The autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk, 1722-1805

Prefatory Note

In the ‘‘ advertisement’ to the original edition, the editor says: ‘‘ The reader will soon discover that this is a work requiring no introduction to his attention. Indeed, whoever catches a glimpse of the attractions of the interior, will not be disposed patiently to listen to any details intended to detain him on the threshold.’’ While this is so, it may not be out of place in this new edition to give the reader a brief sketch of the history of the family to which the author of this extraordinary biography belonged. It will at least enlighten him, at fhe outset, with regard to many allusions to family associations and connections continually cropping up in the narrative ; while it will explain the author’s predilection for ‘the company of his superiors,’ which some of the parishioners of Inveresk raised against him as unbecoming in their minister.

Dr. Carlyle did not require, like the governess at Balcarres, who, anxious to parade a “lang pedigree ”’ before her “ superiors,” instructed her brother in the Herald Office at Edinburgh to prepare a family tree beginning with Fergus the First of Scotland,

Vi PREFATORY NOTE and indicating the several families she wished introduced. His was without doubt a family of great antiquity reaching back to, if not before, the Norman Conquest, and one which was closely allied by marriage to King Robert the Bruce.* The Carlyles—de Karliolo, Carleile, or Carlisle, as the name was variously spelt —were a Cumberland family originally, who held property there and in Yorkshire, and were of considerable authority in the county, and the city of Carlisle from which the name was derived. In common with other notable families on the southern border, the Carlyles early began to add small properties in Scotland to their English lands, and thus acquired a dual interest in the border country. From their position in the north they were employed by the English monarchs on service to the Scottish Court, but such service did not prevent them occasionally deserting their royal masters in a raid on Scotland, for on one occasion, at least, we learn that a Robert de Carlisle had to appear before Henry 11., and pay peace money for having joined King William of Scotland, promising at the same time allegiance to Henry for the future. While still holding allegiance to the English throne, the family associated themselves with the cause of the Bruces, Lords of Annandale, and through their influence gradually increased the extent of their property in that district, which till then was confined to the parish of Cummertrees,

* A full account of the Carlyle family will be found in Sir J. Balfour Paul’s Scots Peerage.

PREFATORY NOTE vii where centuries later Dr. Carlyle’s father was minister before he was translated to Prestonpans. But it was in the days of King Robert the Bruce that Sir William de Carlisle, having married the King’s sister, Margaret, finally threw off the English allegiance, joined the Scots, and thereby forfeited his English estates. For this and other services rendered to Bruce further lands in Annandale were granted to Sir William and his lady, and the family rose to great importance in the country. Following this valiant knight were several generations who took no great part in public affairs, but through mortgages, as in the case of the Limekilns property, or otherwise, apparently added considerably to the family estates until nearly one-half of Annandale was under their control.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century the family again comes into prominence in Scottish history in the person of Sir John de Carlisle, who was Keeper of Threave and Lochmaben Castles ; was sent on a mission to France by James the Third ; and for the active part he played in suppressing the Douglas rebellion, was raised to the peerage as Lord Carlyle of Torthorwald. Of his three successors in the peerage little is recorded. On the death of the fourth Lord Carlyle the greater part of the estates passed into the possession of his granddaughter, but only after long litigation which greatly depleted them. This lady married a Douglas of Parkhead, and her Carlyle properties were ultimately merged

Vill PREFATORY NOTE in those of Douglas of Drumlanrig, first Earl of Queensberry. With the loss of their property the family did not relinquish their right to the title, although they discontinued the use of it, until towards the end of the eighteenth century the direct male line of the Barons Carlyle of Torthorwald became extinct.

