Memoir of William and Robert Chambers

Prefatory Note

On the death of my brother, Dr Robert Chambers, numerous Biographic sketches of him appeared in Great Britain and the United States, all of them kind and complimentary, but in many cases imperfect or >• erroneous as regards certain leading details. It seemed

^ to me that, while still spared life and opportunity, I

3J might try to do justice to the memory of the deceased, by giving a correct history of his life and principal

^ writings.

*^ The attempt, however, involved a difficulty.

o Having been intimately associated with my brother, not only in early life, but in literary enterprises, it was scarcely possible to relate the story of one without

G> frequent reference to the other. I have so far yielded

v; to this necessity, as to ofter some Autobiographic

ft Reminiscences, in connection with the principal object

^^ in view. To this extent only is the Memoir that of two

ii individuals.

5 The retrospect of some early events, which could

not well be omitted, has not been unaccompanied with poignant recollections ; but if a perusal of the narrative

VI PREFATORY NOTE.

serves in any degree to inspire youth with notions of self-reliance, along with a hopeful dependence on Providence when pressed by adverse circumstances, I shall be more than recompensed. W. C.

Janicary, 1872.

SEVENTH EDITION.

From the favourable manner in which the Memoir has been received — the work having been carried through six large editions in less than twelve months — I have endeavoured to render it still more acceptable by a careful revision, and more especially by giving a few additional particulars concerning my brother's early life (including an account of his introduction to Sir Walter Scott), gathered chiefly from a volume of memoranda recently found in his library. W. C.

January, 1873.

Chapter I. Early Years — 1800 To 1813

A /T Y brother and I were born and spent our early years in a small country town in the south of Scotland, situated amidst beautiful scenery, and had therefore the advantage of being acquainted from infancy with some of the noble works of nature, along with rural objects and circumstances. The place of our birth was Peebles, an ancient royal burgh on the upper part of the Tweed, where our ancestors had dwelt from time immemorial — the tradition among them being, that they were descended from a personage inscribed as ' William de la Chaumbre, Bailif e Burgois de Pebles,' in the list of those who signed bonds of allegiance to Edward I. at Berwick-on-Tweed, 1296. However that might be, I was born in this little old burgh, i6th April 1800; and Robert, coming next in order in the family, was born loth July 1802.

For the place of birth and early associations almost every one has a peculiar affection ; and among the Scotch, as is well known, this feeling is a marked national characteristic. It will not seem surprising, therefore, that through life Robert cherished kindly remembrances of the scenes of his infancy. A few years previous to his decease, he began notes of what may have been intended as a memoir of himself, but which were not carried farther than reminiscences from the dawn of intelligence to about his tenth year. Fragmentary as are these memoranda, they abound in the geniality of sentiment for which the writer was remarkable, and serve to illustrate the state of things in certain by -corners of Scotland sixty to seventy years since. The following portions may accordingly be acceptable, supplemented here and there by such particulars from my own remembrance as may help to complete the picture :

* In the early years of this century,' he proceeds, ' Peebles was little advanced from the condition in which it had mainly rested for several hundred years previously. It was eminently a quiet place — " As quiet as the grave or as Peebles," is a phrase used by Cockburn. It was said to be a finished town, for no new houses (exceptions to be of course allowed for) were ever built in it. Situated, however, among beautiful pastoral hills, with a singularly pure atmosphere, and with the pellucid Tweed running over its pebbly bed close beside the streets, the town was acknowledged to be, in the fond language of its inhabitants, a bonny place. An honest old burgher was enabled by some strange chance to visit Paris, and was eagerly questioned,

PEEBLES. 7

when he came back, as to the character of that capital of capitals ; to which, it is said, he answered that " Paris, a'thing considered, was a wonderful place — but still, Peebles for pleesure!" and this has often been cited as a ludicrous example of rustic prejudice and narrowness of judgment. But, on a fair interpretation of the old gentleman's words, he was not quite so benighted as at first appears. The " pleesures " of Peebles were the beauties of the situation and the opportunities of healthful recreation it afforded, and these were certainly considerable.

