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Gray—A Project Gutenberg eBook - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -.ph1{ - text-align: justify; - font-size: xx-large; - font-weight: bold; -} - -.ph3{ - text-align: center; - font-size: x-large; - font-weight: bold; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -.p2 {padding-top: 2em;} - -.ml2 {margin-left: 2em;} -.ml4 {margin-left: 4em;} -.ml6 {margin-left: 6em;} -.ml8 {margin-left: 8em;} -.ml10 {margin-left: 10em;} -.ml12 {margin-left: 12em;} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } -hr.full {width: 95%; margin-left: 2.5%; margin-right: 2.5%;} - - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - -.faux { - font-size: 0.1em; - visibility: hidden; -} - -.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ - /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; - font-weight: normal; - font-variant: normal; -} /* page numbers */ - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps; - font-style: normal;} - -.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} - -/* Images */ - -img { - max-width: 100%; - height: auto; -} -img.w100 {width: 100%;} - - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; - page-break-inside: avoid; - max-width: 100%; -} - -/* Illustrated drop caps */ - -.ddropcapbox { - float: left; -} - -.idropcap { - height: auto; -} - -.ddropcapbox { - margin-left: 0; - margin-right: 0.5em; -} - -.x-ebookmaker .ddropcapbox { - float: left; - } - -/* Footnotes */ -.footnotes {border: 1px dashed;} - -.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} - -.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: .8em; - text-decoration: - none; -} - -/* Poetry */ -.poetry-container {text-align: center;} -.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} -/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry in browsers */ - .poetry {display: inline-block;} -.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} -.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} -/* large inline blocks don't split well on paged devices */ -@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } -.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block;} - -/* Poetry indents */ -.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} -.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;} -.poetry .indent20 {text-indent: 7em;} -.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1em;} - -/* Illustration classes */ -.illowe2 {width: 6em;} -.illowp15 {width: 15%;} -.x-ebookmaker .illowp15 {width: 100%;} - - - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Notes on the Art Treasures at Penicuik House Midlothian, by John M. Gray</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Notes on the Art Treasures at Penicuik House Midlothian</p> -<div style='display:table; margin-bottom:1em;'> -<div style='display:table-row'> - <div style='display:table-cell; padding-right:0.5em'>Author:</div> - <div style='display:table-cell'>John M. Gray</div> -</div> -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 12, 2021 [eBook #65604]</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:table; margin-bottom:1em;'> - <div style='display:table-row'> - <div style='display:table-cell; padding-right:0.5em; white-space:nowrap;'>Produced by:</div> - <div style='display:table-cell'>Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</div> - </div> -</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES ON THE ART TREASURES AT PENICUIK HOUSE MIDLOTHIAN ***</div> - -<h1 class="faux">NOTES ON THE ART TREASURES AT PENICUIK -HOUSE MIDLOTHIAN</h1> - -<div class="ddropcapbox illowe2" id="dropcap_n"> - <img class="w100 idropcap" src="images/dropcap_n.jpg" alt="N" /></div> -<p class="ph1">OTES ON THE ART TREASURES<br /> -AT PENICUIK -HOUSE MIDLOTHIAN<br /> -BY JOHN M. GRAY F.S.A. SCOT.<br /> -CURATOR SCOTTISH NATIONAL<br /> -PORTRAIT GALLERY.</p> - -<p class="center p2"><i>REPRINTED, WITH LARGE ADDITIONS, -FROM “THE SCOTTISH LEADER.”</i></p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp15 p2" id="decoration" style="max-width: 22.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/decoration.jpg" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="center p2">FIFTY COPIES<br /> -FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.<br /> -1889. -</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">{3}</span></p> - -<p class="ph3 nobreak" id="THE_ART_TREASURES_OF_SCOTLAND">THE ART TREASURES OF SCOTLAND.</p> -</div> - - -<p class="ph3">III. PENICUIK HOUSE.</p> - - -<h2>I.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are few Scottish families that, during the -last two hundred years, have been more closely -connected with the progress of culture in their -native country than the Clerks of Penicuik.</p> - -<p>Claiming descent from the Drummonds of Hawthornden, -through Elizabeth Henderson, grand-daughter -of the poet and first wife of the first -Baronet of Penicuik, they have produced, both in -the main line and in its younger branches, a goodly -proportion of men of intellect and mark. At -present we need only name Sir John Clerk, the -second Baronet, one of the Commissioners for the -Union, and a Baron of the Exchequer, a man -of varied attainments and the strongest individuality, -and known as an enthusiastic antiquary; -his son, Sir James, who was the architect -of the present mansion of the family; whose -brother, Sir George Clerk Maxwell, the fourth -Baronet, distinguished himself by his efforts to -promote the commercial interests of his country, -establishing a linen manufactory at Dumfries, -engaging in mining schemes for copper and -lead, and writing much upon agricultural and -industrial subjects; John Clerk of Eldin, younger -brother of the last-named, author of the celebrated -“Essay on Naval Tactics,” and known -as an artist by his series of etchings which -preserve in a manner so interesting to the -antiquary the aspect of many of the historical -edifices of Scotland; his well-known son John -Clerk, “the Coryphæus of the Scottish Bar,” -afterwards Lord Eldin; and the Right Hon. Sir<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">{4}</span> -George Clerk, sixth Baronet, the friend of Sir -Robert Peel, one of the prominent politicians of -his time, and especially versed in all matters of -statistics. William Aikman, the portrait-painter, -too, was descended from the house of Penicuik, -his mother having been the eldest sister of Sir -John Clerk, the first Baronet; and, in our own -time, Professor James Clerk Maxwell, whose -father was grandson of the fourth Baronet and -brother of the sixth, has by his eminence in science -added new lustre to his parental name.</p> - -<p>But not only have the Clerks been themselves -witty—using the word in its best, its old English, -sense—they have been the cause of wit in others; -by their loyal friendships with the best Scottish -painters and poets of their time, and their open-handed -patronage of these men’s work, they have -identified themselves with the history of art and -literature in Scotland. One can hardly pronounce -the name of Allan Ramsay without thinking of -Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, or the name of Alexander -Runciman, without recalling that of Sir -James, his son and successor.</p> - -<p>The mansion of the family is situated about a -mile and a half from the village of Penicuik, on a -commanding situation, overlooking the wooded -valley of the Esk, a “classic stream” which, at -this point, is still uncontaminated by the chemicals -of the paper-makers, whose manufactories begin -to appear a little lower, at the village itself. -Manifestly great care and the finest taste have -been expended by the successive owners of the -place in laying out the grounds, which are a -triumph of landscape-gardening, so filled are they -with pleasant combinations of woodland, lawn, -and flowers; and we shall hardly forget their -gorgeous aspect on that summer day when we first -saw them, with their wealth of purple rhododendron -blossoms, and, here and there, a touch of -particularly vivid crimson of beech-leaves diversifying -the “greenery” of June. Especially noticeable -is the skill which has arranged that spaces of -shadowed and closely enclosed foliage shall lead,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">{5}</span> -with all the force of sharp and grateful contrast, -to amplest breadth of outlook and extended view; -and so aptly does the peak of the Black Hill top -the belt of trees that bounds the Upper Pond, -and with such a perfect sense of definitely calculated -balance, of satisfying composition, does the -blue outline of Mendick complete the view as we -look up the stream from near the south front of -the house, that, in a fanciful mood, we could well -believe the whole to have been the result of something -more than a mere happy chance,—could -almost imagine that he who designed the place had -been gifted with a wizard’s power, greater than -that of the Prophet himself, that the mountains -had indeed been at his beck and call, that they -had come at his bidding, and taken their stations, -each in the precise spot best fitted to give to the -prospect its last, its crowning perfection.</p> - -<p>Nay, Nature herself, even in her moments of -wildest storm, seems to have been working in -harmony with the designer of the place, and -making for its beauty. When you have surveyed -the last-named prospect, and turned a little towards -the left to follow the depressions of the -ground which mark the position of the unseen -bed of the Esk, you note the greensward that -borders the stream; and this leads the eye beyond -to the further bank, where an open space of -clearing among the trees diversifies the succession -of their rounded tops, this break and point of -pause being again repeated further up to the left -among the trees that crest the hill. The last -opening was the work of the tempest, which, by -overturning a trunk or two, disclosed a glimpse of -the distant Peeblesshire moor behind, giving just -that final touch, that hint of the beyond “over -the hills and far away,” which perfects the view,—not -only to the painter, as completing the lines -of its composition, but to the poet as well, by -adding that sense of extended outlook, as of a -vista piercing into the breadth of the world, -which is needful, for finest imaginative effect, in -every landscape.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">{6}</span></p> - -<p>Then, too, there are the Penicuik Gardens to -be seen,—the old garden, lying on a sheltered -slope to the south, with its glass-houses, the first, -or all but the very first, of the kind in Scotland; -the extensive modern garden, bounded by brick -walls, the soft mellow colouring of which tells so -pleasantly through the green of the trees; and -especially the “American Garden,” with its -wealth of many-coloured azaleas springing from -the midmost space of softest turf, “a garden -inclosed” like the garden of the Canticles, -cloistered and protected, like some princess of -romance, by thick-set hedges and a circle of -sheltering wood, lest any eager and nipping air -of our northern clime should visit its cheek too -roughly, and blanch the beauty of its ardent -face of flowers.</p> - - -<h2>II.</h2> - -<p>The house, which fronts us as we approach the -termination of the drive, is a modern edifice, built -by Sir James, the third Baronet, in 1761, after he -had returned from a residence in Italy, saturated -with classical ideas. It was erected entirely from -the Baronet’s own designs; but, doubtless, these -were produced under the influence of Robert -Adam, the celebrated architect, whose sister had -been married in 1753 to John Clerk, author of -the “Naval Tactics,” Sir James’s younger brother. -Consequently the present house does not possess -the interest of having been the meeting-place of -Allan Ramsay, who died in 1758, and his friends -and patrons of the Clerk family; an association -erroneously assigned to the present structure by -Dr. Daniel Wilson in his “Reminiscences of Old -Edinburgh,” a work which contains many curious -particulars regarding the Clerks, and especially of -the Baron, the second Baronet. The house in which -the poet and the antiquary spent together many a -genial evening of “honest talk and wholesome -wine” no longer exists. It occupied a site close -behind the present mansion, on whose completion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">{7}</span> -it was removed. Some of the old cellars remain -under the earthen mound to the south, and are still -in use. We may sigh a little over the memories -and associations of old Penicuik House, over -the vanished picturesqueness of its “crowstep” -gables and its circular corkscrew turrets, of -which a shadow still survives in the sketch by -John Clerk, reproduced in the Bannatyne Club -issue of his etchings; but doubtless the present -mansion is vastly more commodious and in better -harmony with modern ideas of comfort than was -its predecessor, and it takes its place excellently in -the landscape; its effect not greatly marred by -the more recent wings added by Bryce in 1857-8; -its straight perpendicular and horizontal lines -contrasting excellently with the flowing curves of -ground and trees, in that fashion which Turner -recognised and loved, and emphasised so delightfully -in his early drawings of four-square English -mansions set amid the rounded forms of wood -and hill and stream.</p> - -<p>As we turn our eye towards the offices of -Penicuik House, which are situated a little to -our right, two objects of rather singular aspect -arrest our attention. Regarding one of them—a -tall, very ecclesiastical-looking steeple garnished -with the usual large gilded clock-face, which in -the oddest fashion surmounts the stables—a -curious bit of tradition lingers in the neighbourhood. -It seems that Sir James designed not -only his own mansion, but also the parish church -of Penicuik. When the plan of the latter, however, -was submitted to the heritors or kirk-session, -it appears that they would have none of -the steeple,—for what reason is not recorded, -whether it was that their architectural tastes did -not chime in with those of the Baronet, or that -they considered it as too decorative a feature to -be in accordance with severe Presbyterian principles, -or whether, finally, the expense was too -great for their pockets. Declined, at any rate, the -steeple was, so local tradition affirms. But Sir -James was by no means willing that the structure<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">{8}</span> -which his brain had devised should only be -dimly visible upon paper, and never take substantial -embodiment in stone and lime; so he -reared it, at his own proper cost, in his stable-yard, -where it still forms so imposing and unusual -a feature.</p> - -<p>The other curious erection is a rounded dome -on the opposite side of the court, raising its -height above the stable buildings. This is nothing -less than an accurate reproduction of “Arthur’s -O’on,” which formerly existed on the north bank -of the Carron, a mile and a half from Falkirk, -believed by “Sandy Gordon,” the great antiquarian -friend of the second Baronet of Penicuik, -to be a Roman <i>Sacellum</i>, or chapel in which -military standards and insignia were deposited, -and fully described and discussed in his “Itinerarium -Septentrionale,” that precious folio which -Oldbuck had captured and was beginning to -examine when we make his acquaintance in the -opening chapters of “The Antiquary.”