A great-grandson of the Sir William de Carlisle of Bruce’s day, nephew of the first Lord Carlyle, obtained from his uncle a charter of the lands of Bridekirk, and became the ancestor of that branch of the family which terminated with Dr. Alexander Carlyle’s death. The Bridekirk family do not emerge in Scottish public affairs ; but in the reign of Charles 1., one member of it, Ludovick, held a position at Whitehall as Groom of the Privy Chamber, and later Keeper of Richmond Park, while he also made some reputation as a playwright. On his retirement from office in England, he purchased the estate of Newpark, near Annany and close to the Bridekirk property. His son Ludovick, born in 1647, was the father of Mr. William Carlyle, minister of Cummertrees and later of Prestonpans, and the grandfather of the author of this Autobiography.

In the course of his narrative Dr. Carlyle makes frequent reference to his relationship to the Jardines of Annandale—his father and mother being both related to branches of that family—and earlier in their history we find the family became connected by marriage with the Johnstones, who were repre-

PREFATORY NOTE ix sented in Dr. Carlyle’s day, and were his great friends, by Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall and Sir William, who, on his marriage, assumed the name of Pulteney.

Recognising, therefore, the position his family for centuries had occupied in the south of Scotland, and their close association with the powerful border clans of Douglas, Jardine, and Johnstone, we can realise his appreciation of the ‘“‘ company of his superiors ”’ in which by “ right of lineage, by culture and talent, by dignity of manner and vivacity in conversation,” Dr. Carlyle naturally took his place, and fulfilled his part in a manner rare among the clergy of the first half of the eighteenth century.

In the Supplementary Chapter by John Hill Burton will be found an explanation of the nature and conditions of the materials placed in his hands for the original publication, and the manner in which he thought fit to execute the trust confided in him. Every reader of the Autobiography will regret, with Dr. Hill Burton, that the gifted author did not live to complete his story; while at the same time, also, it will be admitted that what he has left is a unique picture among the many that have come down to us of the life and manners of the period in which he lived.

The Publisher would here wish to express his indebtedness to Colonel Bell for placing the original x PREFATORY NOTE

MS. of the Autobiography at his service, by which he was enabled to correct one or two minor slips in the original issue ; for the use of the first draft of the Autobiography—the ‘‘ Recollections ’—from which further interesting notes have been added to this edition ; and, finally, for his kind permission to reproduce for the first time the miniature portrait of Dr. Carlyle which forms the frontispiece to the volume.

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

Chapter I

PAGE His birth—His father and the family—Precocious ministerings—Prestonpans and its social circle—Colonel Charteris—Erskine of Grange—Lady Grange and her adventures—Colonel Gardiner—The Murray Keiths— A tour to Dumfries—The social habits of the borderers— Hanging of a border thief—Goes to the University of Edinburgh—His teachers and companions—Dr. Witherspoon of New York—Sir eke eee

the mathematician é : I

Chapter II

Events of the Porteous mob—Sees the escape of Robertson from church—Present at the execution of Wilson—The night of the mob—University studies—Rise of the medical school—Anecdotes and adventures—Reminiscences of fellow-students—Sir John Pringle—First acquaintance with Robertson and John Home-—Achievements in dancing—Ruddiman the grammarian—Medicine—The army—The Church—An evening’s adventures with Lord Lovat and Erskine of Grange—Clerical convivialities— Last session at Edinburgh. 5 : ‘ aso

Chapter III

Goes to Glasgow—Leechman, Hutcheson, and the other professors—Life and society in Glasgow—Rise of trade— Origin of Glasgow suppers—-Clubs—Hutcheson the metaphysician—Simson and Stewart the mathematicians—

x1 xii SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

PAGE Moore—Tour among the clergy of Haddington—The author of The Grave— Return to Glasgow — College theatricals—Travelling adventures—News of the landing of Prince Charles—Preparations for the defence of Edinburgh—The Provost’s conduct—Adventures as a disembodied volunteer—Adventures of John Home and Robertson—Expedition to view Cope’s army—The position of the two armies—His last interview with Colonel Gardiner—The battle—Incidents—Inspection of the Highland army—Prince Charles : i Se Ty