' There was an old and a new town in Peebles — each of them a single street, or little more ; and as even the new town had an antique look, it may be inferred that the old looked old indeed. It was indeed chiefly composed of thatched cottages, occupied by weavers and labouring people — a primitive race of homely aspect, in many instances eking out a scanty subsistence by having a cow on the town common, or cultivating a rig of potatoes in the fields close to the town. Rows of porridge luggies (small wooden vessels) were to be seen cooling on window-soles ; a smell of peat smoke pervaded the place ; the click of the shuttle was everywhere heard during the day ; and in the evening, the gray old men came out in their Kilmarnock night-caps, and talked of Bonaparte, on the stone seats beside their doors. The platters used in these humble dwellings were all of wood, and the spoons of horn ; knives and forks rather rare articles. The house was generally divided into two apartments by a couple of box-beds, placed end to end — a bad style of bed prevalent in cottages all over Scotland ; they were so close as almost to stitle the inmates. Among these humble people, all costumes, customs, and ways of living smacked of old times. You would see a venerable patriarch making his way to church on Sunday, with a long-backed, swingtailed, light-blue coat of the style of George II., which was probably his marriage coat, and half a century old. His head-gear was a broad-brimmed blue bonnet. The old women came out on the same occasions in red scarfs, called cardinals, and white mutches (caps), bound by a black ribbon, with the gray hair folded back on the forehead. There was a great deal of drugget, and huckaback, and serge in that old world, and very litde cotton. One almost might think he saw the humbler Scotch people of the seventeenth century before his eyes. * In this old-town population, there survived two or three aged persons who professed an adherence to the Covenant and covenanted work of Reformation. One of these, designated Laird Baird, remains clearly daguerreotyped on my memory — a tall, bony, grim old man with blue rig-and-fur stockings rolled half way up his thighs, and a very umbrageous blue bonnet. His secular business consisted in thatching houses ; his inner life was a constant brooding over the sins of a perjured and sinful nation, and the various turns of public affairs, in which he traced the punishments inflicted upon us by an outraged Deity, for our laying aside the Solemn League and Covenant. He came up to my mother one summer evening, as she was standing at her door with her first-born in her arms. " Ye 're mickle pleased wi' that bairn, woman," said the laird gruffly. " If the French come, what will ye do wi' him ? I trow ye '11 be fleeing wi' him to the tap o' the Pentland Hills. But ye should rather pray that they may come. Ye should pray for judgments, woman — ^judgments on a sinfu' land.

EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. 9

Pray that the Lord may pour out the vials of His wrath upon us — it would be for our guid." And then he went on his way, leaving the pretty young mother heartchilled by his terrible words. Having known something of old-town worthies of this kind, there was no novelty or surprise to me, a few years thereafter, when I read of Habakkuk Mucklewrath in Scott's Old Mortality.

' I had reason to know the old town in my earliest years, for our family then dwelt in it, though in a modem-slated house, which my father had had built for him by his father when about to be married. Our ancestors had been woollen manufacturers, substantial and respectable people, although living in a very plain style. My father growing up at the time when the cotton manufacture was introduced into Glasgow, had there studied it, and now conducted it on a pretty extensive scale at Peebles, having sometimes as many as a hundred looms in his employment. My earliest recollections bring before me a neat small mansion, fronting to the Eddleston Water ; a tastefully furnished sitting-room, containing a concealed bed, one or two other little rooms, and a kitchen ; a ground-floor full ot looms, and a garret full of webs and weft. Games at marbles played with my elder brother on the figures of the parlour carpet, when recovering from an illness, come back upon me as among the pleasantest things I have experienced in life ; or wandering into the workshop below, it was a great entertainment to sit beside one of the weavers, and watch the movements of the heddles and treddles, and hear the songs and the gossip of the man. Weavers were topping operatives in those days, for they could realise two pounds a week, lo MEMOIR.

sometimes even more, and many young men of good connections had joined the trade. My father, as agent for several manufacturers in Glasgow, realised a good income, which enabled him to live on an equality with the best families of the place.