</p> - -<p>Turning, however, to the house itself, we may -remark, as we enter, that the ornaments of the -front—the stone vases that break the sky-line, -and the graceful “Chippendale” shield of arms, -furnished with the decorative, not heraldic, -adjunct of wings—were designed by John Clerk -of Eldin, author of the “Naval Tactics,” a cadet -of the family. Also that the <i>grisaille</i> painting on -the lower side of the roof of the raised portico -was executed—so James Jackson’s “Account of -the Parish of Penicuik” informs us—by Alexander -Runciman, when he was an apprentice with John -Norie, the well-known decorative painter and landscapist -of Edinburgh, and that it was the ability -displayed in this work that induced Sir James -to assist in sending the youth for four or five -years to Rome, whence he returned to execute -the mural paintings of the St. Margaret Staircase -and the Ossian Hall of Penicuik House. The -motto, from Cicero’s <i>De Officiis</i> with which the -portal is inscribed, was chosen by the Earl of -Perth, grandson of John Drummond, the attainted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">{9}</span> -Earl of Melfort, a close friend of Sir James’s; -and a letter regarding it may be transcribed, as -a quaint example of the stately epistles of our -ancestors.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Upon considering the manner of your -House of Pennicueik, where I had the pleasure -of beeing some days in November last, and admiring -the Architecture of it, after 40 years ponderating -(<i>sic</i>) in my mind a Precept of Cicero’s,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Non Domo Dominus, sed Domino Domus honestanda est,</i></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>found for the first time that it was obtemperate, -and should wish for leave to inscribe it on Pennicueik -House as the real sentiment of</p> - -<p> -<span class="ml4">Your most obedient</span><br /> -<span class="ml8">Servant and Cousin</span><br /> -<span class="ml12"><span class="smcap">Perth</span>.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>“<i><span class="smcap">Lundin House</span>, Ap. 22, 1771.</i>”</p> -</div> - - -<h2>III.</h2> - -<p>In the Entrance Hall various antiquarian and -artistic treasures decorate the walls or are preserved -in glass cases,—the colours of the local -volunteer regiment that was raised at the time of -the French Invasion scare, full-sized marble copies -of various antique statues, excellent old china, -several fine missals, the fan and necklace of Mary -Queen of Scots, said to have come into the Clerk -family from Mary Gray, wife of the first John Clerk -of Penicuik, through her mother, Mary Gillies, -to whom it was given before the execution at -Fotheringay, and the gold snuff-box presented by -the Scottish Widows’ Fund to Lord Eldin, in -1825, in recognition of his services at the time -of the foundation of the company.</p> - - -<h2>IV.</h2> - -<p>Turning to the right from the Hall we enter -the Dining-room, where the most important of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">{10}</span> -the portraits are hung. But here the places of -honour on the walls, above the fireplaces and -fronting the long line of windows which light the -apartment, are occupied by no family portraits, -by no effigies of distinguished heads of the house. -Even the portrait of the second Baronet, the -potent Baron of Exchequer himself, even the -great Raeburn group of the fifth Baronet and his -comely wife, Mary Dacre, have been waived to -less important positions; and the pictures which -hold the chief places represent a poet and a -painter who were loved and honoured by this -family of Penicuik.</p> - -<p>Over the fireplace to the right is an excellent -portrait, by William Aikman, of Allan Ramsay -the elder, a man who, though his verses may -seem a little artificial and a little dull to the -readers of our own day, is worthy of all honour, -not only for having aided in turning Scottish -poetry into a freer and more natural channel, but -also for having established a theatre and the first -circulating library in Edinburgh, and so distinctly -served the cause of culture in Scotland. -He was the sworn friend of the house of Penicuik, -the chosen associate of the second Baronet, -and of his son, afterwards Sir James, whom he -addresses in that homely and vigorous “Epistle,” -beginning—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“Blythe may he be who o’er the haugh,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All free from care, may sing and laugh,”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>which is dated “Pennycuick, May 9, 1755.”</p> - -<p>The present picture, very similar to that which -was excellently mezzotinted by George White, -shows the poet nearly to the waist, clad in a -brown coat, the shirt open at the throat and -without a cravat. No wig is worn, but the -head is wound round tightly, cap-fashion, with -a low-toned orange handkerchief, beneath which -appears the bright, alert, intelligent face, with its -bushy eyebrows and very black eyes, its wide-nostrilled, -humorous, slightly <i>retroussé</i> nose, and -its large-lipped mouth, full and rippling over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">{11}</span> -with good-nature and sensitiveness. We are -enabled to fix the exact date of the picture by -means of the following interesting inscription on -the back, in the autograph of Sir John, the -second Baronet:—</p> - - -<p class="center p2">“A Roundlet in Mr. Ramsay’s own Way.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Here painted on this canvass clout,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By Aikman’s hand is Ramsay’s snout,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The picture’s value none might doubt,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">For ten to one I’ll venture,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The greatest criticks could not tell</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which of the two does most excell,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or in his way should bear the bell,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The Poet or the Painter.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right">J. C. Pennicuik, 5 May 1723.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The picture accordingly represents the poet in -his thirty-seventh year, and was painted when -the artist was about to leave Scotland to settle -in London, an occasion on which Ramsay inscribed -to him his “Pastoral Farewell,”—not his -only poetical tribute to his friend, for previously, -in 1721, he had penned another “Epistle,” in -which he thanks the portraitist because</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“By your assistance unconstrain’d,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To courts I can repair,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And by your art my way I’ve gained</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To closets of the fair.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>There are many other portraits which enable -us to gather what was the personal appearance -of the author of “The Gentle Shepherd.” There -is the print in which the poet appears in all the -bright bravery of youth, clad in a kind of -fanciful Scottish costume,—a coat slashed at -the sleeves, a plaid laid over his right shoulder, -a broad Highland bonnet, with a St. Andrew -badge, set on the head. This is the frontispiece -to the first quarto edition of his works, published -by Ruddiman in 1721: it is engraved by T. -Vereruysse, and bears the initials J. S. P., which, -as we learn from the engraving by Vertue, evidently -from the same picture, in Ramsay’s -“Poems and Songs,” 1728, stands for “John<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">{12}</span> -Smibert, Pinxit.” This painter, born in Edinburgh -in 1684, was a friend and correspondent of -Ramsay’s, and it was to him, while studying art -in Italy, that the poet addressed that “Epistle to -a Friend in Florence” which is included in his -works. He accompanied Bishop Berkeley to -Rhode Island in 1727, and afterwards settled in -Boston, where he resided till his death in 1751. -In Britain his works are scarce, but a portrait -of Berkeley by his hand is in the National -Portrait Gallery, London, and there is at Monymusk, -Aberdeenshire, along with minor examples -of his art, an important group of Lord Cullen -and his family, including twelve life-sized figures, -which he painted in 1720. Smibert is believed -to have executed a second portrait of Allan -Ramsay, that kit-cat likeness with the head -turned nearly in profile to the left, which formed -the frontispiece to “The Gentle Shepherd, with -Illustrations of the Scenery,” Edinburgh 1814, -engraved by A. Wilson, from a drawing made by -A. Carse from the picture (now at New Hall, Mid-Lothian), -which had belonged to the poet himself, -and afterwards to Janet Ramsay, a daughter who -survived him.</p> - -<p>Again there is a singularly heavy-looking and -spiritless portrait engraved in the second volume -of Ruddiman’s 1728 edition of Ramsay’s works, -marked as by Strange’s master, “R. Cooper, ad -vivum sculpsit, Edin<sup>r</sup>,” showing the figure to the -waist, the right hand holding a volume of the -Poems; and the smaller print, without name of -painter or engraver, which seems to be an improved -adaptation of this portrait, the face -become refined and delicate, a fitting face for a -poet.</p> - -<p>There is, further, that interesting and characteristic -chalk drawing, by the poet’s artist son, -preserved at Woodhouselee, and inscribed “His -first attempt of that kind from the life ... 1729,” -done when the youth—who in the words of his -father in a letter to the above-mentioned Smibert, -had “been pursuing his science since he was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">{13}</span> -dozen years auld”—was just sixteen, seven years -before he started for Italy, to study art in Rome; -and there is a print in which the same portrait is -treated as a bust on a pedestal, drawn by the -younger Ramsay and engraved by Cooper. There -is also the well-known portrait, done by the same -filial hand, that was engraved by David Allan in -the 1788 quarto edition of “The Gentle Shepherd,” -a bust likeness, with the strong-featured, firmly -modelled face turned in profile to the right, -appearing from behind a parapet on which lie -the various symbols of the pastoral muse, a mask, -a staff, a crook, and a rustic pipe. In interest, -however, and in all life-like qualities, the picture -at Penicuik is fully equal to the best of those we -have named as portraying the shrewd and cheerful -countenance of the homely poet.</p> - -<p>The portrait which hangs to the left, over the -other fireplace of the Penicuik Dining-room is also -by Aikman, and its subject is the painter himself. -Here again an additional interest is given to the -picture, in this case a most pathetic interest, by -its inscription. On its back is a note, also in the -hand of the second Baronet of Penicuik, the -painter’s cousin:—“Mr. Aikman, painted by -himself when dying, and left as a legacy to me, -J. C., anno 1733.”</p> - -<p>This artist was born in 1682, the son of William -Aikman of Cairnie, Forfarshire, by his second wife, -Margaret, sister of the first Sir John Clerk. In -his youth he was possessed, as Douglas of the -Baronage says, with even more than his customary -solemnity, of a “mighty genius for portrait-painting.” -His father, like so many of the Scottish -gentry, was a member of the Scottish Bar, and desired -that his son should enter upon the studies -that would qualify him for the same profession—studies -which would reasonably occupy his time, -put him in the way of intellectual effort, and give -him enough law to enable him to manage his -estates profitably, and to sit with dignity and propriety -upon the bench of county magistrates. -But the parental wishes were in vain; the “mighty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">{14}</span> -genius for portrait-painting” was not to be controlled. -Aikman studied art for three years in -Edinburgh, under Sir John de Medina, of whose -portraiture there is a representative series in Penicuik -House; and, when he came into possession -of his ancestral acres, which were valuable then, -and have become doubly valuable since, he -promptly parted with them, sold all that he -had for the sake of art; and having rid himself of -the burden of ponderable and engrossing material -things, started a free man to study painting in -Rome. During the five years that he spent abroad -he even visited Constantinople and Smyrna, a “far -cry” indeed for a Scottish laird of the beginning -of the seventeenth century. Returning to his -native country in 1712, he was in time patronised -by John, Duke of Argyll, and in 1723 he established -himself in London, where he moved in the -best and most cultured circles, numbering among -his friends Sir Robert Walpole, Pope, Swift, -Arbuthnot, and Gay, several of whom still live -upon his canvases. At the age of forty-nine he was -prosperous and happy, in excellent practice as a -portrait-painter, busied upon a great group of the -Royal Family, commissioned by the Earl of Burlington, -and now in the possession of the Duke of -Devonshire. But this work was destined never -to be completed. His only son, one of those -“bonnie bairns” to whom Allan Ramsay refers in -his “Pastoral Farewell to Mr. Aikman,” a youth -of great artistic promise—several etched studies -after Van Dyck by his hand still exist to prove his -talent<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>—sickened and died at the age of eighteen, -and the father never recovered the blow. He -pined away, died six months afterwards, 1731, and -was buried in the same grave in the Greyfriars’ -Churchyard, Edinburgh. Mallet wrote his epitaph;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">{15}</span> -Ramsay, Thomson, and Somerville have -recorded his virtues and the charm of his presence.</p> - -<p>At Penicuik we are enabled to trace the development -of Aikman’s art from first to final phase. -His portrait of “Dame Christina Kilpatrick,” -second wife of the first Baronet, is marked on the -back by the painter’s cousin, “painted 1706 by -Mr. Aikman when he was learning to paint, but -very like.” The portrait of the second Baronet -himself, similarly inscribed, “painted by Mr. -Aikman, about the year 1706, when he was beginning -to paint,” is identical in style with the -work of his master Medina. In the Red Bedroom -are hung his school copies after classical -subjects by Maratti, done at Rome; and we have -seen that the portrait of himself was one of the -very last canvases that his brush touched.</p> - -<p>This portrait of Aikman showing the figure -nearly to the waist within a painted oval, is practically -identical with that in the National Gallery -of Scotland, formerly in the possession of Mrs. -Forbes, the artist’s eldest daughter, and engraved -in “The Bee,” vol. xviii. 