not easily moved, 
 he was occasionally taken in by adventurers. 
 
 A man who personated one of the poets of 
 •' the Feast," obtained a pound by telling a dis- 
 mal story of misfortune. Success suggested 
 another visit in the course of ten days, but in 
 the meantime he had been found out, and when 
 Mr. Tait saw him, he whispered to one of the 
 boys to "go for a policeman." 
 
 The man, who evidently heard what was 
 said, bolted, and so quickly that we failed to 
 stop him. Another trick was successfully 
 played on Mr. Tait by a lady, who persuaded 
 Mrs. Johnstone to accept (immediate paym.ent 
 being wanted, of course), four or five poems 
 from the pen of " L. E. L.", who had died a 
 few months previously at Cape Coast Castle 
 in Africa. Suspicion having been somehow 
 excited, inquiry was made, and the poems were 
 found to be forgeries ; but two guineas were 
 gone for ever.
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 4 1 
 
 IV 
 
 Mr. Talt always acted most honourably to 
 his authors. His system of accounting to 
 them was usually on the plan of his taking all 
 the risk, and giving the writers half the profits ; 
 the accounts being invariably stated with 
 accuracy and simplicity, and no "commissions" 
 added. I remember one book in which Mr. 
 Tait speculated on his own account — a 
 " History of Scotland," for which he gave the 
 author a hundred pounds. I " subscribed " 
 that book round the trade, but did not get even 
 a single order, and I do not think a copy of it 
 was ever sold. That, so far as I know, was 
 Mr. Tait's worst publishing adventure ; the 
 majority of the works published by him prov- 
 ing successful, some of them remarkably so, 
 especially the " History of Scotland," by Mr. 
 Patrick Fraser Tytler. It was originally pub- 
 lished at the rate of twelve shillings per volume, 
 but an edition at half that price followed and 
 met with ready sale, the number taken by the 
 Edinburgh trade, when it was subscribed, being
 
 42 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 no less than 184 copies, which was considered 
 to be a great success in those days. 
 
 By arrangement v/ith Dr. Bowring, the 
 Hterary executor of Jeremy Bentham, Mr. 
 Tait published a collected edition of that 
 eminent philosophers works, the local editor 
 being Mr. John Hill Burton, who wrote for 
 Mr. Tait the " Life of David Hume." He is 
 best known by his delightful " Book Hunter," 
 and by his " History of Scotland," both pub- 
 lished by Messrs. Blackwood. Mr. Burton is 
 believed to have officiated occasionally as 
 editor of the Scotsman, in the absence of Mr. 
 Russel, and some wild stories are told of the 
 attempt he made to introduce certain personal 
 crotchets into the columns of that journal. 
 
 It was a standing advice given by Mr. Tait 
 to all authors — I have heard him orive it asfain 
 and again — never to publish a book at their 
 own cost. " If a publisher thinks it Vv'on't pay 
 him to take it up, and run the risk of paper, 
 printing, and binding," he would say, "depend 
 upon it, it won't be worth yo7ir while to do 
 so." Another leading idea of Mr. Tait's was 
 that " it never pays to publish pamphlets or
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 43 
 
 poetry. Whenever I have done so," he re- 
 marked, " the result has almost invariably been 
 a loss." And yet he was publisher of two or 
 three pamphlets which for a time were in 
 great demand, although they may not have 
 brought much money to the till. Two of these, 
 " Russia," and " England, Ireland, and 
 America," were written by Richard Cobden, 
 under the pseudonym " A Manchester Manu- 
 facturer." 
 
 Two rather successful books of poems were 
 published by Mr. Tait — a popular edition of 
 the works — undeservedly neglected now-a-days 
 — of Ebenezer Elliott, the " Corn Law 
 Rhymer," whose writings the publisher much 
 admired ; and the poems of Robert Nicoll, a 
 man in whom both Mrs. Johnstone and Mr. 
 Tait took much interest. By the influence of 
 the latter, Nicoll, who was an ardent Radical, 
 was, in 1836, appointed editor of the Leeds 
 Times, a position he was not long destined to 
 occupy, for he died of consumption a year after, 
 at the age of twenty-three. He is forgotten 
 now, but Mrs. Johnstone, who wrote a sketch 
 of his life to precede his poems, spoke of him
 
 44 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 as "Scotland's second Burns." Apropos to the 
 publication of poetry, Mr. Tait was of opinion 
 that the various " Feasts of the Poets " which 
 had appeared in his magazine would form a 
 splendid volume. " Why not publish it then ? " 
 I ventured to say, but all the answer I received 
 was an ominous shake of the head. As regards 
 
 o 
 
 the "Feast," many of the younger poets and 
 poetesses used to call and ask me eagerly if I 
 knew if their poem would be " in " ; and some- 
 times, having seen the proofs, I was able to 
 send them away happy. 
 
 In this connection I remember an amusing 
 adventure. One day, Mr. Tait's premises 
 (then at 107 Princes Street) were invaded by 
 a family consisting of father, mother, son, and 
 two daughters, bearing a ponderous manuscript 
 volume of poems " all written by ourselves," as 
 the mother said, in a joyous key. If my 
 memory serves me, the title proposed for the 
 volume was, " A Poem for Every Day in the 
 Year and Two for Sundays, by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Mullingar and their sons and daughters." Mr. 
 Tait was nonplussed by the invaders ; the 
 mother seemed inclined to sit down and await
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 45 
 
 his decision, whilst one of the daughters offered 
 to recite " The First Friday," one of the 
 longest pieces in the collection. 
 
 An important visitor opportunely arriving, 
 my employer released himself and the poetical 
 family retired, promising to return. When they 
 did so, the publisher was " not at home," and 
 I was taken into the confidence of Mrs. Mul- 
 lingar, whom I assured, putting on my best air 
 of wisdom, that poetry never paid. 
 
 " And yet," said the lady, in a reproachful 
 tone, " Sir Walter Scott made thousands of 
 pounds by his poems." " Yes, and so did 
 Byron and Moore," chimed in one of the 
 daughters, with a severe look, "and other poets 
 too, — look at Rogers ! " 
 
 It was in vain that I said these were excep- 
 tional instances. Mrs. Mullingar was confident 
 ^/iczr book would sell ; and I only got out of 
 the scrape at length by suggesting, that as Mr. 
 Tait was unwilling to publish books of poetry, 
 they should try Mr. Blackwood, and directed 
 the family to 45, George Street. The result I 
 never heard. 
 
 Many similar occurrences might be related,
 
 46 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 such as the story of a clergyman who wanted 
 " Fifty-two sermons which I intend to preach," 
 pubHshed " at once." It was suggested to his 
 reverence that it would be better to preach first 
 and publish afterwards, but that was a plan he 
 would not listen to. "I desire," he said, "to 
 excite curiosity, so as to sell the book ; it is sure 
 to go, as I have a name, you know." Other 
 ministers there were who visited us with extra- 
 ordinary projects ; one, for instance, with a 
 suggestion that he should contribute a " lay 
 sermon " every month to the magazine. 
 Another proposed to give portraits and 
 memoirs of popular preachers, which he was 
 certain would hit the taste of the magazine 
 readers. A very decided negative had to be 
 given to these, and to a hundred other eccen- 
 tric projects. 
 
 V 
 
 In course of time, when I had become of 
 some authority in connection with Mr. Tait's 
 business, having risen to be a manager (or 
 rather, as the position was called, "head-clerk"),
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 4/ 
 
 I had allotted to me a good many of the " dis- 
 agreeables" which attended the business, Mr. 
 Tait being a bad hand at refusals. When (at 
 my suggestion) he published in serial form the 
 " Edinbursfh Tales " he was inundated with 
 offers of stories, most of the authors who 
 brought their contributions being handed over 
 to me to deal with in the first instance. Many 
 were amusing, but most were merely trouble- 
 some ; and, of the ladies, the majority would 
 insist on my hearing them read their stories. 
 It was in vain that I told them I was busy, 
 and that my approval would not influence the 
 editor. " But I thought you would be the 
 editor; I'm sure you look like an editor," was 
 in one instance the diplomatic reply. " Leave 
 your story and I will send it to the proper 
 person," I would sternly answer. " Oh, very 
 well, shall I come back early to-morrow after- 
 noon to hear what he says ? " and, " Oh ! by 
 the bye, when will the payment be made ? " 
 was not an infrequent winding up of such 
 colloquies. 
 
 One person was even more pertinacious than 
 most, coming again and again, insisting on
 
 48 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 an interview with Mr. Tait, and declining to 
 mention the nature of his business to me. 
 Ultimately he was ushered into the sanctum. 
 He had called, he said, to make a valuable 
 suggestion — a suggestion, indeed, that was 
 worth " a gude wheen bawbees " (a good deal 
 of money) ; and when the publisher assured 
 him that, if his suggestion Vv^ere adopted, he 
 would certainly be paid for it, he opened out ; 
 but it was the old story of the mountain and 
 the mouse. The suggestion was worthless, 
 and we learned afterwards that the man was 
 a harmless lunatic. But there were worse 
 persons about than harmless lunatics and 
 pertinacious incompetents. A story was ac- 
 cepted and had been put in type before it 
 was discovered that it had been stolen bodily 
 from an early number of the magazine, the 
 title only being original. 
 
 Coming back to some of the celebrities with 
 whom Mr. Tait had relations, I may name 
 " The Ettrick Shepherd," who had, I believe, 
 proposed some scheme of " Tales " for publi- 
 cation. He was always spoken of in a kindly 
 way in the warehouse, and Lockhart's picture
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 49 
 
 of him, as delineated in the " Life of Scott," 
 was much resented by Mrs. Johnstone, and 
 also by Mr. Tait, and many of their literary 
 friends. Mrs. Johnstone, who usually spent a 
 month every summer in the Shepherd's country, 
 always came back with something new to tell 
 about him, having, during her holiday, enjoyed 
 the opportunity of conversing with many of his 
 friends and acquaintances. 
 
 In Mr. Tait's warehouse I read HoeSf's 
 " Shepherd's Calendar," and some of his poems 
 also, while I had, at various times, many oppor- 
 tunities of hearing much about him. He seemed 
 to have been "everybody's body and nobody's 
 enemy but his own " ; " hail fellow, well met," 
 not only at the Candlemaker Row festival, an 
 annual social meeting of which he was the lion, 
 but everywhere else, and was well able — too 
 well able sometimes, perhaps — to hold his own 
 in any grade of society. Not a few of "the 
 trade" had come in contact with him, and 
 these, I found, always spoke kindly of him. 
 " Willie " Wilson described Hogg as "a genial 
 man with far more in him than ever came out." 
 
 Thomas Carlyle was one of our heroes. Mr. 
 
 E
 
 50 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 Tait had published his " Specimens of German 
 Romance," and reminiscences of the translator 
 were floating about in Edinburgh literary circles. 
 In 1837 Mr. Carlyle was not the great man he 
 afterwards became ; but that some of Mr. Tait's 
 assistants evidently anticipated his fame is 
 certain, as all of his letters which had been 
 preserved were minus the signature. I took 
 pains one day to look over the whole of them, 
 and was unable to find one that had not been 
 mutilated. It was in Mr. Tait's warehouse 
 that the late Mr. W. F. Watson, who had been 
 one of the assistants, began his famous collec- 
 tion of autographs and portraits, and doubtless 
 he had exacted tribute from the Carlyle letters ; 
 some of the more interesting ones, as Mr. Tait 
 told me, having gone amissing entire. The 
 letters of some others of Mr. Tait's correspon- 
 dents of celebrity had also been mutilated in 
 the same manner as those of Carlyle, particu- 
 larly those of Lord Brougham. May I hope 
 to be excused for mentioning here that I first 
 saw the great Thomas when I was a child 
 attending the parish school at Haddington ? 
 He was an old friend of our Mr. Johnstone,
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 5 1 
 
 and one day called at the school and carried 
 off the master, thereby producing an afternoon's 
 play, for which he was greatly blessed by both 
 girls and boys. 
 
 Sir Edwin Chadwick having recently paid 
 the debt of nature, the only contributors to 
 Tail of any celebrity now living, so far as I 
 know, are Professor Blackie and Sir Theodore 
 Martin. The latter, since the days of the " Bon 
 Gaultier Ballads," has made a new name in 
 English literature. On some occasions I had 
 to speed with proofs to Mr. Martin's lodgings. 
 Some of his prose papers as well as poems 
 were produced in collaboration with Mr. 
 Aytoun, and they attracted a considerable 
 amount of attention. In "Gabriel Garbage," 
 in the " Confessions of a Monomaniac," and 
 in the various parodies of the poetical puffing 
 school, there was sometimes wit, sometimes 
 " wut," and always plenty of rollicking humour. 
 
 It forms no part of the plan of these re- 
 miniscences to give " specimens of authors," 
 otherwise I might have culled, for the benefit 
 of my readers, not a few of the things which 
 used to sparkle in Tait. It might be said 
 
 E 2
 
 52 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 that Mr. Martin did some of his wooing In 
 the pages of Taifs Magazine, to which 
 he contributed many verses such as these — 
 addressed to the most charming " JuHet " and 
 " RosaHnd " of her generation : — 
 
 " I have been wandering in enchanted ground, 
 The slave and subject, lady, of thy spell ; 
 I heard thy voice, and straightway all around 
 
 Became transformed, yet how I could not tell." — 
 
 and those which besran — 
 
 " Blessings on the glorious spirit lies in poesy divine ! 
 Blessings, lady, on the magic of that wondrous power of 
 thine." 
 
 Another of Mr. Martin's amusements of 
 those days was to help the manager of the 
 theatre to compose those enjoyable " Farewell 
 Addresses " which were always looked for as a 
 bon7ie boiiche at the close of each theatrical 
 season. They purported to epitomize the for- 
 tunes of the theatre, and when the comedians 
 had been playing to a beggarly show of empty 
 boxes, the manager used to plead for the 
 sympathies of his audience. Once, the 
 " Address " took the form of a parody of
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 53 
 
 " The Burial of Sir John Moore," of which 
 all but this has faded from my memory : — 
 
 " Not a guinea remained, nor a one-pound note, 
 
 As my stars to their carriages hurried, 
 Nor left me in pity, a farewell shot, 
 
 In the locker where my hopes lay buried. 
 Slowly and sadly I sat me down, 
 
 With my hand on my upper story. 
 And I thought as I pressed my only crown, 
 
 That cash was better than glory." 
 
 VI 
 
 Mr. George Combe was a constant reader 
 (I think he had been at one time a contributor) 
 of Tait's Magazine, which I used to leave 
 regularly at his house, and occasionally he 
 would look in to see Mr. Tait ; but I do not 
 think they very much cared for each other — 
 never hitting it off about Phrenology — and 
 when Mr. Combe published his " Travels in 
 America," a copy was not sent to Tait for 
 review until it was formally asked for. Mr. 
 Combe, as I have heard him say, had had a 
 great and long struggle to obtain a position in
 
 54 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 Edinburgh society, being obnoxious as an 
 "atheist," a word to which he felt a strong 
 objection. But Mr, Combe soon organized an 
 excellent business as "Writer to the Signet," 
 and in time his works came to be much 
 esteemed and in great demand. Many a parcel 
 of his " Constitution of Man " did I carry in 
 1837 to 1840 from the publishers on the South 
 Bridge to Mr. Tait's warehouse in Princes 
 Street. Mr. Combe (of whom there is much 
 to be found in the "Recollections" of Mrs. 
 Fanny Kemble) married Cecilia, a niece of the 
 great Mrs. Siddons, and it is said that a clause 
 in their marriage contract provided that he 
 would " become a hearer in any church where 
 she could find the most sense, and the least 
 doctrine preached." St. Paul's Episcopal 
 Church, where the chief preacher was Bishop 
 Terret, was selected. 
 
 Mr. George Thomson, the correspondent of 
 Burns, was a frequent and much-cherished 
 visitor of Mr. Tait, and a guest at his musical 
 parties. Mr. Thomson, when I used to be sent 
 with notes or messages to him, was an official 
 — senior clerk, I think — in the office of the
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 55 
 
 *' Board of Trustees for Manufactures," then 
 in George Street, his dwelling-house being 
 situated in the west end of Queen Street. Mr. 
 Thomson, about 1837-8, was hale and hearty, 
 though he had seen some eighty summers. It 
 was more from his connection with Robert 
 Burns, than from his eminence as a musician 
 and composer, that Mr. Thomson was famous 
 in Edinburgh. It had been persistently stated 
 that he had acted shabbily in his transactions 
 with Burns and with the poet's family after his 
 death, which accusation Mr. Thomson as per- 
 sistently denied. The controversy was settled 
 by an investigation, in which Mr. Tait among 
 others took part. They were convinced that 
 Mr. Thomson had throughout his connection 
 with the poet, and afterwards with the repre- 
 sentatives of the poet's family, behaved in the 
 most honourable manner. As this opinion was 
 largely shared by their fellow-citizens, Mr. 
 Thomson was entertained at a public banquet, 
 presided over by Lord Cockburn, and presented 
 with a silver vase subscribed for by a hundred 
 of his friends. 
 
 I pass over two distinguished contributors
 
 56 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 to Tait whom I never saw, Miss Mitford 
 and John Gait. Of another at least as bril- 
 liant, and whom I have often seen — Professor 
 Blackie — then a young man, and almost as 
 active as now, what could I say which is not 
 well known already, save that the chief of his 
 early contributions to the magazine was a 
 series of very free translations of the " Burschen 
 Melodies," with the music? There arose a diffi- 
 culty about interweaving the musical notation 
 with the words, which was happily solved by 
 my unearthing a compositor who could set up 
 movable musical notes, so as to represent any 
 tune that was necessary for the illustration of 
 the Professor's articles. I do not propose to 
 say more of the Professor here, or to allude to 
 the versatile doings of his latter years, which 
 are sufficiently chronicled in the newspapers of 
 the day. Two of his public or, in one instance, 
 semi-public appearances, are well within my 
 recollection, — his argument with Mr. Ernest 
 Jones about the People's Charter, and the 
 lament he uttered at one of Miss Catherine 
 Sinclair's " Ulbster Hall " parties, at his lack 
 of sufficient moral courage to appear in other
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 57 
 
 than the conventional evening costume which 
 he disHked and despised. Through good and 
 through evil report, Professor Blackie has 
 never ceased to be himself. All that he has 
 said or done has been "characteristic." 
 
 Mr. Tait was an ardent admirer of Lord 
 Brougham, and took advantage of every occa- 
 sion that offered to do him honour before the 
 world. Many letters passed between them. 
 Mr. Tait possessed the happy knack of eliciting 
 from Lord Brougham important statements of 
 opinion — statements that at the time attracted 
 public attention in no mean degree. Some 
 people of those days used to put it in another 
 way — declaring that when the statesman had 
 something special to say, Mr. Tait received a 
 hint to provide the machinery for the utterance. 
 This may have been the case ; if so, no very 
 heinous sin was committed, as, at the time, the 
 public thought every utterance that came in 
 from Lord Brougham worthy of attention. 
 
 My memory reverts to one occasion (Sep- 
 tember 1838) upon which Mr. Tait became the 
 means of eliciting a long letter on political 
 affairs from Lord Brougham. It came in the
 
 58 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 form of an answer to a letter asking if a 
 rumour of his Lordship's intention to visit 
 Scotland was true, and that, if so, a political 
 demonstration might be organized. Mr. Tait, 
 I remember, was well pleased with the letter, 
 of which he desired me to make several copies 
 to send to newspapers, and with one part of it 
 in particular, which impressed upon " the 
 people " that it was only by means of their 
 own efforts they could ever hope to work out 
 their political salvation. 
 
 Another of Mr. Tait's favourite political 
 writers and parliamentary hands was Mr. J. 
 A. Roebuck, the " Tear 'em " of after days, 
 who frequently contributed political papers to 
 the magazine, and corresponded with its editor 
 on the affairs of the nation. I was able to note 
 that some of the " copy" sent by Mr. Roebuck 
 was deemed rather too fierce even for Tait, 
 although when occasion served the magazine 
 was not afraid to speak out. Its Eliminations 
 were, in its early days, directed more against 
 the Whigs than the Tories, for Mr. Tait 
 entertained a dislike of " Whiggery," and went 
 so far in evincing his antipathy to the party
 
 MR. TAIT AND HIS FRIENDS 59 
 
 that he refused to dine with several of its 
 members, whom he privately esteemed, lest it 
 might be thought he was changing his coat. 
 
 "Johnny Lawson, Portioner of Penicuick," 
 a character of the period of which I am writing, 
 was an ardent reformer and a constant caller 
 on Mr. Tait. Upon the occasion of his visits 
 he criticized with orreat vig-our the contents of 
 the magazine, and was usually able to place his 
 finger on some weak point in the political 
 armour. He always became prominent at 
 election times. When a county contest (Mid- 
 lothian) came on, he would walk from Penicuick 
 to Edinburgh, a distance of nine miles, bare- 
 foot, carrying a red umbrella ; and never failed 
 to make his appearance on the hustings or to 
 give the Tory candidate a "heckling." 
 
 I remained in the service of Mr. Tait till he 
 retired from business, when I was sold, along 
 with the magazine, to a Glasgow firm, of which 
 Mr. George Troup was the managing member. 
 A Mr. Alison, I believe, supplied the funds for 
 the purchase of Tait, and acquired the house 
 in Dunlop Street, next door to the Theatre 
 Royal, where it was published. Tait did not
 
 6o SOME MEMORIES 
 
 live long after being transferred to Glasgow. 
 Mr. Troup, a most excellent person, elected to 
 be his own editor, and imposed upon himself 
 far too much work, being at the time an active 
 contributor to a Belfast and a Montrose news- 
 paper, to both of which he supplied leading 
 articles. Mr. Troup, at one period, acted as 
 an assistant in Mr. Tait's warehouse in Edin- 
 burgh, and was the projector of the North 
 British Mail, of which Glasgow journal I 
 wrote, as an advertisement for insertion in the 
 Glasgow Hei^aldy the first announcement of its 
 being about to appear. It has been ever 
 since a leading journal in the West of Scot- 
 land.
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 Mr. De Quincey was resident in Edinburgh, 
 and busily at work, long before I knew about 
 him. I had, indeed, heard some talk of the 
 " English Opium-Eater" in a library which I 
 frequented as a boy, but not being interested, 
 paid little attention to what was said. When, 
 however, I came within the precincts of " the 
 trade," it was different. His name was then 
 prominent in Tail and Blackwood, and in all 
 literary circles ; and looking over some back 
 numbers of the magazines, I found many of his 
 articles ; but on trying to read them I felt that 
 they were above me, although in due course of 
 time they afforded me a great amount of 
 pleasure. 
 
 The publisher of Tail (as also Mrs. John- 
 stone) entertained a high opinion of Mr. De 
 Quincey 's ability as a contributor, and on the
 
 62 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 occasion of his visits to the warehouse, treated 
 him with a certain degree of deference. For 
 the numbers of Tait containing his sketches 
 there was usually a brisk demand. At one 
 time, when a large quantity of old numbers of 
 the magazine was disposed of to Messrs. 
 Chidley, the waste-paper merchants, twenty- 
 five sets of those containing Mr. De Quincey's 
 articles were reserved to supply further 
 demand. 
 
 It was the personality of the man, however, 
 which led to most discussion among my shop- 
 mates. His packets of "copy" often reached 
 Tait's in a most extraordinary fashion. Some- 
 times a young woman would enter the shop in 
 the morning, whilst I was busy sweeping or 
 dusting, and throwing down a roll of paper, 
 with an exclamation of " There! " would rush 
 off as abruptly as she had entered. On ex- 
 amining the roll, I would find it addressed in 
 the neatest of handwriting to, "William Tait, 
 Esquire." On more than one occasion a night 
 policeman arrived early in the afternoon with a 
 similar packet, for which he demanded and 
 received a shilling; a coin destined to be 
 
 1
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 6$ 
 
 divided into three parts, the packet having 
 passed through as many pairs of hands. 
 
 " Who gave you this ? " I once heard Mr. 
 Tait ask. 
 
 "It was my neighbour, sir, at the North 
 Bridge." 
 
 " And who gave it to him ? " 
 
 " It was his neighbour, sir." 
 
 " And where did he get it ? " 
 
 " Oh, he got it from the Httle man, sir, that 
 makes the fine speeches and Hves down yonder, 
 sir," was the reply. 
 
 It is surprising that none of Mr. De 
 Ouincey's copy was lost in transmission ; but 
 what he sent, no matter how he sent it, always 
 came to hand ; at least, I never knew of any 
 parcel that failed to reach the editor. On one 
 occasion a hackney-coachman had been requi 
 sitioned as messenger ; he was driving a party 
 to visit Holyrood Palace, and whilst the com- 
 pany were engaged in viewing the old abbey 
 " a little gentleman, as polite as a prince, 
 although he wasn't dressed like one, gave me 
 this to bring here, and he said I would get a 
 shilling for my trouble." So said the cabman.
 
 64 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 There should be a considerable number of 
 Mr. De Quincey's unpublished articles in exist- 
 ence, somewhere, because he wrote much 
 manuscript that was never printed. I am 
 writing of what I know, when I say there would 
 be, in the year 1844-5, ten or twelve papers in 
 Mr. Tait's possession that had not been used. 
 These were broken-off " continuations," and 
 other contributions laid aside to be used when 
 opportunity should offer. Whether these were 
 transferred along with the magazine to Mr. 
 George Troup of Glasgow, or retained by Mr. 
 Tait, or returned to the author, I am unable at 
 this distance of time to remember, but I know 
 that the English Opium-Eater was seized with 
 extraordinary fits of industry ; on such occa- 
 sions the copy would come pouring in hot from 
 his pen, as many, sometimes, as two instalments 
 within a week. Nothing received was returned, 
 but Mrs. Johnstone thought it unadvisable to 
 insert an article from the " Opium-Eater's " 
 pen in every number of the magazine : to pub- 
 lish so many, she feared, might render his 
 communications commonplace. 
 
 At other times Mr. De Quincey would be
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 65 
 
 his own messenger, and appear at Mr. Tait's 
 shop laden with copy, which he would timidly- 
 lay down on the table, and then explain what 
 it was about, talking another essay in the 
 course of the explanation. I remember the 
 master saying once, after De Ouincey had left, 
 and he had taken a glance at the MS., " It's 
 very good, but not quite so good as his talk 
 about it." 
 