Chapter IV

Sets off for Holland—Adventures at Yarmouth—Leyden and the students there—John Gregory—John Wilkes— Immateriality Baxter—Charles Townshend—Dr. Aitken —Return to Britain—Violettithe dancer—London Society . —The Lyons—Lord Heathfield—Smollett and John Blair —Suppers at the Golden Ball—London getting the news of the battle of Culloden—William Guthrie and Anson’s voyages—Byron’s narrative—The theatres and theatrical celebrities—Literary society—Thomson—Armstrong— Secker 5 : : : : =~ LOS

Chapter V

Return to Scotland—Windsor —Oxford—tTravelling adventures—Presented to the church of Cockburnspath—Subsequently settled at Inveresk—His settlement there prophesied and foreordained — Anecdotes— Anthony Collins—Social life in Inveresk and Musselburgh—John Home : . : : ; ° «207

Chapter VI

Ecclesiastical matters—The affair of George Logan— Sketches of the clergy—Webster— Wallace—Contemporary history of the Church—The ‘‘ Moderates ’’ and the ‘‘ Wild’ party—The patronage question—Riding committees—Revolution in Church polity, and Carlyle’s

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS xili

PAGE share in it—Sketches of leaders in the Assembly—Lord Islay, Marchmont, Sir Gilbert Elliot—Principal Tullidelph c . : : ‘ - 236

Chapter VII

Sketches of society—Lord Milton—Lady Hervey — Smollett’s visit—Cullen’s mimicries—Notices and anecdotes of David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson,

Dr. Robertson, Dr. Blair, John Home—Foundation of the Select Society—Completion of the tragedy of Douglas —Adventures of its author and his friends in conveying it to London—Admiral Byng—tThe Carriers’ Inn ane O

Chapter VIII

Preparations for acting the tragedy of Douglas in Edinburgh—Carlyle attends—A war of pamphlets—The “Libel” against Carlyle—The ecclesiastical conflict— Characteristics of the combatants—The clergy of Scotland and the stage—Conduct of Dundas and Wedderburn— Home and his success—Archibald Duke of Argyle a2

Chapter IX

Finds Robertson in London about his history —Home joins them—Their friends and adventures—Chatham— John Blair the mathematician— Bishop Douglas — Smollett and his levee of authors—A day with Garrick at his villa—Feats at golf there—The clergy of Scotland and the Window-tax—Adam the architect—An expedition to Portsmouth—Adventures by land and sea— Meeting with Lord Bute—The journey home—Oxford— Woodstock — Blenheim — Birmingham — Lord 5 iain —Shenstone at the Leasowes : ; - 349

Chapter X

Visit to Inverary—Charles Townshend and the hospitalities of Dalkeith—A story of a haunch of venison—Wilkie of

XIV SUMMARY OF CONTENTS the Epigoniad—A corporation row in Dumfries— Andrew Crosbie—Ossian Macpherson—The militia pamphlet . : :

Chapter XI

His marriage— Adam Ferguson and Sister Peg — Death of George 11. and the Duke of Argyle—Change in the administration of Scotch affairs—Newcastle and its society in 1760—The Edinburgh Poker Club—Lord Elibank’s sentimental adventures—Dr. Robertson and the leadership of the Church of Scotland—Harrogate and the company there—Andrew Millar the bookseller— Benjamin Franklin—Lord Clive

Chapter XII

Domestic affairs—Henry Dundas—Harrogate revisited— Adventures with a remarkable bore—The author of Crazy Tales— Ambassador Keith— Education of the Scots gentry—John Gregory—Mrs, Montague and her coterie—Death of the author’s father—Sudden death of his friend Jardine—Church politics

Chapter XIII

Visit to Lord Glasgow with Robertson—Convivialities— Synod business—Dr. Armstrong—An excursion to Tweeddale and across the border—Adventures in Carlisle—The Duke of Buccleuch and festivities at Dalkeith—Adam Smith there—Professor Millar of Glasgow