' The farthest retrogression which any one can make in memory presents him a few obscure little matters starting out, as it were, from a back-ground of clouds and darkness. I can recall the little parlour, and a few of its decorations ; an alabaster time-piece and three round alabaster-framed pictures to match — a present from my mother's brother, William Gibson, an officer in the army. The prominent living figure in the parlour was a young woman, of elegant shape, and delicately beautiful small features, having a white cambric handkerchief crossing on her bosom, with a lozenge-shaped gold brooch at the crossing, and another thin cambric handkerchief tied loosely round her neck \ a being of lady-like grace and expression, and scarcely yet in her twenty-fourth year, though already the mother of three children, of whom I was the second. Next to her in distinctness as a figure of the memory was the husband of this lady, a neatly made, rather short man in the prime of life, with a handsome cast of face and an intelligent look ; much given to reading and to music, being a tolerable performer on the German flute, fond of scientific conversation, kindly to children, and to everybody. There was but one servant — dear, kind, clever Jeanie Forbes, who used to charm my infant years with Scottish songs in wonderful abundance, and sang with a melodiousness that I have never heard surpassed. It was a delightful atmosphere for me, for of my father's music and of Jeanie's songs I never could tire.

WTLFJE PA TERSON'S BOO TS. t i

* To a child, of course, all things are new, and the first occurrence of anything to his awakened senses never fails to make a deep impression. I think I yet remember the first time I observingly saw the swelling green hills around our little town. I am sure I could point to within ten yards of the spot where I saw the first gowan and the first buttercup ; first heard the hum ■ of the mountain bee; first looked with wonder into a hedge-sparrow's nest, with its curious treasure of blue eggs. A radius of half a mile would have described the entire world of my infancy : of that world every minute feature remains deeply stamped within me, and will while life and consciousness endure. There is a great deal of studious observation in a child. Casual, trivial, and thoughtless words spoken by his seniors in his presence go into him, to be afterwards estimated and judged of; so it is a great mistake to speak indecorously before children.

' At the time when I was coming upon the stage of the world, a number of old things were going out of it. The Rev. Dr Dalgliesh, the minister of the parish, still wore a cocked hat. He died in 1808; and I can just remember seeing him one Sunday, as he walked home from church, with that head-gear crowning his tall and dignified figure. There were still a few men with pigtails whisking constantly over the collars of their coats. Spencers also still lingered in use.

* Boots, formerly used only in riding and travelling, were in vogue with men who desired to be smartly dressed. One could either have top-hoots, that is, boots with a movable cincture of pale leather at top, or tassel-boots, by which was meant what were afterwards called Hessians, terminating in a wavy line under the knee, with a tassel hanging out over the middle in front. A buckish weaver, called Willie Paterson, had got a pair of tassel-boots, on which he could fasten tops, and thus enjoy tops or tassels at his pleasure. People meeting him when he went to church would say : " Willie, I see this is top-day with you." Top-day or tassel-day for Willie Paterson 's boots was a favourite joke. As an alternative for boots were gaiters to the knee, originally tight, but latterly lax, with vertical foldings.

" Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait,"

is a line in the Rejected Addresses, which strongly recalls to me the year 1812.

' The minister's chief elder in my early days was a cart and mill wright, a substantial citizen, related by marriage to our family, and with whose domestic life I was consequently well acquainted. Language fails me in expressing my sense of the goodness and worth of this old man, though, from the narrowness of his sphere of life, he had never learned to temper his piety with any great share of liberality. He afforded a perfect example of the religious practice of a former age, and would have been considered rather stern by the bulk of his contemporaries. Tammas, as he was familiarly called, had a large family of sons and daughters, whom he governed with relentless austerity. Any approach to gaiety of spirit was deemed highly improper, and dancing was positively sinful. This over-repressive policy — as in the case of Davie Deans — had no beneficial effect. Prevented from attending a respectably conducted dancing-school, his daughters stole out clandestinely in the evening to dances of not a very reputable character — a practice which led to some far from fortunate marriages.