 One evening Mr. De Quincey made his 
 appearance at a public-house which adjoined 
 the shop, and begged the landlord to take 
 charge of a parcel of loose sheets of copy and 
 to give it to Mr. Tait himself in the course of 
 next day. " I ask this favour of you," said the 
 Opium-Eater, " as that gentleman's place of 
 business is closed. I had hoped to be here 
 two hours ago, but have been unexpectedly 
 detained by holding a prolonged conversation 
 with a talkative friend." One more illustration 
 of how Mr. De Ouincey 's articles reached the 
 editor may be given. I heard it told by the 
 messenger, who was at the time a young actor 
 of the Edinburgh dramatic company. 
 
 " I was away down in the Hunter's Bog — a 
 
 F
 
 66 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 place in the Queen's Park — practising a back- 
 fall which I had to do on the stage ; after I 
 had tried it a few times against an incline of 
 the hill, a little gentleman, with really quite 
 a divine face, whom I had not before noticed, 
 came forward and spoke to me in a very polite 
 manner. ' I think you will do it very effec- 
 tively,' he said, 'but you must guard your 
 head properly, otherwise you might give it a 
 bad knock on the boards ; the stage, as I 
 venture to hope you are aware, is so different 
 from this soft substance.' 
 
 " I was quite struck with the politeness of the 
 little man, and more so when he continued : 
 'If, on your way to the theatre, you will be so 
 good as accompany me to where I am living, I 
 shall be much pleased if you give me your 
 permission to offer you, what I am sure you 
 require, a little refreshment.' Well, when we 
 got to his lodgings, the servant on seeing him 
 at once burst out with, ' Oh ! Mr. De Ouincey, 
 there is a gentleman gone into the Park to 
 look for you ; I told him he would fall in with 
 you either about the Wells O'Weary or just 
 belov/ Samson Ribs.' By this time we were
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 67 
 
 in the gentleman's room, and he said, ' This is 
 an excellent spirit which I sometimes partake 
 of, but in strict moderation ; pray forgive my 
 not being able to offer it to you in a glass ; this, 
 I may be excused for saying, is not my own 
 house, and I have no wish to trouble the 
 servant or Miss Miller, this earthenware vessel 
 is quite clean — permit me ' — and so saying, he 
 poured out about half a teacupful of brandy 
 and filled up the vessel with water. ' You will 
 find it excellent,' he observed, as he did so. 
 As soon as I heard the servant mention his 
 name I knew my man, he was the ' English 
 Opium-Eater,' and I was proud of his atten- 
 tion, for I had read his ' Confessions.' Now, 
 to make a long story short, Mr. De Quincey 
 wound up by asking me, ' if I would do him 
 the great favour to carry up to town with me 
 a small packet of much value, and have it sent 
 to Mr. Tait's place of business, at 78, Princes 
 Street, by a chair-man from the Register House, 
 who would be paid by that gentleman or one 
 of his servants. Circumstances over which I 
 have no control,' continued Mr. De Quincey, 
 'and into which I need not enter, nor do I 
 
 F 2
 
 68 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 consider they would be of interest to you, 
 preclude my going up to town for a few days.' 
 I told Mr. De Quincey I would be only too 
 happy to deliver the packet with my own 
 hands, and so I did, I assure you, and was 
 proud to oblige such a great man ; of course I 
 comprehended the situation at once — the 
 Opium-Eater was living * in sanctuary.' " 
 
 Mr. De Quincey did not always manage his 
 money matters very judiciously, and when it 
 was first my happiness to come into contact 
 with him, he was, as my actor-friend expressed 
 it, "in sanctuary" at Holyrood — then, and for 
 long before and after, the equivalent in Scot- 
 land of " the Fleet " in London. Under these 
 circumstances, Mr. De Quincey occupied 
 rooms in the lodging-house kept by a Miss 
 Miller, in a building near the Abbey, which 
 has now disappeared ; and during my appren- 
 ticeship I was occasionally sent thither with 
 proofs or money for the distinguished con- 
 tributor. 
 
 Those residing in " the precincts " had a 
 very large run of liberty ground. On Sundays 
 the dwellers were free to leave it for the day,
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 69 
 
 but as they included all sorts of characters, on 
 the Sunday nights exciting scenes occasionally 
 took place at the "Abbey Strand," where the 
 precincts began. Many who had been beguiled 
 by the hospitality of their friends forgot the 
 hour at which Sunday terminated, and had 
 frequently an anxious chase for their liberty, 
 "jumping the strand " sometimes as the clock 
 began to strike twelve, to escape the attentions 
 of the sheriffs' officers in waiting. 
 
 On my first visit, I carried a proof, and a 
 letter containing a bank-note for five pounds. 
 It was late in the afternoon of a gloomy 
 November day, when I started to walk to the 
 Abbey ; the day, I can remember, had been 
 bitterly cold, heavy showers of sleet and snow 
 having fallen at intervals, and in the gloaming 
 the grey old Canongate did not certainly look 
 its best. The house I was in search of was 
 easily found. In addition to Miss Miller's, 
 there were probably half a dozen similar 
 lodging-houses within the Abbey precincts, 
 but it seemed better known than the others. 
 I was at once shown to a roomVhere I found 
 Mr. De Quincey sitting, wrapped in an old
 
 70 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 camlet cloak, cowering over the remains of 
 what, judging by a liberal display of ashes, had 
 been originally a good fire. The Opium-Eater, 
 who had a strikingly beautiful face, looked pale 
 and fragile, and no one seeing him would have 
 supposed that he had still two-and-twenty 
 years to live. Shortly before my visit Mrs. De 
 Quincey had died, and his bereavement was, 
 as I heard him say to Mr. Tait, " a source of 
 ever-present grief to him." 
 
 He looked sad and pre-occupied, but 
 received me with that gentle courtesy which 
 never failed, and which was native to him ; 
 and which, to a message-boy, often receiving 
 pretty brusque treatment, was peculiarly grate- 
 ful. I noticed that of the two letters which I 
 had placed in his hand he turned first to that 
 containing the proof, glancing over it for 
 perhaps a minute or so. Then observing that 
 I was standing, cap in hand, he apologized and 
 begged me (in a long fine-drawn sentence) to 
 be seated whilst he replied to Mr. Tait. He 
 then broke the seal of the other letter, which 
 contained the money, and this, as it seemed to 
 me, he examined somewhat curiously. Rising
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 7 1 
 
 from his chair, he said, '* This is a somewhat 
 embarrassing sum of money for me to have 
 here. Might I request you — there is a place 
 of entertainment, a public-house, almost at 
 the door — to have the kindness to go there 
 and ask the lady who keeps it to give you 
 money of lesser amounts for this note ; I 
 shall be extremely obliged to you if you 
 will take this trouble, and, if at the same 
 time you will be good enough to ask the 
 servant of the establishment to send me a 
 small supply of the excellent brandy which 
 is kept there, you will still further oblige 
 me. 
 
 These messages were executed at once, and 
 on my return with the change I was thanked 
 by the distinguished author in a most gracious 
 way, and after sitting for about half an hour — 
 during which he wrote a letter to Mr. Tait in 
 his beautiful handwriting, and with the blue 
 ink, which he explained to me was " much 
 more fluid than any other " — I was politely 
 dismissed, with an expression of his regret at 
 not being able to invite me to partake of any 
 refreshment. " I would offer you tea, but
 
 72 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 such," he added, " cannot be had here with- 
 out very much trouble." 
 
 Characteristically enough, the letter which 
 Mr. De Quincey gave me contained no 
 acknowledgment of the money sent to him, but 
 was entirely taken up with matters pertaining 
 to an article on (I think) Greek literature. As 
 a matter of business, a formal acknowledgment 
 was asked for by letter, and to that letter came 
 a verbal answer, brought by Miss Miller, to 
 the effect that " the young gentleman who had 
 been so kind as to bring him the money would 
 be able to assure Mr. Tait that it had been re- 
 ceived." Mr. Tait was much amused, and Miss 
 Miller said, " Oh, it's so like him." The Opium- 
 Eater, as I have said, was exceedingly careless 
 in money matters, and preferred to be paid 
 by occasional small instalments. Once, when a 
 cheque for a very moderate sum was sent to 
 him, a messenger brought it back to Mr. Tait 
 with the intimation that at the moment "so 
 large an amount was not required by him, two 
 pounds being all he wanted." 
 
 When I had made a few visits to him, Mr. 
 De Quincey was so kind as to take some
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 73 
 
 particular notice of me ; and afterwards when 
 he wrote his Grasmere article about " George 
 and Sarah Green" (1839), he spoke to me of 
 the subject, and read me a passage from the 
 proof before it appeared in Tait. Mr. De 
 Quincey occasionally made his appearance at 
 the warehouse of Mr. Tait, where he would 
 sometimes be asked to dinner, for which some 
 special light dishes had to be provided for him, 
 as he was unable to partake of ordinary fare. 
 On these rare occasions, when Mr. Tait could 
 prevail on Mr. De Quincey to be entertained, 
 I was sent to the master's residence to inform 
 the house-keeper, so that she might make 
 some special preparations ; but on one incon- 
 venient occasion Mr. De Quincey invited 
 himself. Mr. Tait had asked a friend, well 
 known for his love of the good things of this 
 life, to dine with him, and before leaving in 
 the morning told his housekeeper, who also 
 officiated as his cook, to be sure to have some- 
 thing nice for them. About one o'clock, how- 
 ever, Mr. De Quincey arrived at Walker 
 Street, and told the housekeeper, who was a 
 new hand, and did not know him, that he
 
 74 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 would Stay to dinner. Thinking he was the 
 expected guest, she said, " Oh yes, sir, I know, 
 I'm just going to send out for a gigot of black- 
 faced mutton and a moorfowl ; dinner is to be 
 at five o'clock. " Pardon me, madam,'' said 
 the ever-courteous Opium-Eater, "the state of 
 my stomach, which I may tell you is a per- 
 petual source of woe to me, will prevent my 
 eating flesh-meats of the kind you mention. 
 If, therefore, you could procure a portion of 
 tripe, and stew it for me, as also a pudding of 
 the batter or custard kind, I should indeed be 
 grateful to you." The housekeeper, knowing 
 that her master would be perfectly satisfied 
 with the cold roast-beef stored in her larder, 
 acted at once on Mr. De Quincey's suggestion, 
 and procured the wished-for dish of tripe 
 instead of the mutton and the game, wondering 
 much at the exceeding politeness of the gentle- 
 man, whom she had never seen before. Mr. 
 Tait and his guest duly arrived ; he was not a 
 little surprised at finding Mr. De Ouincey 
 comfortably seated in his drawing-room, read- 
 ing a proof, and laughed heartily when the 
 housekeeper mentioned what had occurred.
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 75 
 
 The Opium-Eater gave an elaborate explana- 
 tion ; but the guest who expected to "dine" 
 was not appeased until he found that the talk 
 of De Quincey made ample amends for the 
 loss of his dinner. 
 
 Mr. De Quincey was wont to frequent a 
 small hotel called the " Guildford Arms," in 
 Register Street (situated near the renowned 
 tavern which was the scene of the " Noctes 
 Ambrosianse," in Gabriel's Road), in search of 
 his favourite tripe ; and it was one of the 
 places in which Mr. De Quincey was occasion- 
 ally pleased to hide himself 
 
 One of the numerous " warehouse stories " 
 about the English Opium-Eater may be worth 
 repeating, although the circumstances occurred 
 before my day. It was told me by my fellow- 
 apprentice, who one morning upon his arrival 
 at the shop to open it found a " noddy " (a one- 
 horse hackney-carriage) standing before the 
 door with the blinds down. After a few 
 minutes had elapsed the occupant contrived to 
 attract the attention of George, and blandly 
 addressed him somewhat in this fashion : — 
 
 " I am Mr. De Quincey, and I presume that
 
 76 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 you are one of the young gentlemen who assist 
 Mr. Tait in conducting his business. I am at 
 the moment much embarrassed for want of a 
 sum of money ; the difficuhy will not, however, 
 I can assure you, be permanent, but it is in the 
 meantime most urgent, and I fancied that even 
 at this early hour I should be able to obtain 
 the required amount by coming here." George 
 thought he might be wanting a five-pound note 
 at least, so he said to him anxiously — " How 
 much do you require, Mr. De Quincey?" 
 "You see, young sir, in arriving at my journey's 
 end I shall require to pay the coachman his 
 fare, including a small gratuity to himself, not 
 less than three shillings in all, and having but 
 half-a-crown in my pocket, I am anxious to be 
 accommodated with the loan of sixpence ! " 
 Not less astonished than relieved, George 
 handed the coin to him at once, and after 
 thanking his benefactor profusely for his great 
 politeness, Mr. De Quincey drove off. 
 
 I now take leave of the English Opium- 
 Eater, the chief features of his life being well 
 known. Owing to his kindness our acquaintance 
 ripened, and in after days, both during the
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY "]"] 
 
 period of his contributions to Tail, and also 
 while his papers were appearing in Hoggs 
 Instructor, to which periodical I was myself a 
 contributor, we had many conversations. Often 
 in Princes Street, of an evening, if the street 
 was not thronged, he would take a turn or two 
 with me, speaking his beautiful English, and 
 talking to me in his engaging voice (as if I had 
 been in all respects his equal) upon literary 
 subjects, his information seemingto be boundless. 
 I shall never forget one of those evenings he 
 allowed me to walk with him, an evening when 
 he spoke of Joan of Arc, a favourite theme on 
 which he contributed a paper to Talis 
 Magazine. No feature of Mr. De Quincey's 
 character was more marked, perhaps, than his 
 evident desire to put his inferiors on a footing 
 of perfect equality. He did all the talking, but 
 he talked in such a way as to inform, but never 
 to make you feel your ignorance. Such, at all 
 events, was my experience of this remarkable 
 man. 
 
 When in Edinburgh I frequently visit his 
 grave, and I replied to some remarks made 
 recently in several newspapers as follows : —
 
 78 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 "Those admirers of the writings of the 
 English Opium-Eater, who a httle time ago 
 were complaining about the neglect of his 
 grave, will fmd, if they visit the place, that a 
 few flowers have been planted and its general 
 condition improved. It is quite a mistake to 
 suppose, as was recently stated, that no head- 
 stone marks the place of interment of the 
 brilliant essayist. There is one on which the 
 following inscription has been engraved : — 
 
 Sacred 
 
 To the Memory of 
 
 Thomas De Quincey, 
 
 Who was born at Greenhay, 
 
 Near Manchester, 
 
 August 15th, 1785, 
 
 And died in Edinburgh 
 
 December 8th, 1859. — 
 
 And of Margaret, his Wife, 
 
 Who died 
 
 August 7th, 1837. 
 
 " De Ouincey's grave is in the churchyard 
 of St. Cuthbert's, in the Lothian Road, and is 
 situated at the side of a wall in a picturesque 
 nook, not far from the entrance. A pathway, 
 the second on the right-hand side of the main
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 79 
 
 avenue, leads to it." I may add here that 
 Mr. J. R. Findlay, of the Scotsman, has affixed 
 a memorial plate to the front of the house, 
 42, Lothian Street, which was often Mr. De 
 Ouincey's home : — 
 
 Thomas De Quincey : 
 Prose Writer: Born 1785: Died 1859: 
 Lived here.
 
 "THE TRADE" IN 1837-38 
 
 I 
 
 When I went to business in 1837, Archibald 
 Constable had been dead ten years, but there 
 were then living not a few who had known 
 him, and who spoke of him with great re- 
 spect, none more highly than those who had 
 been in his employment. All spoke of Mr. 
 Constable as king among book-merchants, 
 who administered an immense establishment, 
 the like of which, they believed, would never 
 again be seen in Edinburgh. In 1837 the 
 only publishing houses in existence which had 
 done business with Sir Walter Scott were 
 William Blackwood & Sons, and Robert 
 Cadell, the latter having been a partner in the 
 house of Constable & Co., and chosen by 
 Sir Walter Scott to continue the publication of 
 his novels and other works.
 
 THE TRADE IN 1 837-38 81 
 
 In his diary Sir Walter, who had been visited 
 by Mr. Cadell during one of the most exciting 
 times of the commercial crisis of 1825-6, 
 thus speaks of his visitor: (Dec. 18, 1825) 
 *' Cadell came at eight to communicate a letter 
 from Hurst & Robinson intimating they had 
 stood the storm. ... I shall always think the 
 better of Cadell for this — not merely because 
 * his feet are beautiful on the mountains who 
 bring good tidings,' but because he showed 
 feeling — deep feeling, poor fellow — he who I 
 thought had no more than his numeration 
 table, and who, if he had had his whole 
 counting-house full of sensibility, had yet his 
 wife and children to bestow it upon — I will 
 not forget this if I get through. I love the 
 virtues of rough and round men-^the others 
 are apt to escape in salt rheum, sal volatile, 
 and a white pocket-handkerchief." {Journal, 
 1890, i. 55.) 
 
 That friendly call was the making of Cadell. 
 After the catastrophe which had engulfed 
 in one common ruin the great concerns of 
 Hurst & Co., Constable & Co., and Ballan- 
 tyne & Co., Cadell became Sir Walter's sole 
 
 G
 
 82 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 publisher, and, by the aid of friends, was enabled 
 to purchase on his own and the author's behalf, 
 all the copyrights that came into ihe market, 
 by the manipulation of which he relieved Sir 
 Walter of an immense part of his total indebted- 
 ness, besides realizing for himself a very 
 handsome fortune. When I was an apprentice, 
 Mr. Cadell was still hard at work in St. 
 Andrew's Square, although by that time his 
 fortunes were assured. He confined his 
 business almost entirely to the issuing in varied 
 shapes of the works of Sir Walter Scott. He 
 did not live long enough to know the full 
 extent of the popularity that was to attend the 
 "Waverley Novels," of which sixpenny and 
 even threepenny editions have of late years 
 been issued in hundreds of thousands. 
 
 Forty-five George Street was then, as it 
 still is, the address of William Blackwood & 
 Sons. Their " Saloon " used to be talked of 
 by my shop-mates as a wonderful place — the 
 daily lounge of " intellectual Edinburgh.'* 
 When on my collecting expeditions, I only saw 
 it, wonderingly, from the outside, but since that 
 time I have earned the right to enter.
 
 THE TRADE IN 1 83 7-38 83 
 
 Another of the publishing firms of my young 
 days has grown greater and greater with the 
 advancing years — that of A. and C. Black, the 
 present proprietors of the " Encyclopsedia 
 Britannica," a magnificent edition of which has 
 lately been brought to a successful conclusion. 
 The name of the founder of this house will 
 long be remembered, for Adam Black was 
 truly " a citizen of credit and renown " even 
 when I began my apprenticeship in 1837 ; and 
 as my master Mr. Tait and he were brothers- 
 in-law, and often together, I had opportunities 
 of knowing Mr. Black, who once told me that 
 I would look more like a business-man if I 
 would get my hair cut. — " Man," said he, "you 
 look for all the world like a second-rate poet." 
 To deliver the parts of the " Encyclopaidia 
 Britannica " as they came out to a few of Mr. 
 Tait's customers was at one time a part of my 
 work as an apprentice, but to the latest edition 
 of that great work I was permitted to make a 
 contribution, and I look upon it as somewhat 
 of a feat that, by the kindness of the late Dr. 
 Stoddart, of the Glasgow Herald, and his most 
 capable successor in the editorial chair, Mr. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 Charles Russell, I successively reviewed (or 
 rather, gave an account of) the whole of the 
 twenty-five volumes of the ninth edition as 
 they were published. Mr. Black, a statue of 
 whom may be seen in Princes Street, in the 
 course of his long and honourable life not only 
 served his native city as Lord Provost, but 
 also for many years represented it in Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 The business now carried on by Sir Thomas 
 Clark, Bart. (Messrs. T. and T. Clark) was, I 
 believe, originated by his uncle, whom we used 
 to call a "law bookseller," although the pub- 
 lication of theological works constituted, I 
 fancy, the profitable part of the concern. Sir 
 Thomas Clark has served the city of Edin- 
 burgh as Lord Provost, and has likewise been 
 Master of the Merchant Company. So also 
 has Sir Thomas Jamieson Boyd, the present 
 head of the firm of Oliver & Boyd, the 
 publishers of the world-renowned Almanac — 
 the Scottish WJiitaker. 
 
 Oliver & Boyd's was a constant place of 
 call for booksellers' apprentices when I 
 belonged to the order, for the firm acted as
 
 THE TRADE IN 1 83 7-38 85 
 
 agent for some of the largest London pub- 
 lishers, such as John Murray, of Albemarle 
 Street, and Charles Knight, and collecting 
 boys were always sure of a great haul at 
 Tweeddale Court. The business of collecting 
 was often a very laborious one, especially to 
 boys who took no pains to read the advertise- 
 ments of the London publishers, and had to 
 hunt for the agents at haphazard. Messrs. 
 Oliver & Bo)'d, it used to be said, began 
 business by producing penny picture books — 
 " chap-books," a story which, I daresay, may 
 be told of other great houses. 
 
 II 
 
 It is not my intention to enumerate all the 
 publishing and retail bookselling houses of 
 1837-8. In an address delivered on one occa- 
 sion to the Edinburgh Booksellers' Society, 
 Mr. Adam Black said that, " at one time there 
 were more barbers than booksellers in the 
 city, but brains," he continued, "ultimately 
 triumphed, and ' the trade ' found itself in a
 
 86 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 majority." In the year 1837 it numbered a 
 hundred and twenty-eight individuals or firms, 
 some of whom, as will be supposed, were of 
 little account — a good many of them, indeed, 
 were merely stationers ; others were called 
 booksellers, although they only dealt in one 
 article, such as the printers and publishers of 
 the Edinburgh Directory or the Court of 
 Session Rolls. In addition to the names I 
 have given, Messrs. Bell & Bradfute may 
 be mentioned as still carrying on business, an 
 old house with an honourable record, and 
 dealing almost exclusively in the literature of 
 the law. 
 
 In 1837 the warehouse of Messrs. Chambers 
 was situated in Waterloo Place, down a flight of 
 stairs, I think. Maclachlan & Stewart carried 
 on a large business in medical works on the 
 South Bridge, opposite the University, and 
 their sign is still to be seen over the same 
 door. Mr. John Menzies had a small shop at 
 61, Princes Street, but his sons are now at the 
 head of an extensive wholesale establishment 
 in Hanover Street. The fame of the brothers 
 Nelson as publishers is world-wide, and their
 
 THE TRADE IN 1 83 7-38 8/ 
 
 vast printing, publishing and bookbinding 
 works are at present one of the sights of the 
 city. Their father, the originator of the busi- 
 ness, was to be seen during the period I am 
 trying to illustrate, in a small book-shop in the 
 West Bow, where he had begun his career as 
 a publisher of works in " Numbers." The 
 house of Oliphant still flourishes, and is ex- 
 tensively engaged in the production of books. 
 Waterston, too, is yet a name in the trade 
 as it was when I was a message-boy. Mr. 
 Stevenson was then, as now, an Antiquarian 
 bookseller ; as also the venerable Mr. James 
 Stillie, his shop in 1837 being situated in the 
 area of a house in North Bank Street. Other 
 names which survive I can only mention — 
 Messrs. Robert Grant & Son, Gall & Inglis, 
 Mr. Jack, an extensive publisher, now at the 
 Grange, succeeded Laing & Forbes, who were 
 the successors of Manners & Miller. Messrs. 
 Fullerton & Co., and Blackie & Sons are also 
 represented in the Modern Athens, as they 
 were in '^y, and I see also in the list of to-day 
 the names of Collie & Brydone. 
 
 Circulating Libraries were pretty numerous
 
 88 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 throughout Edinburgh in 1837, for in that year 
 fourteen were open, the majority of them doing 
 well. That kept by Mr. W. Wilson in George 
 Street was of historic interest, as having been 
 founded by Allan Ramsay. Many of the 
 books that had been handled by the poet and 
 his successors were yet in the library when, 
 by the kindness of the proprietor, I was placed 
 on the " free list." 
 
 Some of the booksellers of those days, with 
 whom I was somewhat of a favourite, were 
 "characters." I may name quaint old James 
 Vair, once of the Horse Wynd, but then of 
 Bristo Street, who used occasionally to show 
 me some rare old books and tracts, as also old 
 coins and other curiosities, and invite me occa- 
 sionally to take "a chack" (luncheon) with 
 him ; and on occasion he would lend me books 
 to read. He possessed great stores of "old 
 world " knowledge. " Yes, boy," he would 
 say, over our bit of bread-and-cheese, " I have 
 told Sir Walter many a good story, and young 
 Robert Chambers too. I have been a sort of 
 reservoir to lots of literary men, who when 
 they got on horseback rode past my door
 
 THE TRADE IN lS2,7-S^ 89 
 
 without looking my way." And when he said 
 this, Mr. Vair would sometimes look very 
 savage indeed. 
 
 Mr. Nicol Bowack, of Leith Street, was 
 fond of a " crack," and was able to tell stories 
 of the days of Sir Walter Scott, to which I was 
 proud to listen. James Kay, another of the 
 "characters," had little personal habits which 
 gained him the nickname of " dirty Kay" from 
 the irreverent apprentices. He was a dealer 
 in free-thinking books, some of which, how- 
 ever, he was afraid to offer for public sale, 
 as he thought the "police would not stand 
 them." 
 
 School books were a speciality in one or two 
 shops ; if I mistake not, Messrs. Stirling & 
 Kenny dealt in them, and also, oddly enough, 
 in plays. 
 
 I forget the speciality of Fraser & Co., 
 whose warehouse was on a stair familiar to 
 me. Mr. P. S. Fraser was in his time a well- 
 known man in Edinburgh, "a remarkable 
 social force in his own person," as Mr. De 
 Quincey was wont to describe him. He took 
 a prominent part in many of the high jinks
 
 90 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 and tavern feasts which, dying out in the 
 forties, were still to some extent a fashion. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In a notice of "the trade," a word or two 
 may fitly be said about the printing-offices. In 
 1837 there were over eighty letter-press printers 
 in Edinburgh, great and small ; the firm of 
 Ballantyne & Co. was then, as now, carrying 
 on business at " Paul's Work," and of other 
 large offices there were the " King's Printing- 
 Office " in Blair Street, and the establishments 
 in Thistle Street of Constable & Co., Steven- 
 son (printer to the University), Shortreede & 
 Gall, and Smellie. Of the various newspaper 
 presses, only one took in book-work and stereo- 
 typing — that of the Caledonian Mercury in the 
 High Street, behind which there was a kind of 
 "literary" public-house, a " howff " of news- 
 paper men of the minor sort and of composi- 
 tors, and especially of " pigs," as the practitional 
 pressmen were called. As has often been re- 
 lated of these servitors of literature, most in 
 those days were fond of a " wee drappie "; and
 
 THE TRADE IN 1 83 7-38 9 1 
 
 nearly every office or group of offices had its 
 favourite public-house of call, the general tipple 
 being bottled ale, of the variety known as 
 " Strong." 
 