Chapter XIV

The clergy of Scotland and the Window-tax—Carlyle appointed their champion—Sojourn in London—The Scotch dancing assembly—Dr. Dodd preaching to the Magdalenes—The career of Colonel Dow—Anecdotes of Wolfe and Quebec—Garrick and “John Home’s plays—

PAGE

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS XV

PAGE Decision of the Douglas Cause—Lord Mansfield—Conversation at Mrs. Montague’s—The return home— Back to London about the Window-tax—Anecdotes of the formation of the North Ministry—Conclusion . maser

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER

His correspondence on Church matters—His influence— His lighter correspondence—The great contest of the clerkship—The augmentation question— Politics— Collins’s Ode on the superstition of the Highlands—Carlyle and poetry—Domestic history—His personal appearance— The composition of his autobiography—Condition and editing of the manuscripts—His last days—His death . 563

XVili LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING

PAGE

HEW DALRYMPLE, LORD DRUMMORE . , . . 216 From an Engraving after ALLAN RAMSAY.

ADAM DE CARDONNEL-LAWSON ; j : a ese

From a Drawing by JOHN BROWN.

ROBERT DuNDAS OF ARNISTON, 2ND LORD PRESIDENT DunpDas 7 : i : . 248 From an Engraving afer Ravzurn,

Rev. ALEXANDER WEBSTER, D.D. ei ; - - 264 From an Engraving after DAVID MARTIN.

PATRICK GRANT, LORD ELCHIES ‘ : 5 » 280 From a Portrait by ALLAN RAMSAY. By permission of the SOCIETY OF WRITERS TO H.M. SIGNET.

Davip HumME . : : - 206 From an Engraving after Alia Ration

Rev, HucGuH Brair, D.D. : ‘ : ‘ 2 oie From an Engraving after DAVID MARTIN.

ANDREW PRINGLE, LORD ALEMOOR . ; . 328 From an Etching by W. HOLE, in T. Craig Brome s History of Selkirkshire. By permission of the Author.

ARCHIBALD, 3RD DUKE OF ARGYLL . : : - 344 From a Mezzotint after ALLAN RAMSAY.

DAVID GARRICK . ; i . : «9300 From an Engraving after Cocxn.

JOHN, 3RD Ear or Burs, K.B. : : : "4370 From an Engraving after ALLAN RAMSAY.

JOHN, 2ND DUKE OF ARGYLL . : : » 408 From an Engraving after ALLAN RAMSAY.

PROFESSOR ADAM FERGUSON . : : . : 424 From an Engraving after REYNOLDs.

ANDREW FLETCHER, LoRD MILTON . . - 440

From a Water-colour drawing after ALLAN RAMSAY.

Rev. WILLIAM RoBERTSON, D.D., PRINCIPAL OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY. . 5 - 456 From an Engraving ater REYNOLDS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS X1X

FACING

PAGE

Henry Dunpas, Viscount MELVILLE : : Ay Z From a Mezzotint after LAWRENCE.

HENRY Homer, Lorp KameEs . é ‘ . 488

From an Engraving after DAviD MARTIN.

ALEXANDER WEDDERBURN, LORD CHANCELLOR, AND IST EARL OF ROSSLYN . . ; . 5 GOA!

From a Mezzotint after REYNOLDS.

ADAM SMITH . 4 é ; ‘ 520 From an Engraving by HorsBuRGH. ,

LoRD FREDERICK CAMPBELL, LORD REGISTER OF SCOTLAND 536 From a Mezzotint after GAINSBOROUGH.

WILLIAM Murray, Ist EARL OF MANSFIELD. 3 She From an Engraving after DAVID MARTIN.

Rev. ARCHIBALD ALISON . : : ‘ . 568 From an Engraving after RAEBURN.

