12

Account of a Projected Tour in Scotland.

the spaces for the panes of glass stuffed with dirty blankets, or filthy clouts, reminded them of so many abodes of despair, or prisons for malefactors, such as those with which most parts of Sicily, Italy, and Spain, abound. The unfavour able impressions which these things gave them at the outset, were by no means qualified by what they beheld on reach ing the stage-coach office, whither they had found their way, designing to proceed in the coach to Edinburgh. Here they discovered a singularly uncouth vehicle, little more capacious than a common-sized dog-kennel, constructed principally of wood, which, however, it would appear, had been originally covered with leather, from some remaining ragged portions of that substance, still retained by the tenacity of the old nails, in contact with its otherwise bare roof and sides, and flapping in the wind. The leather belts, by which coaches are connected with the springs that support them, obeying the law by which all things yield to the destructive influence of time, had successively given way, and their places were now supplied with ropes. Much accustomed as our travellers had been to the rude and inconvenient conveyances on the Continent, they considered the Leith stages (which beggar all description) as making even those, by comparison, appear like so many coaches of state: they, therefore, did not consider it as advisable to squeeze their persons along with four other human beings into such a frail accommodation, but continued their way ou foot. As they passed along, in no very enviable state of mind, reflecting in silence on these unpromising auspices, they were suddenly and painfully roused from their reverie by a horrible and scarcely articulate yell, close to their ear, of Fine mealy pitawties, a shullen a peck, an' awa they go! and, on turning round, beheld, as they verily believed, one of the Errinnyes squatted on the corner of a cart, equipped with the hat and coat of a man, and the petticoats and apron of a woman, with a wide yawning mouth, that seemed to threaten to engulf the beholder, announcing the sale of new potatoes! Had they suddenly come in contact with the torpedo, or gymnotus electricus, their feelings could not have sustained a more disagreeable shock; nor were these at all disposed to regain their wonted tranquillity, on the dying note of this horrifying and death-inducing sound being instantly and, as it were, continuously

[Aug. 1,

taken up by another hag, emulously an tagonizing the first, and with an intonation of voice equally discordant and diabolical, proclaiming from her Stentorean lungs the fresh arrival of Quick fish and caller hawddies! On every hand, and in rapid succession, followed the delectable cries of Wha'll o' sa't, Fine findrim speldrins, Wha'll o' reefards, Ripe grozards, green grozards, twa dips an' a wallop! But the cope-stone, as it were, or climax, of this chaotic jumble of infernal sounds, and which had well nigh put them beside themselves-was two of the infima plebicula, a man and his wife, whose throats were nearly closed up with cynanche tonsillaris, accompa nying the Scotch bag-pipe with voices more croakingly hoarse than that of a boatswain of a man of war, to the plaintive tune of " Lochaber no more!" to the vast delight of a numerous and grotesque assemblage of tatterdemalions and sansculottes, who stood around shivering in the cold; many of whom, from their emotions being wound up to the highest pitch, melted into tears, while, on the other hand, that admirable performer in vocal music, Signior, who hap pened to be passing at the time, without any plug in his ears, and encased in mankeen pantaloons, from different and unaccountable sensations, is reported to have been instantly affected in the manner described by Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice! Here the travellers blessed themselves, and lamented to each other their having been gifted by nature. with ears so exquisitely nice, that ninety nine sounds out of the hundred, against which they could not at all times shut them, proved so grating as to make them almost wish to have been born without them. But if their organs of smell and hearing were thus offended, those of sight experienced no less annoyance and disgust, from which there was no refuge, turn their eyes which way they would. If they looked upwards, they were immediately met by a board projecting from some window indicating a House to Set; as if houses, like razors, admitted of setting! On one hand they remarked a dungeon, into which led a descent of three or four steps, resembling a black hole for criminals, which was dignified with the name of the Sult Of fice, daubed on a sign over its entrance, where there stood on a chair without a back a wooden measure, containing a sample of the commodity dealt in, which, from long exposing to the passing

1815.].