 I had often occasion to visit " Paul's Work," 
 which my friend, Mr. R. H. Patterson, after- 
 wards editor of the Edmbiirgh Advertiser, was 
 one of the " readers." Ballantyne's was an 
 office in which many "characters" were to be 
 found, including " the Major," Mr. Cartwright, 
 an accomplished printers'-reader ; Mr. Christie, 
 one of the foremen ; and William Tofts, one of 
 the machinists. These men had all known Sir 
 Walter, Mr. Lockhart, Mr. Constable, Mr. 
 Blackwood, Professor Wilson, and others of 
 the bright spirits of " Maga." One of the old 
 "pigs" of the house delighted to tell us stories 
 about Sir Walter, "stories that Lockhart kent 
 naething ava aboot." He maintained that he 
 knew who wrote the novels "almost as soon as 
 the master" (Mr. James Ballantyne). When 
 asked how that came about, he would tell his 
 best tale with a sufficient amount of importance, 
 and although it was credited in the office, I 
 cannot guarantee its accuracy. " I had just
 
 92 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 begun (he would say) to a new sheet of ' Guy 
 Mannering ' one night awhile after twelve — 
 we were working late in the press-room at that 
 time — and all the compositors had left, when in 
 comes Mr. Ballantyne himself, with a letter in 
 his hand and a lot of types. ' I am going to 
 make a small alteration, Sandy,' he said, 'just 
 unlock the forme, will you ? I'll not keep you 
 many minutes.' Well, I did as I was bidden, 
 and Mr. B., looking at the letter, altered three 
 lines on one page and one line on another ; 
 ' That will do now, I think, Sandy,' were his 
 words, ' but first pull a sheet till I see.' The 
 master then looked carefully over the two pages 
 and said, ' Bring me the printed sheets — they'll 
 have to be destroyed,' and off he went, never 
 thinking that he had left the letter lying on my 
 bank. I had barely time to get a glimpse at it, 
 when back came Mr. Ballantyne, but I kent 
 the hand weel, and the signature, and it was 
 ' Walter Scott.' I had a great lang ballant 
 (ballad) in Sir Walter's ain hand o' write at 
 hame, so that I was nae stranger to it. I 
 would hae likit to see w^hat the difference was 
 that was made in the sheets, but he made me
 
 THE TRADE IN 1837-38 93 
 
 carry them up to his room. So you see, 
 gentlemen, I kent the grand secret, when it 
 was a secret." 
 
 The Edinburgh newspapers of 1837 may 
 now be noticed. The Evening Courant, the 
 oldest newspaper in Scotland, and which in 
 its palmy days had for contributors Christopher 
 North, Lockhart, Aytoun, De Quincey, and 
 Hogg, came out thrice a week, neutral in 
 politics, but leaning to the Tory side. It 
 became a daily and a professed Conservative 
 in i860, and died after many struggles early in 
 1866. From i860 to 1864 it was edited by 
 Mr. James Hannay, in whose time the Cozcrant 
 broke many a lance with the Scotsman, then 
 edited by Russel — the two editors being 
 excellent friends in everything but politics. 
 Two other Conservative journals were published 
 in Edinburgh when I was a youth, the Edin- 
 btirgh Advertiser, merged, after a long career, 
 in the Courant — and the Evening Post. I do 
 not know the names of the proprietors of the 
 latter, but I afterwards knew Mr. Alexander 
 Cannon (" Sandy Cannon ") who was con- 
 nected with it as publisher, and afterwards
 
 94 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 figured as a macer in the Court of Session. 
 He was an authority on coursing, an ardent 
 Conservative, and genial over the toddy- 
 tumbler. In 1 86 1 the Evening Post died 
 "hard," after a long struggle, carried on at no 
 small expense to one or two lovers of the 
 Conservative cause. 
 
 The Edinburgh Advertiser was at one period 
 of its history a most remunerative property ; 
 the son and successor of its first proprietor, 
 Donaldson, leaving a large sum to build the 
 well-known '' Hospital," which bears his name, 
 and in which a number of children are boarded 
 and educated. Mr. Robert Chambers was at 
 one time (1832) the editor of the Advertiser. 
 He was succeeded by the Rev. Andrew 
 Crichton, who conducted it until 1850, when 
 he was followed by Mr. R. H. Patterson, before 
 mentioned, a frequent contributor on economic 
 subjects to Blackwood's Magazine, in the 
 printing-office of which, after leaving Ballan- 
 tyne & Co., he had become chief "reader." 
 He sometimes gave me a few of the monthly 
 magazines to review in his paper, and I am his 
 debtor both for kindness and for knowledge,
 
 THE TRADE IN 1 83 7-38 95 
 
 which I might never have obtained from any 
 other person. When, after many days, we 
 " forgathered " in Glasgow, we recalled the 
 days of our youth and our Edinburgh gaieties 
 in the middle of this elderly century. 
 
 The Caledonian Mercury, which dated from 
 1729, was published three times a week, until it 
 became a daily in 1855. It was the property of 
 Mr. Thomas Allan, a son of the private banker 
 who is more than once referred to in Lockhart's 
 " Life of Scott," in connection with the heavy 
 discount transactions indulged in by the author 
 of " Waverley " and his publishers and printers. 
 Mr. Tait was interested in the Observer, but I 
 do not know in what way. He favoured it, 
 however, with a considerable share of his 
 advertising. I have heard that Mr. Murray, 
 the publisher of that journal, was the first man 
 who ever reported the proceedings of the Town 
 Council, and in the beginning (in the days of the 
 unreformed Council, I presume) he used to take 
 his " notes " while concealed under the table ! 
 The Scottish Pilot was begun in 1837, but did 
 not last many years ; the Weekly yo7ir7ial, which, 
 when it expired in 1848, had endured for more
 
 96 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 than a century, was edited from 1806 till 1833 
 by Scott's friend, James Ballantyne ; and in 
 1837 was still a power under Thomas Aird, 
 the poet. At one period the Journal was 
 famed for its dramatic criticisms, written by 
 John Ballantyne (Scott's " Rigdumfunnidos "). 
 If I am not mistaken, he on one occasion printed 
 an elaborate notice of a performance of Lady 
 Macbeth by Mrs. Siddons, which at the last 
 moment failed to come off; but the critic tried 
 to get out of the scrape by pointing out that 
 what he had written contained no reference to 
 any date, but was simply an essay at large. 
 
 The North British Advertiser was a news- 
 paper without news ! It was simply an 
 advertising sheet, circulated on loan from 
 Saturday till Monday throughout the city, and 
 then posted all over the country. The Messrs. 
 Gray had to fight a long battle before they saw 
 their venture at the paying point, but that once 
 achieved fortune came by rapid strides. In its 
 struggling days the enterprise was handicapped 
 with a heavy paper-duty, a duty on every 
 advertisement, and a compulsory stamp for 
 postage as well. Among Mr. Gray's numerous
 
 THE TRADE IN 1-837-38 97 
 
 schemes to render his paper useful, he turned 
 a well-known erection which stood at the 
 Princes Street and Shakespeare Square end 
 of the North Bridge into an ornamental 
 " Kiosk," in each window of which was ex- 
 hibited a page of the paper. 
 
 I have yet to notice the Scotsman, which in 
 '38 had attained its majority, for it was born 
 in 18 1 7. It had long been a flourishing 
 institution and it has continued to flourish, 
 though all its competitors of fifty years ago 
 have died out. The Scotsman came to the aid 
 of the Whigs, when such an organ was much 
 needed in the battle with Tory domination. 
 Writing of its establishment, Mr. Adam Black 
 said, — " In the beginning of this year (1817), 
 the Scotsman newspaper was started, and was 
 hailed by the majority of the people as a 
 deliverance from the slavish sycophancy of the 
 other newspapers." 
 
 The gentlemen who originated the Scotsman, 
 Messrs. W. Ritchie and C. Maclaren, were 
 well known to their fellow-citizens. In 181S-19 
 the editor was Mr. J. R. M'Culloch, after- 
 wards the head of the Stationery Office, and 
 
 H
 
 98 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 well known as the author of the "Commercial 
 Dictionary." Mr. M'Culloch's successor was 
 Mr. Charles Maclaren, Mr. W. Ritchie assist- 
 ing, a scholar and a man of scientific and other 
 attainments. Then, in 1845, came Alexander 
 Russel, under whose editorship the paper 
 gained more and more influence, and became 
 the great property it continues to be. 
 
 In these early days of mine, newspapers 
 were dear, and most people gained their know- 
 ledge of what was going on by hiring them at 
 a penny an hour, or by subscribing in groups, 
 the paper passing from hand to hand among 
 neighbours in town and country.
 
 TRADE REMINISCENCES OF SIR 
 WALTER. 
 
 When I began my apprenticeship, Scott's 
 memory was cherished by " the trade," and the 
 memory also of Archibald Constable, " prince 
 of publishers," was still green in the recollec- 
 tion of Edinburgh booksellers, several of 
 whom had been his contemporaries and 
 customers. Five years previously the grand 
 old " Waverley Romancer " had been buried in 
 the graveyard of Dryburgh Abbey ; but the 
 book-shops of the Modern Athens were in 
 1837 stocked with an abundant supply of his 
 romances, and the masters of these stores of 
 literature and their assistants never wearied of 
 telling their younger brethren about the ever- 
 increasing excitement which attended the issue 
 of the different novels. 
 
 In the shop where I served my apprentice- 
 ship several copies of original and early sets 
 
 II 2
 
 lOO SOME MEMORIES 
 
 were to be seen on the shelves, and were 
 looked upon with a certain amount of venera- 
 tion ; but, to tell the truth, they remained 
 undisturbed all the time I was in Mr. Tait's 
 service — a period of over nine years. It was 
 not likely, indeed, that such expensive copies 
 would sell readily in the face of the issue of 
 the "Magnum Opus" — the " Waverley 
 Edition " — which had begun some years 
 before. It was also known that the publisher 
 had projected a " People's Edition," which, 
 when it came out in twopenny numbers, 
 proved a great success, eighty thousand copies 
 being sold immediately. 
 
 In 1837 the tide of Waverley- Novel popu- 
 larity had ebbed considerably in Edinburgh, 
 and left many booksellers stranded amid their 
 old stocks. " But you of the trade should not 
 complain," said on a social occasion Mr. 
 Anderson, senior, a High-Street bookseller 
 of the Waverley period, " you have all made 
 money by Sir Walter's works, and his memory 
 is present to you ; though it is the libraries 
 that, over all the country, have made most 
 money. Willie Wilson, John Sutherland,
 
 REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER lOI 
 
 Elder Ogilvie, and Mrs. Tansh must have 
 cleared thousands of pounds among them 
 during the past two-and-twenty years by the 
 lending of these books." 
 
 The Mr. Wilson here referred to, whose 
 shop was situated in 44, George Street, was a 
 well-known Edinburgh citizen, and afterwards 
 a member of the Town Council, who was wont 
 upon fitting occasions to relate his experience 
 of library work in the days when the Waverley 
 Novels and the characters therein delineated 
 were a theme of universal conversation. 
 "When 'Guy Mannering,' ' The Antiquary,' 
 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian,' 'Rob Roy,' 
 and 'Ivanhoe' were in course of beino- 
 issued," said the genial Councillor, " you might 
 have put thirty copies of each into any library, 
 and then another thirty would have been asked 
 for ; everybody wanted the first volume at the 
 same moment." Mr. Sutherland, of Calton 
 Street, who, in addition to keeping a library, 
 was also publisher of Mackay Wilson's popular 
 "Tales of the Borders" and the apprentice- 
 master of the late Dr. William Chambers, hit 
 on the plan, which was adopted by many other
 
 I02 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 libraries, of splitting each of the volumes as 
 they appeared into two parts, so that he might 
 keep his customers going. Dr. Chambers was 
 wont to relate as one of the reminiscences of 
 his apprentice days, that he w^as engaged to 
 read Sir Walter Scott's and other novels to a 
 baker and his sons in Canal Street, while they 
 were preparing their " batch " at five o'clock in 
 the morning, the daily reward being a new 
 roll, which, with the addition of a halfpenny- 
 worth of milk purchased at a dairy, constituted 
 his breakfast for the day. John Sutherland, 
 besides carrying on his publishing, bookselling, 
 and library business, was a State- Lottery agent. 
 His shopman one day told to a little party 
 of booksellers' assistants, held in Mrs. Dow s 
 oyster tavern in Shakespeare Square ('* Pan- 
 dores " in those days were sixpence " a board," 
 including a liberal supply of bread-and-butter), 
 an anecdote of a customer who gained a prize 
 through reading " The Fortunes of Nigel." 
 Nothing would please him but ticket No. 
 1,624, which, not being in the possession of 
 Mr. Sutherland, had to be sought for. It was 
 ultimately obtained, and In the fulness of time
 
 REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER IO3 
 
 it was drawn a capital prize. When asked his 
 reason for fancying that number, the winner 
 explained — " Well, you see, sir, I had been 
 reading the novel about 'Jingling Geordie,' 
 and as I knew that 1624 was the year of 
 George Heriot's death, I took it into my head 
 that it would come gut of the wheel a prize, 
 and so it has." The prize, I believe, was the 
 eighth part of twenty thousand pounds. 
 
 Inspired probably by the great demand for 
 the Waverley Novels among the readers who 
 patronized his library, Sutherland was wont to 
 prophesy that one day a copy of the Waverley 
 stories would be found in every house in the 
 three kingdoms, his meaning doubtless being 
 that the books would be ultimately produced 
 at such a price as to place them within the 
 reach of the poorest. He has certainly been 
 more successful than most prophets. Notwith- 
 standing the enormous number of copies 
 placed in circulation by librarians at the time 
 indicated, many private families joined purses 
 for the purchase of the more popular of Sir 
 Walter's romances as they were published. 
 They read the work in turn, or heard it read
 
 104 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 at reading parties (which at the time were 
 common enough), and the book was ultimately- 
 sold to the highest bidder among the group. 
 I have heard, too, that several workmen in 
 shops adjacent to Sutherland's library arranged 
 with him for a reading of the " Heart of Mid- 
 Lothian " and " Rob Roy," one of the men 
 reading the book aloud to his comrades. Nor 
 was the excitement confined to Edinburgh. In 
 country towns it was equally great. I remem- 
 ber seeing, in a Scottish provincial town, the 
 novel of " Guy Mannering" bound in portions 
 of a hundred pages, each of which even at 
 that time (1832) was lent to read at the price 
 of twopence per["night. As it ran to ten parts, 
 the reading cost[one shilling and eightpence ; 
 and the ^feat^ of perusal in one case was 
 achieved, not in ten nights, but in a gallop of 
 ten hours ! 
 
 One of Mr. Constable's men, who on two or 
 three occasions had been sent up to London 
 with the supplies of the novels, used to relate 
 how great the excitement was wont to be 
 among " the trade " in London, when the 
 Leith smack arrived bearing the precious
 
 REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER IO5 
 
 bales. Mr. Constable was himself present on 
 one occasion to witness the scene and wrote 
 about it to Sir Walter, telling him that the 
 London agents had men waiting the arrival of 
 the smacks to get out the books, which were 
 always shipped in unbound sheets ; porters and 
 carts being in readiness to carry off the 
 treasures to the Row, or to " 90, Cheapside," 
 where the bookbinders were ready to begin 
 work, so that in a very short time bound copies 
 were on the way by coach and waggon to all 
 parts of England. 
 
 One of the many out-of-the-way stories 
 which were in circulation about the novels fifty 
 years ago, may be here related as it was given 
 by the present writer several years since in 
 Chambers s yournal. 
 
 " A nobleman, living in a rather inaccessible 
 part of England, had sent his valet expressly 
 to procure for himself and guests the new 
 Scottish novel, which was expected to reach 
 London before the return-day of the coach. 
 The valet, having a friend in Messrs. Hurst & 
 Robinson's warehouse, was assured that he 
 would obtain an early copy. Unfortunately,
 
 I06 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 the smack' did not arrive till the next coach- 
 day, and only cast anchor in the Thames two 
 hours before the starting of the mail. A copy 
 of the novel could not be bound in time ; and 
 the valet, determined not to lose other two 
 days, would not wait, but set off at once with 
 his master's copy of the work in quires, intend- 
 ing to have it bound by the local binder. A 
 gig, however, was in waiting at the inn for the 
 arrival of the messenger, with orders for him 
 to return home at once, as the book was eagerly 
 waited for. No sooner did he reach his 
 destination than the packet was impatiently 
 opened ; but when the condition of the book 
 was seen, all were embarrassed : it was in 
 unfolded sheets, and no one knew what to do 
 with them ! The robber's cave without the 
 * Open sesame ' of Ali Baba was not a 
 greater cause of chagrin than the possession of 
 a Waverley Novel which could not be read. At 
 length a daughter of the house, by much 
 studying and examining of the pages, discovered 
 how to fold them ; and this being accomplished, 
 the story was read aloud to the eagerly expec- 
 tant company."
 
 REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER IO7 
 
 It has been more than once written of Sir 
 Walter that he was hail fellow well met with 
 the players of his plays, but such statements 
 must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. 
 No man was more conservative of his personal 
 dignity than the author of " Waverley," and 
 when a well-known Scottish actor, of whom 
 Sir Walter had taken friendly notice, asked 
 him, on the occasion of his going to London, 
 for a few letters of introduction, they were 
 refused. " But," said Scott, " I have written 
 to my friends about you," and so he had, but 
 in a very gingerly way. Players were " vaga- 
 bonds by Act of Parliament," and whilst Sir 
 Walter met the aristocracy of the stage readily 
 enoueh, he was never, as has been more than 
 once asserted, unduly familiar with the rank 
 and file of the profession. I have heard my 
 father say that, when Sir Walter of an after- 
 noon came along Princes Street, nearly every 
 man that he met uncovered ; and David Peters, 
 beadle in an Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, 
 and an occasional "waiter" at dinner-parties, 
 told the writer that, once at a dinner-party 
 where the great author was a guest, a young
 
 I08 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 gentleman shouted out, " Pleasure of wine with 
 you, Scott ! " Sir Walter stared at him, but 
 did not lift his glass. A young man, who had 
 been once In the employment of Mr. Con- 
 stable, told a relative of mine that Scott often 
 noticed him, "but none of us ever spoke to 
 Sir Walter unless he spoke to us first ; that 
 was the rule." 
 
 I very soon learned during my apprentice- 
 ship that a spirit of exaggeration was abroad 
 throughout "the trade" regarding Sir Walter 
 and his doings. Some of the booksellers 
 invariably spoke of the great man with bated 
 breath : one, I remember, possessed a copy of 
 " Guy Mannering " on which the author had 
 made two or three marginal notes, and this 
 book was treasured as a sacred thing which to 
 be shown was a favour. It was kept in a 
 lockfast cupboard, and when taken out to be 
 exhibited the owner approached the press on 
 tiptoe, and brought forth the volume with great 
 solemnity, all the while looking fearfully around 
 him, as if he were afraid the visitor would run 
 away with it. 
 
 I never saw Archibald Constable, the great
 
 REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER IO9 
 
 bibliopole ; but James Shaw, of Cadell's pub- 
 lishing house, who had been in his employ- 
 ment, used to speak of him in enthusiastic 
 terms, and was wont to conclude the anecdotes 
 he told so well with — " It was his authors who 
 ruined him : he never paid these gentlemen 
 less than two, and some got three, prices for 
 what they wrote, and it was Mr. Constable 
 who made Sir Walter." While I was in the 
 employment of Mr. Tait, Mr. Cadell, at one 
 time a partner in the house of Constable & 
 Co., was then the publisher and absolute pro- 
 prietor of the whole of Sir Walter's work. 
 My father having been a servant of Mr. 
 Cadell's, told some little incidents regarding the 
 novels which have not been made public, as, 
 for instance, that on one occasion three or four 
 pages of one of the stories had to be cancelled 
 in consequence of a compositor having inter- 
 polated something absurd after the author's 
 final corrections had been made.
 
 "THE EDINBURGH REVIEW" 
 
 " I PROPOSED that we should get up a 
 Review," says the Rev. Sydney Smith in his 
 account of the foundation of The Edinhwgh. 
 This was spoken in the residence of the then 
 Mr. Jeffrey, in his flat in Buccleuch Place — 
 " not in either the eighth or the ninth storey, 
 neither of which ever existed, but in the third 
 storey, of what is now No. i8 of the street," 
 says Lord Cockburn. " The proposal was 
 acceded to with acclamation. I was appointed 
 Editor and remained long enough in Edinburgh 
 to edit the first number of the Edinburgh 
 Review.^' This account is explicit enough, and 
 Mr. Smith may have been Editor of the first 
 number, although, according to Lord Jeffrey, 
 there was at the beginning no individual 
 editor — Francis Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown 
 (author of the " Philosophy of the Human 
 Mind"), Lord Murray, Dr. John Thomson,
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW III 
 
 Thomas Thomson, the Rev. Sydney Smith 
 and Lord Webb Seymour appearing all to 
 have taken their part in producing it. 
 
 My first acquaintance with the Review was 
 made in delivering it to about half a dozen 
 gentlemen who were customers of Mr. Tait, 
 and as their residences were far apart, many a 
 long walk with copies of the blue and yellow 
 periodical under my arm was necessary. No 
 matter at what hour of the day the Remew 
 might come to hand, it had to be procured from 
 the warehouse of Messrs. Adam and Charles 
 Black, at that time agents for its sale, and be 
 instantly carried to the subscribers. 
 
 To have delayed its delivery over a night 
 would in those days have been looked upon as 
 something scandalous. Knowing no better, I 
 often wondered at the fuss which was made 
 about the Edinburgh Review, and on wet days 
 I fear that many a time I banned it, and like- 
 wise those who read it, very heartily. The 
 time came, however, when I blessed it, but that 
 was long after my apprenticeship days. It 
 was, indeed, not long ago, when one fine 
 morning the post brought me a letter enclosing
 
 112 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 a cheque from the editor for value received in 
 the form of a contribution. 
 
 The Review, when first I had occasion to 
 handle it, had been in existence for a period of 
 thirty-five years, having been commenced in 
 1802, with Mr. Constable as publisher. The fact 
 of its beingr looked for with such eao^erness shows 
 how successful it had become ; but indeed it 
 had made a hit from the very beginning. 
 
 Various statements have been published 
 from time to time regarding the early history 
 of this celebrated periodical. Such questions 
 as, " Who originated it ? " " Who owned the 
 property ? " and " Who edited it ? " have been 
 asked and answered over and over again, so 
 far as the knowledge of its early history 
 admitted of an answer being given. But not- 
 withstanding much of what has been said by 
 Sydney Smith and others, I believe the exact 
 truth has never become known. I cannot, of 
 course, speak on these points from personal 
 knowledge, but I am in possession of some 
 second-hand information that my readers may 
 not, perhaps, think devoid of interest. 
 
 What I know about the matter was derived
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW II 3 
 
 from a humble but, as I believe, perfectly 
 truthful source, my informant having been an 
 old pressman, who as a boy had pulled 
 the Edinburgh proofs in the printing-office 
 of Mr. Willison, the father-in-law of Mr. 
 Constable. Who the editor was when the 
 Review began, " auld Tammas," as he was 
 called in my day, had no doubt, — " it was Mr. 
 Constable himself," was the unvarying reply 
 when Thomas was questioned on the subject. 
 " Mony a time, when we've had a sheet made 
 ready, and were just gaun to start, word would 
 come to the foreman to wait for Mr. Con- 
 stable's proof, and we had to wait till he had 
 made his corrections, and sometimes they were 
 that heavy we had to lift the formes so as to 
 get them made. I kent his writing fine, and 
 have seen his proofs often." 
 
 According to the same authority, "the nobs 
 that wrote for it met in this very hoose 
 (Currie's public-house, just behind the Cale- 
 donian Mercury office) to read over their 
 papers to one another and crack their jokes, 
 and whenever I was sent in wi' a proof, I was 
 sure to be offered a drink of strong ale, which 
 
 I
 
 114 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 one of them used to say was the natural drink 
 of printers, an' so it was." 
 
 A Mr. Morrison — an artist and land sur- 
 veyor, who had been well acquainted with Sir 
 Walter Scott and Mr. Constable — was, when 
 I knew him, a frequent visitor to my master. 
 He was endeavouring to interest Mr. Tait 
 in a new way of taking portraits on glass, 
 " Daguerreotype " I think he called them. The 
 plates he had brought with him one day to 
 show Mr. Tait and some friends, were unfor- 
 tunately left by Mr. Morrison on a table in 
 the front shop, whilst he went into the private 
 room to announce his arrival. During his 
 absence one of the young men lifted one of 
 the plates to look at it, and thinking the figure 
 upon it rather dim, used his pocket-hand- 
 kerchief to dust it. Alas ! with unlooked-for 
 effect, for he wiped away the portrait, and, not 
 having the moral courage to confess, Morrison's 
 work was at once condemned, much to his 
 chagrin, as being too evanescent ever to 
 become of practical use. But my reason for 
 bringing Mr. Morrison on the scene is, that 
 he, too, always maintained that "the publisher
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW II 5 
 
 of the Edinbttrgh Review was undoubtedly the 
 editor of the first three or four numbers, and a 
 capital editor he was, and I know Sir Walter 
 Scott and others thought so too." In 1837 
 and 1838 there were men in more than one of 
 the Edinburgh book-shops who had been in 
 the service of the great publisher. They 
 maintained that he had a chief hand in the 
 inception of the Review, and that from the 
 first, if he was not literally the proprietor, he 
 certainly found the money to pay his father-in- 
 law for the printing. In some notes given to 
 Dr. Robert Chambers by Lord Jeffrey, his 
 Lordship wrote, " I cannot say exactly where 
 the project of the Edinbtirgh Review was jfirst 
 talked of among the projectors ; but the first 
 serious consultation about it, and which led to 
 our application to a publisher, was held in a 
 small house where I then lived in Buccleuch 
 Place." Lord Jeffrey also states that the first 
 three numbers were given to the publisher, he 
 taking the risk and defraying the charges. 
 