JoHN Home : 5 ; : ; : . 600 From an Engraving after RAEBURN.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. ALEXANDER CARLYLE

CHAPTER I 1722-1736 AGE, BIRTH TO I4 MUSSELBURGH, January 26, 1800

Havinc observed how carelessly, and consequently how falsely, history is written, I have long resolved to note down certain facts within my own knowledge, under the title of Anecdotes and Characters of the Times, that may be subservient to a future historian, if not to embellish his page, yet to keep him within the bounds of truth and certainty.

I have been too late in beginning this work, as on this very day I enter on the seventy-ninth year of my age; which circumstance, as it renders it not improbable that I may be stopped short in the middle of my annals, will undoubtedly make it difficult for me to recall the memory of many past transactions in my long life with that precision and clearness which such a work requires. But I will admit of no more excuses for indolence or procrastination, and endeavour

2S CHILDHOOD 1722

(with God’s blessing) to serve posterity, to the best of my ability, with such a faithful picture of times and characters as came within my view in the humble and private sphere of life, in comparison with that of many others, in which I have always acted ; remembering, however, that in whatever sphere men act, the agents and instruments are still the same, viz. eae faculties and passions of human nature.

The first characters which I could discriminate were those of my own family, which I was able to mark at a very early age. My father was of a moderate understanding, of ordinary learning and accomplishments for the times, for he was born in 1690; of a warm, open, and benevolent temper ; most faithful and diligent in the duties of his office, and an orthodox and popular orator. He was entirely beloved and much caressed by the whole parish.* My mother was a person of superior understanding, of a calm and firm temper, of an elegant and reflecting mind; and considering that she was the eldest of seven daughters and three sons of a country clergyman, near Dumfries, and was born in 1700, she had received an education, and improved by it, far beyond what could have been expected. Good sense, however, and dignity of conduct, were her chief attributes. The effect of this was, that she was as much respected as my father was beloved.

They were in very narrow circumstances till the stipend was largely augmented in the year 1732. _

* He was minister of the parish of Prestonpans,

1736 THE FAMILY 3

Two of the judges, who were his heritors, Lords Grange and Drummore, came down from the bench and pleaded his cause.* And the estate of the patron, then Morison of Prestongrange, being under sequestration, it was with little difficulty that a greater augmentation than was usual at that period was obtained; for the stipend was raised by it from £70 to £140 per annum.

In the year 1729, the good people had a visit from London that proved expensive and troublesome. It was Mrs. Lyon, a sister of my father’s, and her son and daughter. Her deceased husband was Mr. Lyon of Easter Ogill, a branch of the Strathmore family, who had been in the Rebellion 1715, and, having been pardoned, had attempted to carry on business in London, but was ruined in the South Sea [Scheme.]

* His heritors—that is to say, proprietors of land in his parish liable to contribute to the payment of his stipend.—J. H. B.

One of the advantages of the increased stipend is recorded by the author in his MS.Recollections : ‘‘ In the overflow of wealth my father took it in his head to make mea small apartment to study in. This was alittle hole off the dining-room. . . . This dining-room was the apartment in which my mother received her morning visitors,and she beingwithout dispute the wisest woman in the parish, and had still pretensions to be handsome although turned thirty, she was resorted to for advice by all the women of the parish, high and low. In this secret cell I heard perfectly whatever was going on in the parish, whether it was the expected marriage of a daughter, or the reformation of a prodigal son or unfaithful husband. Whatever occasioned doubt or perplexity, or required advice, were laid before nysagacious mother. This made me master of all the secrets of the parish, and wonderful to tell, I did not abuse this casual confidence into which I fell so prematurely, for, as I was never very inquisitive into other people’s affairs, | was no fool when I found out things by accident.”” . ..