' I could forgive everything in Tammas but the

OUR FIRST FLA V. 13

Sternness. In the hands of men of his kind, Christianity did not appear as a religion of love ; it seemed almost wholly to consist in an imposition of irksome duties, and an abstinence from all natural and allowable enjoyments. A company of strolling players came to Peebles, and the manager went to Tammas, who was acting chief-magistrate in the absence of the provost, to negotiate for permission to use the town-hall as a theatre. When the suppliant approached, Tammas was hewing at a log out of doors, and stood with his axe suspended over his head while listening to the request.

" I '11 oppose it with all the means in my poo'er, sir !" e.xclaimed Tammas fiercely.

" Not with the hatchet, I hope, sir," responded the son of Thespis.

' The poor man had to set up his scenes in the upper room of a public-house, used as a mason lodge, and met with fair encouragement. Thither my brother and I were taken to see /;d'/t' and Yarico. It was our first play.'

In his picturesque reminiscence of Tammas, my brother has failed to mention a somewhat curious fact. The old worthy underwent a considerable softening of character in the last few years of his life ; and the conversion was all the more remarkable as being the result of reading a novel, Thaddeus of Warsaw, which an aged lady of kindly feeling persuaded him to peruse. The noble and pathetic sentiments of Miss Porter, in narrating the afflictions of her fictitious hero, touched the heart of the old Puritan, and did what no power on earth had been able to effect. What a pity that Tammas did not go to see Tnklc and Yarico !

IJ

'The new town was a smarter place than the old; yet it contained many homely old thatched houses, and few of any elegance. The shops were for the most part confined and choky places, with what were called halfdoors, a bell being generally rung by customers to summon the worthy trader. The shop of the candle-maker was provided with a bell-pull consisting of an old key dangling at the end of a cord, which was put in requisition to summon "Candle Nell," as the female in charge of the establishment was familiarly called. No attempt was made to keep up an appearance of business. All was quiet and sombre by day, and in the evenings a dim candle on the counter made the only difference. A favourite position of the shop-keeper was to lean on his arms over the half-door, gazing abroad into the vacant street, or chatting with a casual by-stander. I do not think there were more than three traders in the town who had any apprentice or hired assistant. If the husband was out for a forenoon's fishing in the Tweed, his wife was his sufficient lieutenant. It seems to me remarkable that, small as the concerns generally were, the family life of these people was of a somewhat refined character. The tone of the females was far from being vulgar. Accomplishments, such as are now so common, were unknown; but all had a good education in English, and their conversation was not deficient in intelligence.'

The mention of Candle Nell suggests that it was a common practice in the town to call people by their profession — as, for example. Baker Turnbull, Cooper Gibson — and such designations were extended to the wives, or it might be the sisters, of those personages. The wife of the cooper was styled Cooper Jean. A

CANDLE NELL. 15

government official charged with the duty of taxing the windows throughout the county, was sarcastically distinguished as Window Willie. A wildish lad, son of the cauper (maker of caups or wooden dishes), was never called anything but Cauper Jock. In some cases the prefixes were given from the locality. An ingenious blacksmith, who made a business of mending locks and guns, was known only as Vennel John. The county gave employment to a professional hunter of tods, or foxes, who, known generally as Tod-hunter Will, might, from his erratic character, have served as not a bad prototype of 'Tod Gabbie' in Guy Mannering. In the ' Tod Gabbie ' and ' Goose Gibbie ' of Scott, and the *Souter Johnnie' of Burns, we see that the Peebles people of past times were not exceptional in their system of nomenclature.