 It may be recalled that the Reviezv was not 
 original in its title. Nearly half a century 
 (1755) before it began there had been an 
 
 I 2
 
 Il6 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 Edinhirgh Review, published under the aus- 
 pices of Adam Smith, Robertson and Blair. 
 Only two numbers of it had appeared when it 
 died "because it was not able to live." 
 
 Of Constable having been editor of the 
 Review started in 1802, much evidence might 
 be adduced. Jeffrey is said to have been 
 appointed to that responsible post, and to have 
 edited the Review from an early date. If that 
 were so, then Mr. Constable edited the 
 editor, seeing that for some time after the 
 date at which Jeffrey is said to have ascended 
 the editorial throne, the active publisher, as 
 may be gathered from his correspondence, is 
 found suggesting subjects and writers. Mr. 
 Jeffrey's position as autocrat must have come 
 later. 
 
 Stories were current, when I was in the 
 trade, of terrible feuds generated by various 
 articles in the Review. In his Life of Jeffrey, 
 Cockburn relates how the foolish Lord Buchan, 
 in the presence of his family and servants, 
 kicked the " Cevallos number " of the Edin- 
 burgh from the innermost end of his lobby into 
 the street. Of a similar incident I was an eye-
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW 11/ 
 
 witness. A gentleman, to whom I was in the 
 habit of carrying a copy, threw it upon the fire 
 of his entrance-hall, and servants poked it 
 about till it was well consumed, my subscriber 
 dancing up and down in a hot fury all the time. 
 " Tell Mr. Tait," he said to me, " never to 
 send another copy of that scurrilous thing 
 here. Do you hear, boy, what I say ? " 
 " Yes, sir," I replied, making my exit as 
 quickly as possible. That was, I think, in 
 October 1838. But I never heard why the 
 gentleman so misconducted himself 
 
 Mr. Constable was encouraged by many 
 friends to keep the Review going. Among 
 others who gave him this good counsel was 
 Sydney Smith himself, who wrote to him, "If 
 you will give ^200 per annum to your Editor, 
 and ten guineas a sheet, you will soon have the 
 best Revieiu in Europe. This town, I am con- 
 vinced, is preferable to all others for such an 
 undertaking, from the abundance of literary 
 men it contains, and from the freedom which at 
 this distance they can exercise towards the 
 wits of the South." The articles contained in 
 the earliest numbers of the EdinburgJi (we are
 
 TiS SOME MEMORIES 
 
 told in Mr. Thomas Constable's memorial of 
 his father) " were presented gratuitously to the 
 publisher," but the rate of remuneration to 
 the contributors was soon thereafter fixed at 
 sixteen guineas per sheet, and this struck a 
 keynote which has ever since been of some 
 advantage to literary men connected with 
 similar undertakings." In the Life of Lord 
 Jeffrey it is stated that *' two-thirds of the 
 articles were paid much higher, averaging, I 
 should think, from twenty to twenty-five 
 guineas a sheet on the whole number. I had, 
 I might say, an unlimited discretion in this 
 respect, and must do the publishers the justice 
 to say that they never made the slightest 
 objection." Sydney Smith's proposal to re- 
 munerate the Editor with the sum of ^200 per 
 annum was far exceeded by the liberal pub- 
 lisher. We have the word of Dr. Robert 
 Chambers for it that the Editor was paid not 
 ;^200 per annum, but 200 guineas for each 
 number. 
 
 It is not generally known that the first 
 number was printed several months before it 
 was published. It has been insinuated that
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW II9 
 
 the publisher was afraid to begin, but it is 
 more likely that the issue was delayed for 
 purely trade reasons. The impression resolved 
 upon from the first number was but seven 
 hundred and fifty, a supply which proved 
 utterly inadequate to the demand ; even 
 another edition of a like number had to be 
 supplemented. By the year 1808 the circula- 
 tion had risen to eight thousand. 
 
 At one time the sale reached about fourteen 
 thousand, the profit resulting to the publisher, 
 after paying the salary of the Editor, and the 
 sums agreed upon for contributions, being in 
 the opinion of the trade not less than five 
 thousand pounds per annum. I do not intend 
 to trace the history of the Review further.
 
 "BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE" 
 
 When in my early apprentice days I was 
 first enabled to dip into the pages of "Maga," its 
 chief attraction was the later series of " The 
 Diary of a Late Physician." I greatly enjoyed 
 the papers, and also, later on, the same author's 
 story of " Ten Thousand a Year." When sent 
 for copies of the magazine, I usually contrived 
 that the message should happen about my 
 dinner-hour, and in several of the common- 
 stairs of the eastern division of George Street, 
 I would sit on the steps for nearly an hour 
 engrossed by the perusal of some interesting 
 portion of its pages, munching at the same 
 time my dinner of bread-and-cheese. The 
 pages of the copies of the magazine in my 
 custody as collector were, of course, uncut, but, 
 having as many as eight or ten in my charge, 
 I managed without its being discovered to cut
 
 Blackwood's magazine 121 
 
 open one leaf in each of the numbers in order 
 to master the narrative. 
 
 I pursued a similar plan with others of the 
 magazines whenever I got a chance, especially 
 Bentleys Miscellany, which contained in my 
 young days "Jack Sheppard." Since my 
 'prentice time — in fact not long ago — I have 
 attempted the perusal of "Ten Thousand a 
 Year," but "its magic hath departed." It has 
 lost the flavour it had when I perused it by 
 stealth — Titmouse, Tag Rag, Oily Gammon, 
 even sweet Kate Aubrey, seem now to me not 
 a little stagey, but I can still turn to the " Diary " 
 with something of the old enjoyment. 
 
 The preface to the volume, narrating the 
 travels of the MS., and how, after having been 
 submitted to many magazines, its merits were 
 " discovered by the astute publisher of Black- 
 wood,'' is singularly interesting, and ought to 
 prove encouraging to all literary aspirants. 
 Mr. Blackwood became in time his own editor, 
 and he was both skilful and fortunate in 
 "discovering" many good writers to sustain 
 the fame of his magazine. 
 
 Archibald Constable and William Blackwood
 
 122 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 were contemporaries — " rivals in trade," as some 
 said, "with little love lost between them," but 
 with that circumstance I have no concern. 
 Each was a master-hand in the business he 
 pursued. The father of the George-Street 
 firm served his time with Messrs. Bell & 
 Bradfute, a firm still of good renown in the 
 "grey metropolis of the North." For a period 
 of six years Mr. Blackwood remained in its 
 service, going through the usual round of 
 apprentice drudgery, but at the same time 
 reading everything he had time to read, and so 
 acquiring for future use those great stores of 
 general information about all matters literary, 
 which ultimately became useful to him in the 
 conduct of his business. 
 
 At the end of his apprenticeship young 
 Blackwood, then twenty years of age, was 
 selected by Mundell & Co. to manage a 
 branch of their business in Glasgow. The 
 branch was given up in about a year, when 
 Mr. Blackwood entered into partnership with 
 Mr. Ross, a bookseller and auctioneer on the 
 South Bridge, a connection which, however, 
 was of short duration. A year or two in
 
 BLACKWOOD S MAGAZINE 1 23 
 
 London completed Mr. Blackwood's education 
 as a bookseller; and in 1804, having returned 
 to Edinburgh, he began as a second-hand 
 bookseller on the South Bridge, a department 
 of the trade in which, having a natural taste for 
 the work, he soon found himself without a 
 rival. A remarkably well-arranged catalogue 
 of his fine stock of books which he printed in 
 18 1 2 made him known far a field, and, in time, 
 led to London agencies. The publishing of 
 books on his own account followed, and 
 ultimately the magazine was started in Princes 
 Street in April, 181 7. 
 
 Among the projectors of the Edinburgh 
 Magazine (as it was called at first) were 
 Thomas Pringle, then a clerk in the Register 
 House, and a versifier, and Mr. Cleghorn, 
 a writer on agricultural subjects. These 
 gentlemen were responsible for the con- 
 tents of the first six numbers of the 
 periodical, but before the sixth had appeared, 
 the patience of the publisher was exhausted, 
 and he resolved to take the matter into his 
 own hands. 
 
 Forty years have elapsed since the following
 
 124 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 was written, but I am unable to say when it 
 appeared, having lost my reference : — 
 
 "Those only who may happen to remember 
 the steady Toryism of William Blackwood 
 throughout his entire career, can form anything 
 like an adequate notion of his unmitigated 
 vexation and disgust when he saw the place 
 of honour in the first number of his magazine 
 occupied by a series of exorbitant eulogiums 
 culled from the public speeches of various 
 Liberal members of Parliament, on that feeble 
 and extravagantly overrated Whig politician, 
 Mr. Francis Horner, and found that all 
 recognition of the principles it was his object 
 to promote had been carefully eschewed in its 
 pages. 
 
 "Had the magazine been established for the 
 express purpose of puffing the Edinburgh 
 Review and its contributors, it could hardly 
 have been more successful in the fulfilment of 
 its mission. Nor was his tardy conviction of 
 the folly with which he was justly chargeable, 
 in having omitted to ascertain the political 
 antecedents of his editors before he associated 
 himself with them in so onerous a speculation,
 
 BLACKWOOD S MAGAZINE I 25 
 
 at all calculated to soften or diminish his 
 chagrin. The cloven hoof of Whiggery was 
 traceable in every page, from the leading 
 article in large type, with its hyperbolical 
 praises of the defunct Edinburgh reviewer, to 
 the nonpareil list of births, marriages, and 
 deaths, which wound up the number and 
 helped to eke out the promised tale of its pages. 
 Finding himself in imminent danger of becoming 
 not merely the scoff of his enemies, but the 
 laughing-stock of his friends, to say nothing of 
 the probable loss of capital in so abortive an 
 attempt, he resolved, not unnaturally, to cut 
 himself adrift from his tormentors, and feeling 
 that expostulation was but a waste of breath in 
 such a contest, he gave his editors notice, on 
 the publication of the third number, that when 
 the volume was completed, he should discon- 
 tinue the work. A cry then went forth from 
 his associates for compensation. Next came 
 the tug-of-war, and the battle soon waxed fast 
 and furious. After much chaffering between 
 the respective law-agents of the parties, Pringle 
 and his associates agreed to accept £\i% in 
 full of all demands, and thenceforward and for
 
 126 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 ever to relieve the enraged and mortified 
 bookseller from the inconvenience of so ill- 
 assorted an alliance." 
 
 A history of the brilliant career of the firm 
 of William Blackwood & Sons and of their 
 magazine, could not fail to be as interesting as 
 the recently published account of the House of 
 Murray and of the Quarterly Review.
 
 WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS 
 
 One Saturday afternoon in the summer of 
 1838, whilst crossing Bruntsfield Links on my 
 way home to Morningside, endeavouring as I 
 walked over the grass to read a story in one of 
 the volumes of Chambers s Journal, then of a 
 somewhat unwieldy size, I was stopped by two 
 gentlemen, one of whom accosted me in kindly 
 fashion and asked what I was reading. " It is 
 Chambers s Journal, sir," was of course my 
 reply. "Yes, lean see that," said the gentle- 
 man, "but what is the name of the story you 
 are reading?" "It is about George Mac- 
 Oueen, the apprentice who was flogged with 
 the cook's frying-pan for not delivering it 
 promptly," said I. Then the other gentleman 
 spoke. "Are you learning a business?" he 
 asked, to which I answered that I was learning 
 to be a bookseller with Mr. Tait of Princes
 
 128 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 Street. "A capital place ; have you been 
 there long ? " " No, sir, only ten months." 
 
 "Just so. Now can you tell me the size of 
 that book, what it is called in the shop ? " was 
 the next question. I described it as an 
 oblong quarto, or a quarto in folio shape, 
 a reply which both gentlemen, judging from 
 their looks, seemed to think was to the point. 
 My examiner then asked my name, who my 
 father was, and where I lived. When I 
 had made suitable replies I was allowed 
 to go, the more pleasant-looking of the two 
 saying, "We know Mr. Tait very well; you 
 are in a good place and have an excellent 
 master." 
 
 I wondered at the time who these gentlemen 
 were, the one bright and smiling, the other pre- 
 senting a graver cast of countenance, but no 
 long time elapsed ere I discovered their 
 identity. They proved to be William and 
 Robert Chambers, the conductors of the 
 periodical they found me reading, a circum- 
 stance which was probably not unpleasing to 
 them. Years afterwards, especially in the case 
 of Dr. Robert Chambers, I had the pleasure of
 
 WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS 1 29 
 
 knowing them more intimately, and in time I 
 became a contributor to their Journal. 
 
 Mr. Tait and Mr. Robert Chambers were 
 fast friends, and frequently corresponded on 
 various topics, one of which was phrenology, 
 a subject much discussed fifty years ago. Mr. 
 Chambers was an out-and-out believer in it, 
 but such was not Mr. Tait ; and in his maga- 
 zine, much to the disgust of Mr. George 
 Combe and other disciples of Gall and Spur- 
 zheim, he gave on occasion pretty plainly (but 
 not by his own hand) his views in the matter. 
 Mr. Combe was so annoyed at the part Mr. 
 Tait took in the phrenological controversies of 
 the time that it was with much reluctance he 
 permitted a copy of his book on America to be 
 sent to Tait for review. 
 
 Chambers s Journal had been going on for 
 five years when I went to business, and its 
 success from the first was extraordinary — far 
 beyond anything which had gone before it. 
 It was in Leith Walk the Messrs. Chambers 
 began bookselling in a very humble fashion, 
 never dreaming even in their most ambitious 
 moments (though the brothers were very 
 
 K
 
 130 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 ambitious) that a day would come when the 
 business they had founded would be worth a 
 hundred thousand pounds, that sum being now 
 the capital of the firm of '' W. and R. Chambers, 
 Limited." There is no need for me to re-tell 
 the story of the brothers Chambers : how hard 
 they worked in the days of their youth, for a 
 bare subsistence, and in laying the solid founda- 
 tion of knowledge on which was built their 
 future eminence as writers and men of busi- 
 ness ; — has it not been graphically told in 
 the autobiographical volume which was pub- 
 lished in 1872 ? But the struggle they made 
 to gain a recognized place in Edinburgh society 
 may now be referred to. With Dr. Robert 
 Chambers, when I was in Tait's, this was 
 rather a sore point, but he had resolved at an 
 early period in his career that he would force 
 recognition, and in time he was enabled to do 
 so, despite the strong caste feeling which, 
 although less strong than it had once been, 
 was prevalent in Edinburgh fifty years ago. 
 Religious prejudices had to be lived down ; 
 and cheap literature, half a century back, and 
 for a long time after, was thought "low." The
 
 WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS I3I 
 
 Chambers's were called " three-halfpenny 
 people " by some folks who were afterwards 
 glad to be invited to their parties. It was soon 
 seen that Dr. Robert Chambers wielded an 
 informed and graceful pen. His essays speedily 
 attracted attention, and his wonderful com- 
 pilations, such as the " Book of Days," — which, 
 however, is far more than a " compilation," — 
 came to be looked upon in time as excellent 
 literature of their kind. Robert Chambers had 
 not miscalculated his powers, and his claim 
 to mix in the highest literary, legal and artistic 
 society of " Auld Reekie," was ultimately 
 (although rather unwillingly) conceded, as it 
 had been conceded long before in other places, 
 where the name of Chambers had become as 
 a household word. 
 
 It used to be told of William Chambers that, 
 in his early days, he had said, " To get daily 
 bread is the problem of to-day : though they 
 may give me a stone after I am dead." And 
 they have ; a statue having been recently 
 erected in Edinburgh to the principal pioneer 
 of cheap literature ; and the statue has been 
 placed in " Chambers Street." 
 
 K 2
 
 132 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 A word or two may be said about the 
 "Vestiges of Creation," of the authorship of 
 which Robert Chambers has been from the first 
 suspected. It made a great sensation on its 
 appearance, and several large editions were 
 sold — two things which are not inseparable, 
 for, as booksellers well know, a work may be 
 praised in every newspaper, and discussed at 
 every dinner-table, without having a great sale. 
 
 My first knowledge of the book, other than 
 being aware of its publication, was obtained 
 by listening to the oration of an itinerant 
 preacher, who went about denouncing it as 
 something which would in time sap the in- 
 fluence of the Holy Scriptures ; and he was 
 not alone, for other preachers, both in 
 pulpit and magazine, fulminated against the 
 " Vestiges " with great force, and very little 
 politeness. 
 
 As is usual in the case of anonymous books 
 which make a hit, speculation as to the author- 
 ship was rife ; and all sorts of names, including 
 some of celebrity, were brought forward as 
 possible or probable authors. Some of those 
 named evinced, it is said, no desire to repudiate 
 
 /
 
 WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS I33 
 
 the honour : there were men, Indeed, who 
 smiled and smirked their friends and even 
 themselves into the belief that " they really 
 had had a finger in the pie." One of the first 
 persons who (to his own satisfaction) solved 
 the problem was Mr. Tait, and in his opinion 
 the author was Robert Chambers, whom, said 
 Mr. Tait, " I have heard speak more than one 
 part of the volume." But Mr. Tait had to be 
 contented with the internal evidence, for he was 
 not let into the secret. 
 
 One day Mrs. Robert Chambers, who occa- 
 sionally made use of my knowledge of Fairy- 
 tale books, had called to ask me to make a 
 search for a rare work of the kind. Just at 
 the moment a bore, from whom I was protect- 
 ing the master, was holding forth with all his 
 might on the " Vestiges," and declaring that 
 Robert Chambers was no more the author of 
 the book than he was. " He write such 
 a book ! it's not in him, he's the most over- 
 rated literary man I ever knew." "How do 
 you do, Mrs. Chambers ?" said Mr. Tait, coming 
 unexpectedly into the front shop by the private 
 door : and as the bore disappeared with great
 
 T34 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 precipitation, Mrs. Chambers enjoyed a hearty 
 laugh over his denunciations. 
 
 The most impudent thing that I remember 
 in connection with the " Vestiges " was the 
 offer for pubhcation to several Edinburgh 
 booksellers of the MS. of a pamphlet bearing 
 some such title as, " A Word to my Critics, by 
 the Author of the ' Vestiges of the Natural 
 History of Creation.' " It would be charitable 
 to believe that the man who wrote it was a 
 lunatic. 
 
 In course of time it came to be generally 
 believed that Robert Chambers was really the 
 author of the "Vestiges," and when this belief 
 seemed to be confirmed by Mr. Alexander Ire- 
 land's interesting account, there were no doubt 
 in some circles the usual '' I told you so ! " 
 exclamations. But the secret itself had so 
 long been believed to be an open one, and the 
 book forgotten — -much more forgotten than it 
 deserves — that not much interest was excited. 
 A good many years ago a story went the round 
 which may be repeated here for what it is worth 
 (which is most probably nothing at all), to the 
 effect that Mr. David Page, the well-known
 
 WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS 1 35 
 
 geologist, who was then a young member of the 
 literary staff of Messrs. \V. and R. Chambers, 
 upon being asked by Mr. William to write a 
 notice of the sensational book for the journal, 
 at once came to the conclusion, after the 
 perusal of a few of its pages, that it was written 
 by Mr. Robert, and in consequence the work 
 was not reviewed by Mr. Page. For months 
 the name of the book was in every mouth, and 
 one would be accosted by facetious friends, 
 " Well, son of a cabbage, whither art thou 
 progressing ? " and a funny friend of Mr. 
 Chambers, who was presiding at a merry party 
 held in the " Rainbow Tavern," began one of 
 his famous after-supper orations by addressing 
 the company as " descendants of Apes " ; and 
 endless jokes were manufactured in the " Parlia- 
 ment House." 
 
 The pages of TaWs Magazine were, I re- 
 member, scrutinized in the hope that some clue 
 to the authorship would be discovered in an 
 expected review of the " Vestiges," but an 
 elaborate estimate of the work was not given, 
 only a " notice," and no word in it pointed to its 
 authorship ; nor in any of the more important
 
 136 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 reviews of the book which appeared was Mr, 
 Chambers " spotted " ; very few persons indeed, 
 even in his own circle of acquaintance, knew 
 that he was engaged in such studies, and it is 
 this circumstance which will always cast some 
 doubt on the attribution.
 
 CHEAP PERIODICALS — "CHAM- 
 BERS'S JOURNAL." 
 
 Nothing in the history of Literature is more 
 striking than the evolution of the cheap 
 "periodical." In my boyish days, readable 
 periodicals of small price were very scarce. 
 My mother, an intelligent woman, and very 
 fond of books, had great difficulty (we lived 
 then near the town of Haddington) in obtain- 
 ing any worth possessing. The family library 
 was limited to a few odd volumes of a " Ladies' 
 Annual," or " Pocket-book," John Gait's 
 " Bachelor," half a dozen of the chief religious 
 books then in circulation, the " Confession of 
 Faith," and a few others whose titles I forget. 
 These, with, at a later date, the " Tales of the 
 Borders" and Barrie's "Collection," a well- 
 known and interesting school-book of the 
 time, and an occasional number of Chambers s
 
 1^8 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 O 
 
 yournal, constituted the literature of my early 
 days. When, in the course of a year or tvvo, 
 we removed to the vicinity of Edinburgh, 
 matters in respect of books brightened a 
 little, I then obtained access to a greater 
 variety, and, as I well remember, greatly 
 enjoyed reading some numbers of a periodical 
 called The Schoolmaster, edited by ^Ir. John- 
 stone, or, to speak more correctly, by ^Irs. 
 Johnstone, who in time, as elsewhere related, 
 became the active conductor of Tait's Edin- 
 bicro-h Maoazine. 
 
 When I went to business, the best known 
 periodicals were Chambers s JoiLrnal and the 
 Penny Magazhie, published by Charles Knight, 
 an excellent eight-page illustrated periodical. 
 There was also The Saturday Magazine, con- 
 ducted on similar lines. Besides such whole- 
 some food there came from London such penny 
 trash as The Calejidar of Horrors, the Penny 
 Police Gazette, and Lives of the Highwaymen, 
 &c., all of which had a certain circulation. 
 The late Mr. Henry Robinson, a Londoner, 
 who began business as a dealer in periodicals 
 in the Canongate, and finally settled in Green-
 
 CHEAP PERIODICALS 1 39 
 
 side Street (where his business is still carried 
 on), was the first person in Edinburgh to 
 develop what has since become an important 
 business — the trade in penny periodicals, and, 
 at a later date, in newspapers also. 
 
 It was a long time before he had any rival 
 in the field, but as the trade increased in 
 importance, one or two of the " respectable " 
 booksellers ventured on the sale of Reynolds 
 Miscellany, the London Journal, and similar 
 periodicals. The demand for the two I have 
 named became enormous, on account of the 
 stories by J. F. Smith in the London Journal, 
 and of G. W. M. Reynolds in his own 
 Miscellany. To this fact I can testify, having 
 at one time been engaged in the selling of 
 these periodicals. " Kenneth," an exciting 
 story published in Reynolds, attracted great 
 attention, some who read it being so much 
 interested in the progress and fate of the 
 characters that they used to visit my shop 
 in the course of the week to chat about 
 the story. One woman used to be in wait- 
 ing at the door of my shop to get her 
 copy the instant it arrived. " Is the villain
 
 140 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 hanged yet, do you think ? " was her usual 
 salutation. 
 
 The part I played in the circulation of 
 Reynolds and the Lo7tdo7t Journal was but a 
 small one, but an increase of from eight to 
 twelve dozen a week was no uncommon feature 
 on the weekly order to the London agent who 
 forwarded the copies, and when the excite- 
 ment was culminating, I required a special 
 lorry to bring my bales from the Goods station 
 of the Caledonian Railway, whilst my friend 
 Mr. Robinson did five times the amount of 
 business in cheap literature that I was able to 
 do. When either of our parcels missed fire, 
 it was amusing to find those persons who had 
 not obtained their copy at the usual place 
 wandering all over the city to find one — 
 a quest which was rarely successful. The 
 Family Herald enjoyed a calmer existence, 
 but the sale was always large and steady. In 
 time a larger business came to be done in 
 Edinburgh in the cheap London weekly 
 newspapers, — Weekly Tiines, Reynolds News- 
 paper, Lloyd's, The News of the World, and 
 one or two others : the price of these news-
 
 CHEAP PERIODICALS I4I 
 
 papers was then threepence each, and as they 
 bore the red penny stamp, they were carried 
 free by the Post-office. I have seen about 
 half a ton weight of these journals arrive in 
 Edinburgh on a Saturday morning, all of 
 which would be distributed before the night 
 was well advanced. These were the days 
 when papers were dear because they had to 
 contend with the duty on paper and the stamp, 
 days when I used to let out the Scots7nan, 
 Witness, and Evening Courant, to read at a 
 penny the hour. 
 
 I cannot go further without saying a few 
 words regarding Mr. Robinson, who became 
 in time a prominent person in Edinburgh with 
 his civil manners, his good-natured face, and 
 broad-brimmed white hat. It was he who 
 made the periodical trade in Edinburgh, and 
 who in doing so had to submit to much obloquy, 
 as he was often attacked by jealous clergymen 
 for the part he played " in poisoning the minds 
 of the people by the distribution of immoral 
 literature." But he was not the man to be 
 easily turned from his purpose, and so, with 
 vigour and determination he fought on till he
 
 142 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 had vanquished all his opponents. To one 
 clergyman who was very bitter indeed, Mr. 
 Robinson gave a few copies of the serials in 
 greatest demand, and insisted on his reading 
 them, telling him he felt sure he had never 
 yet looked at them, and that if he would take 
 that trouble, he would change his mind. This 
 the clergyman did, and frankly confessed that 
 he had been misinformed. From personal 
 knowledge I am able to state that several 
 of the best men in Edinburgh took in for 
 the perusal of their families both the London 
 journal and the Family Herald, as well 
 as some other papers absurdly denounced 
 as " immoral." For the part he played in 
 the dissemination of cheap periodicals, Mr. 
 Robinson's memory deserves to be held in 
 remembrance. 
 
 Something might here be said of John 
 Cassell's publications, and of his exertions in 
 the agitation for the repeal of the paper-duty, 
 but, as I know more about Chambers s Journal 
 I shall devote to it what remains of this 
 chapter. 
 