4 THE FAMILY £722

This lady, who came down on business, after a few weeks went into lodgings in Edinburgh, where she lost her daughter in the smallpox, and soon after returned to my father’s, where she remained for some months. She was young and beautiful, and vain, not so much of her person (to which she had a good title) as of her husband’s great family, to which she annexed her own, and, by a little stretch of imagination and a search into antiquity, made it great also. Her son, who was a year and a half older than myself, was very handsome and good-natured, though much indulged. My father was partial to him, and I grew a little jealous. But the excess of his mother’s fondness soon cured my father of his; and as I was acknowledged to be the better scholar of the two, I soon lost all uneasiness, and came to love my cousin most sincerely, though he intercepted many of the good things that I should have got.

Not long after this, another sister of my father’s came down from London, who was a widow also, but had no children. She stayed with us for a year, and during that time taught me to read English, with just pronunciation and a very tolerable accent—an accomplishment which in those days was very rare. Long before she came down, I had been taught to read by an old woman, who kept a school, so perfectly, that at six years of age I had read a large portion of the Bible to a dozen of old women, who had been excluded the church by a crowd which had made me leave it also, and whom I observed sitting

1736 PRESTONPANS 5 on the outside of a door, where they could not hear. Upon this I proposed to read a portion of Scripture to them, to which they agreed, and set me on a tombstone, whence I read very audibly to a congregation, which increased to about a score, the whole of the Song of Solomon. This would not deserve to be noted, but for the effect it had afterwards.*

There lived in the town and parish of Prestonpans at this time several respectable and wealthy people—such as the Mathies, the Hogs, the Youngs, and the Shirreffs. There still remained some foreign trade, though their shipping had been reduced from twenty to half the number since the Union, which put an end to the foreign trade in the ports of the Firth of Forth. There was a custom-house established here, the superior officers of which, with their families, added to the mercantile class which still remained, made a respectable society enough.

The two great men of the parish, however, were Morison of Prestongrange, the patron, and the Honourable James Erskine of Grange, one of the Supreme Judges. The first was elected Member of Parliament for East Lothian in the first Parliament of Great Britain, although the celebrated Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun was the other candidate.

* But Government took part with Morison, and

*« This first attempt to preack made a great noise, and I was dubbed by the vulgar a minister already selected and set apart by the Lord. The caresses I met with on this account were not to my taste, for I did not feel any merit in having read a few chapters, and I did not like to be a minister.” —MS, Recollections.

6 COLONEL CHARTERIS 14722

Fletcher had only nine votes. Morison had been very rich, but had suffered himself to be stripped by the famous gambler of those times, Colonel Charteris, whom I once saw with him in church, when I was five or six years of age; and being fully impressed with the popular opinion that he was a wizard, who had a fascinating power, I never once took my eyes off him during the whole service, believing that I should be a dead man the moment I did. This Colonel Charteris was of a very ancient family in Dumfriesshire, the first of whom, being one of the followers of Robert Bruce, had acquired a great estate, a small part of which is still in the family. The colonel had been otherwise well connected, for he was cousin-german to Sir Francis Kinloch, and, when a boy, was educated with him at the village school. Many stories were told of him,* which would never have been heard of had he not afterwards been so much celebrated in the annals of infamy. He was a great profligate, no doubt, but there have been as bad men and greater plunderers than he was, who have escaped with little public notice. But he was one of the Runners of Sir Robert Walpole, and defended him in all places of resort, which drew the

' * A story of Charteris’ avarice is told by the Hon. John Crawford writing to his sister the Hon. Peggy Crawford. He Says: “Mr. Cummin, the minister, attended him on his death-bed ; he [Charteris] asked at his sister, who is exceedingly mean, what he should give him ; she replied that it was unusual to give anything on such occasions. ‘ Well, then,’ says Charteris, ‘ let’s have another flourish from him,’ so calling for prayers. So you see he died as he lived.”

1736 COLONEL CHARTERIS 7 wrath of the Tories upon him, and particularly sharpened the pens of Pope and Arbuthnot against him. For had it not been for the witty epitaph of the latter,* Charteris might have escaped in the crowd of gamesters and debauchees, who are only railed at by their pigeons, and soon fall into total oblivion. This simple gentleman’s estate [Morison’s] soon went under sequestration for the payment of his debts. He was so imaginary and credulous as to believe that close by his creek of Morison’s Haven was the place where St. John wrote the Apocalypse, because some old vaults had been discovered in digging a mill-race for a mill that went by sea-water. This had probably been put into his headby the annual meeting of the oldest lodge of operative masons in Scotland at that place on St. John’s Day.