Account of a Projected Tour in Scotland.

stoor,* had acquired the appearance of a mixture of pepper and salt. In various other quarters they found the term office, with which, from education and habit, we are in England accustomed to associate the idea of dignity and authority, as the Chamberlain's Office, the Ad miralty Office, &c., &c., in like manner prostituted on a variety of similar hovels for vending the sorriest articles of commerce, compared with which, bucksters' booths in England might be reckoned even modish: as, The Pye Office, The Potatoe Office, The Spunk Officet, and a great variety of other offices of the like kind. Observing in a particular place, painted on a board," A Calendar Here," and having occasion to ascertain the day of the week on which the month had commenced, being the day on which they had taken their departure from the metropolis, with that view they entered the premises, naturally concluding that "Calendar" in Scotland served the double end of denoting an Almanack and an Almanack House, or warehouse for the disposal of Almanacks; just as they had repeatedly observed in Palermo and other parts of Sicily and Italy, "Caffé," employed to signify both the article Coffee and a Coffee-house; but, to their utter astonishment, they found that, in defiance of all analogy in language, it implied one of those machines used in England for the pressing of linen, which, by a happy but unintentional mistake of John Bull's, are familiarly distinguished by the name of mangles! A group of buxom young wenches, without either stockings or shoes, gossiping at the door, on learning the mistake they had comnitted, raised a horse-laugh at their expense; at which the strangers, in the frame of mind with which they were then possessed, were not a little nettled, as they were not less disgusted at observing the mud and mire of the streets oozing between the toes of their bare feet, like so much soft dough between the fingers of a baker. But what disgusted them beyond endurance was a circle of ten or twelve well grown boys and girls, squatting in the public streets, with their heads

Stoor is an expressive term in the dialect of the Lowlands of Scotland, which has no equivalent in English, signifying, like the Greek Kovis, dust in motion: whence a low, squabble, or what the Romans denominated rira, by an effort of humour, in which common Scots very little excel, is familiarly called a dust without stoor 514) + The Match Office,

*

13

converging to the center, like so many radii of a wheel, and their inferior ant posterior extremities, in a state of nudity, forming the circumference, by a kind of social compact, if not offering up, at any rate laying down, their sacrifices to that goddess at whose shrine none can officiate by proxy, while their mothers stood by, and the passengers moved on, as completely unconcerned as if they had been all members of the Free and Easy Club. "Heavens!" exclaimed the scholar to his friend the painter, “can this be the country that gave birth to David Hume, to the inventor of the Logarithms, and to so many other great men--of which it is vaunted that, while barbaric darkness and Gothic ignorance involved the rest of Europe, it alone remained the seat of science, learning, and refinement. Alas! Troja fuit."-" Sic transit gloria mundi," with a significant shrug of his shoulders, replied the painter. Quickening their pace they had got half way up Leith Walk, when observing two inhuman scoundrels, Leith carters, with all their might and main belabouring an unfortunate horse, which was already almost in articulo mortis from sheer want, to compel it to drag an over-load, the sight raised in them such horror and indignation, that, as if they had been actuated with one soul, suddenly turning on their heel, they set off at a round gallop back to Leith, where they procured a good dinner, more Anglorum, at Mrs. Bamborough's, and the very same evening returned by a smack, which happened to sail for London.

"I have been at some pains in detailing the above anecdote, thinking that I could not more strongly illustrate the evils that may, and frequently do arise, as this one to the eternal loss of the fine arts, did' arise from the wanton infliction of pain on brute animals. But allow me to prosecute the subject farther, and ******* Desunt reliqua.

Audi alteram partem.

MR. EDITOR,

I TRUST your well-known impar tiality will allow the following facts to be inserted in your next number, the transmitting of which to you is occa stoned simply by a wish to do justice to a worthy and much oppressed indivi duala

The first idea of exhibiting a combined view of the Chef d'œuvres of the ancient schools of art, as now practised by the British Institution in Pall Mall, and so

14

Berenger and the Artists' Fund.