 Its success from the beginning was so great
 
 CHEAP PERIODICALS 1 43 
 
 and so unprecedented that it used to be 
 asserted loosely that William Chambers was 
 " carried off his feet " — a story which I never 
 believed : he was far too " firm-set " a man for 
 anything of the kind ; but I am a believer in 
 another tale which was told about him. When 
 he was an apprentice with John Sutherland 
 (already mentioned as a bookseller and lottery 
 agent), William was frequently sent on errands to 
 " The Sanctuary " of Holyrood, and so became 
 acquainted with several debtors who, although 
 unable to pay their creditors, had money for 
 lottery tickets. They sometimes bestowed 
 presents on the industrious apprentice. 
 " There's a shilling for luck ; I hope this 
 number will turn out a prize, and when your 
 prize turns up, you will be coming to see us in 
 your own carriage.'' "Well, I believe, as my 
 mother has foretold, that I will one day keep 
 a carriage, but it will not be through a lottery 
 ticket," said the judicious William, who was a 
 great believer in the wisdom of his mother. 
 He used to say that he believed he would be 
 fortunate in life because his mother had one 
 night dreamed of him as Dick Whittington —
 
 144 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 SO some of his fellow-apprentices used to 
 tell us. 
 
 It is not perhaps generally known that the 
 brothers Chambers did not begin with their 
 Journal. Eleven years before, they had 
 established the Kaleidoscope, named after Sir 
 David Brewster's new toy. The price of this 
 fortnightly periodical was threepence, and its 
 size sixteen pages octavo. It was filled with 
 readable matter of a miscellaneous kind, 
 chiefly written by the brothers, who were also 
 the printers and publishers. They toiled 
 sixteen hours a days, but without reward, for 
 they recovered by the sale no more than the 
 cost of printing and paper. But the experience 
 eained must have been useful. 
 
 The Journal made its first appearance on 
 Saturday, the 4th February, 1832. It began 
 with four pages of newspaper size, gradually 
 changing its form until it settled down to 
 the sixteen large octavo pages of the present 
 day. It involved no romantic struggles, orups 
 and downs — always the chief difficulty was how 
 to supply copies fast enough. The steam- 
 press for what is called " book- work " had not
 
 CHEAP PERIODICALS 1 45 
 
 then been set up in Scotland, and it required 
 many days to print thirty thousand copies of a 
 large sheet by means of hand-presses, and in 
 a few weeks fifty thousand copies of each 
 number were required, which, at three half- 
 pence a copy, must have left a handsome 
 profit. In course of time the circulation went 
 far beyond that number, and doubtless also the 
 profit, although every line of the matter has 
 always been paid for — in this particular, very 
 unlike many of its competitors at the present 
 day. Among the editors have been the late 
 Leitch Ritchie, and the present editor of the 
 Cornhilly Mr. James Payn.
 
 TRADE VISITS TO LONDON AND 
 
 GLASGOW 
 
 Having since boyhood's days entertained the 
 idea that London was a city I ought to see, 
 and having by the exercise of much economy 
 and with a great fight, saved a sum of ten 
 pounds, I was enabled in 1841, when I was 
 but seventeen, to visit for the first time the 
 great metropolis, bent on seeing its every place 
 of interest, and of looking, even should it be 
 at a distance, at the shining literary lights of 
 the day ; above all, of seeing Paternoster Row, 
 that renowned birthplace of books. Fresh 
 from a perusal of the life of Lackington, I had 
 determined upon seeing his " Temple of the 
 Muses," which I had heard Mr. Adam Black 
 describe, but which, while in London, I unfor- 
 tunately forgot all about — I am not sure, indeed, 
 if the place existed in 1 84 1 .
 
 TRADE VISITS 147 
 
 The appearance of " the Row " disappointed 
 me sadly ; it did not look very much better 
 than some of the "closes" off the High Street 
 of Edinburgh. By Mr. Talt's recommenda- 
 tion, I had gone to London in the steamboat 
 that carried the magazine. It was on " Maga- 
 zine day " I made my first appearance in " the 
 Row," — the day for the supplying of the trade, 
 wholesale and retail, with the various periodi- 
 cals then published, and this was, as a rule, 
 fixed for the last day but one of the month. 
 
 No mid-monthlies were published in those 
 days, and it would have been deemed a scandal 
 had a country magazine, say Tail's or Black- 
 woods, not come to hand in proper time for 
 distribution. Now there is no " Magazine 
 day " of the old kind, but during my continu- 
 ance in the trade it was a sacred institution. 
 So long as I had any connection with Mr. Tait, 
 his magazine was invariably up to time, but 
 the first number published in Glasgow nearly 
 missed fire in consequence of the unpunctuality 
 of the paper-maker. On that occasion the 
 bales containing the magazine were taken by 
 myself to Ardrossan by railway, thence per 
 
 L 2
 
 148 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 Steamboat to Fleetwood, and thence to London 
 by rail. I made my appearance at Stationers' 
 Hall Court in the nick of time, with the bales 
 in four hackney carriages, much to the astonish- 
 ment of the assistants of Simpkin, Marshall & 
 Co., who were actively engaged in prepara- 
 tions for the business of the two busy days 
 required for the work of distribution. 
 
 At present every day may be called a " Maga- 
 zine day," as some of these periodicals are issued 
 and on sale long before the end of the month. 
 Moreover, the circulation of several of the 
 magazines now published is individually greater 
 than the aggregate of all the magazines in ex- 
 istence fifty years ago ; so that a fixed day for 
 magazine distribution would be an impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 The London agents for Tail's Magazine and 
 other publications were Messrs. Simpkin & 
 Marshall, of Stationers' Hall Court, the greatest 
 book distributors of that period. I expressed 
 at one time to Mr. Tait my desire to go to 
 London in order to court fortune ; he managed, 
 however, to dissuade me. " I believe," he 
 said, " I could get you into Simpkin's at a
 
 TRADE VISITS 1 49 
 
 salary of probably sixty pounds a year, which 
 would be equal to fifty pounds here, but then 
 the work is hard — very hard. I have heard it 
 said that a young man is killed in Stationers' 
 Hall Court every four months by the terrible 
 work ; that is nonsense, of course, still, I would 
 not recommend you to go to London yet — it is 
 a city of terrible temptations to young men." 
 Taking the advice of my kind employer in 
 good part, I elected to remain in Edinburgh, 
 but I must say that during my visits to London 
 I did not find the assistants of Simpkin's look 
 as if they were particularly hard worked. 
 
 I have mentioned in another chapter that 
 letters and other small enclosures were put into 
 all our parcels sent to London. Upon one 
 occasion two bottles of whisky, insufficiently 
 packed, were placed in the bale which contained 
 the review copies of the magazine, and were 
 smashed by the way. The keen noses of the 
 editors detected the national odour which clung 
 to their copies, and one began his notice, — 
 " and here comes Tait, almost choking us with 
 its strong smell of whisky ; why does not Mr. 
 Tait send us the aqua in a quaich by itself ? "
 
 150 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 One among the many persons to whom I 
 was introduced by Mr. Reward of the 
 Examiner (who was Mr. Tait's advertisement 
 agent), during my second or third visit to 
 London, was Douglas Jerrold, whom, how- 
 ever, I had previously seen in Edinburgh, when 
 he paid a visit to Mr. Tait, I remember that 
 visit, and his saying to Mr. Tait, as they were 
 discussing the smells of Edinburgh, — " there is 
 one smell, Mr. Tait, that has been most grate- 
 ful to my nostrils ; it is the smell which rises 
 from the toddy-tumbler." Mr. Reward, who 
 seemed to be well acquainted with Jerrold, told 
 me there was one thingf on which he often 
 expressed himself bitterly — the fact that his 
 play of Black-eyed Susan, which (he said) 
 brought thousands of pounds to the managers, 
 and to him but seventy. Jerrold contributed 
 to Tait under a pseudonym, and also to Black- 
 wood. I met several of the Punch men during 
 my occasional visits to London — Messrs. May- 
 hew and Shirley Brooks being of the number. 
 The scene of such meetings was invariably in 
 a tavern. 
 
 Mr. Reward took me round to all the princi-
 
 TRADE VISITS I5I 
 
 pal publishers' offices, and to all the taverns 
 and chop-houses which were the haunts of the 
 people most interesting to me — the literary- 
 men and journalists and actors of the day 
 As he knew his ground I was fortunate, for 
 besides many men whose fame has evaporated, 
 we saw Dickens and Thackeray. And I saw 
 many of the places, such as the " Cider 
 Cellars," under the guidance of one of Mr. 
 Reward's clerks — seeing everything. Indeed, 
 that a young man from the country likes to see 
 in London. 
 
 Several other visits enabled me to become 
 well acquainted with London, and to see some 
 of the celebrities. It is not, perhaps, necessary 
 for me to explain that my visits to the great 
 people of the day were not made on terms of 
 equality, so that when I called to see Mr. 
 Joseph Hume in Bryanston Square, with a con- 
 fidential message from Mr. Tait, I was not 
 even asked to " take a chair " ; nor did Mrs. 
 Gore invite me to stay to lunch, although I 
 was the bearer of a little cheque. When I 
 handed a packet to Lord Brougham in the 
 lobby of the House of Lords, all he said, on
 
 152 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 looking at the superscription, was, — " Ah ! from 
 Tait, I see," and with that observation he went 
 into the House. One person, however, on 
 whom I called during one of my trips to Lon- 
 don was more than civil. Mr. Tait was very 
 desirous of finding out who a certain corre- 
 spondent might be who wrote striking articles 
 signed "Timothy." When I called at his 
 address, in a street off Holborn, and asked to 
 see " Mr. Timothy," that gentleman courteously 
 invited me to come upstairs. Mr. " Timothy" 
 was exceedingly friendly, insisting on my 
 "breaking bread " with him ; and we consumed 
 together an extemporized lunch of Stilton 
 cheese, bread and water-cress, with the grate- 
 ful accompaniment of a tankard of Dublin 
 stout. That " Mr. Timothy " was an Irishman 
 there could be no doubt, but although I tried 
 to "pump" him, I learned nothing as to his 
 identity. I duly made the suggestion for a 
 couple of articles for Tait, which I was em- 
 powered to make, and after an agreeable hour 
 or two spent in chatting, I took my leave. 
 Mr. Reward did not know " Mr. Timothy," 
 but from my description thought he might be
 
 TRADE VISITS I 53 
 
 a returned convict, who had at one time been 
 well known on the London Press. 
 
 These visits to London were pleasant, being 
 made under prosperous conditions ; there came 
 a time, however, when I saw it under a differ- 
 ent aspect. In truth there came a bad time 
 for me : I went to London with the intention 
 of setting fire to the Thames, and, like many- 
 other adventurers, I found that the river would 
 not burn. All the avenues leading to the 
 literary Temples of Fame seemed to be as 
 crowded forty years ago as they are to-day. If 
 to-day there are more aspirants, there is more 
 work to be done, periodicals and newspapers 
 having increased tenfold. It is not necessary 
 for me to go over once again the old, old story 
 of disappointed hopes, for it has often been 
 done before, and done far better than I could 
 do it. Many a time, when passing Anderton's 
 Hotel, did I contrast with it the threepenny 
 lodging-house in Pemberton Row, Gough 
 Square, of which I was an inmate, and where 
 one had to rise early to obtain the first turn at 
 the wash-hand-basin. 
 
 During my six months' residence in Pern-
 
 154 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 berton Row, I conversed in a friendly way 
 with two literary men who, like myself, were 
 " down on their luck," and glad of pen-work of 
 any kind ; one was a Dr. Rowley, a man of 
 excellent parts, a good scholar, and a gentle- 
 man. My other friend in misfortune was a Mr. 
 Watkins — the author of a considerable number 
 of novels published on the penny-a-number 
 plan, some of which, I was told, sold very well. 
 Mr. Watkins was good at constructing a plot, 
 but less successful in dialogue, and in delinea- 
 tion of character. At this time he was earning 
 about a pound a week by writing novels of the 
 " Dick Turpin " school for a well-known pur- 
 veyor of that class of literature, who had the 
 great merit of being a prompt paymaster. So 
 soon as an author was thought sufficiently 
 trustworthy to be engaged to write for him, 
 this publisher supplied the paper on which the 
 story must be written ; it was ruled like a 
 telegram-form, so that, when the " copy " was 
 received, there should be no trouble in calcu- 
 lating the quantity, and payment was made on 
 delivery of the manuscript. Some one after- 
 wards put the matter into proper shape by
 
 TRADE VISITS 155 
 
 dividing it into the very short paragraphs then 
 the fashion of " penny dreadfuls." They were 
 issued in numbers, each of eight pages, with a 
 woodcut perhaps for every two, and, "with 
 number one will be given away number two," 
 was the customary allurement. 
 
 Watkins, on some occasions, I noticed, 
 " laboured " his work ; ideas, he said, were slow 
 to come. " I know what I am driving at," he 
 would say, " but can't get the right words." 
 Often and often he would reverse his manu- 
 script ; first of all, he would do about twenty 
 lines of his chapter, writing them on lines wide 
 apart, between which he interpolated others till 
 he had matter for about half a page. In 
 the process of copying out on a clean sheet, 
 the " stuff," as he called it, would be expanded 
 to double or treble the length, and so, by con- 
 stant re-writing he in time produced his tale of 
 literary bricks, which being finally transferred 
 to the cross-lined paper, were taken to the pub- 
 lisher. The payment made for such work was, 
 I believe, not illiberal, but although Watkins 
 suggested that I should try my hand at it, he 
 never told me the rate. An after-time friend
 
 156 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 of mine, however, who had written in his 
 young days for the same pubHsher a romance 
 entitled "Secrets of the Sewers of London," 
 told me that he would work hard for a week or 
 ten days, and then, having a good few guineas 
 to draw, was able to take a fortnight's leisure 
 in Paris on the proceeds of his publisher's pay- 
 ment. 
 
 The mode in which my friend (afterwards a 
 showman of celebrity) composed his story was 
 thus related to me by himself: — "Having 
 access to a set of Colburn's Novelist's Library, 
 and having read most of the novels more than 
 once, I selected from each its most sensational 
 chapter, and altering the language, worked the 
 incidents described into my chain of events " — 
 and with considerable success, judging from the 
 sale of the "Sewers." 
 
 The publisher ultimately made a large sum 
 of money by his trade, but he was badly 
 annoyed occasionally by men who imposed 
 on him matter that had been barefacedly plagi- 
 arized from copyright sources. The plagiarism 
 was sometimes discovered, and the novel had to 
 be withdrawn from circulation after it had been
 
 TRADE VISITS I 57 
 
 paid for. No wonder, therefore, that he had 
 to be careful in his selection of authors. 
 
 Dr. Rowley's occupation at this time was the 
 compilation of a couple of columns of" Answers 
 to Correspondents," in the style of those given 
 in the Family Herald. The payment for each 
 instalment of two columns was but twelve shil- 
 lings. Letters sent to the Editor seeking in- 
 formation were duly attended to, but as the two 
 columns always required to be filled, answers 
 had sometimes to be manufactured, and in that 
 task my assistance was sometimes invoked, and 
 this was generally rewarded by an invitation to 
 share in a fish supper at Hungerford Market, 
 Mr. Watkins making a third. On one or two 
 occasions our party was joined by a person 
 who rather forced himself upon us, neither 
 Mr. Watkins nor Dr. Rowley seeming pleased 
 at his appearance. Afterwards, on asking the 
 reason of their repugnance to his company, the 
 Doctor explained that the man was known as 
 the " Bloodsucker," being editor of a filthy rag 
 which dealt in scandal and blackmailine. 
 Another of the characters who resided in the 
 Pemberton Row private hotel was a "penny-a-
 
 158 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 liner " of a most pronounced type, — clever, but 
 drunken to the last degree of toleration. In 
 his cups he posed as the " Fire-king " — the 
 reporting of " dreadful conflagrations " being 
 his favourite department. Another of the 
 lodgers was a well-known orator — an unfrocked 
 clergyman, I was told — who could be engaged, 
 at a moment's notice, on any side of a question, 
 his terms for a speech being " three half- 
 crowns " ; or he would engage to carry on a 
 whole night's discussion with an opponent, in 
 ten-minute speeches, either as a " Christian " or 
 an " Infidel " — the fee being one guinea. He 
 was sometimes sober enough for work for a 
 period of four or five consecutive weeks, durino- 
 which he told me he " coined money." 
 
 Some years before Mr. Tait thought of re- 
 linquishing business, I occasionally persuaded 
 him to allow me to visit Glasgow with the 
 view of making sales and collecting accounts. 
 On these occasions I enjoyed myself exceed- 
 ingly, " the trade " in that city being much 
 given to hospitality. Mr. David Robertson, a 
 well-known bookseller and publisher there, 
 introduced me to one or two of his verse-
 
 TRADE VISITS 1 59 
 
 writing friends, who had been brought into 
 notice by their contributions to " Whistle- 
 binkie," a popular collection of homely verses, 
 which enjoyed, and still enjoys, a considerable 
 circulation. Mr. Robertson was the projector 
 and publisher (and editor also, I believe) of a 
 capital collection of humorous Scottish anec- 
 dotes and witty sayings which for many a day 
 was a household book in the West of Scotland 
 called " The Laird of Loo;-an." Robert 
 Chambers was a " Whistlebinkie " man, while 
 others, such as Charles Grey, David Vedder, 
 and James Ballantyne (the writer of a once 
 highly popular song, " Ilka blade o' grass has 
 its ain drap o' dew ") were well known in Mr. 
 Tait's shop as authors of volumes of poetry. 
 I did not find a great demand in Glasgow for 
 Mr. Tait's publications, nor, at such private 
 houses as I visited, did I observe many 
 evidences of book-buying. At one supper- 
 table a discussion arose regarding one of 
 Burns's poems, but the point remained un- 
 settled, for there was no copy of Burns in the 
 house. 
 
 The eating of many pies and the drinking of
 
 l6o SOME MEMORIES 
 
 much ale and porter in public-houses and pie- 
 shops was the habit in the minor literary men 
 of Glasgow in the forties. Several of these 
 " howffs " were situated in queer corners, known 
 only to their frequenters, who sometimes stayed 
 carousing for the round of the clock — from 
 noon till midnight. 
 
 An institution which I was made free to visit 
 while in Glasgow was a "Grill club," situated 
 in a court off Argyle Street. Business began 
 at noon, the rule being that each member as 
 he entered ordered a gill of whisky, one-third 
 of which he took to himself, the remaining two- 
 thirds being dealt round in drops among the 
 assembled members. The sederunt lasted for 
 two hours, the members coming and going 
 during that time, exchanging pleasantries and 
 the news of the day. 
 
 During my later visits to Glasgow, I made a 
 point of calling on Mr. Peter MacKenzie, then 
 well known as an Editor and proprietor of the 
 Reformei's Gazette, which he conducted, as 
 even his political opponents admitted, with 
 great vigour and ability from the year 1837 
 onwards. He was a friend of Mr. Tait, there
 
 TRADE VISITS l6l 
 
 being a strong bond of union between them, 
 inasmuch as both had been actively concerned 
 in the exposure of the detestable " Govern- 
 ment spy system " (directed against the 
 Chartists and Reformers generally), and out of 
 which exposure arose a famous action, known 
 as " Richmond v. Simpkin and others " — the 
 defendants being Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 
 as agents for Tail's Magazine. Mr. Tait 
 described Mr. MacKenzie to me as " a most 
 conversible man," and this I found him. As a 
 journalist he was exactly suited to the stirring 
 times of which I speak ; but when things 
 quieted down, he and his paper were left 
 stranded. 
 
 Peter MacKenzie became an editor fifty 
 years too soon. To-day he would have been 
 in his element in what is called the "New 
 Journalism." He was apt in ferreting out and 
 exposing "jobs" and "abuses." One of his 
 triumphs was the exposure of a bogus Insur- 
 ance Company. So far as I know, Mr. Mac- 
 Kenzie was never the recipient of a testimonial 
 for any of these labours, but he was not slow 
 to suggest beneficences to others. It was owing
 
 l62 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 to his exertions that the impoverished widow 
 of Papillon the French chemist — who had been 
 brought from Rouen to teach the art of 
 Turkey-red dyeing, which has helped to enrich 
 the West of Scotland — was endowed with a 
 comfortable annuity. In addition to much 
 journalistic work, Mr. MacKenzie found time 
 to compile several volumes dealing with the 
 local history of Glasgow. 
 
 Another and more distinguished citizen of 
 Glasgow whom I had the pleasure of knowing 
 was Professor Nichol, then Regius Professor of 
 Astronomy at the University, author of the 
 " Architecture of the Heavens " and the 
 " Phenomena of the Solar System " (the latter 
 published by Tait), and one of the most brilliant 
 men, scientifically and socially, of his genera- 
 tion. I was so fortunate as to become installed 
 in his good graces by the interest I took in the 
 getting up of his book on the " Solar System." 
 His brother, Mr. William Nichol, at the time 
 an artist of note in Edinburgh, prepared the 
 plates for the "Architecture of the Heavens," 
 but the illustrations for the " Solar System " 
 were prepared by Mr. Schenk, a well-known
 
 TRADE VISITS 1 63 
 
 lithographer. I had the good fortune to detect 
 a serious blunder in one of the plates at an 
 early stage of the printing, a feat which led the 
 author of the work to make a little hero of me, 
 and when the Professor was the guest of Mr. 
 Tait for a few days he insisted on my being 
 asked one morning to breakfast, and one 
 evening to supper, that he might talk with 
 "that clever lad" — myself to wit! Naturally 
 I felt much honoured and gratified. Of his 
 lectures at the Philosophical Institution De 
 Quincey observed to Mr. Tait — " Nichol is in 
 himself a constellation ; he possesses learning, 
 rhetoric and a forceful elocution which takes 
 his audience captive." Dr. Nichol was, in 
 addition to being one of the most learned 
 and capable astronomers of his day, a " literary 
 man " of wide culture, and so practical in hand- 
 ling his pen that he was able to disport himself 
 in an extensive arena. I remember a clever 
 but rather eccentric Edinburgh literary lady 
 telling Mr. Tait that she had, in a dream, been 
 careering through space, mounted on a broom- 
 stick side by side with the Professor, who 
 entertained her during the long journey they 
 
 M 2
 
 164 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 made with his brilliant star-talk. " We had 
 just got the length of the New Planet when 
 I awoke, and I was so sorry to find my journey 
 had been all a dream." At the early age of 
 fifty-five the brilliant Professor died, all too 
 soon for science and his country. 
 
 Another of my memorable Glasgow acquaint- 
 ances of that day was Charles Mackay, then the 
 editor of the Glasgow Argus — a paper long ago 
 defunct. He afterwards edited various periodi- 
 cals, to which he invited me to contribute — but 
 as he has written his own autobiography, I need 
 only add that I always found him a pleasant 
 companion and a copious talker. 
 
 When " travelling " in Glasgow or other 
 towns, I always bore in mind the good advice 
 of my friend, Mr. James Knox (of Sutherland 
 & Knox), who had himself been " on the road." 
 " Never sit sotting in your hotel of an evening," 
 said he, "go rather to the theatre or to a con- 
 cert, it is pleasant and cheaper in the end, than 
 sitting drinking in your hotel or playing billiards. 
 You will find yourself brighter in the morning ; 
 but when you are invited to supper, beware of 
 Glasgow punch ; it is a fascinating compound,
 
 TRADE VISITS I 65 
 
 but usually exacts the penalty of a severe head- 
 ache in the morning from the unwary ? " Mr. 
 Knox was a shrewd man of the world, and, in 
 his later years in business in Edinburgh, acted 
 as a confidential accountant, especially in regard 
 to literary matters and publishers' accounts. 
 " Alick's," as the Theatre Royal in Glasgow 
 was then familiarily called, I frequently visited. 
 Mr. Alexander, the manager, was a remarkable 
 " character," and a versatile actor ; but when he 
 was on the stage he kept an eye on his audi- 
 ence, which, on occasion, treated him with so 
 much familiarity that he not infrequently felt 
 obliged to interrupt the play and make a speech 
 to "the gods." But " Alick " was always a 
 favourite. He had risen by the usual degrees 
 from the " penny gaff" to the proprietorship of 
 the Theatre Royal in Glasgow, and was one of 
 the very few men in his profession who retired 
 from it with a fortune. 
 
 There was another theatre in Glasgow in 
 those days, the well-known David Prince Miller 
 having set up the " Adelphi " on the Green. 
 It was but a wooden building, but that did not 
 prevent Mr. Macready and Miss Faucit from
 
 I 66 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 appearing on its stage. John Henry Anderson, 
 who called himself " the Wizard of the North," 
 also built a theatre in Glasgow in those days, 
 but it was not a success. 
 
 "The Shakespeare," situated in the classic 
 region of the Saltmarket, was the Glasgow 
 "Music Hall" of that period. When I first visited 
 it " Johnny " Murgall was the star of the night, 
 playing a scene in dumb show with much ability. 
 He was a prodigious favourite in Glasgow, 
 drawing great houses. Having gone to Mel- 
 bourne at the time of the great gold discoveries, 
 he made money there, and when he returned, 
 he was reported to be the richer by several 
 thousand pounds ; but when " Johnny " died, 
 shortly after, no trace of his money could be 
 found ; and to this day there is a " Murgall 
 Mystery," for the man lived soberly, and was 
 no spendthrift. He invariably carried his 
 money in large notes, concealed in some part 
 of his dress, and it has been supposed that 
 when his clothes were sold the money went, 
 unsuspected, with the bargain.
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES AND 
 "CHARACTERS" 
 
 " Do you see that little sharp black-a-vised 
 man there, crossing from the Mound ? — that 
 is Lord Jeffrey ; that other little man with the 
 big head, behind him, is Lord Cockburn ; and 
 the tall man he is walkinp- with is Thomas 
 Maitland of Dundrennan, and he's sure to be 
 a paper-lord [Judge] himself some day, if he 
 lives long enough." 
 
 These remarks were addressed to me by a 
 man who knew everybody, as we were walking 
 in Princes Street one fine afternoon. He 
 would have pointed out to me other celebrities 
 had he not been interrupted by John Howell, 
 whom I afterwards knew very well. 
 