My Lord Grange was the leading man in the parish, and had brought my father to Prestonpans from Cumbertrees in his native county Annandale, where he had been settled for four years, and where Iwas born. Lord Grange was Justice-Clerk in the end of Queen Anne’s reign, but had been dismissed from

* The epitaph begins: ‘Here continueth to rot the body of Francis Charteris, who, with an inflexible constancy, and inimitable uniformity of life, persisted, in spite of age and infirmity, in the practice of every human vice except prodigality and hypocrisy: his insatiable avarice exempted him from the first, his matchless impudence from the second ;”” and ends: ‘‘ He was the only person of his time who could cheat with the mask of honesty, retain his primeval meanness when possessed of ten thousand a year, and having daily deserved the gibbet for what he did, was at last condemned to it for what he could not do.”

that office in the beginning of the reign of George I., when his brother, the Earl of Mar, lost the Secretary of State’s office, which he had held for some years. After this, and during the Rebellion [of 1715], Lord Grange kept close at his house of Preston, on an estate which he had recently bought from the heirs of a Dr. Oswald, but which had not long before been the family estate of a very ancient cadet of the family of Hamilton. During the Rebellion [of 1715], and some time after, Lord Grange amused himself in laying out and planting a fine garden, in the style of those times, full of close walks and labyrinths and wildernesses, which, though it did not occupy above four or five acres, cost one at least two hours to perambulate. This garden or pleasure-ground was soon brought to perfection by his defending it from the westerly and south-westerly winds by hedges of common elder, which in a few years were above sixteen feet high, and completely sheltered all the interior grounds. This garden continued to be an object of curiosity down to the year 1740, insomuch that flocks of company resorted to it from Edinburgh, during the summer, on Saturdays and Mondays (for Sunday was not at that time a day of pleasure), and were highly gratified by the sight, there being nothing at that time like it in Scotland, except at Alloa, the seat of the Earl of Mar, of which indeed it was a copy in miniature.

My Lady Grange was Rachel Chiesly, the daughter of Chiesly of Dalry, the person who shot President Lockhart in the dark, when standing within the

1736 LADY GRANGE 9 head of a close in the Lawnmarket, because he had voted against him in a cause depending before the Court.* He was the son or grandson of a Chiesly, who, in Batilie’s Letters, is called Man to the famous Mr. Alexander Henderson ; that is to say, secretary, for he accompanied Mr. Henderson on his journey to London, and having met the Court somewhere on their way, Chiesly was knighted by Charles I.; so that, being a new family, they must have had few relations, which, added to the atrocious deed of her father, had made the public very cool in the interest of Lady Grange. This lady had been very beautiful, but was of a violent temper. She had, it was said, been debauched by her husband before marriage ; and as he was postponing or evading the performance of his promise to marry her, it was believed that, by threatening his life, she had obtained the fulfilment of it.

It was Lord Grange’s custom to go frequently to London in the spring; and though he seemed quiet and inactive here, it was supposed that he resented his having been turned out of the Justice-

* It was not, strictly speaking, a decision of the Court that infuriated Chiesly, but afindingin anarbitration. He was desirous, and thought himself entitled, to leave his wife, with whom he had quarrelled, and his children, te starve. The question of his liability for their support having been referred to President Lockhart and Lord Kemnay, they found him bound to make his family an allowance, It may be proper to explain that Grange and his wife were not Lord and Lady in the English sense, as a peer and peeress, but by the custom of Scotland, which gives ‘‘ Lord ” to a judge, and used to give “‘ Lady’ to the wife of a landed proprietor.—J. H. B.