1793. The only difference -is that here the draperies consist of a coat -and vest of a cool yellowish-brown velvet, passing -into definite yellow in the high lights, while in -the National Gallery version a golden-brown gown -and a flowered vest of the same colour is substituted. -The well-balanced, handsome, oval face, -with its ripe mouth, rippling in its lines and -dimpled at the corners, fine dark-blue eyes, and -rounded, slightly cleft chin, is turned in three-quarters -towards the right, and surmounted by a -voluminous powdered wig. Another portrait of -Aikman by himself is preserved at Florence in the -Painters’ Gallery of the Uffizi. Here the pose of -the figure is similar to that in the two other -pictures; but the coat is of crimson, the lower part -of the body is wrapped in a dark mantle, and no -wig is worn, its place being taken by a white -handkerchief which is wound round the head. -Among the portraits of Aikman at The Ross is -another from his own hand, showing him as he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">{16}</span> -appeared on his travels, bearded, and wearing a -turban and a ruddy Eastern gown.</p> - -<p>We may now turn to the family portraits with -which the walls of the Dining-room are covered. -The earliest of them is a portrait of John Clerk, -father of the first Baronet, and the founder of the -family, known for centuries in the familiar traditions -of the Penicuik nursery under the playful -title of “Musso,” from his prolonged residence in -France. He was born in 1610, the son of a -merchant-burgess of Montrose, and baptized at -Fettercairn by the Bishop of Caithness, on the -22d December of that year. Bred a merchant, -he settled in Paris in 1634, where he acquired “a -fortune of at least £10,000,” as his grandson -informs us. In 1647 he returned to Scotland, -married, acquired the lands of Penicuik and of -Wrightshouses, near Edinburgh, and died in 1674, -at the age of sixty-three.</p> - -<p>His portrait, which hangs in the Dining-room, -is not a contemporary work, but a copy executed -by Aikman—to range with the other family -pictures—from a miniature, done in Paris by an -unknown painter, and still preserved in the -Charter-room. This original, inscribed on its -gold case “John Clerk of Pennicuik, 1644,” is a -bust portrait painted in oils on a small oval slab -of bloodstone, the polished green surface of which, -with its red markings, serves for background. -The face shows a delicate, prominently aquiline -nose, a forehead broad rather than high, sharply -pencilled black eyebrows above the dark blue -eyes, a full, brightly red lower lip, a small -moustache of darkest brown, turned up at the -ends, and a tiny tuft on the chin. The bust is -clad in that pseudo-Roman costume so much -affected in the portraiture of the period, similar to -that in which Charles <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> appears in the equestrian -statue in the Parliament Square, Edinburgh, and -very closely resembling the dress worn by George -Lauder, author of “The Scottish Souldier,” in the -scarce portrait engraved by J. Hermanni after -J. Reyners. The tunic is of a bright blue colour,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">{17}</span> -cut square at the neck, and edged with gold lace, -decorated on the breast and shoulders with gold -ornaments worked into the shape of satyr and -lion heads, and a bright red mantle falls in graceful -folds on either side. The little picture is of -excellent workmanship and is delicately finished, -much of its precision of detail having been lost in -Aikman’s not very refined life-sized copy.</p> - -<p>Above the fireplace in the Drawing-room is -another portrait of this same John Clerk, a large, -dark, gallery full-length, stated to have been -executed, like the miniature, in Paris. Here the -founder of the family is depicted standing, in a -black dress, his right hand resting on the stone -ball which surmounts and decorates the parapet of -garden walk, his left hand sustaining his sword. -The countenance is manifestly the same as that -in the miniature. This picture is stated by family -tradition to have been painted by “De Wit,” a -portrait-painter we have not as yet been able to -identify. It bears no resemblance in style to the -portraits executed by James de Witt at Holyrood -in 1684-5, and at Glamis Castle in 1686-8; -and it could hardly have been the same artist -who was working at Paris before the year 1647. -Nor, of course, is it by Jacob de Wit, the painter -of a subject in the Library to be afterwards -described, who was not born till 1695.</p> - -<p>The portrait of the wife of John Clerk, Mary, -daughter of Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, is -also a copy, and of this a delicate and spirited -contemporary miniature is preserved at Penicuik. -It was executed about the end of the last century -by Miss Ann Forbes, a grand-daughter of William -Aikman’s, and consequently a connection of the -Clerks, whose work, chiefly in crayons, though -this is an oil picture, is to be found in many -Scottish houses, as, for instance, at The Ross, -Hamilton, the seat of the present head of Aikman’s -family. A few other examples of her brush are -preserved in the present collection; and her -own portrait, painted by David Allan, a carefully -handled cabinet picture, very clear and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">{18}</span> -silvery in tone, showing her standing in three-quarters -length, holding a portcrayon and a portfolio, -is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. -The portrait of Mrs. Mary Clerk, like that of her -husband, shows the figure to the waist; the face is -in three-quarters to the right. She has light -hazel eyes, neutral brown eyebrows and hair, the -latter elaborately curled, fastened with bows of -black ribbon, and decorated in front with a small -plume of white ostrich feathers, and she wears -pearl ear-rings and a double string of large pearls -round the neck. The costume is a black flowered -dress, worn low at the breast, with a tall white -lace collar standing up behind the neck.</p> - - -<h2>V.</h2> - -<p>We come now to examine the portraits of Sir -John Clerk, the first Baronet of Penicuik, who -was born in 1649; served repeatedly in Parliament, -after the Revolution of 1688, as member for -the county of Edinburgh; was Lieutenant-Colonel -of a regiment commanded by the Earl of Lauderdale; -was created a Baronet by Charles <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> in -1679; acquired the lands of Lasswade in 1700; -and died in 1722. He is described by his son as -“one of the strongest men of his time, but not -full in stature, being scarce 5 feet 6 inches,” -“finely made, had proportionate breadth, and a -Hercules shoulders,” “a man of knowledge and -application,” “a pretty good scholar, and exceedingly -knowing in Divinity.”</p> - -<p>No fewer than five portraits—pictures and -miniatures—at Penicuik are stated to represent -this first Baronet. The earliest is that preserved -in the glass case beside the entrance to the -Library. It is a miniature, executed on paper -with the brush and Indian ink, showing a small -head, turned in three-quarters to the left, and -garnished with a long wig. On the back is inscribed, -in the handwriting of the Chief Baron, -the first Baronet’s son, “Sir John Clerk then in -those days in London a counselar at Law great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">{19}</span> -wigs were in fashion 1689.” In the same case -is a second miniature of similar general character, -but drawn upon vellum, accompanied by a companion -miniature of the first Baronet’s second -wife, Christian, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Kilpatrick. -Another portrait of this lady, an oil-portrait, -showing the figure to the waist, is in the -Dining-room. Here she wears a claret-coloured -dress and an amber-brown mantle. The hair is -yellowish brown, the eyes of a dark rich brown, and -the face, which is a little out of drawing, though -curiously individual and life-like, has peculiarly -raised eyebrows. This work is inscribed in the -handwriting of her son-in-law—“Dame Christian -Kilpatrick, my father’s second wife, painted 1706 -by Mr. Aikman, when he was learning to paint, -but very like”—an early example of the artist, -done when he was studying under Medina, the -year before he left for Italy.</p> - -<p>In the Dining-room are three other works, all -life-sized oil-portraits, stated to be likenesses of -the first Baronet. One of them, showing Sir John -clad in a brown gown lined with red, is manifestly -a companion portrait done at the same -time as the last-named portrait of his wife. It -also bears a similar note by the Baron—“My -father Sir John Clerk, painted by Mr. Aikman -about the year 1706, when he was beginning to -paint.” In its style of handling, as well as in its -combinations of colour, it recalls most strongly -the works of Sir John Medina, its painter’s -master.</p> - -<p>A second portrait is also by Aikman, a later -and more accomplished work. Here the figure is -seen nearly to the waist, turned to the right, with -the face slightly in the same direction. A curled -wig is worn, and a single-breasted coat of pale blue -velvet. The eyes are of a clear blue colour; and -the face is of that firm, powerful, large-featured -type which for generations was habitual in the -house of Penicuik. This picture, again, is inscribed -in the son’s handwriting—“Sir John -Clerk of Pennicuik, my Father, painted by Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">{20}</span> -Aikman. He was born in April 1649, and died in -March 1722, aged 73.”</p> - -<p>Very considerable difficulty attaches to the -remaining portrait, which is believed to represent -the first Sir John Clerk, and to the manifestly -companion portrait beside it, which has been held -to portray his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of -Henry Henderson of Elvington, and grand-daughter -of William Drummond of Hawthornden, -a poet “of an excellent Fancy for the times he -lived in,” as the Baron remarks, rather patronisingly, -in the family history with which he begins -his account of his own life.</p> - -<p>It has been stated (Catalogue of National -Gallery of Scotland, 1887) that these portraits -“are dated 1674.” This, however, is inaccurate, -as no inscription appears upon either work. It -has also been asserted (Catalogue of Royal Scottish -Academy Loan Exhibition of 1863) that “the -original Scougal accounts for the price paid for -them” are preserved at Penicuik; but a search -which we have made through the old receipts of -the period has failed to disclose such a document. -Probably this second reference is not to the -painter’s receipt, but simply to an entry of the -payment which is to be found in an interesting -old account-book preserved in the Charter-room -at Penicuik, one of that “great many journals -and writings” which the Chief Baron records that -his father left “under his hand, which will, I hope, -bear testimony to the regard he always had for -virtue and Honesty.” This volume the Chief -Baron—partly in filial piety, more perhaps with -the instinct of the accurate and omnivorous antiquary—has -docketed as follows: “Book of -Accompts by my Grandfather Mr. Jo. Clerk, and -Father Sir John Clerk, Whereon are several -things remarkable. 1<sup>o</sup>, their methodes of accompting. -2<sup>o</sup>, their methodes of management. 3<sup>o</sup>, the -different prices of things. John Clerk, 1733.” -Here on a page <i>headed June 1674</i>, but under -date of “Nov<sup>r</sup> 1675,” the following entry appears—“To -John Scougall for 2 pictures £36”; and it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">{21}</span> -is curious, as illustrating “the different prices of -things,” and also as showing how a love of all -the various fine arts prevailed then among the -Clerks, as it has prevailed among them ever since, -to note another entry, which appears a few lines -beneath: “To Mr. Chambers for Teaching G. -and me to play y<sup>e</sup> violl £150,” both sums being in -Scots currency.</p> - -<p>There can be no doubt that the portraits above -referred to are the “2 pictures” by Scougall -mentioned in the account-book, for a comparison -with other works by that painter proves them to -be excellent and most typical examples of his -brush, and there are no other pictures in the -house painted in a style recalling that artist, -except the portrait of Lord Justice-Clerk Sir -Archibald Primrose, which will be afterwards -referred to. It has been assumed, but on less -sufficient evidence, that they represent the first -Sir John Clerk (by whom they were certainly -commissioned) and his first wife, and that they -were painted to celebrate the wedding of the pair, -which occurred in 1674. It is to be noted, however, -that the account-book gives no information -as to who the personages are that appear in the -pictures; that there is no contemporary inscriptions -on the works themselves to prove that it is -the first Baronet and his wife that are portrayed -and not merely two of their friends; that in the -male portrait the face is delicate in its curves and -contours, with a long thin nose, drooping at the -point, quite unlike the countenance which appears -in the pictures certified in the handwriting of -the son as representing the first Baronet; and -that the present picture seems to portray a man -of more than twenty-five or twenty-six, the age -of the first Sir John when the work was executed.</p> - -<p>But, whomever they portray, the pictures are -excellent and interesting examples of a little-known -Scottish artist, by far the finest works by -John Scougall with which we are acquainted; -and they afford most interesting representations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">{22}</span> -of the costume of the end of the seventeenth -century.</p> - -<p>Each of them shows its subject to the waist. -The male figure is turned to the right, clad in a -black doublet, with richly wrought silver buttons, -partly open in front and disclosing the shirt, -which also appears at the arms, beneath the short -sleeves of the coat; and the short embroidered -cravat is drawn through a loop and spread out, in -fan-like folds, on either side. The thin, nervous-looking -face wears a very peculiar expression; the -eyes dark blue, the long yellowish hair curling -down to the shoulders: it is a face eminently -individual, utterly unforgetable.</p> - -<p>The lady’s portrait is even a more beautiful -and fascinating old picture. Here the figure is -turned to the left; the face, seen in three-quarters, -is rather pallid in its flesh-tints, as was usual with -the painter, a characteristic which appears also -in the male portrait. The eyes are of a neutral -grey-blue; the yellow-brown hair is worn flat on -the top, and bound with a string of pearls, from -beneath which it flows in carefully arranged -ringlets. The dress, of plain white satin, with -voluminous sleeves, is cleverly handled and excellently -expressive of the texture and sheen of -the material; and a brooch of pearls and dark -stones is set at the breast, clasping a scarf of -faint blending blue and yellow tints, which floats -over the lady’s right shoulder, and flows freely -behind.