 Howell was clever, and if he could have 
 settled his mind to any one pursuit might have 
 made a name in it. But he preferred to be
 
 1 68 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 known as a "Johnny A'-thing " (" Jack-of-all- 
 trades "), and he really was a most ingenious 
 person, and possessed of very considerable 
 inventive and constructive powers. He was 
 consequently much employed in out-of-the- 
 way jobs which regular tradesmen would not 
 venture on. Among his enterprises was the 
 building of a Roman Galley, which he ex- 
 hibited publicly in "The Saloon" at ii, 
 Hanover Street, describing it to a large 
 number of spectators invited to see it. He 
 was sure men could fly, if the proper kind of 
 wings were made for them ; he made a pair, 
 and, having put them on, leaped from a plat- 
 form erected behind Marshall's Panorama on 
 the Mound ; and, to no man's surprise save 
 his own, came to grief Robert Chambers, 
 who took considerable interest in Howell, 
 once paid him by cheque for some service. 
 The cheque was payable to bearer, and when 
 Howell was asked to endorse it he could not 
 remember his own name. Fortunately, while 
 he was trying hard to recall it, an acquaintance 
 entered the bank, and his salutation of " How 
 do you do, Mr. Howell ? " ended the difficulty.
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES 169 
 
 In my young days, as before and ever since, 
 Princes Street, which Carlyle called "the 
 brightest gangway," was the Edinburgh pro- 
 menade. The actors and actresses especially 
 used to display themselves there. Being not a 
 little stage-struck in those days, many a time 
 did I utilize my dinner-hour by lingering about 
 till they came on the scene. " That's Lloyd," 
 some one would say, or *' There's the manager," 
 or " Here comes Miss Nicol "; and then might 
 appear, perhaps, the famous " Bailie " of " Rob 
 Roy "— 
 
 " As in Macklin you find 
 The Jew that Shakespeare drew ; 
 So in Mackay you likewise find 
 The Bailie of Sir Walter's mind." 
 
 For many years I watched the processions 
 of local celebrities that filed along the street. 
 Professors and students, their lectures finished ; 
 Judges, the host of Advocates and Writers to 
 the Signet, coming leisurely Into view as they 
 crossed the valley from the old town by way 
 of the North Bridge, and mingled in the passing 
 stream of ladles shopping, made a fine show. 
 As the afternoon went on the scene became
 
 170 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 more animated. After sunset, when there were 
 fewer people to be seen, the old town began to 
 be lighted up, and the scene became picturesque 
 indeed ; while the sky-line produced by the 
 fantastic gables and roofs, when a bright moon 
 was shining high over all, had charms even for 
 persons whom the gods have not made poetical. 
 I speak in the past tense, but it is equally true 
 of the present. 
 
 "How this street has changed ! " said lately 
 a one-time resident, who had returned after 
 having been for long a dweller in a foreign 
 land ; when I left Edinburgh there were few 
 shops west of Frederick Street, main-door 
 houses and common-stairs were then the rule ; 
 now hotels, clubs and fine shops have taken 
 their place." It is indeed changed; for I do not 
 think there are more than four of its shop- 
 keepers' names in the directory for 1890 which 
 were in that of 1837. 
 
 On the same day that my friend pointed out 
 Lord Jeffrey in Princes Street, we were so 
 fortunate as to encounter in our walk three of 
 the most " kenspeckle characters " of Edin- 
 burgh — " Watty," '• Kate Dalrymple," and
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES I7I 
 
 " Doctor Syntax." "Watty" — his surname I 
 never knew — was an itinerant poet, an impro- 
 visatore. He wore a patchwork coat of many 
 colours, made up for him annually, it was said, 
 by a benevolent tailor of the city. This 
 wandering poet was always ready, never halt- 
 ing for a rhyme, and never sparing any one 
 who offered an opportunity for his doggrel — 
 either from his being a person of eminence, or 
 from the peculiarity of his person, or the cut of 
 his coat. Here is one of "Watty's" im- 
 promptus, which lingers in my memory : — 
 
 " This day you're all abroad, yourselves to show, 
 The atmosphere suits fine, the air is all aglow ; 
 Now comes our good and tall Miss Sinclair, 
 And passing in his cart see Jamie Tod the tinkler." 
 
 "Kate Dalrymple" was the "by-name" of 
 a person who occasionally ventured into 
 Princes Street, but who, as a rule, preferred 
 the less fashionable parts of the city. He was 
 a singer of songs, and of one song in particular, 
 that one from which his nickname was derived, 
 " Kate Dalrymple," which he sang remarkably 
 well. It was reported (as usual) that " Kate" 
 was a person of good family who had dissipated
 
 172 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 his means : he was " bhnd-fair," almost an 
 albino, and was always dressed in a red coat. 
 
 The appearance of " Doctor Syntax" (whose 
 proper name was Sheriff) was remarkable — 
 tight-fitting knee-breeches, black stockings and 
 buckled shoes, a loose coat and very low- 
 crowned hat — a rough copy of Rowlandson's 
 familiar conception. He dashed along Princes 
 Street looking exactly the "half-daft" person 
 he was known to be. Syntax was ever in evi- 
 dence, in lecture-room and church. The first 
 time I saw him was in St. Cuthbert's. He 
 was seated in a front pew, with a small candle 
 burning beside him, the afternoon being dark. 
 He was a tolerable artist ; lived a solitary life, 
 and was wont to dwell on certain real or 
 imaginary grievances which he related to all 
 who would listen. 
 
 These are but three of the many "characters" 
 prominent in Edinburgh in the thirties and 
 forties. One of the most strikine: figfures of 
 those days was Professor Wilson, "Christopher 
 North," but his lion-like appearance has often 
 been described and its memory perpetuated by 
 his statue in the Princes Street Gardens. I
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES I 73 
 
 am unwilling, however, to leave altogether 
 unnoticed a figure which so filled my youthful 
 eye ; and before passing on am fain to repro- 
 duce here my impressions of Profesor Wilson's 
 funeral, which I attended, although the words 
 have already appeared in print : — 
 
 "He was carried from his house in 
 Gloucester Terrace to his grave in the beauti- 
 ful Dean Cemetery on 7th April, 1854. I saw 
 there a great assemblage of men distinguished 
 for intellect, for rank and for wealth, and 
 crowds of his old students who had come to do 
 honour to the Professor whom they had loved 
 as well as honoured. Others were there of 
 humbler mien : there was a red-eyed, depressed- 
 looking fencing-master with whom ' Chris- 
 topher North ' had had many a bout at single- 
 stick. Jemmy Skinners, a poor waif of the 
 livery stables, to whom Wilson had been kind, 
 followed the hearse ; and a famous breeder of 
 ' Dandie Dinmonts,' from Liddisdale, in whose 
 house Wilson in the day of his hot youth had 
 often bivouacked during his Border angling 
 expeditions. An old proof-reader of the 
 Ballantyne Press who had passed through his
 
 174 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 hands all the proofs of ' Christopher in his 
 Sporting Jacket,' came, unbidden, in his suit of 
 
 sables, to tender respect to one whom all in 
 * Paul's Works ' had liked and admired. 
 There was also at the funeral an old servant of 
 the University, whose eyesight had faded away, 
 to whom Wilson had read, when he had time, 
 a daily chapter of the Bible ; and there was 
 likewise among the mourners an old * publican 
 and sinner,' at whose house the youthful 
 barrister, long before he assumed the decorous 
 cloak of the grave Professor, had held ' high 
 jinks ' and drunk whisky-punch with Lockhart 
 and others of the set till cock-crow. 
 
 " Old servants, old stablemen, old porters, old 
 soldiers and old sailors, were all seen in the 
 motley funeral company. Carlyle, notable 
 breeder of dogs, was there ; * Dandy,' great at 
 ' busking ' flies, had come all the way from 
 Kelso ; and from far-away Windermere, an old 
 boatman who had many a time rowed with and 
 against ' the Professor.' When the funeral 
 was over tears were in many unaccustomed 
 eyes, and there can have been few among the 
 mourners who did not feel that the earth had
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES 1/5 
 
 closed that day over a man, the like of whom 
 they would not know again. 
 
 ** No one who saw Professor Wilson in the 
 prime of his days, let me say about the year 
 1838, could possibly forget him. He was all 
 over, and he looked it, head to foot, a man, 
 living intensely his own particular life, breathing 
 to-day an atmosphere of letters and philosophy, 
 while to-morrow he might be seen breasting a 
 Highland hill or fording a brawling mountain 
 stream ; to-night the glory of a party of 
 intellectual athletes, to-morrow a cherished 
 guest in a gipsy encampment. But however 
 great Wilson might be as a giant among his 
 students in the Moral Philosophy class-room, 
 he was seen to the greatest advantage in the 
 country ; with his feet firmly planted on the 
 purple heath, and with the sights and sounds 
 of nature around him. There, he was * Chris- 
 topher North.' " 
 
 Although less known to the outer world. 
 Lord Robertson was one of Edinburgh's best- 
 known men, and many a hat was raised as he 
 passed along Princes Street. I shall never 
 forget the first time I saw him ; it was on a
 
 176 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 bright summer Saturday afternoon on the lawn 
 of a countr}^ house near Edinburgh, whither I 
 had been sent with a proof, for the return of 
 which I had to wait. There was a large 
 garden party, for whose amusement Lord 
 Robertson, during the hour I was kept sitting 
 in a summer-house eating pears, performed a 
 mock Italian Opera, taking all the parts in 
 turn, and dancing an occasional pas seul or 
 performing a terrific combat on the whale-bones 
 of an umbrella. I was at least as much 
 delighted and amused as the guests, and my 
 pleasure was enhanced by the pears, and by 
 the sixpence with which I was presented. I 
 saw his Lordship again at the Dickens dinner, 
 when by the kindness of the purveyor I got a 
 seat in the fiddlers' gallery, and heard his 
 versatile Lordship in an eloquent and feeling 
 speech propose the memory of Sir Walter 
 Scott. I believe that a little volume — and not 
 so little, either — might be filled with Robert- 
 sonian Reminiscences, but it is my business to 
 speak only of that which I know. He was a 
 figure both brilliant and much esteemed in the 
 times I am writing about. It was of him that
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES I 77 
 
 Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe said, "his bow 
 was bent with humour, and his arrows tipped 
 with wit." His epitaph was written for him, 
 long before it was needed, by John Gibson 
 Lockhart : — 
 
 " Here lies that peerless paper-lord. Lord Peter, 
 Who broke the laws of God, and Man, and Metre.' 
 
 I must not dwell on Princes Street much 
 longer, though every stone of it forms a coigne 
 of vantage from which to see some notability. 
 Here, for instance, comes kindly David 
 Dickson, minister of St. Cuthbert's, a man who 
 was greatly liked and respected by his con- 
 temporaries. I once heard him tell Mr. Tait 
 some characteristic stories, of which I took a 
 note at the time. 
 
 " Weel, Jenny," said the doctor to one of his 
 parishioners who had a common failing, " can 
 you tell me where all drunkards will go to ? " 
 " Oh, 'deed can I, doctor," said the woman ; 
 " they will just gang to the nearest change 
 house (public-house)." 
 
 Another "bedside story" was of a parishioner 
 who knew she was dying, but who persisted in 
 
 N
 
 178 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 worrying herself about things of the world. 
 At last, in order to pacify her, her husband 
 (a carrier) said, " Maggie, my woman, dinna 
 fash yoursel' aboot worldly maitters : listen to 
 the minister aboot yer hinner end, and as sure 
 as death, I'll gie ye a grand funeral." 
 
 Nothing of interest has been left to me to 
 relate about the Judges, except, perhaps, that 
 it was once my duty to run after one of them 
 to obtain payment of an account due to Mr. 
 Tait. The hunt occupied me, at intervals, a 
 long time, a variety of excuses being offered 
 for non-payment, until a lawyer's clerk of my 
 acquaintance advised me that the best place 
 " to nail " his Lordship was at the Court, and 
 it was in one of the private rooms of the 
 Parliament House that I obtained payment of 
 that book-bill. Gossip was always busy about 
 his Lordship's unpunctuality in money matters, 
 and laid the blame on his wife. 
 
 Thomas Maitland (afterwards Lord Dun- 
 drennan), Lord Fullerton, and Lord Cockburn 
 were wedded to three sisters. All were on 
 the bench at the same time, and all were 
 customers of William Tait, as was also the
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES I 79 
 
 Lord Justice Clerk of those days, John Hope, 
 who used to preside in awful majesty in the 
 High Court of Justiciary. His Lordship was 
 "jumped " into his great position without 
 going through the customary experience of 
 being Lord Advocate ; nor had he ever sat as 
 " Lord Ordinary." He was the most tremen- 
 dous Tory who sat on the bench in what may 
 be called modern times ; and I have heard him 
 say that he never read a newspaper. 
 
 In my young days the Misses Sinclair, of 
 Ulbster, were well known in Edinburgh, as, 
 indeed, were all the members of the Sinclair 
 family. Miss Catherine Sinclair was an 
 authoress of some renown, " Modern Accom- 
 plishments," " Scotland and the Scotch," and 
 other books of hers enjoying a large circula- 
 tion. In my day Miss Catherine was an 
 occasional visitor at Mr. Tait's, her books 
 being well spoken of in his Magazine. I have 
 a distinct recollection of having seen her 
 famous father * in a bookseller's shop ; that 
 would probably be a year or two before his 
 
 * Sir John Sinclair, Bart, projector and editor of "The 
 Statistical Account of Scotland," J 791-1799. 
 
 N 2
 
 l80 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 death ; what I particularly remember is my 
 telling the lady to whom I officiated on the 
 occasion as messenger that I had seen a 
 giant ! — for Sir John, I believe, stood six feet 
 six inches in his boots. None of the members 
 of his family, son or daughter, measured less 
 than six feet ; and it used to be said of Sir 
 John that among his other benefactions to his 
 country, he bestowed on it forty feet of 
 daughters. But he did much more than that 
 for his country. He was a remarkable man, 
 highly practical as well as imaginative, and 
 enthusiastic in all his undertakings. Among 
 the legends which gathered about him was one 
 which told how he once had some sheep 
 clipped at sunrise, and wore a coat made from 
 their wool at a party on the same evening. 
 Miss Catherine Sinclair always took a kindly 
 interest in the charitable institutions of Edin- 
 burgh ; she initiated and prosecuted many good 
 works, and well deserved the monument which 
 has been erected to her memory in the city for 
 which she did so much. 
 
 Were this chapter not already too long, I 
 might relate the story of my first experience of 
 
 I
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES l8l 
 
 Lord Jeffrey, when in the enjoyment of my 
 earlier summers I was " nabbit," in company 
 with some companions of Hke age, bird-nesting 
 in the woods of Craigcrook, and received a 
 solemn rebuke from the laird, sitting, not in 
 banc, but on his lawn. 
 
 I should have liked to say something, too, of 
 good old Dr. Neill, of Canonmills, at whose 
 pretty cottage I was wont to deliver Tait 
 every month, and to whose printing-office in 
 the Old Fish Market Close I used occasion- 
 ally to carry proofs, and next door to which, in 
 after years, I had a printing and publishing 
 office of my own. Personally, Dr. Neill was 
 perhaps more famous as an amateur horti- 
 culturist than as a printer, although his printing- 
 office is still celebrated. In it was printed, by 
 the Messrs. Fraser, the two latest editions of 
 the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." It was Dr. 
 Neill who may be said to have transformed 
 the Nor' Loch into Princes Street Gardens. 
 Canonmills Cottage, when the Doctor lived in 
 it, was likened to "a jewel in a swine's snout," 
 so beautiful were its gardens, and so unsavoury 
 were its surroundings.
 
 l82 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 And I am fain to recall from the past the 
 faces of Dr. Monro and his charming daughters, 
 who were often to be seen amid the gay 
 thronp-s of Princes Street. Sometimes the 
 ladies would come into the shop to borrow our 
 key to the Princes Street Gardens. On one 
 occasion they asked Mr. Tait to allow me to 
 take an important packet to their father, who 
 had gone out to his country house at Craig- 
 lockhart, about three miles from the city, and I 
 had instructions that, if he was not at Craig- 
 lockhart, I was to " follow and find him." He 
 was not at home, and I finally ran him down 
 at Redhall, the neighbouring seat of his son- 
 in-law, Mr. Inglis. Returning with me to his 
 own house. Dr. Monro sent me into the 
 garden, and told me to eat as many goose- 
 berries as I could manage, till he sent for me, 
 a behest which I obeyed very zealously, not 
 omitting, however, to admire the beautiful 
 flowers and shrubs, most of them planted with 
 the Doctor's own hands, for he was a keen 
 practical florist. He had succeeded his father 
 as Professor of Anatomy in the University of 
 Edinburgh, father and son, between them,
 
 SCOTTISH CELEBRITIES I 83 
 
 filling the office for more than a century. The 
 son was in the Chair during the Burke-and- 
 Hare period, and was much abused, as having 
 been a dealer in " burkit bodies " ; it was Dr. 
 Knox, however, who was most obnoxious 
 to the public in connection with that bad 
 business.
 
 SOME EVfeNTS 
 
 " Burns Festivals " are nowadays common 
 enough all over the world, but it was not so in 
 my young days. My first appearance at one 
 of these merry meetings was under the auspices 
 of the overseer of Mr. Tait's printing-office. 
 The supper took place in the old " York Hotel," 
 near the University ; none but Scotch dishes 
 were placed on the table, and toddy was the 
 only beverage. The "great chieftain of the 
 pudding race," of course, and a sheep's-head 
 pie were the. pieces de resistance. But the night 
 was not entirely devoted to eating and drinking 
 — we had song, speech and story, several of 
 the orations being marvels of eloquence, as I 
 thought. ' Burns, the man and his works,' was, 
 of course, the therne, but there was then, 
 I remember, more said than at present-day 
 festivals of the weaknesses of the man. The
 
 SOME EVENTS 1 85 
 
 later fashion is the better, for more than enough 
 has been written and spoken about " the sins 
 of Burns," and the pubHc can dispense with 
 further apologies. 
 
 Two or three of those who took part In the 
 "York Hotel" banquet were "characters," and 
 in consequence were allowed great latitude in 
 speech and song — especially in song, one of 
 these gentlemen insisting on giving, several 
 times in the course of the night, a few supple- 
 mentary verses of his own composition, addi- 
 tions which were not altogether for edification. 
 
 One of the notable events of my 'prentice- 
 days was the great " snow-ball riot " which took 
 place between citizens and students — " Town 
 and Gown" as it is called in England — and which 
 for a time was the cause of much ill-feeling. 
 It came off in the beginning of 1838, and was 
 a more than nine-days wonder. In the course 
 of my message-going, I took care to see as 
 much of the fun as possible. At first the affair 
 was a mere " bicker," but it soon went far 
 beyond that. The police' apprehended several 
 of the students, who subsequently obtained 
 their liberty, on the intercession of about fifty
 
 1 86 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 Other students, who, along with the prisoners, 
 pledged their honour not to resume the war- 
 fare. No sooner, however, were the prisoners 
 released than they met in the quadrangle of 
 the College and resolved to renew the disturb- 
 ances on the following day, and to arm them- 
 selves with bludgeons as well as snow-balls. 
 They were as good (or as bad) as their word, 
 and the riot had to be ended by the magistrates 
 calling out a detachment of soldiers, which took 
 the College quadrangle by storm. Even then, 
 however, it was not quite over, for during the 
 whole evening the students paraded the streets 
 in the same defiant way as on that preceding, 
 with a large crowd at their heels shouting and 
 hallooing. A scuffle between students and 
 crowd occasionally broke out, and a number of 
 windows were broken, but no serious disturb- 
 ance took place. There followed, of course, 
 the trial of the ring-leaders, and the excite- 
 ment effervesced in pamphlets, poetical squibs, 
 and caricatures. Had the fire-engines been 
 called out at the beginning the disturbance 
 mipfht have been ended in ten minutes. 
 
 I remember taking an intense interest in
 
 SOME EVENTS 1 87 
 
 what was called the " Pie-row." It had been 
 resolved that, in honour of the Queen's mar- 
 riage (February loth, 1840), an entertainment 
 should be given to the poor of Edinburgh, 
 out of the profits of an upper-class half-crown 
 banquet of wine and cake. The surplus was 
 to be expended in providing " a mutton pie, a 
 pint of porter, and a roll of bread " for each 
 " poor person," and Mr. Spence, the famous 
 pie-man of Hunter Square, was the contractor. 
 The distribution was appointed to take place 
 in the Green Market, the site of which is now 
 occupied by the terminus of the North British 
 Railway. The people were invited to be 
 present at one o'clock, at which hour the place 
 of rendezvous was densely crowded. The 
 arrangements, however, were utterly in- 
 adequate ; and when the three or four waggons 
 came on the scene laden with the materials of 
 the promised feast, the mob made an ugly rush 
 and " grabbed " whatever they could lay hands 
 upon. When those in the immediate vicinity 
 of the carts had eaten as many of the pies as 
 they could, they began to toss the remainder to 
 their friends on the outskirts of the crowd, and
 
 1 88 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 for a few minutes it rained pies and rolls, 
 hundreds flying- through the air at once ! The 
 policemen, powerless to preserve even the 
 semblance of order, had no alternative but to 
 aid in the work of tossing the pies over to 
 those who could not get closer to the waggons. 
 Some gentlemen who made an effort to pre- 
 serve order, cut a sorry figure as they emerged 
 from the fray, and, as may be supposed, 
 hundreds of poor people got neither pie, bread, 
 nor beer. But it was all very good fun for a 
 boy like myself 
 
 I have already mentioned that I was lucky 
 enough to see the Dickens banquet of 1841, 
 from the best of all possible points of view — 
 the fiddlers' gallery. It was the first public 
 banquet I had seen, and I enjoyed immensely 
 both what I saw and what I heard. Dickens 
 was then as popular as his novels, and nowhere 
 can he and they have been more popular than 
 in Edinburgh. The chairman was Professor 
 Wilson ("Christopher North"), and the speech 
 in which he proposed the health of Dickens 
 was worthy of both. Dickens surprised and 
 delighted the Edinburgh folks by the variety
 
 SOME EVENTS 189 
 
 and excellence of his oratory. He made three 
 several speeches, all good, and to the point. 
 I well remember the concludinor lines of his 
 reply to the toast of his health : — " I believe I 
 shall never hear the name of the Capital of 
 Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and 
 pleasure. I shall love, while I have life, her 
 people, her hills, and her houses, and even the 
 very stones of her streets. And if in the 
 future works which lie before me you should 
 discern — God grant you may ! — a brighter spirit 
 and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back 
 to this night, and point to that as a Scottish 
 passage for ever more. I thank you again and 
 again, with the energy of a thousand thanks 
 in each one, and I drink to you with a heart 
 as full as my glass, which will be far more easily 
 emptied, I do assure you." 
 
 The Queen's visit in 1842 formed a great 
 event in the annals of the city. Edinburgh 
 went mad over it to an extent sober Scots had 
 never done before. George the Fourth, when 
 he came in 1822, had a splendid reception, but 
 it was as nothing to that accorded to the young 
 Queen. Elaborate arrangements were made
 
 190 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 to greet her Majesty, but the best laid schemes 
 of Provost and BaiHes, Hke those of mice and 
 men, "gang aft agley," and so it happened with 
 the Queen's visit. 
 
 Arriving — the Queen had come by sea — at 
 an unexpected hour, none of the authorities 
 were at hand to greet her, and her Majesty had 
 to make her way to Dalkeith Palace (the seat 
 of the Duke of Buccleuch) without the 
 intended welcome and escort. A fog having 
 fallen on the Leith Water, the Queen's ship 
 could not venture to Granton, and so lay 
 behind the island of Inch Keith all night, 
 coming into port early in the morning, when 
 no one in authority was afoot. As may be 
 supposed, the Lord Provost (Forrest) and 
 Magistrates were unmercifully " chaffed " upon 
 being caught napping. There was ready to 
 hand the old ditty about " Johnny Cope " to 
 be parodied, and this was sung on the streets 
 for several days — 
 
 " Hey, Jamie Forrest are ye waukin' yet ? 
 Or are ye snorin' in yer bed ? 
 Sit up, my man, for the drums do beat, 
 And meet the Queen in the morning."
 
 SOME EVENTS I9I 
 
 " The Disruption " was a great event In the 
 days of my youth, but it would make too long 
 a story. With the Moses who led out the 
 hosts which made the Free Church of Scotland 
 — the famous Dr. Chalmers — I had the honour 
 of a slight acquaintance. He lived at Morning- 
 side, and often, as I was on my way home, I 
 used to see him scanning the dial of the village 
 clock. I don't think he carried a watch, and 
 as I was myself the proud possessor of a " gold 
 Geneva," I was able, one evening, upon being 
 asked, to tell the Doctor the exact time. After 
 I had done so he looked attentively at me. 
 "Surely," he said, "I have seen you before; 
 were you in the church on Sabbath, when I 
 preached?" "Yes, sir," I replied, " and the 
 Sabbath before that as well." " That is where 
 I have seen you, then." " Yes, sir, I always 
 go to hear you, when I know you will preach," 
 was my prompt (and truthful) reply. I 
 delighted in the Doctor's preaching, and have 
 sometimes walked half a dozen miles to hear 
 him. The next time I encountered the great 
 man, he shook hands with me, and asked 
 what my occupation was, and who my parents
 
 192 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 were, and seemed pleased to be told that I was 
 in the office of Taifs Magazine. He asked 
 me on that occasion to walk with him to his 
 house, and, taking me into his library, enter- 
 tained me for an hour with delightful conversa- 
 tion, not one word of it having reference to 
 "the Kirk." When Dr. Chalmers died, I was 
 not in Scotland, but in a few days after my 
 return I walked out to the Grange Cemetery, 
 where he was buried, to look upon his grave. 
 I spoke to one of the grave-diggers, but could 
 get little out of him but this — " The Doctor's 
 funeral was the biggest that's ever been seen 
 in Edinburgh." 
 
 An event of considerable political interest, 
 which took place in August 1844, was the 
 laying of the foundation-stone at a monument 
 to the Scottish political martyrs* of the foot of 
 the Calton Hill. Joseph Hume performed 
 the ceremony, a large body of enthusiastic 
 Edinburgh politicians having assembled on 
 the occasion. Mr. Tait had some time 
 
 * Muir, Palmer, Skirving, Gerrald, and Margarot, who 
 in 1794 were sent to Botany Bay, on account of their 
 advanced political opinions.
 