worthily coinmended by you in your REVIEW OF THE FINE ARTS for last month, originated and was first promul gated by the Baron de Berenger, formerly proprietor of the Sporting Gallery of Pictures in Pall-Mall, as any one may satisfy himself of by referring to his published plan and conditions of that exhi bition in 1810; in which he publicly and particularly invites the nobility and gentry to favour the institution (the Artists' Fund), he was then most disinterestedly endeavouring to form, and which endeavour produced his subsequent em barrassments, from the great loss it occasioned him. He even offered to give all the produce (not merely the profits but the produce) of that exhibition as his donation for its support. He invited, as I have before stated, the nobility and gentry to favour this his infant institution, now a prospering child of promise, the occasional loan of fine paintings," in which case," says the Baron, "the catalogue will describe them as private property lent condescendingly for that benevolent object, and adding the name of the person so obliging, unless objected to." I have two motives in pointing this out to your numerous readers, one to do justice to a deserving individual (for the recollection of former good deeds should not be effaced by subsequent errors) who is undoubtedly the father of the Artist's Fund for ge⚫neral like the Literary Fund, while the other society, which has cer tainly great merits for its contracted scale of relief, and which succeeded in crushing his for a time, "positively declined extending relief to any widows or orphans but those of its own members."

I feel happy, as an artist, in finding from your magazine, that an Artist's General Benevolent Institution has been formed on the wide and extended scale proposed by the Baron de Berenger, and that it is so flourishing and in such good hands. Long may it flourish ! June 4, 1815.

MR. EDITOR,

PHILOJUSTITIA.

YOUR reviewer of the Fine Arts, with whom I am seldom disposed to differ in opinion, who would not, even if a little more acid in his criticism, be disagreeable to some palates; has in his article for the present month asserted, that the architectural talent which "this"

See Plan for an Artist's Fund and Catalogue of the Sporting Gallery of Pictures; by Charles Random Baron de Berenger, &c.

1810.

[Aug. 1,

(exhibition) and the last seven years have displayed, proves that the nation requires nothing but public spirit to produce buildings worthy of any age or clime. "C'est peu," says Voltaire in his general history," d'avoir des Vitruves, il faut que les Augustes les employent." By this assertion and quotation I presume your reviewer to mean, that we do not at present feel any want of Vitru viuses and Palladios, but only require the fostering care of discriminating Mecanases to elicit them.

I dare say many of your readers remember the important and damning fact on city criticism, which occurred at a meeting of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council-men, assembled to decide on the comparative merits of the designs submitted to them for erecting a mansion-house for the Lord Mayor ou the site of Stocks-market: yet as there may be a few who do not, and are not aware how these wise men of the East transact their affairs, I will briefly relate it. Among the designs submitted to them, was an admirable adaptation of one of Palladio's, beautifully and scientifically arranged for this especial purpose by the celebrated Earl of Burlington, and another from the invention of a citizen and ship-carpenter. A wise member of the Court, whether alderman or common council-man I do not remember, shrewdly remarked that as Palladio was a foreigner, (by which word a citizen of London means not only one who is not a denizen of this country, but also one who is not possessed of the freedom of the city) and a Papist!! of course the Court could not entertain for a moment the idea of adopting his plaus, but that the other was English, sirs, from top to toe," emanated from the mind of a Protestant! a Londoner!! and a Citizen!!! Whatever may be thought to the contrary, Lord Burlington's admirable and patriotic offer of Palladio's invaluable design was rejected, and the ship-carpenter's was adopted, from which and by him was executed that building (the Mansion-house) which in the opinion of the poet, is "damned to everlasting fame," and which is said by an able architectural critic, to be more like af deeply laden Indiaman with her bulkheads, cabins, and carved stern, than splendid civic palace. One more instance of civic sagacity, brought to my mind by an association of ideas raised by the Mansion-house and Stocks-market, and I have done. On its site, in the memory of some old men, not long deceased, was

Report on the New Prison for Debtors in London.

a statue of King Charles the Second, in Roman costume, erected to his honour by his grateful Knight and Mayor, Sir Robert Vining, which tradition states to have been originally a fine statue of the Protector Cromwell, but which, at the happy restoration, was displaced and left in obscurity, till it was purchased by the prudent cit, who had the head carefully taken off, a new bust of his majesty placed on the trunk in its stead; and lo! by a speedy metamorphosis of the brass founder, the republican statue became royal.

Craniological Observations of Capt. Flinders.

male, that shall exempt them from the operation of the same system.

"No part of the prison is FIRE PROOF, neither the floors nor the division of the rooms; and your committee have much to regret, that those who have had the management of the building should have suffered a prison to be undertaken upon u plan so little likely to answer its object, as that which has been adopted by the LONDON Committee.