</p> - -<p>Of James Clerk of Wrightshouses, the second -son of the first John Clerk of Penicuik, and -brother of the first Baronet, we have an imposing -three-quarters length painted by Sir Peter Lely. -He appears standing, robed in a rich crimson -gown, which shows its orange-tinted lining, with -an elaborate lace cravat, and ruffles appearing at -the hands, one of which is laid gracefully against -his side, while his right arm rests on a stone -parapet to the left. The face is of a man of -between thirty and forty, with handsome regular -features and the rounded, oval cheeks and small,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">{23}</span> -ripe, red-lipped mouth which the painter loved -to depict, and with much individuality and -character in the firm clear-cut line of the nose. A -dark curtain appears behind the figure, and a low-toned, -wintry-looking distance of landscape.</p> - -<p>The companion picture of Mary Ricard, “a -French lady,” wife of James Clerk of Wrightshouses, -also shows the figure standing and in -three-quarters length. She is clad in a low-breasted, -short-sleeved dress, richly brocaded -with crimson, yellow, and green flowers, and with -a simple string of large pearls round the neck. -She has brown eyes, light brown eyebrows, -moderately arched, and dark brown curling hair, -one curl lying isolated on her white shoulder. -She is arranging flowers in a yellow brown pot -decorated with Cupids’ heads, which stands on a -table to the left, and behind the figure is a wall -with a pilaster, a red curtain, and a glimpse of -landscape with blue mountain peaks, which may -very well be the southern slope of the familiar -Pentlands as seen from Penicuik House.</p> - - -<h2>VI.</h2> - -<p>Of the first Baronet’s eldest son, Sir John -Clerk, second Baronet, and one of the Barons of -Exchequer, several portraits are preserved at -Penicuik; but even a more complete picture of -this stout old gentleman, perhaps the most potent -and memorable figure that appears in this family -history, may be gathered from the voluminous -diaries in his hand that are preserved in the -Charter-room, and from that “History of my Life,” -which he himself compiled from these, and which -the present Baronet has placed at the disposal of -the Scottish History Society for publication; a -manuscript affording a clear narrative of the events -of the Baron’s life, and throwing curious and -valuable side-lights upon the manners and public -occurrences of the time, while, in almost every -line of its pages, it gives a vivid, if unconscious,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">{24}</span> -picture of the quaint, masterful personality of its -writer.</p> - -<p>He was born, as he tells us, on the 8th of -February 1676—not in 1684, as stated by his -biographers; studied at Penicuik School and -Glasgow University; and, at the age of nineteen, -went to Leyden to be instructed in law by “a very -learned man, Philippus Bernardus Vitrianus.” -Here he boarded with a German who taught -mathematics, philosophy, and music, and he -applied himself to all of these studies as well as -to law, having previously, as he remarks with -proper pride, “played tolerably on the harpsicord, -and since I was 7 I touched the violin a -little.” Nor do these exhaust the list of his -pursuits, for “among other things I learned to -draw from Francis Miers, a very great painter; -this proceeded partly from inclination, and partly -from the advice I had from some of my Dutch -friends, for all their young Folks learn to draw -from their being 7 years of Age, and find it -vastly useful in most Stations of Life.” His great -friend at Leyden was Herman Boerhaave, then a -man of twenty-six, afterwards world-famous as -a physician, and he gives a curious account of -his being treated by the young doctor with a -“chymecal medicine he had discovered which -would carry off the smallpox before they came -any length,” and which was successful at the -time, though the malady returned in full force -three months afterwards, when Clerk had gone -to Rome. “We not only lived like brothers while -I studied in Leyden, but continued a correspondence -together while he lived”; and forty-four -years afterwards Boerhaave bequeathed to -the Baron a collection of his books, which still -forms part of the Library at Penicuik House.</p> - -<p>After leaving Leyden Clerk visited Germany, -Italy, France, and Flanders, and the two large -<span class="allsmcap">MS.</span> volumes of his “Travels” during this period—not -only descriptive of the various places that he -saw, and very particularly of the antiquities of -Rome, but also giving an account of the laws<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">{25}</span> -manners, and customs of the several countries -that he visited—prove how diligent and observant -the youth had been during the whole time. At -the end of these volumes he sums up the results -of his residence abroad, as follows:—</p> - -<p>“<i>N.B.</i>—My improvements abroad were these:</p> - -<p>“I had studied the civil Law for three Winters -at Leyden, and did not neglect it at home, by -which means I passed Advocate, by a privat and -publick examination some months after my return, -with great ease and some credite.</p> - -<p>“I spoke French and Italian very well, but particularly -Dutch, having come very young into -Holland, and kept more in the Company of Hollanders -than those of my own country.</p> - -<p>“I had applied much to classical learning, and -had more than ordinary inclination for Greek and -Roman Antiquities.</p> - -<p>“I understood pictures better than became my -Purse, and as to Musick I ... performed better, -especially on the Herpsicord, than became a -gentleman.</p> - -<p>“This, to the best of my knowledge, is a faithful -account of myself.”</p> - -<p>The volumes are illustrated with over fifty -drawings of the landscapes, buildings, statues, -etc., which he had seen during his travels, “a few -of many hundreds executed while I was abroad.”</p> - -<p>In 1702 he was elected member for Whithorn -in Galloway, which he represented till 1707; and -his “History” contains curious particulars of the -last sittings of the Scottish Parliament, and personal -references to the prominent political figures -of the period,—to the Duke of Queensberry, the -Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Tweeddale, the -Earl of Stair, Robert Dundas, second Lord -Arniston, and Fletcher of Salton—“a man of -republican principles,” “a little untoward in -temper, and much inclined to Eloquence.” In -1706-7, through the influence of the Duke of -Queensberry, his first wife’s cousin, and the Duke -of Argyll, he was appointed a Commissioner for -the Union; and in the following year he became<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">{26}</span> -one of the Barons of the newly constituted Court -of Exchequer in Scotland.</p> - -<p>From this period till his death on the 4th of -October 1755, his life was occupied with his -official duties; with planting and improving his -various estates; with the classical studies to -which he continued faithful all his days; with -the composition of various learned pamphlets, -several of which have been published—his “Historical -View of the Forms and Powers of the -Court of Exchequer in Scotland,” written in conjunction -with Baron Scrope, having been edited -by Sir Henry Jardine in 1820; in the enjoyment -of the society of his friend Allan Ramsay, the -poet; and in correspondence with Roger Gale, -and with Alexander Gordon, in the subscription -list of whose “Itinerarium Septentrionale” he is -entered for “five books,” in company with such -well-known names as “Mr. Adams, Architect”; -“The Right Hon. Duncan Forbes, Lord Advocate -of Scotland”; “James Gibbs, Esq., Architect”; -“The Right Hon. The Lord Lovat”; “Richard -Mead, M.D.”; “The Hon. Sir Hans Sloane, -Bart.”; and “Mr. John Smibert,” the portrait-painter. -Gordon styles him “not only a treasure -of learning and good taste, but now one of its -chief supports in that country,” and pronounces -that “among all the collections of Roman antiquities -in Scotland, that of Baron Clerk claims -the preference, both as to number and curiosity.” -It was one of the Baron’s antiquarian experiences -at a supposed Roman camp on his property -of Dumcrieff, in Dumfriesshire, which, narrated -to Scott by his son, John Clerk of Eldin, suggested -the episode of the “Prætorium” in “The -Antiquary.”</p> - -<p>Occasionally across the quiet and characteristic -pages that narrate his daily doings there falls the -shadow of larger national events: of the Rebellion -of 1715,—“The Earl of Mar was not -only my acquaintance but my particular friend”; -of the South Sea Scheme, in connection with -which Clerk held stock, and was a consequent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">{27}</span> -sufferer; and of the Rebellion of 1745, when the -Highlanders in occupation of Edinburgh visited -Penicuik House, demanding food and drink.</p> - -<p>As a poet—or, at least, a rhymester—the Baron -is known by the really vigorous verses which he -added to the single surviving stanza of the old -Scotch song</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“O merry may the maid be</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That marries the miller,”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>which will be found in Johnston’s “Musical -Museum,” but were first published anonymously, -in 1751, in “The Charmer”; and by the lines -beginning</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“Harmonious pipe, how I envye thy bliss</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When pressed to Sylphia’s lips with gentle kiss,”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>which he sent, screwed up in a flute to Susanna -Kennedy, afterwards the celebrated Countess of -Eglintoune, to whom Allan Ramsay dedicated his -“Gentle Shepherd,” and of whom Clerk was a lover -in his youth, at the time when, as he tells us, he -suffered from his father’s “attempts” to find him -a wife, and especially to wed him to a lady—whose -name he honourably suppresses—“not to -my taste, and indeed it was happy for me to have -stopt short in this amour, for she proved the most -disagreeable woman I ever knew, tho’ otherways -a wise enough country woman.” There -also exist in <span class="allsmcap">MS.</span> “Some Poetical Ejeculations -on the Death of my dear wife, Lady Margaret -Stuart,” that “choice of my own,” who became -his first wife, “a very handsome woman, for the -most part bred up in Galloway, a stranger to the -follies of Edinburgh,” “the best Woman that ever -breathed Life.”</p> - -<p>The earliest of the portraits of the Baron preserved -at Penicuik House hangs in the dressing-room -of the present Baronet. It is a small, carefully -finished pencil-drawing; an interesting memorial -of Sir John’s student days at Leyden. The figure -is portrayed to the waist, clad in a loose gown, and -with a voluminous cravat wrapped round the neck. -The hands are not shown. The hair is long and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">{28}</span> -curling. The face full, beardless, and youthful, -set in three-quarters to the right, is modelled -with excellent thoroughness, and very crisp and -incisive in the touches that express the lips and -the dimple at the corner of the mouth. The -background is dark to the left, and to the right -appears a wall decorated with pilasters. The -drawing is inscribed on the background “Ætatis -19,” and beneath “My picture done at Leyden, -Jo. Clerk”; while on the back is written “My -picture done at Leyden by Francis Miris,” the -two latter inscriptions being in the handwriting -of the Baron himself.</p> - -<p>A comparison of the dates leads to some -dubiety as to who was the actual draughtsman of -this portrait. There were three well-known -Dutch painters of the name of Mieris—Frans -Van Mieris, the pupil of Gerard Dow, born at -Delft in 1635, died at Leyden 1681; Willem Van -Mieris, his son, born at Leyden 1662, and died -there, 1747; and his son, Frans Van Mieris, -the younger, born at Leyden 1689, died there -in 1763. The year in which the drawing was -executed must have been 1695, consequently it -cannot be the work of the elder Frans; nor can -it have been done by his grandson, the younger -Frans, who was then only six years of age. A -solution of the difficulty seems to be afforded by -a comparison of the “Travels” and the “History” -of the Baron. In the former, a journal written -at the time, he states that he was instructed in -art at Leyden, by “Miris,” but in the latter, -compiled from the former many years afterwards, -he states that “Francis Miers, a very great -painter,” was his teacher, the Christian name -being apparently added from memory, which, in -the present case, seems to have played him false. -There can be little doubt that the portrait was -drawn by Willem Van Mieris, who at the time -of Clerk’s residence at Leyden was forty-one -years of age, and in full practice as an artist. As -corroborating this supposition, we may notice -that in the account of the Clerks of Penicuik<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">{29}</span> -contributed by Miss Isabella Clerk to the “Life -of Professor James Clerk Maxwell,” and “chiefly -derived from a book of autograph letters which -was long kept at Glenlair, and is now in the -possession of Mrs. Maxwell,” it is stated that the -Baron was a pupil of <i>William</i> Mieris in drawing; -and further, that a drawing of two men’s heads -similar in style to the present portrait, preserved -in the Penicuik Drawing-room, is inscribed in the -Baron’s hand, “Originall by William Van Miris, -1696,” indicating that about the date he must -have been in communication with this artist.</p> - -<p>Three oil portraits, showing the Baron in later -life, hang in the Dining-room. In the first, by Sir -John Medina, he appears still as a young man, -seen to the waist, clad in a bright blue coat and -a crimson cloak—a combination of primary -colours in which the painter frequently indulged. -His right hand is laid on a book, which rests on -an unseen table in front to the right. He wears -a long yellowish wig, with powdered curls, and -the blue eyes and the alert mouth are full of -activity and energy. Probably this portrait was -executed at the time of his marriage, in 1700, for -there is a companion picture of his first wife, -Margaret Stewart, daughter of the third Earl of -Galloway, and grand-daughter of James, Earl of -Queensberry, painted by Aikman. As was to -be expected in so early a work of the artist’s—he -must have been under twenty when he painted -it, for the lady died in 1701—this latter is full of -faults, stiff in pose, with little suggestion of the -figure under the draperies of white and blue: still -it conveys the idea of a charming and attractive -personality, fitting as that of the lady for whom -the Baron—as shown in the “History of his Life,”—mourned -so truly.</p> - -<p>There is a second bust-portrait of the Baron by -Sir John Medina, a low-toned picture, executed -with care if with considerable hardness. Here the -costume is a lilac gown, with a long curled wig, -and a white cravat; the body seen turned to the -right, and the face in three-quarters to the left.