Considering how little business was done, and also the easy way in which things were conducted, one would scarcely be prepared for the genteel interior of many of the dwellings, or for the tasteful dresses and courteous manners of the wives of the tradesmen. Though a trifle too obese, Candle Nell herself, when the shop was shut, could receive company in style, and addressed in her proper name, do the honours of her brother's household. A considerable number of persons kept a cow. The going forth of the town cows to their pasturage on a neighbouring hill, and their return, constituted leading and interesting events of the day. Early in the summer mornings, the inhabitants were roused by inharmonious sounds blown from an ox-horn by the town-herd, who leisurely ])erambulated the streets with a gray plaid twisted around his shoulders. Then came forth the cows, deliberately, one by one, from their respective ir, MEMOIR.

quarters, and took their way instinctively by the bridge across the Tweed, their keeper coming up behind, to urge forward the loiterers. Before taking the ascent to the hill, the cows, in picturesque groups, might have been seen standing within the margin of the Minister's Pool, a smooth part of tlie river, which reflected on its glistening surface the figures of the animals in various attitudes, along with the surrounding scenery; the whole — river, cows, and trees — forming a tableau such as would have been an appropriate study for Berghem or Wouvermans.

There was much pleasant intercourse among families at a small cost. Scarcely any gave ceremonious dinners. Invitations to tea at six o'clock were common. After tea there were songs, with perhaps a round of Scottish proverbs — a class of sayings which, from their agreeable tartness, found scope for exercise in ordinary transactions, and were more especially useful in snubbing children, and keeping them in remembrance of theii duty.

The Peebles people were not behind their neighbours in the art of applying these maxims. As, for example, if a fastidious youth presumed to complain that his porridge was not altogether to his mind, he would have for reply: 'Lay your wame to your vvinnin" — that is, 'Suit your stomach to your earnings' — a staple observation in all such cases ; — Or, if one of unsettled habits got into a scrape, such as ' slumping ' in the ice, and coming home half-drowned, instead of being commiserated, he would be coolly reminded that ' An unhappy fish gets an unhappy bait;' — Or, if one hinted that he was hungry, and would not be the worse of something to eat, he would, if the application was inopportune, be favoured

SCOTTISH PRO VERBS. x 7

with the advice in dietetics : 'You'll be the better o' findin' the grunds o' your stamick ; ' — Or, if he, on the other hand, asked for a drink of water shortly after dinner, he would be told that ' Mickle meat taks mickle weet ; ' by which wholesome rebuke he was instructed in the excellent virtue of moderation in eating ; — Or, if one, when put to some kind of difficult task, said he wanted assistance, he would get the proverb pitched at him : * Help yoursel', and your friends will like you the better ; ' — Or, if, on being sent an errand, he ventured to complain of the distance, he would be told : 'It will be lang before' you wear to the knee-lids ; ' — Or, when a family of children quarrelled among themselves, and appealed to their mother for an edict of pacification, she would console them with the remark : ' You 'U all agree better when ye gang in at different kirk doors.' A capital thing were these proverbs and sayings for stamping out what were called notions of ' uppishness ' in children, or hopes of having everything their own way. It must not, however, be inferred, from a proficiency in hurling these repressive maxims, that there was any actual deficiency in the affections. Along with a singular absence of demonstrativeness, there was often a spirit of true kindness. At that period, and till comparatively recent times, there was no demoralising poor-law, such as now exists, to steel the hearts of the people, and create paupers by wholesale. Those in easy circumstances helped, and gave some little personal attention to, their poorer neighbours ; and I can remember that, on the occasion of a sudden death by a distressing accident in the family of a labouring man, the feelings of the whole community were munificently stirred up in compassion.

The country was still haunted by mendicants of various orders, including old decrepit women, who were carried about on hand-barrows from door to door, begging meal or halfpence. The town, also, was never without two or three natural idiots, generally harmless in character. The most interesting and amusing of these was Daft Jock Grey — or, to give him his proper title, ' Daft Jock Grey of Gilmanscleugh ' — a wanderer through Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles shires, who was known to Sir Walter Scott, and possessed qualities not unlike those assigned to the character of Davie Gellatley. Jock, a simple good-natured being, was a kind of genius, had a great command of songs, and composed a ballad, which, commencing with an allusion to his own infirmity, recited, in jingling rhymes, the names and qualities of a number of persons whose houses he frequented in his extensive rambles.