 SOME EVENTS I 93 
 
 previously published a pamphlet which 
 obtained a great circulation, giving biographi- 
 cal notices of the "martyrs," for it is now 
 generally allowed that the men were unfairly 
 tried and unjustly punished. Mr. Tait worked 
 hard in getting up the memorial, and hard 
 work was needful, for the response was slow 
 and the subscriptions niggardly ; the art of 
 collecting money for such affairs not being so 
 well understood half a century ago as it is 
 to-day. So strongly ran the feeling of some 
 citizens against its erection, that they applied 
 to the Court of Session for an " Interdict." 
 This, however, was refused, and Lord Jeffrey 
 delivered the judgment in a speech memorable 
 for its liberality and good sense. As Mr. 
 Tait's deputy I placed a jar containing docu- 
 ments in the cavity of the stone — and the pro- 
 ceedings were wound up by a dinner to Mr. 
 Hume in the evening. What most attracted 
 my attention in connection with the ceremony 
 was that one of the press-reporters was expert 
 enough to take down a full note of Mr. Hume's 
 address in long hand. 
 
 o
 
 LITERARY, LEGAL, AND OTHER 
 HOSPITALITIES ''SIXTY YEARS 
 SINCE" 
 
 The Modern Athenians have never been 
 deficient in the virtue of hospitality. Begin- 
 ning with breakfast — a mode of entertainment 
 much in favour with Sir Walter Scott, who 
 maintained that a breakfast party " saved vv^ine 
 and wassail " (although the Lord of Abbots- 
 ford was no niggard when the wine cups were 
 on his table). Literary and other travellers 
 used to be surprised and delighted with the 
 tables liberally supplied with an appetite- 
 provoking variety of fish, flesh, and fowl, hot 
 and cold ; with rolls, scones, coffee, tea, 
 delicious cream, and especially with a condi- 
 ment described by an old-time tourist, " a 
 bitter-sweet, but most delightful compound of 
 orange skins and juices, called ' marmalade,' 
 which we never see in England."
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 1 95 
 
 At the opening of the Court of Session, 
 the judges and high officials are always enter- 
 tained at breakfast by the President. In a 
 publication of many years ago, called The 
 Whim, only a few numbers of which were 
 issued, there appeared some rhymes descriptive 
 of one of these feasts. The followinof lines 
 being from memory, are not perhaps quite 
 exact, but they convey an idea of the opening 
 of the lines, which became highly personal 
 before their end : — 
 
 " Lord President Hope he fills the big chair, 
 With smiles on his brow for those who are there j 
 Close by him sit Lords Balgray and Cockburn, 
 Whose faces shine bright in the old Silver Urn, 
 His Lordship presumes they hke his good fare — 
 There's plenty to eat and plenty to spare." 
 
 The Lord High Commissioner to the 
 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 
 entertains the ministers at " breakfasts " during 
 the sittings of the Church Court. The 
 Moderator does the same, and many of the 
 hospitably inclined citizens of Edinburgh en- 
 tertain country clergymen and other members 
 of Assembly, at breakfast, as well as at dinner. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 For Professors of the University to entertain 
 their students to breakfast was, and still is, a 
 recognized custom, happily so for many of the 
 hungry lads who in my young days, at all 
 events, seldom had another opportunity of 
 making a " square meal." 
 
 But breakfast was by no means the only 
 Edinburgh meal. Dinner-parties "were fre- 
 quent and fine," not only " in the days of 
 auld lang syne," but " from the year '30 to the 
 year '49," as Professor Aytoun sang long ago in 
 an unprinted squib. Some of the more formal 
 feasts may have been rather " cold in their 
 tone," but many of the legal and literary 
 dinners given in the Scottish metropolis were 
 wont to be distinguished by their hilarity and 
 good fellowship. 
 
 In Lockhart's " Life of Sir Walter Scott," 
 and in Sir Walter's "Diary," we read much of 
 the dinner-parties of his period. Many of the 
 table luxuries were then much cheaper than 
 such things are to day. A hare, for instance, 
 good enough for soup, cost rather less than 
 eighteenpence, and the price of poultry was in 
 proportion. The variety of to-day, however,
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 1 97 
 
 was wanting. The dinner me7iu of sixty years 
 since was substantial. What Meg Dods called 
 "kickshaws" were not as a rule so much con- 
 sidered ; in only a few of the best Edinburgh 
 houses was an artist to be found who " under- 
 stood ^' such frivolities. 
 
 Dinners ct la Russe had not been heard of, 
 and as most of the dishes were prepared under 
 the immediate supervision of the lady of the 
 house, entertaining was then a labour. On 
 grand occasions the soups and sweets might be 
 ordered from Aitchison or Stewart, well-known 
 confectioners of the olden time, but the turbot 
 would be boiled, and the " gigot " of Cheviot 
 mutton would be cooked in the house, and 
 generally some " side-dish " for which the house 
 might be noted. And as everything had to be 
 placed on the table, much ingenuity and pains, 
 of which the hostess of to-day knows nothing, 
 were expended on rendering them presentable. 
 
 Fifty years since nearly every house in 
 Edinburgh where dinner-giving was a feature 
 of hospitality, presented some speciality for 
 the delectation of its guests. Judges as a rule 
 gave good dinners, and some gave much of
 
 198 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 their great minds to the business ; some went 
 further and gave their hands. Here is a story 
 of the time. In those days it was not illegal 
 to bring away the " squabs " (young Solan 
 geese) from their nests on the Bass Rock, and 
 one hospitable judge used to treat his guests 
 to these infantile sea-fowl, cooked in a manner 
 that rendered them delightful ; but the culinary 
 process was never revealed which made the 
 chickens — ordinarily commonplace enough — so 
 succulent and palatable. A brother of the 
 bench, anxious to penetrate the mystery, inter- 
 viewed the cook, and slipping a golden coin 
 into her palm, said, " Tell me, my woman, how 
 you make that delicious squab curry." " Eh, 
 sir," was the reply, as her fingers closed on the 
 largess, " I'm no able to tell you that, for his 
 Lordship aye mak's it his ainsel'." 
 
 A judge who, in his time, attained a noble 
 reputation as a dinner-giver, was Lord Gillies, 
 of whom it was sung that he looked " smart in 
 grey hat, with green umbrella in hand." There 
 seemed to be always hastening to his house in 
 York Place, day after day, a succession of 
 message-boys from fishmongers, poulterers,
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 1 99 
 
 fruiterers, butchers, dairymen and wine-mer- 
 chants, bearing supplies for his Lordship's 
 commissariat. "Suppers, dehghtful, enjoy- 
 able, prolonged," also afforded Lord Gillies an 
 acceptable mode of showing his hospitality. 
 Mutton curries, stewed ribs of beef and roasted 
 eels, were favourite dishes at these feasts, at 
 which the decanters kept the wit flowing far 
 into the small hours. 
 
 So thorough was his Lordship's determina- 
 tion to enjoy the good things of this life, that, 
 when alone, or with only one or two boon 
 companions, he would dine in the kitchen, 
 watching attentively the operations of his cook 
 as she deftly " brandered " a beef-steak or lamb- 
 chop. "It needs a clever woman, well 
 watched," he would say, "to cook a steak, or 
 boil a potato to a turn." 
 
 Lord Robertson is alluded to elsewhere in 
 this book, but he falls to be noticed again as a 
 liberal purveyor of " wine and wassail." His 
 Lordship's hospitalities, great and small, were 
 much appreciated by all who were privileged 
 to partake of them. At his parties the fun 
 usually became "fast and furious," song, recita-
 
 200 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 tlon and speech being the order of the night, 
 and Peter Fraser — " Peter of the Painch " as 
 he was nicknamed by Sir Walter Scott — was 
 often foremost in the fray. His drollery was 
 reputed altogether inimitable by his contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 As historically interesting, I may mention 
 that an Edinburgh poulterer of some sixty 
 years ago used to tell a story about an Edin- 
 burgh lady who had received from a friend in 
 England a brace of pheasants. The bird was 
 so unfamiliar that the lady sent the brace she 
 had received to be stuffed, as her cook main- 
 tained that "such bonnie birds couldna' be for 
 eating." A learned m.ember of the legal 
 profession, who knew better what was " for 
 eating " than the lady's cook, happened to be 
 sitting in the bird-stuffer's room when the foot- 
 man brought the birds, purchased them without 
 the skins and feathers, of course, and at a dinner- 
 party he gave next day, presented his guests 
 with the novel dish of a pheasant dumpling, 
 the first of the kind probably ever served in 
 Scodand. When Muirhead, the game dealer, 
 first offered snipe for sale in Edinburgh, few
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 20I 
 
 could be found to purchase them, but crowds 
 assembled to look at and examine the " lang- 
 nebbit " curiosities. 
 
 Another Edinburgh tradesman of the period 
 was the means of introducing to his customers 
 a most succulent denizen of the deep, vulgarly 
 called a " cock-paidle ") (see "The Anti- 
 quary "). Lord Murray, upon being asked by 
 the tradesman in question, Dalziell, the fish- 
 monger, to introduce the fish (the Lumpsucker) 
 at his table, his Lordship good-naturedly con- 
 sented, and his cook made a hit by sending it 
 to table after it had been plain-boiled in sea- 
 water, accompanied by parsley sauce. The 
 " cock-paidle " became for a time, in con- 
 sequence of his Lordship's patronage, a 
 favourite dish at "society dinners," cooked in 
 different modes ; it was baked in an oven, 
 roasted before the fire, and occasionally cut in 
 pieces and served with gravy, to which a good 
 handful of chopped mint had been added. 
 The lumpsucker was well known in many of 
 the humble households of sixty years since 
 before it began to be presented at fashionable 
 dinner-tables. It is a first-rate table fish when
 
 202 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 nicely cooked ; let me therefore recommend 
 my readers to try it. 
 
 Some of the vegetables and fruit now- 
 common enough were not obtainable half a 
 century ago. Some gentlemen used to " force " 
 a few things in their hot-houses, and I 
 remember seeing what was thought a novelty 
 at the time, a box filled with strawberry 
 plants (it would be in the year 1834-5) 
 the fruit being ripe and beautiful. The 
 fruit formed part of the dessert placed on 
 the table of a well-known banker of Edin- 
 burgh on the occasion of a dinner-party, 
 and the strawberries were meant to astonish 
 the guests. 
 
 The dinners of well-to-do citizens of sixty 
 (and much fewer) years ago were placed on 
 the table in " courses," vegetables and all, the 
 dissection of joint and fowl often enough giving 
 those who carved them a bad quarter of an 
 hour. Carving was then one of the accom- 
 plishments of a gentleman. A master in the 
 Edinburgh Academy told me that, on one 
 occasion when asked to carve a fowl at a 
 supper-party, he was so annoyed by his lack
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 20$ 
 
 of skill that he lived on fowls for a month 
 afterwards in order to learn the art. 
 
 A Glasgow merchant-prince, who one day 
 called on Mr. Tait, greatly amused that gentle- 
 man by his artless prattle about the simple 
 meal which satisfied him. "Give me," I heard 
 him say, " a plateful of hare or turtle soup, a 
 moderate helping of cod, with a dozen or so of 
 oysters, then a cut from a good sirloin of beef 
 or gigot of mutton, a bit of cabinet-pudding, a 
 morsel of cheese, a stick of celery, a bottle of 
 good port — and, I have dined, Mr. Tait, I 
 have dined ; that is really all I take, I assure 
 you." 
 
 A word or two may appropriately be here 
 said about the fish dinners, which have for 
 many a long year been a feature of Edinburgh 
 social life. So long as I can remember a fish 
 dinner at Newhaven has always been looked 
 upon as a feast worthy to be set before an 
 honoured visitor. My own experiences do not 
 extend further back than 1835, t>ut long before 
 then Newhaven fish dinners were of established 
 reputation. Sir Walter himself is said to have 
 officiated not unfrequently as the leader of a
 
 204 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 merry expedition to the little fishing port. I 
 heard " the Major " (Mr. Cartwright, a 
 "reader" at Ballantyne's printing works) tell 
 how that on one occasion " the great 
 Unknown " arranged for a fish dinner to be 
 given by the head of the department at his 
 (Sir Walter's) expense, and whilst they were in 
 the midst of their hilarity, the giver of the 
 feast, accompanied by Mr. John Ballantyne, 
 unexpectedly walked into the dining-room, and 
 spent an agreeable half-hour with them, much 
 to the gratification of the company. 
 
 In my young days, " Mrs. Clark's was the 
 dining-house for all to whom the total of the 
 bill " was not an object of great moment. 
 There were other dining resorts, of course — 
 perhaps half a dozen in all — where one could 
 obtain a fish dinner or " fish tea." The scale 
 of prices — as I have mentioned in my own 
 'prentice story — ranged from gd. to is. 3d. per 
 head ! Those, however, were the days when a 
 "muckle cod" would be carried to Edinburgh 
 by a fish-wife and there be sold for a shilling 
 or fifteenpence. In the thirties a turbot of no 
 mean size was sold for a shilling, whilst a
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 205 
 
 "puir saxpence " would provide a good big 
 lobster for the sauce. A " twa-pund haddie " 
 could sometimes be had for "three bawbees." 
 Sauce-oysters at sevenpence for a "fish-wife's 
 hunder" (120) were to be had from a barrow 
 in every Edinburgh street. Fish dinners are 
 still served in Newhaven, but I do not think 
 any of the Clark family are now to the fore, 
 Mrs. Main, a daughter of Mrs. Clark's, on 
 whom had fallen her gastronomic mantle, and 
 who became lessee of "The Peacock," having 
 retired. Dickens, John Blackwood, Macready, 
 Sheriff Alison, Charles Kean, Buckstone the 
 comedian, David Roberts the painter, 
 Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold, the Howitts, the 
 brothers Chambers, Lord Robertson, Charles 
 Mathews, Frank Buckland, James Hannay, 
 " Russel of the Scots^nan,'' Henry Irving, and 
 many other celebrities, past and present, were 
 wont to delight in a fish dinner at Newhaven, 
 despite the outside dirt and discomfort of the 
 little town, and its "ancient and fish-like 
 smell." 
 
 The Newhaven fish-wives — who has not 
 been in love with "Christy Johnstone" ? — have
 
 206 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 always excited the admiration of visitors, 
 especially the artists. George IV. — who was 
 surely a connoisseitr — -when taken down incog. 
 to the village by Sir Walter, declared he had 
 never seen a handsomer set of women. The 
 verdict pronounced by Dickens on the occasion 
 of his first visit was — " This is immense ! The 
 service is not so fine as it is at Greenwich, but 
 the fish ! and the cooking ! " Peter Fraser, 
 the bookseller, who was the host of the day, 
 had arranged for the two girls, who usually 
 waited at Mrs. Clark's table, to dress them- 
 selves for the occasion in the picturesque 
 costume of the fish-wives, so as the more to 
 gratify the author of " Pickwick.' 
 
 I recall the occasional most enjoyable 
 auction-room dinners given by Mr. C. B. Tait 
 about 1 835-1845. These took place on 
 occasional Saturday afternoons. Rough-and- 
 ready meetings they were, often got up at an 
 hour or two's notice, to admit of the presence 
 of some passing celebrity — literary, musical, or 
 dramatic. Many desired to be present on such 
 occasions, but the company was usually 
 restricted to "interesting" people — painters,
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 207 
 
 preachers, professors, poets, lawyers, literary 
 merij comedians, a sprinkling of epicures. 
 
 I am able to speak of those Saturday dinners 
 from personal knowledge, having on some two 
 or three occasions been impressed into the 
 service by Thomas Gulland, Mr. Charles Tait's 
 factotum, who on the occurrence of such 
 "ploys" performed the part of butler. My 
 first duty was to rush through the city in a 
 hackney-coach and collect the guests. Mr. 
 Scott Moncrleff and his friend Mr. Murray, 
 manager of the Theatre, as also Sir William 
 Allan, the painter, had often to be sent for, 
 also Mr. Lloyd, the comedian, Mr. Norrie, the 
 painter, and, when in Edinburgh, some 
 theatrical star, such as Charles Mathews. 
 Then I would have to hasten over to Hewart's, 
 perhaps to expedite them with the oyster-soup 
 or the mulligatawny. A man who kept a 
 cook-shop near the auction-room always 
 supplied the fowls and ham — the latter usually 
 baked in paste. Other portions of the dinner 
 required to be collected from various places. 
 A special feature of these impromptu dinners 
 was the curry, of which there were usually two
 
 208 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 or three kinds, prepared by an unattached East 
 Indian expert. What his name may have 
 been I never knew, but he was called " the 
 Baboo," and was a p7'oUgd of Mr. Falconer, 
 of Falcon Hall, a retired East Indian Civil 
 Servant, who often employed him, and recom- 
 mended him to his friends. His curried 
 oysters, crab-claws, and ox-cheek, were famous 
 in those days. 
 
 At these dinners the wines and liquors 
 formed a chief attraction — whatever was 
 accounted rich or rare, from " Imperial Tokay" 
 to humble Edinburgh ale, was placed at the 
 service of the guests. One invariable feature 
 of the feast was cheese in great variety ; some 
 native, some foreign — never less, I think, than 
 half a dozen kinds. The cheese-dishes passed 
 round with the various decanters and black 
 bottles, and were in constant demand. I also 
 "dined" on these Saturday afternoons, not, of 
 course, at the guest-table — but in a snuggery 
 in company with my friend Thomas, and on 
 one of these occasions I enjoyed, and that 
 greatly, my first glass of champagne. Of 
 course, when I became a full-blown assistant in
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 209 
 
 the office of Tail's Magazine, Thomas lost my 
 aid and my company, and I lost, in exchange 
 for my dignity, many a treat, both material and 
 intellectual. 
 
 Of the much feasting which went on in legal 
 circles fifty years ago here is an illustration 
 which I believe to be new. Mr. Ryan, at one 
 time a print-seller in Hanover Street, and who 
 had been butler to a popular county sheriff, 
 told me about several "choice spreads" he had 
 planned which were much enjoyed, there being 
 first of all a good dinner, good dessert, and a 
 plentiful supply of good wine ; then " the feast 
 of reason and the flow of soul." There was 
 nothing new in all that. The peculiarity of 
 these feasts seems to have been that the guests 
 who sat down to table invariably numbered 
 eleven, neither more nor less, and that one of 
 the guests — the odd man, apparently — was 
 always one of the judges. Why eleven, and 
 why only one judge, were points never 
 explained to me, and my unaided intelligence 
 has proved insufficient. The dinners were 
 held successively in the diners' houses, but if 
 these diners formed a club, I have not been 
 
 p
 
 2IO SOME MEMORIES 
 
 able to jfind out its deslsfnation. None of the 
 persons I have asked had ever heard of these 
 dinners of eleven. 
 
 Mr. James Ballantyne's "Waverley- Novel" 
 banquets had, for the best of all reasons, been 
 discontinued long before I had anything to do 
 with the "commerce of literature." Nor were 
 the " Candlemaker Row festivals," held in 
 honour of the Ettrick Shepherd, continued 
 after his death, though memories of both and 
 their humours were common enouoh in " the 
 
 o 
 
 trade" when I first entered it, and such 
 reminiscences were eagerly received from the 
 eye- and ear-witnesses. I never, during my 
 service in Mr. Tait's warehouse, heard of any 
 banquets to his authors of the kind reputed to 
 have been in vogue in the days of Constable. 
 The writers in Tait's Magazine were so 
 scattered that it would have been difficult to 
 bring any large number of them together. The 
 " Blackwoodsmen," I believe, were often enter- 
 tained by the hospitable editor and publisher, 
 but I can give no particulars of these "Noctes," 
 nor of the supper-parties given by Professor 
 Wilson, which, as Professor Aytoun said, were
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 211 
 
 *' full of mirth and full of go, and ever and 
 always had been just so." 
 
 The Royal Company of Archers, and the 
 Honourable Company of Golfers used to exer- 
 cise, and I fancy still exercise, a bountiful 
 hospitality, whilst the Yeomanry Mess has 
 always entertained liberally. The Merchant 
 Company too, and other good old corporations, 
 dine as well as ever. 
 
 What, perhaps, was peculiar to Edinburgh, 
 is, that Banks and Insurance Offices feasted 
 their friends ; some of the Banks supplying 
 their table on such occasions from their own 
 great cellars of fine old wines. As the Town 
 Council had been "reformed," and had turned 
 over a new leaf, the dinners of that body, or of 
 its committees, were, at the time I am writing 
 of, few and far between. But there had been 
 much municipal " cakes and ale " in by-gone 
 days. One of the city officers told me that he 
 and two of his colleagues were, in the olden 
 time, in the habit of "feasting and fuddling," 
 in the hotel selected for a magistrates' dinner, 
 for a week before and a week after the event. 
 
 p 2
 
 2 12 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 II 
 
 The Supper-party was at one time the com- 
 monest form of Edinburgh festivity. They 
 were given by all classes and were much en- 
 joyed, one reason for their long-continued 
 popularity was, doubtless, their being less 
 costly than dinners, and also less formal. 
 Ladies who did not care to " dress " to o-q out 
 to breakfast, much preferred the evening to the 
 morning meal — both being of an equally in- 
 formal character. Bachelor revels, as a rule, 
 were held in taverns which possessed "par- 
 lours " to be reserved for special parties, and 
 every night some band of roysterers might be 
 seen, or at any rate heard, enjoying themselves. 
 Again, little clubs of youthful lawyers were 
 accustomed to gather round the festive board 
 at each other's lodgings "time aboot," when 
 that was convenient. Supper dishes were 
 usually at once spicey and inexpensive, such as 
 broiled "Finnan baddies," eggs and bacon, 
 devilled kidneys, curried rabbits, oysters in a
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 213 
 
 hundred " ways," "partan [crab] pies," baked 
 crabs, minced collops, lobsters, anchovy toasts, 
 
 Welsh rabbits but I have no memory and 
 
 no room for a complete list of the savoury 
 dishes which figured at old-time Edinburgh 
 supper-tables. Bottled ale, Prestonpans table- 
 beer, followed by whisky-toddy, were the 
 usual accompaniments. Rich or " showy " 
 people provided port and sherry, and even, on 
 occasion, but rarely, claret and champagne. 
 Lord Jeffrey's winter dinners, and summer 
 " Saturday afternoons " at Craigcrook have 
 been often written about, and one or two of 
 his brethren of the Bench were celebrated for 
 their " Saturday-night suppers," at which would 
 assemble a party of a dozen or fifteen for three 
 or four hours of more or less refined revelry. 
 It is " gentlemen's parties " only to which I am 
 referring. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe used to 
 say, — " I am kept so busy eating other people's 
 suppers, that I have no time to give any my- 
 self ; " but he contrived, for all that, to enter- 
 tain, occasionally, a select few of his friends, 
 providing on such occasions some dainty of 
 an unusual kind for their delectation. He was
 
 214 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 famed for his excellent " devils," and claret. 
 As Mr. Charles Tait once sang, after one of 
 his little suppers, — 
 
 " Master Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe 
 Is less angelic than civil ; 
 He never gives us a tune on the harp, 
 But he makes a very good ' devil.' " 
 
 Professor Pillans, after he had gone to the 
 University, was fond of having his old High 
 School boys, as well as his students, to break- 
 fast or supper almost daily. One year, when 
 the good Professor had rented the farm-house 
 at the foot of Blackford Hill — a place about 
 two miles from Edinburgh — he did not relax 
 his hospitality, but asked little parties of his 
 students to come out to " take pot luck " with 
 him two or three times a week. On one 
 occasion, when half-a-dozen of these lads of 
 meagre aspect were on the way to their Profes- 
 sor's feast, they attracted the attention of two 
 "wits of the Parliament House" (a mythical 
 class on which used to be fathered all Edin- 
 burgh jests, old or new). "Who can these 
 hungry-looking fellows be ? " said one of the 
 wits to the other. " Oh," was the reply, "they
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 215 
 
 are evidently students on their way to dine 
 with Pillans at Blackford ; he is Professor of 
 Humanity, you know." 
 
 " An oyster supper such as we are now par- 
 taking of," said Sir Walter Scott, to one of his 
 visitors (the poet Crabbe), " is one of our 
 simplest forms of hospitality." At one time 
 these toothsome morsels were delightfully cheap, 
 and were always on sale at most of the Edin- 
 burgh taverns, or, as they were then called, 
 "coffee-houses." In 1837 there was, however, 
 one house solely devoted to the sale of oysters. 
 It was kept by Mrs. Dow, and was situated 
 conveniently close to the Theatre Royal, by 
 the habittids of which it was pretty well patron- 
 ized. Another oyster-tavern was afterwards 
 opened by a Mrs. Dewar in Waterloo Place. 
 Oysters in numbers, almost incredible nowa- 
 days, were then consumed, and both houses in 
 their time were favourite resorts of all classes 
 especially at night ; but, as a general rule, the 
 upper classes partook of their bivalves in the 
 comfortable coffee-rooms of the houses which 
 they " used," such as " Cork's " (the University 
 tavern), the " Cafe Royal " or " Rainbow," and,
 
 2l6 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 later on, the " Regent." Nothing more de- 
 lighted strangers visiting the city than the 
 abundant and cheap supply of these dainties,. 
 of which Peter Fraser once defied Dickens to 
 eat a shilhng's-worth at a sitting. 
 
 Dr. Robert Chambers, in his delightful 
 " Traditions of Edinburgh," relates that 
 oysters had been in evidence in the taverns of 
 "Auld Reekie" for a century before his day,, 
 affording an excuse for many a merry meeting. 
 Another feature of the period embraced in 
 these recollections {1835 to 1845), was the sale 
 of oysters in the streets, by young women, 
 chiefly from a fishing place known as Fisher 
 Row, practically a part of the town of Mussel- 
 burgh. The musical proclamation of these 
 fair oyster-merchants — " Caller Ou " — might 
 any winter evening be heard throughout the 
 city, and quickly, on demand, they would set 
 down their creels, and deftly open a dozen of 
 their shelly ware. 
 
 The Edinburgh oyster supper of fifty years 
 ago was an inexpensive affair. The "whiskered 
 pandores " of Prestonpans could, in those days, 
 be enjoyed at the rate of tenpence for "a
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 2X7 
 
 board," with bread-and-butter ad libihwt ! A 
 board of oysters, it may be explained, ranged 
 from thirty-six to sixty-six ; and " Firth of 
 Forth natives " were usually served on the 
 deep shell, and eaten without the aid of any 
 condiments, their own gravy being thought 
 sufficient by all who knew how to appreciate a 
 good thing. 
 