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">{30}</span></p> - -<p>The finest, however, of the portraits of the -second Baronet, is the three-quarters length by his -cousin, William Aikman. Here he appears robed -in his black gown as Baron of the Exchequer, -worn over a yellow-brown coat. Long white -hanging bands appear at the breast, and lace -ruffles at the wrists; and the grave face, with its -strongly marked features, is surmounted by a -long curled wig. His left hand hangs down in -front fingering among the folds of his gown, and -the right rests upon a red-covered table. The -whole is relieved against a plain brown background, -with a low-toned space of crimson curtain -to the left. It is an excellent example by the -painter, well arranged, dignified, firmly handled, -and manifestly faithful to the personality portrayed. -A bust-portrait similar in costume and -wig to this one, but with some difference in the -features, was engraved, in line, by D. Lizars, -“from a portrait in the possession of John Clerk -of Eldin, Esq.”</p> - -<p>Of Sir James, the third Baronet, the architect -of the present house of Penicuik, we, unfortunately -find no adequate portrait. The only effigy of him -that is here preserved is a small silhouette in -white paper, relieved against a black background, -marked as cut two years after his death by -Barbara Clerk, his fifth sister, and as being -considered very like by those who knew him. It -shows a small face, looking a little downwards, -with a high forehead, beneath the wig, impending -over the delicate features. (<i>See</i> <a href="#Page_69">Note</a> at page 69.)</p> - -<p>In the Dining-room there hangs another picture -by Aikman, marked in the Baron’s writing, “My -eldest son, John Clerk, by Lady Margaret -Stuart, born 1701, died 1722, painted by Mr. -Aikman.” The figure is seen nearly to the waist; -the costume, a long curled grey wig, and a lilac-grey -gown, lined with blue. The small eyes are -of a blue colour; the face pale, refined, and delicate-looking. -This was “the most accomplish’d Son,” -of “bright aspiring mind,” whose birth cost the -life of the Baron’s first wife, and whose own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">{31}</span> -death, some twenty-one years later, was mourned -by Ramsay in the verses addressed to the bereaved -father, which may be read in his works. On -another wall hang three pictures, portraying, in -pairs, the Baron’s six daughters by his second wife.</p> - -<p>Near the portrait of his son is a half-length by -Aikman, rather hard in execution, showing a -gentleman, with face turned to the left, in a -purple-grey coat, the end of his white cravat being -thrust through one of its button-holes. This is -Dr. John Clerk, grandson of the first Baronet of -Penicuik, whose father, Robert Clerk, was a -physician in Edinburgh, and a close friend of Dr. -Pitcairn. The son, born 1689, died 1757, was a -personage of greater mark. For above thirty -years he was the most eminent physician in -Scotland; on the institution of the Philosophical -Society of Edinburgh in 1739, he was elected a -Vice-President, an office which he held till -his death; and from 1740 to 1744, he was -President of the Royal College of Physicians, -in whose Hall in Edinburgh another smaller -portrait of him is preserved. He purchased the -lands of Listonshiels and Spittal in Mid-Lothian, -and founded the family of the Clerks of Listonshiels. -His name appears in the list of subscribers -to the collection of Ramsay’s poems, published in -1721, and he is believed to have contributed -songs to the “Tea-table Miscellany.” The portrait -of his second son, Colonel Robert Clerk, in a red -military uniform, is also preserved in the Penicuik -Dining-room.</p> - -<p>Two other works by Aikman may here be -mentioned, two drawings in red chalk upon blue -paper, which hang in a passage near the Library -door. They evince more of an ideal aim than any -other of the productions of this painter with -which we are acquainted. Evidently they are -companion works, and the female portrait is -dated 1730, the year before the artist’s death. -This shows a girl’s head in profile to the left, a -young attractive little face, with the faintest half-smile -playing round the tiny mouth, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">{32}</span> -short hair decorated with a chaplet of leaves, or -of leaf-like ribbons. It is a portrait of Jean -Clerk, the Baron’s third daughter, who married -James Smollet of Bonhill, one of the Commissaries -of Edinburgh.</p> - -<p>The other drawing shows a male face in three-quarters -to the right, with flowing hair over the -shoulders, and a heroic expression on the high-arched -brows, the raised eyes, and the rippling -lips; the dress thrown carelessly open at the -throat. This is Patrick Clerk, the Baron’s third -son. His life-record is a brief one, as given in the -Baronage along with that of three of his brothers: -“Patrick, Henry, Matthew, and Adam, died -abroad, in the service of their country.” We -learn from the Baron’s <span class="allsmcap">MS.</span> that he died at -Carthagena in 1744.</p> - - -<h2>VII.</h2> - -<p>We now come to consider the prime artistic -treasure in Penicuik House, the largest and finest -of the three Raeburns that hang in the dining-room, -that admirable group of Sir John Clerk, -the fifth Baronet, and his wife Rosemary (so she -signed her name) Dacre. It is an oblong picture, -showing the two life-sized figures almost to the -knees, and turned towards our right. Nearly -one-half of the picture, that to the left, is occupied -with a landscape of undulating country, -diversified by darker passages afforded by tree-masses, -with flashes of light playing over the -grass in points where it is quickened by the -radiance of the setting sun, and with still sharper -flashings which mark the course of the “classic -Esk.” To our extreme right an elm-tree raises -its great forked stem, and throws out a slenderer -branch, bearing embrowned leafage. This is -carried over the upper edge of the picture, across -nearly its whole extent, repeating, by its mass of -dark against the sky, the arm of the male figure -standing beneath, which is extended, dark against -the distant expanse of dimly-lighted landscape<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">{33}</span> -background. The sky, against which the heads -of the figures are set, is filled with the soft -mellow light of a sunset after rain, struggling -with films of fluctuating misty clouds,—a sky in -the treatment of which Raeburn has used a -portrait-painter’s licence, making it lower in tone -than would have been the case in such a natural -effect. The figure furthest to our right is that of -the lady, clad in white muslin, a dress utterly -without ornament, but “adorned the most” in -the absolute simplicity of its soft overlapping folds, -delicate and full of subtlest gradation as a pile of -faintly yellow rose-leaves. The waist is girt with -a ribbon of a more definite yellow, though this too -is subdued, taking grey tones in shadow. The light -comes from behind the figures, and the edges of -the dress, catching its brightness, are the highest -tones of the picture. The lady’s face is one of -mature comeliness and dignity, the hair brown -and slightly powdered, the light touching and -outlining sharply the rounded contours of cheek -and chin, and the edge of the throat, which rises -from the masses of pure soft muslin—itself still -purer and more delicate in tone and texture. -Her left hand hangs down by her side, fingering -a little among the folds of the dress and compressing -its filmy fabric; and her right hand -rests on her companion’s left shoulder, its hand, -an admirable piece of draughtsmanship and foreshortening, -hanging over, loose from the wrist, -which is circled by a sharply struck band of -black ribbon. The Baronet stands by her side, -with his left arm—on whose shoulder the lady’s -hand rests—circling her waist, and his right -relieved against the background as it stretches -across the canvas, pointing, over the river, to -the mansion of Penicuik,—which is manifestly -visible to the pair in the distance, though unseen -to the spectator of the picture. He wears a soft -felt hat, broad-brimmed, low-crowned, and -Quaker-like in fashion, with an oval metal clasp -set in front in its band. His coat is low-toned -greyish yellow in its lights, and low-toned olive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">{34}</span> -green in shadow, the vest and breeches showing -a lighter tone of the same; and a white cravat -and ruffles appear at throat and wrists. His face -is a well-conditioned face of middle life, small-mouthed, -with cheeks plumply rounded, and a -nose delicately aquiline. He stands, quietly -expectant, looking into the lady’s face, which is -gazing right onward into the background.</p> - -<p>There is in this group none of the strong, -positive, insufficiently gradated colour, which is -sometimes rather distressing in Raeburn’s work. -It is far quieter and more delicate than is altogether -usual in his art, full of tenderness and -subtlety; the faces exquisitely lit by reflected -light, their half-shadows softly luminous and -delicate exceedingly, never sinking with a crash -into blackness and opacity. The artist has -seldom produced a finer or more artistic group, -has seldom given us a more fascinating portrayal -of well-born manhood and of female loveliness.</p> - -<p>It is not at all in originality of general conception -that the greatness of Raeburn’s portraiture -usually lies, in the novel groupings of its figures, -or in any suggestion of story in their combinations. -Some other painters have contrived to -throw a hint of narrative into works which, in -first and main aim, were mere likenesses; but -Raeburn was a portraitist in the strictest and -most exclusive sense; and he simply adopted the -accepted poses of the figure that were current in -the Scottish portraiture of his day, though to -these his original genius gave a finer grace, catching -from Nature an added ease. But in the -grouping of this picture, and in its lighting—so -abnormal in arrangement—we certainly have as -definite a departure as could well be imagined, -from the stock traditions that have guided the art -of portraiture from time immemorial; and some -other reason than a purely technical one is -suggested by the marked originality of the work, -in both conception and treatment. Was this -strange and most unusual distribution of light in -the picture a mere artistic experiment in chiaroscuro?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">{35}</span> -Did the painter devote half of his canvas to -an extended landscape vista, merely in honour of -the Baronet’s ancestral acres; and was that pose -of regardant countenance and interlacing arms -selected only because it made for a graceful flow -of changeful line? Hardly was all this the case, -one fancies.</p> - -<p>May it not, then, be conceivable that when the -portrait had been commissioned, and while its -details and way of treatment were being discussed -by the pair—painter and baronet—as they sat -together, in quiet after-dinner hour over their -wine, in this very room where the completed -picture now holds its place,—is it not just conceivable -that Sir John, in some such time of genial -heart-expansion, as he poised his glass to catch -the last warm gleam of summer evening light -that streamed across the darkening woods,—that -the childless man, beginning now to verge gently -towards age, may have been stirred by ancient -memories, and have told the artist of some bygone -scene to which these ancestral woods were once -the witness? Is it a walk of plighted lovers that -the painter hints at on his canvas, and has the -bride just caught first sight of her future home? -Or, can the scene be one tenderer still? The -middle-aged lover looks—calmly, earnestly expectant, -waiting for an answer that will not come from -the lady’s lips, that will certainly not be given by -their <i>words</i>—at the noble face of the mature and -stately beauty by his side, into her dear grey eyes -that never meet his, but gaze right on into the -distance—into the future is it? Has the painter -then meant to show us one of those strenuous, -delicately-poised moments that come in mortal -lives, when “words are mere mistake,” when</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent20">“A lip’s mere tremble,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Looks half hesitation, cheeks just change of colour,”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>at once crystallise intensest emotion and afford its -fullest expression, and sign and seal a human soul -with final impress of success or failure? Is—in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">{36}</span> -briefest English—the man waiting for the sign -that will make him accepted or rejected lover?</p> - -<p>This portrait, the chief treasure of Penicuik -House, would surely possess enough of interest -from the power of its artistry, and the romantic -associations with which our fancy may possibly -invest it; but its interest is deepened, and it -gathers a yet more intimate charm when we have -heard the beautiful old-world story connected -with the lady’s birth.</p> - -<p>Of this curious episode there are varying -versions extant, which are given and fully discussed -by Ellen K. Goodwin, in a pamphlet -(Kendal, 1886) reprinted from the “Transactions -of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian -and Archæological Society.” There is a -puzzling difference between the date of 15th -November 1745, given by Lady Clerk as the day -of her birth, and that of 3d November which -appears in the register of Kirkliston parish as the -day of her baptism; but this discrepancy—we -may suggest—would be lessened to within a single -day, if her Ladyship has calculated according to -New Style, introduced in Scotland in 1600, and -the register has estimated by Old Style, current in -England till 1752; while the presence of the -Highlanders at Carlisle at the time would be -accounted for if they crossed the border on “the -7th or 8th of November,” New Style.</p> - -<p>The following is the interesting version of the -story, communicated by Lady Clerk herself to the -Editor of “Blackwood’s Magazine”:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“... The incident occurred November 15th, -1745. My father, Mr. Dacre, then an officer of His -Majesty’s Militia, was a prisoner in the Castle of -Carlisle, at that time in the hands of Prince -Charles. My mother (a daughter of Sir George -le Fleming, Bart., Bishop of Carlisle) was living at -Rose Castle, six miles from Carlisle, when she was -delivered of me. She had given orders that I -should immediately be privately baptized by the -Bishop’s chaplain (his Lordship not being at home)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">{37}</span> -by name of Rosemary Dacre. At that moment -a company of Highlanders approached headed by -a Captain Macdonald, who having heard there -was much plate and valuables in the Castle came -to plunder it. Upon the approach of the Highlanders, -an old grey-headed servant ran out and -entreated Captain Macdonald not to proceed, as -any noise or alarm might cause the death of both -lady and child. The Captain enquired where the -lady had been confined. ‘Within this house,’ the -servant answered. Captain Macdonald stopped. -The servant added, ‘They are just going to christen -the infant.’ Macdonald, taking off his cockade, -said, ‘Let her be christened with this cockade in -her cap, it will be her protection now and after -if any of our stragglers should come this way: -we will wait the ceremony in silence,’ which -they accordingly did, and they went into the -coachyard, and were regaled with beef, cheese, -and ale, then went off without the smallest disturbance. -My white cockade was safely preserved -and shown me from time to time, always -reminding me to respect the Scotch, and Highlanders -in particular. I think I have obeyed the -injunction by spending my life in Scotland, and -also by hoping to die there.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Rosemary Clerk.</span></p> - -<p class="center">. . . . .</p> -<p>“<i><span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>, April 21, 1817.</i>” -</p></div> - -<p>In memory of the event, Lady Clerk always -wore the cockade, along with a white rose, upon -her birthday. It has been said that she presented -it to George <span class="allsmcap">IV.</span> on the occasion of his visit to -Scotland, and its existence, unfortunately, cannot -now be traced: but a still living connection of the -family informs us that she had seen the relic in -the possession of Lady Clerk, at a more recent -date than that of the royal progress.</p> - -<p>It will be remembered that Scott, to whom -in his youth Sir John and Lady Clerk had been -kind, with his keen and appreciative eye for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">{38}</span> -picturesque, has seized upon this incident and -turned it to excellent account in the opening -chapter of “The Monastery.”</p> - -<p>That white cockade, the symbol of a cause so -full of poetry and romance, seems to have brought -a benison with it to the babe Rosemary Dacre, -to have dowered her with beauty, and gifted her -with an unusually magnetic attractiveness. As -she grew into fairest womanhood she had many -lovers, declared and undeclared, and in the hearts -of those who failed to win the lady her memory -seems to have lingered tenderly with no touch of -bitterness; to have been, to some of them, a -kind of lifelong inspiration, evoking gentle wistful -feelings, such as Dante Rossetti has so exquisitely -recorded in one of the finest of his -earlier poems, his “First Love Remembered.”</p> - -<p>Some curious records, some strange hints of -the potent part which the lady of the white -cockade, and the memory of her, played in the -lives of certain men whom she never wedded -are preserved at Penicuik, casketed in the dainty -little Chippendale workbox that once was hers, -among other personal relics,—her long black -gloves, with a space of black lace inlet from palm -to top; her cap edged with delicate lace; a long -tress of her dark brown hair, marked “June -the 6th, 1794, aged 48”; and her silhouette, cut -in black paper, showing a strong dignified profile, -beneath a tall hat, wound round with a veil.</p> - -<p>Two of the interesting letters preserved in this -quaint old workbox are from Lord Chancellor -Eldon, who in his youth, as they clearly indicate, -had been a lover of Rosemary Dacre; though -the impression can hardly have been overwhelmingly -deep or very permanent, for he -was only twenty-one when he eloped with Bessy -Surtees, a step which entailed the loss of his -Oxford fellowship, closed his hopes of preferment -in the Church, and obliged him with “a most -kind Providence for my guide,” as he says, to -take to the study of law, one of his earliest legal -efforts being the delivery, as Deputy-Vinerian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">{39}</span> -Professor for Sir Robert Chambers, of a lecture -on “the statute of young men running away with -maidens.” But in his youth the future Lord -Chancellor was, as he used to confess, “very -susceptible.” “Oh,” he would say, “these were -happy days; we were always in love then.”</p> - -<p>The first letter of the old man of nearly eighty -runs as follows:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="right"> -“<i>14 April 1829.</i> -</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Mary Dacre</span>,—Pardon my use of a -name, which belonged to you when I first knew -you. I can sincerely assure you that I have often, -often thought of the person who bore that name -when I knew her, with, may I say, sentiments of -most sincere affection? If I had been Lord -Stowell, her name now might neither have been -Molly Dacre, nor Mary, Lady Clarke.</p> - -<p>“Thank you a thousand Times, thank you for -your Letter, which I have this moment received. -I would thank you more at large if I could delay -in an hour, in which I am much engaged, to thank -you, but that I cannot persuade myself to do.</p> - -<p>“I have done my best to defeat this disastrous -measure. If I am wrong God forgive me! if I -am right God forgive others, if He can! Lady -Eldon, Bessy Surtees, sends her Love to you with -that of,</p> - -<p> -<span class="ml4">Yr obliged and affectionate Friend,</span><br /> -<span class="smcap ml12">Eldon.</span><br /> -<br /> -Mary Lady Clarke,<br /> -<span class="ml2">100 Princess Street,</span><br /> -<span class="ml4">Edinburgh.”</span><br /> -</p> -</div> - -<p>The second letter is written, on the 29th of -June in the same year “as Lady Eldon’s Secretary” -to thank Lady Clerk for a present of -jewellery.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“... After the Lapse of so many years to be -remembered by one whom we remember, I can -most sincerely say, with Respect and affection, is -perhaps the most gratifying circumstance that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">{40}</span> -could have happened to either of us. I feel the -Value of your kindness to her ten thousand Times -more than any that could have been shown to -myself. She will wear the Ornaments from you -and the Grampians as in Truth the most valuable -she has, as long as she lives, and we shall both -take some Pains to secure its being, in the possession -of those who follow after us, an heir -Loom. I know not why we search the World -over for Diamonds, when the Grampians can -furnish what equals, if it does not surpass them, -in beauty and brilliancy.</p> - -<p>“How often have Lady Eldon and I—distant as -we are from your Habitation—fancied that we -have been looking at Molly Dacre, and listening -to ‘Auld Robin Gray’ sung exquisitely by her? -eyes and ears alike highly gratified. Excuse this—remember -that it comes from one, who, in his -last Letter, expressed a wish that he had been -<span class="smcap">The Elder Brother</span>.</p> - -<p>“With Lady E’s Thanks and affectionate -Regards,</p> - -<p> -<span class="ml6">Yr</span><br /> -<span class="ml8">Dear Madam,</span><br /> -<span class="ml10">Eldon.</span><br /> -<span class="smcap ml12">Eliz: Eldon.”</span><br /> -</p> -</div> - -<p>The allusion at the close of the first letter is to -the Catholic Relief Bill which Lord Eldon so -strenuously opposed. Only four days before the -date of the note his name had headed the protest -of the Peers against the measure.</p> - -<p>The Lord Stowell referred to is the Chancellor’s -elder brother, Judge of the High Court of -Admiralty. He was born in the same year as -Mary Dacre, and, curiously enough, his birth -also was associated with the presence of the -Pretender’s army. As in the other case there -are varying versions of the story. One tradition -asserts that the town of Newcastle being fortified -and closed in anticipation of the approach of -the Jacobites, who were then in possession of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">{41}</span> -Edinburgh, it was thought that his mother -should be removed to a quieter place, in -anticipation of her confinement; and that this -was effected by her being lowered in a large -basket into a boat in the river and conveyed to -Heworth, a village four miles distant. The other -version assigns the perilous descent to Dr. Hallowel, -her medical attendant, who was let down -from the top of the town wall of Newcastle in -order to be present at Heworth at the critical -moment.</p> - -<p>The remaining letters afford even a more -curious glimpse of the fascination which Rosemary -Dacre exercised upon those who came within the -circle of her influence. The first is addressed to -her husband’s nephew and successor the Right -Hon. Sir George Clerk, and is dated—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="right"> -“<span class="smcap">Chitton Lodge</span>,<br /> -<i>3 June 1830.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Sir George</span>,—Enclosed I send you -Capt. Morris’s verses which I mentioned to you. -The circumstances which occasioned them were -the following. Lord Stowell, Lord Sidmouth, -and Capt. Morris, with some other Friends, were -dining with me last Spring, when Lord Stowell -remarked that although Capt. Morris was the -same age as himself he was much more active and -elastic. Capt. Morris attributed this to his -having been ardently in Love for the whole of his -Life; and on being pressed to disclose the object -of his passion confessed that it was Lady Clarke, -who at the age of sixteen won his affection, and -that although he had been since married she had -never ceased to exercise an influence on his heart, -and be a source of animation. Lord Stowell -immediately acknowledged that by a remarkable -coincidence he also had been enamoured of Lady -Clarke, and at the same age of sixteen, and that -although twice married, the recollection of her -charms had not been effaced from his mind. This -of course gave rise to much mirth among the -company, Lord Sidmouth particularly laughing at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">{42}</span> -the Lovers, who at the age of eighty-four declared -that their passion was undiminished towards a -Lady who had attained the same age,</p> - -<p> -<span class="ml2">I am,</span><br /> -<span class="ml4">My dear Sir George,</span><br /> -<span class="ml6">Yours truly,</span><br /> -<span class="smcap ml8">John Pearse.”</span><br /> -</p> -</div> - -<p>Then follows a copy of the enclosure from -Captain Morris of the Life Guards, who, it may -be remarked, was a well-known politician and -popular song-writer, and a boon companion of the -wits at Brooks. His portrait, engraved by Greatbach, -is given in an early volume of “Bentley’s -Miscellany,” and another portrait, painted by -James Lonsdale, was recently acquired by the -National Portrait Gallery, London.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="right"> -“<span class="smcap">No. 1 Thornhaugh St.<br /> -Bedford Sq.</span><br /> -<i>May 29, 1829.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,—Looking in my Scrap Book -to-day, I find a few Stanzas, on my <i>deathless -Passion</i> for my <i>first love</i>, written in my latter -days, and as such an extraordinary and singular -coincidence on that subject occurred at your -table on Wednesday, I take the liberty of enclosing -them to you, the more so as Lady Sidmouth -is a correspondent, and perhaps might have no -objection to honour them with a perusal; if you -think so, and will let her Ladyship see them, I -beg permission to commit them to your care, and -I remain,</p> - -<p> -<span class="ml6">My dear Sir,</span><br /> -<span class="ml2">Most gratefully and faithfully</span><br /> -<span class="ml8">Yours,</span><br /> -<span class="smcap ml10">Chas. Morris.”</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>“I beg leave to add that it is sixty-eight years -since I lived in Carlisle with my Father and -mother. Lady Clark will of course have no recollection -of my <i>Boyish adoration</i>, but to recall it, -if possible, to her memory, I would wish her to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">{43}</span> -know that it is Chas. Morris, son of Col. Morris, -of the 17th Regt., who lived with my mother at -Carlisle, and with whom Lady Clark and the Dacre -Family were acquainted.”</p> -</div> - -<p>Then follows the brave old jingle of rhyme -which the ever-faithful lover had made in praise -of his lady:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“Though years have spread around my Head</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The sober Veil of Reason,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To close in Night sweet Fancy’s light,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My Heart rejects as Treason;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A spark there lies, still fann’d by Sighs,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Ordained by Beauty’s maker,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And fix’d by Fate, burns yet, tho’ late,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For lovely Molly Dacre.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Oh! while I miss the days of Bliss</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I pass’d in rapture gazing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Dream impress’d still charms my breast</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Which Fancy ever raising.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tho’ much I meet in Life is sweet,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">My Soul can ne’er forsake her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all I feel, still bears the Seal</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of lovely Molly Dacre!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Whene’er her course in chaise or horse</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Conveyed her to our city,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How did I gaze, in bliss’d amaze</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To catch her smile of pity;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And round her door the night I wore,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Still mute as any Quaker,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With hope-fed Zeal, one glance to steal</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From lovely Molly Dacre.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When rumour dear proclaimed her near,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Her charms a crowd amazing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How would I start with panting Heart</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To catch her eye when passing.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When home she turned, I ran, I burned</div> - <div class="verse indent2">O’er many a distant Acre,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To hope by chance one parting glance</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From lovely Molly Dacre.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve often thought the happy lot</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of Health and Spirits lent me,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is deem’d as due to faith so true,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And thus by Fate is sent me.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">While here she be there’s life for me,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And when high Heaven shall take her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Alike last breath, I’ll ask of Death</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To follow Molly Dacre.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right">M.