Hogmanay, the last day of the year, was the grand festival of all varieties of mendicants, daft folk, and children generally; for there was a 'universal distribution of oat-cakes, cheese, shortbread, and buns at the doors of the inhabitants. Among those who secured a respectable dole on such occasions was the town-piper, dressed in a red uniform and cocked hat, as befitted a civic official. Piper Ritchie, for such was his name, enjoyed the munificent salary of a pound a year from the corporation, along with a pair of shoes ; and it was understood that, besides his dole at Hogmanay, he was entitled to receive at least a groat annually from all welldisposed householders. His emoluments were completed by certain small fees for playing at weddings. In escorting a marriage-party, he marched with becoming importance in front, playing with might and main a tune

LAIRD GRIEVE. 19

called Welcome hame, my Dearie. It was part of his duty to march through the town every evening between nine and ten o'clock playing on his pipes, as a warning to the inhabitants to go to their beds. The poor piper died an aged man in July 1807. Robert, as recorded in his juvenile memoir, attended the piper's funeral, having had his first pair of trousers put on for the occasion.

On Hogmanay day, tradesmen called personally with their yearly accounts, of which they received payment, along with some appropriate refreshment. There was first-footing on New-year's morning. And Handsel Monday — the first Monday in the year — was marked by tossing a profusion of ballads and penny chap-books from windows among a crowd of clamorous youngsters. New-year was also signalised by various domestic festivities. The severity of manners of a hundred years earlier had worn off. There was unrebuked joviality at births and marriages, and even in a solemn way at deaths. In the house of the deceased, on the evening before the funeral, there was a Lyke-wake, consisting of a succession of services of refreshments, presided over by an undertaker, one of whose professional recommendations consisted in saying a fresh grace to each batch of mourners. Laird Grieve, an aged and facetious carpenter, carried off the chief business in coffin-making, in consequence of being able to say seven graces of considerable length without repetition. The consumption of whisky at these lugubrious entertainments was incredible, and sometimes encroached seriously on the means of families. After the funeral, there was an entertainment called the Dredgy, which was a degree more cheerful than the preceding potations.

Laird Grieve was the only representative of the fine arts in Peebles. In the town there was a house-painter, who could manage to paint the lettering of a sign-board, but was unable to execute anything pictorial. When a vintner, therefore, wished to embellish his sign with the alluring representation of a punch-bowl, a pintstoup, or a few wine-glasses, flanked with two tobaccopipes crosswise ; or, if more ambitious, he desired to have the figure of a black bull passant, a red lion rampant, or some other heraldic object stuck up over his door, the laird was applied to, and gave uncommon satisfaction — like Dick Tinto, taking payment in kind, for when the work was finished, the painter had already eaten and drunk out its value. In his old days, when the poor laird was less able for these artistic performances, and means fell short, he depended mainly on turning peg-tops for the school-boys, besides which handicraft, he resorted to the ingenious artifice of composing doggerel verses, to repeat in making a round of calls among friends. Any incident occurring in the town would answer as a theme. On repeating his verses, some slight refection was produced — and exit the laird satisfied.

I may be excused offering this tribute of recollection to an aged man, who in his time meritoriously performed the useful part of town-carpenter, undertaker, artist, peg-top maker, and versifier; and who, from his facetious humours, kept the burgh in a degree of amusement for more than half a century.

Although the belief in witchcraft had died out generally, it was still entertained in a limited way by the less enlightened classes. I have a recollection of a poor old woman being reputed as a witch, and that it was

OLD SUPERSTlTfO.VS. 21

not safe to pass her cottage, without placing the thumb across the fourth finger, so as to form the figure of the cross. This species of exorcism I practised under instructions from boys older than myself I likewise remember seeing salt thrown on the fire, as a guard against the evil-eye, when aged women, suspected of not being quite canny, happened to call at a neighbour's dwelling. The aged postman, as was confidently reported, never went on his rounds with the letters without a sprig of rowan-tree (mountain-ash) in his pocket, as a preservative against malevolent influences. There was no police. Offenders against the law were usually captured by a town-officer, at the verbal command of the provost, who administered justice in an off-hand way behind his counter, amidst miscellaneous dealings with customers, and ordered off alleged delinquents to prison without keeping any record of the transaction. Dismission from confinement took place in the like abrupt and arbitrary manner.