 This chapter may be fittingly concluded with 
 a little story that I heard told on one occa- 
 sion in Mr. Charles Tait's auction-room. The 
 wife of one of the most famous judges of 
 the Court of Session, who flourished sixty 
 years since, was of so exceedingly penurious a 
 disposition, that she would provide nothing 
 deemed respectable for the famous Saturday- 
 night suppers at which his Lordship had been 
 accustomed to entertain parties of a dozen or 
 more of his friends of the bench and bar. 
 His Lordship was driven to invent something 
 which might atone for its cheapness by its 
 novelty, and introduced a dish to his Saturday- 
 night visitors, which made a great hit. He 
 gave them black puddings ! and they were at 
 once proclaimed to be delightful. Lord Parch-
 
 2l8 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 ment's " B. P.'s " became the rage, large help- 
 ings being in demand. They were supplied 
 by an old man who sold them al fresco in the 
 High Street, near John Knox's corner, and his 
 Lordship's cook knew how to send them up to 
 table. With these puddings, a good supply of 
 anchovy toast, and plenty of good claret, his 
 Lordship happily managed to overcome his 
 domestic difficulties, and without any check 
 " to the feast of reason and the flow of soul." 
 " Lord Peter's " apropos little verse may here 
 be quoted — from memory, however, and prob- 
 ably not quite correctly, but it ran pretty much 
 as follows : — 
 
 " You may talk of your turbots and curry so warm, 
 Your hams of Old York, and your turkey that's braised. 
 But in anchovy toast and good claret there's charm, 
 While for his black puddings his Lordship be praised." 
 
 The worthy pudding-merchant who supplied 
 the judge's supper-table may be again briefly 
 referred to. At one time his goods were in 
 great request, and persons bought from him 
 "on the sly," who did not like their marketing 
 to be known. But not all his customers were 
 snobbish — a messenger would come down
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 219 
 
 every day in the winter time from the Com- 
 mercial Bank, then situated in the High Street, 
 for a supply, and many of the old-fashioned 
 merchants used to bestow their patronage 
 openly on the old man, who sat near to the 
 entrance of Oliver and Boyd's publishing 
 warehouse at Tweeddale Court, his wares piled 
 in a great basket. The result was that when 
 this old pudding-merchant died, he was found 
 to have accumulated a fortune of nearly four 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the account given of my "'prentice days," 
 I found it necessary to make some references 
 to the Edinburgh taverns then doing business 
 as places where hospitality was exercised by 
 many gentlemen who probably were unable for 
 various reasons to entertain their friends at 
 home. The best in the days of my youth 
 were undoubtedly the " Rainbow " and the 
 "Cafe Royal," the latter of which, on another 
 site, is still doing business. They were too
 
 220 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 expensive to be frequented by any but the 
 rich or the extravagant. The patrons of the 
 " Caf6 " sixty years ago were greatly given to 
 sport : hunting and racing men were wont to 
 meet and hold high revel over devilled bones 
 and claret, a wine much in demand, and which 
 was always "good at this house." Many of the 
 wealthier merchants held their snug little dinners 
 in "The Rainbow," the windows of which com- 
 manded a fine view of the butchers' " killing 
 booths " — a site now occupied by the station of 
 the North British Railway. Some years have 
 elapsed since the premises occupied by the 
 tavern named began to be utilized as a portion 
 of a draper's warehouse, but in the palmy days 
 of tavern life in Edinburgh, the "Rainbow" 
 played a bustling part, one of its chief attrac- 
 tions being the dishes prepared by Kirsty Bell, 
 who was famous for her "devils." And its 
 cheese, lovingly kept and cared for, and dosed 
 judiciously with ale or port, was a "speciality." 
 So was the hock, which took rank with best 
 bins of port at the " Cafe." Banquets and 
 great political or literary dinners were usually 
 held in the Royal Hotel, in Princes Street,
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 221 
 
 or in one of " Barry's Rooms" in Queen Street. 
 It was in Barry's that Dickens was first feted 
 in Edinburgh, and it was in the " Royal" that 
 Joseph Hume was entertained, on the occasion 
 of laying the foundation-stone of the Martyrs' 
 monument. 
 
 The tripe-supper was best served at the 
 " Guildford Tavern " in Register Street, and at 
 "Ambrose's" in Gabriel's Road, famous as the 
 scene of the " Noctes Ambrosianae." At the 
 last-named house of entertainment, the tripe 
 was served in its natural state — at the "Guild- 
 ford " it was served, as it came to be named, 
 "a la De Quincey," viz., smothered in a thick 
 white sauce, richly stocked with thin slices of 
 well-boiled onions. " All sorts and conditions 
 of men" supped on tripe at the "Guildford," 
 and the "English Opium-Eater," very fre- 
 quently when he was " lost," might have been 
 found there. It was there, too, the proprietor 
 of Tail's Magazine frequently entertained his 
 literary and political visitors, among whom I 
 remember William and Mary Howitt, Sir 
 William Molesworth, Dr. Bowring, and Joseph 
 Hume. "Prime Edinburgh Ale" — more like
 
 222 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 the old-fashioned English Cottage Ale than 
 "India Pale" — was usually the liquor con- 
 sumed on those festive occasions, and if the 
 sitting was prolonged to a late hour, a bowl of 
 punch would follow, or perhaps a bottle or two 
 of claret. 
 
 For epicures with light purses there were, of 
 course, humbler houses of entertainment In 
 a house down a stair in Broughton Street, 
 much frequented by booksellers' clerks, one 
 might obtain, at the modest charge of seven- 
 pence, a liberal helping from a succulent dish 
 of what the proprietress called " salmon hash." 
 It was better-known as " Tweed kettle," and it 
 could be obtained all day long, hot or cold to 
 taste. Shocking to relate, it could be got all 
 the year round — no matter the season — and 
 always excellently well cooked ; the landlady, 
 being a Kelso woman, was familiar with the 
 fish and its capabilities. "Salmon hash " was 
 served with the accompaniment of specially 
 delicious flour-scones ; and whisky-and-water 
 was esteemed the correct beverage with which 
 to wash both down. The same worthy cook 
 was famed for her rabbit soup, a large basinful
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 2 2$ 
 
 of which cost fivepence, a scone being given 
 into the bargain. But it must be understood 
 that in those days rabbits could be bought for 
 sixpence apiece. This same Broughton Street 
 house was a great place for "Sabbath-night 
 teas," a cup of tea with thick slices of bread- 
 and-butter, and a plate filled with the famous 
 " salmon hash," at one shilling per head. A 
 arge business was done on these Sunday- 
 evenings, for the house speedily became a 
 "howff" for young men and women keeping 
 company. 
 
 Most of the taverns and hotels in Edinburgh, 
 when I went therein 1837, had their reputation 
 for some speciality. " Paterson's," in the 
 Fleshmarket Close, had many good things, but 
 the best was its claret. It was the meeting- 
 place of several select bodies of quiet citizens, 
 who three or four times in the course of the 
 year assembled to enjoy "a crack" over a 
 good dinner and a tumbler or two of whisky- 
 toddy. Many a curious wager, too, used to 
 be worked off in that tavern. Among the 
 memorabilia of this house may be mentioned 
 what once was called "the great beef-steak
 
 224 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 dinner of 1840," when a party of about thirty 
 citizens of renown arranged to hold a meeting, 
 the object of w^hich was to test which cut of ox 
 made the best beef-steak, sundry wagers being 
 dependent on the result. " Wits from the 
 Parhament House" (to say good things), 
 officers from the two garrisons (to Hsten), three 
 or four of the gravest of Edinburgh merchants 
 (to keep good order), were there, while the 
 professional comedians were represented by 
 Murray, the Manager, and MacKay, "the 
 Bailie." In addition to these there assembled 
 a motley dozen of editors, literary men, and 
 men knowing nothing perhaps save the fine art 
 of eating and drinking, but knowing it well. 
 After dinner came a lady to grace the 
 assemblage with her presence ; that adventur- 
 ous female, however, was a " mystification " 
 enacted by " the Bailie " in order to the 
 advancement of the general hilarity. I do not 
 know what judgment was recorded ; probably, 
 when the verdict was called for, the jury would 
 not be in the fittest condition to give one 
 which could be accepted by the world as final. 
 But one of the men who was present gave it
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 22 5 
 
 as his opinion (and he was well entitled from 
 his great experience to lay down the law) that 
 a steak cut from the ribs of the ox and 
 " brandered," bone and all, was by far the best 
 of the lot. So let It be — I have no desire to 
 dispute the verdict. 
 
 Near "Paterson's" was a house of humbler 
 pretensions, famed for Its preparation of "potted 
 head " (brawn), which was always in great 
 demand by shopmen and the smaller class of 
 tradesmen. A plateful of potted head with 
 mashed potatoes and a bottle of Prestonpans 
 table-beer was considered as " cheap and 
 filling " at the price of sevenpence ! Edinburgh 
 was long famed for its "pie-shops." Spence's, 
 in Hunter Square (which I have mentioned 
 before), used to do a great business in pies, 
 and the same good fortune attended a dealer 
 in the South Side ; and Mrs. Lawson's, in 
 Rose Street. The Edinburgh " closes " had 
 many well-frequented taverns largely indebted 
 to some "clique" for support, probably a lodge 
 of Freemasons or " Free Gardeners," or some 
 such trade — the Master-masons (not " Free- 
 masons") having one or two special places of 
 
 Q
 
 226 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 meeting, Master-carpenters another, and so on. 
 There were houses specially affected by town- 
 councillors and city officials, while the smaller 
 fry of the Parliament House had also their 
 favourite taverns. A great amount of political, 
 municipal, and other business was amicably 
 settled in these houses over a plate of 
 "rizzarded (grilled) baddies," a Welsh rabbit, 
 or a dish of stewed ribs of beef (famous dishes 
 at the " Anchor Tavern " and " John's Coffee- 
 house " ) ; and, after business on occasions, 
 "high jinks" of a most pronounced kind were 
 not seldom engaged in to the accompaniment 
 of much whisky-punch or toddy. 
 
 " The poor man's oysters here are sold, to 
 buy them needs no gold," was the beginning of 
 a long poetical address which the proprietor of 
 a " mussel emporium " in the Old Town had 
 caused to be written early in the century 
 as a means of advertising his trade. His 
 place, which was near the head of the 
 Canongate, was still being carried on during 
 part of the time I was an apprentice, and 
 the mussels seemed to be highly appreciated. 
 They were served not only au nature!, but
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 2 2 7" 
 
 cooked in eleven different modes. As the 
 rhyme ran, — 
 
 " You can have them in stew ; 
 Roasted, too — 
 And curried and baked as well." 
 
 I cannot, however, at present remember all the 
 "eleven ways " ; but the rhyme concluded, — 
 
 " They are cooked, and ready for all, 
 And sixpence only is the call." 
 
 And for that sum I know the customer was 
 allowed fwo helpings, with a bread-and-butter 
 accompaniment. " This mussel-house," it was 
 written in one of the old Edinburgh periodicals, 
 "is frequented by many very genteel people." 
 If that was true, it had fallen from its high 
 estate before my young days. 
 
 One of the chief suburban resorts (and at 
 one time there were many of them) enjoyed a 
 large degree of celebrity. It was a house 
 situated at Duddingstone, known as the 
 " Sheep's-head Tavern," and, there being 
 then no Forbes Mackenzie Act to prevent it, 
 was open on Sundays. As may be surmised 
 from the name, it was for its service of sheep's- 
 
 Q 2
 
 2 28 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 head broth many of the older Edinburgh 
 citizens used to walk out to Duddingstone to 
 enjoy a plateful of the dainty. When winter 
 came, and Duddingstone Loch was crowded 
 with curlers and skaters, the tavern had 
 Immense custom In the curlers' fare, salt beef 
 and ofreens. This house became a favourite 
 place of call of Dr. Robert Chambers and his 
 friend, Sheriff Henry Glassford Bell. There 
 was another popular tavern In the same village, 
 "The Museum," so called from the house con- 
 taining a room devoted to stuffed birds, foreign 
 shells, and other curiosities. 
 
 There was in the days of auld lang syne a 
 very popular house of public entertainment at 
 Cramond Brig, to which many citizens resorted 
 occasionally for an afternoon's outing, and it Is 
 still a place of popular resort. " Cramond Brig 
 Hotel " was a popular house of call at one time 
 of many of the minor literati of Edinburgh. 
 The tavern, kept for a long period by Mrs. 
 McAra, in the village ot Cramond, where on 
 Saturdays a good dinner of cold salmon and 
 lamb was provided, was closed many years 
 ago, as was also the house kept by Robert
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 229 
 
 Gloag ; nor is the house open now at Mutton 
 Hole (Davidson's Mains), where Ramsay of 
 Barnton, and his froHcsome friends, were wont 
 to resort to eat pork-chops and drink first-rate 
 claret. That house was close to the Queens- 
 ferry Road, and when Mr. Ramsay was driving 
 the "Defiance" coach, he would halt for a brief 
 interval at the "Vintner's," so as to allow a 
 little profitable business to be done by the 
 proprietor of the house, who had been at one 
 time in service at Barnton. Many other 
 suburban taverns might be enumerated, such as 
 Mrs. Harper's at Corstorphine, which was often 
 visited — especially on Sundays — by little parties 
 from Edinburgh, and especially by printers, 
 the landlady having many friends in that trade. 
 At one period, I believe, there would be in 
 the immediate vicinity of the city more than 
 fifty places where " refreshments " could be 
 obtained, and these were often crowded, 
 especially on Sundays, by working folk and 
 their children, such excursions being very 
 popular. A strawberry feast, a " feed of 
 gooseberries," or a basm of curds and cream, 
 were the usual refreshments of these '' bona fide
 
 230 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 travellers." In the King's Park, on a fine 
 Sunday, I have counted as many as fifty dealers 
 in curds and cream, all busily touting for 
 custom. At some of the suburban gardens or 
 other unlicensed places a jorum of whisky-and- 
 water could be obtained by those who '' knew 
 their way about." 
 
 In my young days the landlords of suburban 
 " publics " endeavoured to recommend their 
 houses to customers by means of what were 
 designated " poetic " sign-boards. I remember 
 well some of the doggerel verses which did 
 service. Two from Haddington (where I was 
 at school) may be given here as examples ; the 
 first was as follows : — 
 
 " Hech ! man, come in, lay down your stick, 
 An' rest a while your weary body ; 
 The Ale we sell we buy frae Dick — 
 Dunlop supplies the Toddy." 
 
 (Dick was a well-known Edinburgh brewer, 
 and Dunlop a distiller at Haddington.) Another 
 of the same ran pretty much as follows : — 
 
 " Emly's pies, so spicy and hot. 
 
 Cost you but twopence apiece, man ; 
 
 Here you can drink and no' be a sot — 
 
 Porter's but fivepence a quart, man."
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 23 1 
 
 The late James Ballantyne had a theory that 
 these effusions were mostly the work of "a 
 travelling poet," who scoured the country, 
 selling a volume of his own verses. This man 
 was at all times glad of a crust of bread-and- 
 cheese — and " a dram " ; and though his mini- 
 mum price for the volume — the contents of 
 which all bore a strong family likeness — was a 
 shilling, the author accepted more when he 
 could get it. 
 
 Mr. John McPhail, printing overseer in Mr. 
 Tait's establishment, was ever ready to recite 
 a few of the sio-ns of which he had taken note 
 in his Saturday afternoon rambles. The 
 following I copied from his scrap-book : — 
 
 " This is the original old ' Bee Hive,' 
 Succeeding the ' Thistle and Rose ' — 
 Here you may drink our ale, and thrive ; 
 Or taste our famous Athole Brose." 
 
 (Need I explain that "Athole Brose" is a 
 delicious mixture of whisky and honey ?) . 
 
 The following was printed above the door of 
 a cellar public-house situated in a close off 
 High Street, Edinburgh : —
 
 232 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 " There's a spirit down here that's bound for to cheer, 
 The drink, drinking of which you never can rue ; 
 There's porter from Dublin, and Prestonpans beer, 
 
 That's been rehshed by thousands, and long before you." 
 
 On the side of the door of a suburban 
 pubHc-house appeared the following : — 
 
 " Walk in, my weary traveller, and you'll find within 
 The best of whisky, brandy, shrub, and gin : " 
 
 and on the other side the legend was con- 
 cluded : — 
 
 " Enjoy your wee drappie and pleasantly pay, 
 Then ' Thank you, kind sir,' I'm bound for to say." 
 
 IV 
 
 Wine in the thirties and forties of the 
 present century was not in Scotland an every- 
 day commodity, even in the houses of the well- 
 to-do. As an instance of this, I remember 
 hearing, in 1838, of a well-known citizen, a 
 wealthy magistrate, who was giving a dinner- 
 party, which was to be honoured by the 
 presence of the Lord Provost, the Town 
 Clerk, and the Sheriff of Midlothian, laying 
 in specially for the occasion four bottles of
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 233 
 
 sherry, and as many of port, these being the 
 only wines put on the table. No doubt they 
 were followed by plenty of punch and toddy. 
 The lady of the house, however, v/as the proud 
 possessor of a dozen bottles of choice Madeira, 
 a decanter of which was produced in honour of 
 any very particular visitor who called ; and that 
 dozen was reported to have lasted for years. 
 
 In the higher professional circles of Edin- 
 burgh, half a century ago, in addition to port 
 and sherry, claret was much used as a table 
 wine, and an occasional bottle of hock was 
 placed in evidence ; champagne, however, was 
 rarely seen at table, except on special occasions. 
 I remember well the surprise expressed by the 
 wife of an Edinburgh solicitor, on being told 
 by her husband on his return from Glasgow, 
 where he had been the guest of a rich 
 merchant, that there had been "Champagne 
 every day at dinner." 
 
 It is probably not generally known that Sir 
 Walter Scott was one of the first to popularize 
 champagne in Scotland. At his dinner-parties, 
 and they were not infrequent, the wine was 
 liberally served to his guests, to many of whom
 
 234 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 it was an agreeable novelty ; and it was not 
 unknown at the novelist's family dinners. John 
 Ballantyne, on his visits to the continent, was 
 accustomed to bring over considerable quantities 
 of the brands he knew so well how to select, of 
 the wine which the Ettrick Shepherd called 
 " yon kind " ; its destination, of course, being 
 the cellars of his patron at Castle Street and 
 Abbotsford, where the bins were at all times 
 well stocked with good liquor. Mr. Cadell, 
 Sir Walter's publisher in latter days, treasured 
 at his house at Hailes, near Edinburgh, a few 
 dozens of champagne which he had received 
 from his illustrious friend ; and which was so 
 much prized that a bottle was buzzed only on 
 great occasions. An old schoolmaster, in 
 whom the author of "Waverley" took some 
 interest, and invited occasionally to dine at 
 his table in Castle Street, after having for the 
 first time drunk a glass or two of the sparkling 
 vintage, exclaimed, " Losh bless me! Sir 
 Walter, but that beats a' the lemonade I ever 
 tasted — it makes me feel just awfu' fine." Tom 
 Purdie's verdict was, " It's next to whisky, and 
 far easier to drink."
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 235 
 
 Mr. Charles Tait, who, as I have already 
 said, succeeded John Ballantyne as the 
 " Christie & Manson " of Edinburgh, did 
 much to popularize the use of wine in Scot- 
 land. At his sales (which took place at his 
 rooms in Hanover Street) the wines disposed 
 of were always of high quality. At first the 
 sales were confined to the disposal of gentle- 
 men's cellars, in which had been accumulated 
 fine old ports and sherries, Madeira and clarets, 
 not forgetting, of course, the "wine of the 
 country " — whisky. In time, however, the 
 scope of these sales was extended, hocks. 
 Champagnes, Moselle, and Burgundies being 
 obtained from outside, and the wine list at 
 Edinburgh dinners, it was observed, extended 
 accordingly. As " sampling " was gratis at 
 these sales they were well attended ; and if 
 many persons ventured into the auction-room 
 who had no other intention than to enjoy a 
 sample, together with the necessary biscuit and 
 morsel of cheese which were provided at dis- 
 cretion, some no doubt were tempted to become 
 buyers. But there was another and numerous 
 " assistance " on whom the clever auctioneer
 
 236 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 used to keep his eye. Occasionally they would 
 be covered with confusion by his elaborately 
 polite query, " what they thought of the wine 
 they were drinking ? " " Try another glass of 
 that Madeira, Mr. Loafer," he would say, " and 
 then give me your candid opinion." 
 
 Despite the fact that wine, as has been 
 stated, was seldom to be found in middle-class 
 houses, there were a number of cellars of 
 celebrity in Edinburgh. Lord Jeffrey, it was 
 said, could produce over thirty kinds to his 
 guests at Craigcrook ; and a Lord Justice 
 Clerk of some forty years ago was as famous 
 for his Ports as for his law. The secrets of 
 the cellar were revealed in the auction-rooms. 
 " This Madeira, gentlemen, has been twice 
 round the world ; you surely cannot expect me 
 to knock it down at five pounds a dozen," said 
 Mr. Charles Tait at one of his sales ; and a 
 couple of pounds per bottle had to be offered 
 before he let the hammer fall. About the same 
 time — " 'tis sixty years since " — there was a 
 '* Madeira Fraud," about which nothing ever 
 got into the newspapers. A parcel of that 
 wine was announced for sale. The auctioneer
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 237 
 
 believed it to be genuine, and as the company, 
 which included several of the Edinburgh wine 
 fanciers, pronounced it to be of " extraordinary- 
 quality," it brought 96s. the dozen. But the 
 buyers discovered that the bulk was not up to 
 sample — in fact, the wine was discovered to be 
 a disgusting concoction of common sherry and 
 raisin liquor. The men who devised it were 
 two impecunious grocers, but the auctioneer 
 deemed it advisable to let the matter drop, 
 taking back the wine from the purchasers, and 
 bearing all the loss of this abominable fraud. 
 
 Long before my day claret was a common 
 beverage, not only in Edinburgh but through- 
 out Scotland generally. It came direct from 
 France to Leith, and was commonly sold on 
 draught. On Sundays, it was said, there used 
 to be a larger demand than usual. A well- 
 known physician of that olden time, who one 
 Sunday evening sent his servant for a jug of 
 red wine fresh from the barrel, was much 
 annoyed at his supply being confiscated by 
 the "seizers" — men who perambulated the 
 streets on that day to see that no person was 
 engaged in " worldly work," and who were
 
 238 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 empowered to pounce upon evil-doers, and 
 take from them all they were in possession of 
 in the shape of food or drink. The doctor, 
 determined to have his revenge, gave his 
 servant on the next occasion a powder to 
 place in the jug if the "seizers " troubled her. 
 As usual, they were on the watch, and duly, 
 as in duty bound, confiscated the ruddy liquor 
 — and as duly drank it, which was no part of 
 their duty. But they never again confiscated, 
 or at all events never again drank, that phy- 
 sician's claret. 
 
 Before the close of " the forties," claret, port 
 and sherry had come into pretty general use in 
 the houses of the middle classes in Scotland ; 
 while in time, a few kinds of other wines, in- 
 cluding champagne, were to be found in second- 
 rate taverns. In many of these houses it was 
 the fashion to exhibit poetical wine cards — the 
 extreme badness of the verse being one of the 
 attractions. Some such printed lines were 
 hung up in one of the taverns at Bruntsfield 
 Links, much frequented by the golfers. Four 
 of them linger more or less accurately in my 
 memory (the adopted French word in the
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 239 
 
 third line was commoner in my young days 
 than it is now) : — 
 
 " There's whisky here, and claret too, 
 As also port and nutty sherry, 
 Madeira wine of pleasant goiit ; 
 
 Come crack a bottle and be merry." 
 
 But the publicans were not the only patrons 
 of the poet. Other traders were in the habit 
 of availing themselves of his services. I re- 
 member the following inscription, which was 
 exhibited at the door of a "general merchant" 
 in the Causeyside : — 
 
 " Meal, barley, butter and cheese, 
 
 Soap, starch, blue and pease ; 
 Train oil, tobacco pipes and tees. 
 
 With whisky and loch-leeches ; 
 Pins to prick, and needles to sew, 
 
 And balls to clean leather breeches." 
 
 Sixty years since in Scotland punch was an 
 almost universal accompaniment of after-dinner 
 hilarity. " Glasgow punch " was especially 
 famous ; and we have it on the authority of 
 Mr. J. G. Lockhart that much of the rum 
 which reached the Clyde from the West India
 
 240 SOxME MEMORIES 
 
 Islands went back thither In stout earthenware 
 jars transmuted. Not a few of the Glasgow 
 men of the olden time looked upon the " fur- 
 nishing " of their china and silver bowls as an 
 important duty — brewing the punch, by some 
 of them, indeed, was treated as a solemn func- 
 tion — a kind of fine art not to be lightly gone 
 about. It was a treat to see some of the old 
 city fathers at this congenial work — how ten- 
 derly they dedicated the bowl by running the 
 cut limes round the inside. And when the 
 " browst " was deemed complete, but before it 
 began to be ladled out, some good judge who 
 might be at table was called upon to " pree " 
 the compound and give his opinion, and that 
 being favourable, the work of distribution 
 commenced ; then lips began to smack and 
 tongues to wag, and song and story flowed 
 freely as the bowl emptied. In some Glasgow 
 houses of the olden time the recipe for the 
 making of the punch was a secret which 
 descended from sire to son, and was never 
 betrayed. 
 
 Coming back, however, to our wines, it has 
 been more than once stated that one of the
 
 HOSPITALITIES SIXTY YEARS SINCE 24 1 
 
 chief hindrances to the greater use of wine in 
 Scotland by the middle classes some sixty 
 years since was the cheap price and excellent 
 quality of Scottish ales, which were largely 
 consumed. Foreigners visiting Scotland were 
 invariably delighted with the ale, and the exiled 
 French Royalties of 1831, who lived for a time 
 in the Royal Hotel in Edinburgh, called the 
 liquor " Scottish Burgundy," a designation 
 which, it was reported, their pawky landlord 
 turned to practical account by charging all they 
 drank at the rate of a crown a bottle ! A 
 capital idea of how wines have come to be 
 " diffused " in Scotland was afforded twelve 
 years ago, when a London barrister wrote to 
 a friend living in the Isle of Skye to know if 
 the place was sufficiently civilized to be visited 
 by his wife and daughter. " Judge for your- 
 self," was the reply; "the wine-card of the 
 hotel where I am now staying offers you a 
 choice of seven different brands of champagne!" 
 One word of caution to my English readers, and 
 I have done. Ale was the old Scotch national 
 drink. In the Lowlands whisky was as much 
 an importation (from the Highlands) as it was 
 
 R
 
 242 SOME MEMORIES 
 
 in England. Burns never talked of whisky as 
 the " wine of the country " — his country — that 
 was "the nappy." But we all, Lowland and 
 Highland, like the English, take kindly to the 
 usquebaugh. 
 
 Woodfall & Kinder, Printers, 70 to 76 Long Acre, London, W.C.
 
 
 
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