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">{44}</span></p> -<p>Surely it was with true significance that Rosemary -Dacre’s seal—the seal which always descends -to her name-child in the house of Penicuik—was -engraved with the sign of a single star, shedding -a benign and steadfast light over a pathless vastitude -of air and a fluctuating waste of sea; for the -Lady’s memory seems to have shone with an ideal -light through many human lives.</p> - - -<h2>VIII.</h2> - -<p>The next portrait by Raeburn represents John -Clerk of Eldin, the seventh son of Baron Clerk, -second Baronet of Penicuik, and author of the -celebrated “Enquiry into Naval Tactics.” He -was educated at the Grammar School of Dalkeith -and the University of Edinburgh, and in that city -he engaged in business as a merchant till about -1772, when he purchased the property of Eldin, -in the parish of Lasswade, and obtained a post in -connection with the Exchequer, the secretaryship -to the Commissioners on the Annexed Estates in -Scotland. He was a man of a vigorous and active -mind, and seems to have possessed equal aptitudes -for art and science. Some of his sketches are -dated as early as 1758, but it was in 1770 that he -began to etch upon copper, and in the next -twelve years he produced a series of over a hundred -plates. These are founded upon a careful -study of the old Dutch masters of the art. In their -topographical aspect they are of great interest as -portraying many ancient buildings which have -since been removed or altered; and as examples of -etching, in spite of certain amateurish defects, they -form a curious connecting-link between the period -of Rembrandt and the early days of our own century, -when the process was taken up and carried -to such fine artistic issues by two other Scotsmen, -Geddes and Wilkie. A large collection of Mr. -Clerk’s etchings and drawings is preserved in the -Library at Penicuik. A series of the former, tinted -by Robert Adam, the celebrated architect, whose -sister, Susannah, Mr. Clerk had married in 1753,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">{45}</span> -was presented to George <span class="allsmcap">III.</span> in 1786, at the suggestion -of the Earl of Buchan. Twenty-eight of -them were issued to members of the Bannatyne -Club in 1825, and other of the coppers having been -recovered, a series of fifty-five etchings and reproductions -of sketches were issued to the same Club in -1855 with an admirable memoir by David Laing.</p> - -<p>In his scientific pursuits Clerk was the intimate -associate of Dr. James Hutton, whose geological -papers his pencil was ever ready to illustrate, -and it is believed that the Professor’s “Theory of -the Earth” owed something to his friend’s suggestions. -The first part of Clerk’s celebrated “Enquiry -into Naval Tactics” was published in 1782, -and the second, third, and fourth parts were added -in 1797. Though a work of great interest and -value, the assertion that it was the means of -Rodney’s adopting that mode of breaking the -enemy’s line which led to the celebrated victory -off Dominique on 12th April 1782, seems to be one -incapable of absolute proof. We have a pleasant -characterisation of him, <i>à propos</i> of his death, -May 1812, in Lord Cockburn’s “Memorials”:—</p> - -<p>“An interesting and delightful old man; full -of the peculiarities that distinguished the whole -family—talent, caprice, obstinacy, worth, kindliness, -and oddity, ... he was looked up to with -deference by all the philosophers of his day, who -were in the habit of constantly receiving hints -and views from him, which they deemed of great -value. He was a striking-looking old gentleman, -with his grizzly hair, vigorous features, and Scotch -speech. It would be difficult to say whether jokes -or disputation pleased him most.”</p> - -<p>“A striking-looking old gentleman” he certainly -shows in Raeburn’s portrait—which, technically, -is an excellent example of the ‘square touch’ and -vigorous modelling of that painter—with the strong -face, clear light yellowish eyes, broad forehead, -and white hair, rising from the high-collared old-fashioned -coat. The picture has been lithographed -by A. Hahnisch in the 1855 Bannatyne Club issue -of the etchings, and the personality of its subject<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">{46}</span> -may be gathered from two other portraits;—a -crayon likeness by Skirving, showing less of -dignity and more of shrewdness, which passed by -bequest to the Blair Adam family, and was -admirably mezzotinted by S. W. Reynolds in -1800; and a three-quarters length portrait in -oils by James Saxon, now in the Scottish -National Portrait Gallery, where he is represented -seated at a table holding a plan which -depicts his naval manœuvre of breaking the -line. The latter belonged to the father of W. H. -Carpenter of the British Museum, who caused -the ships in the distance to be painted in by -William Anderson.</p> - -<p>The remaining example of Raeburn at Penicuik -House is a portrait of Mr. Clerk’s eldest -son, John Clerk, Lord Eldin. Lord Cockburn -tells a pretty story of the relation between the -two. “‘I remember,’ the father used to say, ‘the -time when people seeing John limping on the -street, used to ask what lame lad that was; and -the answer would be, That’s the son of Clerk of -Eldin. But now, when I myself am passing, I -hear them saying, What auld grey-headed man -is that? And the answer is, That’s the father -of John Clerk.’ He was much prouder of the -last mark than the first.”</p> - -<p>From his earliest years the future judge possessed -all that love for art which has been constant -in the family of Clerk; his own drawings possess -considerable vigour and character. He was an -enthusiastic collector, and the crowd that was -gathered in his house in Picardy Place, Edinburgh, -at the sale of his collection after his death -in 1832 was so excessive that the floor gave way, -causing the death of one person, and the serious -injury of several others. Vigorous and lifelike -sketches of his vehemence and wit and curiously -eccentric and powerful personality will be found -in the pages of Lord Cockburn and in “Peter’s -Letters to his Kinsfolk.” From their student -days Raeburn and he were chosen friends, and it -must have been about the date of the present<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">{47}</span> -portrait that the whimsical episode occurred -which Allan Cunningham records in his account -of the painter, an account that has left little -to be gleaned by later biographers. “Raeburn -received an invitation to dine with Clerk, and -hastening to his lodgings, he found the landlady -spreading a cloth on the table, and setting down -two dishes, one containing three herrings and the -other three potatoes. ‘And is this all?’ said -John. ‘All,’ said the landlady. ‘All! Did I -not tell ye, woman,’ he exclaimed, ‘that a gentleman -was to dine with me, and that ye were to get -six herrings and six potatoes?’ The tables of -both were better furnished before the lapse of -many years; and they loved, it is said, when the -wine was flowing, to recall those early days, when -hope was high and the spirit unrebuked by intercourse -with the world.”</p> - -<p>The present portrait shows Clerk in the character -of a budding barrister. The figure is life-sized, -seated, seen in three-quarters to the left, the -wigged head turned nearly in pure profile to the -left. The figure, clad in black coat, black satin -vest, and knee-breeches of the same, and with -ruffs at breast and wrists, lies back easily in the -chair, the right hand extending over its arm, and -holding a law paper, the left placed, with outspread -fingers, on the table in front, which is -covered with a richly tinted cloth, on which lie -“Stair’s Institutes,” the “Regiam Magista,” and -other volumes in “law-calf,” while on the other -side, as though to hint at the advocate’s artistic -tastes, appears a cast of a classical head, just as in -the later Raeburn portrait a little bronze version -of the Crouching Venus nestles among the bundles -of briefs. The face, wearing an expression of -great earnestness and intentness, is as yet beardless, -unformed, and rather heavy-looking; different -indeed from the emphatic furrowed countenance -that appears in the later portraits which show him -when age had developed his full individuality. -The eyes are pale bluish grey, and the eyebrows -very light in colour.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">{48}</span></p> - -<p>There are no other early portraits of Lord Eldin, -by which we can judge of his appearance at the -time that this one was executed. The admirable -three-quarter seated portrait by Raeburn, where -he appears holding his spectacles in his right -hand, and with the other supporting a folio which -rests on a table, shows him in later life. It passed -by bequest to the house of Riccarton, and has -been powerfully mezzotinted by Charles Turner, -the plate appearing, after it had been reduced -in size, in the Bannatyne volume of Mr. Clerk’s -Etchings, 1855. A somewhat similarly arranged -portrait, of cabinet size, painted by Andrew -Geddes, another of Lord Eldin’s artistic friends, -was in the possession of the late Mr. James -Gibson Craig; and there is the lithograph by -B. W. Crombie, a bust-portrait, in ordinary dress, -executed in June 1837, showing in the shrewd -profile face much of that “thoroughbred shaggy -terrier” aspect upon which Lord Cockburn remarks -in his “Life of Jeffrey”; and also the bust -by Joseph, engraved in line by Robert Bell, of -which a cast is in the Scottish National Portrait -Gallery.</p> - -<p>In addition to these there are several caricatures -which doubtless preserve much that was -characteristic of the man. There is the etching -by Kay, in the plate of “Twelve Advocates who -Plead with Wigs on,” showing an eager countenance, -with opened mouth and protruding under -lip; and the four very vivid and lifelike sketches -by Robert Scott Moncrieff, reproduced in “The -Scottish Bar Fifty Years Ago.” The first of these -latter shows him in suppressed—but most belligerent—mood -seated as an advocate listening to -the pleadings of the council on the opposite side, -with mouth compressed, and lips drawn down at -the ends, his left hand grasping his spectacle-case, -the other cast over the arm of his chair and -grasping his papers. Another shows him pacing -the floor of the Parliament House, briefs in hand, -his gown trailing behind him, his wig perched -knowingly in front, his spectacles pushed far up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">{49}</span> -his forehead,—much as Carlyle, in his “Reminiscences,” -records that he saw him, when he visited -the Parliament House in 1809, on his arrival in -Edinburgh to begin his student-life. “The only -figure I distinctly recollect, and got printed on -my brain that night, was John Clerk, then veritably -hitching about, whose grim, strong countenance, -with its black far-projecting brows and look -of great sagacity, fixed him in my memory.” -The third of Mr. Moncrieff’s drawings shows him -in the full fury of his vehement eloquence as a -pleader, his gown flying about him in mighty -folds, his right fist clenched and raised in excited -action. A fourth sketch, a rather terrible one, -depicts him in latest age, seated on the bench, -his hands laid in front and muffled in his judge’s -gown, his great mouth with its prominent under -lip firmly set, and his small eyes keenly observant -through his spectacles. One other caricature remains -to be noticed, the little etching marked -“X. Y. Z.,” which is often to be found bound up -along with copies of his sale catalogue, showing -him in full-length ascending a flight of stairs, -snuffbox in hand.</p> - -<p>In the Business-room there hangs a small -portrait of Lord Eldin’s younger brother, William -Clerk, advocate—“only less witty and odd than -his great Swiftian brother,” as Dr. John Brown -has truly remarked—who figures so prominently -in the biography and correspondence of Sir Walter -Scott. At college they were contemporaries and -bosom friends, they passed their Civil Law and -their Scots Law examinations on the same day, -and together assumed the advocate’s gown. It -was in his company that the young Scott, after -a fishing expedition to Howgate, visited Penicuik -House, when he “was overwhelmed with kindness -by the late Sir John Clerk and his lady”—the -pair who figure in the great Raeburn group, and -when “the pleasure of looking at fine pictures, -the beauty of the place, and the flattering hospitality -of the owners drowned the recollection of -home for a day or two.” The friendship thus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">{50}</span> -begun was continued through life; and in his -latest years Scott dwells, in his Diary, with especial -gusto upon the snug little dinners in Rose Court, -Edinburgh, when a few chosen spirits gathered -round Clerk’s bachelor board.</p> - -<p>The present picture, a cabinet-sized bust, is -somewhat amateurish in its execution, but still -full of character and individuality; the features -of the shrewd, wrinkled face, its definitely curved -nose, sharply-cut mouth, thin compressed lips, -and dark, brilliantly blue eyes beneath the bushy -white eyebrows, combine into what is doubtless -a faithful rendering of that friend of whom Scott -wrote in his Diary, in 1825, “I have known him -intimately since our college days; and to my -thinking I never met a man of greater powers or -more complete information on all desirable subjects.” -It is the work of Mrs. Hugh Blackburn, a -lady so well known for her excellent renderings -of birds and animals; but another oil-portrait of -William Clerk, a cabinet-sized bust, turned to -the right and dated 1843, the work of Miss -Isabella Clerk, sister of the seventh Baronet, is -also preserved at Penicuik.</p> - -<p>Among the portraits of more recent members -of the Clerk family are various works representing -their eminent politician and statistical authority, -the Right Hon. Sir George Clerk, D.C.L., the sixth -Baronet, who repeatedly represented the county -of Mid-Lothian in Parliament; who was a Lord of -the Admiralty under the Liverpool Administration; -succeeded Mr. Gladstone as Master of the -Mint in 1845, and in the same year was appointed -Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and a -member of the Privy Council. Several miniatures -representing him are preserved in the Drawing-room, -and there are also two life-sized three-quarter-length -portraits in oil. That hung in the -smaller Drawing-room is an excellent example by -William Dyce, R.A., a distant connection of the -family’s, and was painted in 1830. It is executed -with great delicacy, quietude, and reticence, and -does full justice to the Baronet’s refined and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">{51}</span> -handsome face, then in its prime. This picture -has been excellently mezzotinted by Thomas -Lupton. That in the Dining-room, painted by -the vigorous hand of Sir John Watson Gordon, -portrays Sir George in later life, seated in an -easy chair, and holding one of the statistical blue-books -which his soul loved. Of his wife, Maria, -second daughter of Ewan Law of Horsted Place, -Sussex, there is also an oil portrait in the Dining-room, -showing a refined face, with a delicate -complexion, bearing the trace of suffering in the -firmly compressed yet pathetic mouth, and the -straight dark eyebrows, which are knit a little -and contracted over the pale grey wistful eyes. -The picture has a rather slight and unfinished -appearance, and is somewhat chalky in its whites. -Its painter, the late J. R. Swinton, worked comparatively -little in oils, and examples of his better-known -crayon drawings may be studied in the -portraits of the Dowager Lady Clerk and her -sister-in-law, the Hon. Mrs. Elphinstone, which -hang in the smaller Drawing-room.</p> - -<p>It should also be noticed that many characteristic -likenesses of the sixth Baronet are included -in an interesting volume of sketches, done in old -days by his niece Mrs. Hugh Blackburn, and now -preserved at Penicuik, a series portraying familiar -scenes there, and at Sir George’s London residence -in Park Street, Westminster,—card-parties and -musical evenings in which Piatti and other -eminent performers took part, days spent on the -ice, or picnicking among the Pentlands, rides in -the Park or over lonely stretches of moorland—drawings -highly humorous, plentifully touched -with caricature, yet including not a little substantial -truth of portraiture.</p> - -<p>There is also in the Dining-room an interesting -cabinet-sized portrait of Sir George’s younger -brother, John Clerk Maxwell of Middleby, that -genial, practical, individual Scotsman of whom -a most interesting account is given in the life of -his distinguished son, Professor James Clerk -Maxwell. The picture is the work of his niece,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">{52}</span> -Miss Isabella Clerk, and shows some traces of -the amateur, especially in the size and uncouthness -of the hands, but a comparison with the -engraving from the portrait by Watson Gordon, -given in the above-mentioned volume, proves it -to be a substantially faithful likeness of the good -old man.</p> - - -<h2>IX.</h2> - -<p>We now come to glance at the portraits at -Penicuik House which do not represent members -of the Clerk family. Among the earliest of -these, hung in the Dining-room, is a three-quarter-length -seated portrait of Sir Archibald Primrose, -Lord Carrington, that ancestor of the Rosebery -family who played an important part in politics -during the Restoration period, who fought under -Montrose, was captured at Philiphaugh, and -barely escaped being executed for treason; who -was appointed Lord Clerk Register in 1660, and -Lord Justice-General in 1676, presiding, in that -office, at the trial in 1678, of Mitchell for the -attempted assassination of Archbishop Sharp; -and whose later years were spent in steady -opposition to the administration of the Duke of -Lauderdale. He is styled by Burnet “the -subtelist of all Lord Middletoun’s friends, a man -of long and great practice in affairs ...; a -dextrous man of business, he had always expedients -ready at every difficulty.” In the picture -he appears in his black, gold-laced robes as Lord -Clerk Register, his right hand resting on the arm -of his chair, the left raised, and his face seen -in three-quarters to the right, with its thin prominent -nose drooping at the point, small chin, -and lips rising towards the ends and pursed and -dimpled a little at the corners. A similar picture, -but only bust-sized, stated (Catalogue of Royal -Scottish Academy Loan Exhibition, 1863) to be -dated 1670, has been long at Dalmeny, and a -copy of it was presented by Lord Rosebery to -the Faculty of Advocates in 1883, and now hangs -in the Parliament House. His Lordship has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">{53}</span> -recently acquired, from the Rothes Collection, -another, a three-quarter length, version of the -picture; and we are informed that there is also a -similar-sized version in the possession of Lord -Elphinstone. A portrait of Sir Archibald Primrose -appears in Mr. A. H. Millar’s list of the portraits -at Kinnaird Castle, but we have not examined -this work, and cannot say whether it is a repetition -of the present portrait.</p> - -<p>Two interesting oil pictures showing Charles, third -Duke of Queensberry, and his celebrated Duchess, -hang near the portrait of Lord Carrington. The -Duke, the correspondent of Swift, painted rather -dryly and hardly by Miss Ann Forbes, whose -work we have already referred to, is seen to -below the waist, clad in peer’s robes, the figure -turned towards the right. The face, shown in -three-quarters, closely resembles that in the -cabinet-sized bust in oils at Ballochmyle, and -in the mezzotint engraved in 1773, by Valentine -Green after George Willison, with the same high -cheek-bones, and prominent high-bridged nose, -and the eyes are of a warm brown colour; but -the face is older than in either of the other -portraits, grave and worn, and covered with -wrinkles.</p> - -<p>The companion portrait of the Duchess, -“Prior’s Kitty, ever young,” the eccentric -patroness of Gay, a work by Aikman, recalls in -most of its details her portrait by Charles Jervas, -in the National Portrait Gallery, London. She -is shown in three-quarters length, slim, graceful, -and youthful, clad in a coquettish country -costume, a dress of greyish brown, of dainty -proportions at the waist, low-breasted, and with -short sleeves that display the well-turned arms, -with a small white apron, and a little close cap -set on the head and almost entirely concealing -the dark brown hair. The face, with its blue eyes -and fresh delicate complexion, is drooping a little, -turned in three-quarters to the left; her left hand -rests on the edge of a milk-pail, and her right -holds what appears to be a broad round-brimmed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">{54}</span> -hat. The background is a landscape, with rocks -and trees rising behind the lady to the left, and -with a stretch of green meadow to the right—in -which, however, no figures appear, as in the -National Portrait Gallery picture,—and a space -of blue sky faintly tinged with red towards the -horizon.</p> - -<p>We are informed that these three last-named -works were acquired at a sale, about the end of -the last century.</p> - -<p>Near them hangs a three-quarter-length portrait -which forms an interesting memorial of one -of the second Baronet’s most congenial friendships. -It represents that prominent statesman in -the days of Queen Anne and George <span class="allsmcap">I.</span>, Thomas, -eighth Earl of Pembroke, Lord-Lieutenant -of Ireland in 1707, a man of great refinement -and varied culture, President of the Royal -Society, of which body Baron Clerk was elected a -member in 1728, “an honour”—as he states in his -“History”—“I value much.” Clerk first made -his acquaintance during his student-days at -Leyden, when the Earl was acting as First Plenipotentiary -at the Treaty of Ryswick. In his -account of that Treaty in the “History of my Own -Times,” Bishop Burnet remarks that “there was -something in his person and manner that created -him an universal respect; for we had no man -among us whom all sides loved and honoured as -they did him.” In 1726 Clerk tells us that he -corresponded with Lord Pembroke upon classical -and antiquarian subjects; it was then that the -Earl “sent me his Picture which is now among -the Ornaments of Mavisbank,” one of Sir John’s -houses; and after he visited London in the -following year, and examined its chief artistic -collections, he records with delight his pilgrimage -to his friend’s seat of Wilton, and his appreciation -of the princely gathering of statues, coins, medals, -etc., which he had brought together there, and -especially of his great ancestral treasure, the Van -Dyck group of Earl Philip and his family. The -eighth Earl, it may be noticed, died in January<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">{55}</span> -1732-3, not 1702-3, as given in Noble’s “Granger,” -or 1722-3, as stated by Chaloner Smith.</p> - -<p>In the portrait he appears in three-quarters -length, clad in armour, with a lace cravat, and a -long dark curling wig, the jewel of the Garter -being suspended by its blue ribbon under his right -arm. The figure is turned to the left, but the -sallow, shaven face, with its dark eyes appearing -from beneath bushy black eyebrows, looks in -three-quarters to the right. His right hand is -raised holding a baton, behind which is placed a -helmet, the left rests on a gold-hilted sword; -and there is a rocky background, disclosing a -space of sky and sea with a ship and boats.</p> - -<p>The picture is evidently a version of the portrait -of the Earl painted by William Wissing, -mezzotinted by John Smith in a plate to which -the date of 1709 has been assigned, though the -painting must have been executed much earlier, -as Wissing died in 1687. The naval background -is stated to be from the brush of “Vandevelde,” -having evidently been introduced by -that artist, after the death of the original -painter of the work, at the time when the -Earl was appointed Lord High Admiral of Great -Britain and Ireland, a post which he held -in 1701, and again in 1708. The younger -William Vandevelde must be the artist indicated, -as the elder painter of the same name died in -1693.</p> - -<p>Among the other portraits in the Dining-room -may be mentioned a fine three-quarters length -of the Earl of Denbigh, by Lely; a vigorous bust-portrait -of the Duke of Norfolk, by Kneller,—the -eighth Duke, as is proved by the robe and collar -of the Garter which appear in the picture; and -a copy from the well-known Janssen portrait of -Drummond of Hawthornden, in the possession of -the Earl of Home: while the portraits of Prince -Charles Edward and of his wife the Princess -Stolberg, known as the Countess of Albany, -though sufficiently indifferent works of art, possess -a certain interest as having been presented to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">{56}</span> -Rosemary Clerk by Miss Law of Princes Street, -Edinburgh, after she had heard the tale of the -White Cockade, as recorded by Lady Clerk herself, -in the postscript to her letter to the Editor of -“Blackwood’s Magazine,” which we have already -quoted.</p> - - -<h2>X.</h2> - -<p>In the Corridor hangs an important and striking -portrait of Lord Godolphin, probably from the -hand of William Aikman, a work doubtless -acquired by the Baron as representing an eminent -English statesman with whom he had been brought -into contact about the time of the Union. The -figure is seen to below the waist, turned in three-quarters -to the right; and the face is more individual -and characteristic, if less dignified and -well conditioned, than that which appears in -Houbraken’s line-engraving, or in Smith’s mezzotint -after Kneller. The nose is small and clear-cut, -the mouth has a thin upper lip drawn inwards -a little, the eyebrows are straight, slight, and of a -dark brown colour, and there are strong lines on -the cheeks curving downwards from the nostrils. -A long grey curling wig is worn, and a claret-coloured -coat, with a plain cravat falling in front; -and a ruddy cloak is wrapped round the waist, -and passed over the left arm. His right hand -rests against his side, and his left is laid gracefully -over a parapet.</p> - -<p>In the same Corridor, hung over a door in an -exceedingly bad light, is a bust-portrait titled on -the back, in an old hand, “Calderwood the -Historian by Jamesone.” The costume is a small -black cap and a black doublet with a round ruff. -The face, seen in three-quarters to the right, -against a dark background, is full of intelligence; -the features small, the eyes grey, the moustache -and beard of a moderate length, yellowish-brown -in colour. The flesh-tints are ruddy, inclining, -indeed, to an unduly hot tone, but the picture -has evidently been much repainted. It is undoubtedly -a production of the period indicated in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">{57}</span> -the inscription, and resembles works that have -been attributed to Jamesone; but we are not acquainted -with any duly authenticated portrait of -the historian of the Kirk of Scotland with which -it might be compared.</p> - -<p>The excellent bust-portrait in the Drawing-room, -attributed to Holbein, is certainly incorrectly -titled as representing Sir Thomas More. -This vigorous, ruddy, bearded countenance is quite -unlike the worn, shaven, student’s face which -appears in the Chancellor’s authentic portraits by -Holbein,—in his two drawings in the Royal Collection -at Windsor, and in the pen sketch, for the -lost oil picture of the Family of Sir Thomas More, -which he himself sent to his friend Erasmus, by -the hand of the painter, when Holbein returned -to the Continent in 1529, a sketch still preserved -in the Museum of Basle.</p> - -<p>Again, the curious, but much injured, panel -picture in the smaller Drawing-room, of a lady -wearing a white pipe-frilled cap, with a bowed -veil over it, titled “Mary of Guise,” shows no -resemblance to such authentic portraits of the -Queen as that at Hardwick, in which she appears -with her husband King James <span class="allsmcap">V.</span>; and the -impaled lozenge on the background bears no trace -of the arms of either Lorraine or Scotland.</p> - - -<h2>XI.</h2> - -<p>We have now to examine the mural decorations -of Penicuik House, which include the celebrated -Ossian ceiling of the room designed for a picture-gallery, -and now used as the Drawing-room. But -first, two smaller cupolas surmounting the staircases -which give access to the upper floor of the -mansion are deserving of notice. One is decorated -in upright compartments, showing Jupiter in his -car drawn by snakes, wielding his thunderbolts, -with a moonlit landscape beneath, and on the -other side a figure of Apollo, with yellow rays -circling his head, driving his team of fiery white -steeds over a landscape which is beginning to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">{58}</span> -blush beneath the rosy light of dawn. Between -these are ranged a series of allegorical figures of -the Months, each marked with a sign of the -Zodiac, and surrounded by scrolls, grotesque -birds, and beasts, and vases. The whole is relieved -against a light green background, and -the compartments are divided by broad bands -of ochre.</p> - -<p>This curious example of the decorative art of -the end of the last century is the work of John -Bonnar, then a decorative painter in Edinburgh; -and when, a hundred years after its execution, -his grandson and great-grandson, who were at the -time pursuing the same business in the same city, -cleaned and restored the work, along with the -Runciman ceilings, their ancestor’s signature was -disclosed upon a corner of its surface.</p> - -<p>The other cupola is decorated by the hand of -Alexander Runciman, with scenes from the life -of St. Margaret of Scotland, whose history -furnished only the other year a subject for the -brush of another of the most imaginative of our -Scottish painters, Sir Noel Paton. Curiously -enough we can find no single reference to this -important St. Margaret series in any of the -biographies of Runciman, or in the anonymous -pamphlet, published in 1773, which so elaborately -describes the ceiling of the Ossian Hall. Both -series are executed in oil colours upon the plaster. -Here the decorations consist of four oval compartments, -each occupied with a scene from the -life of the Queen.</p> - -<p>The first shows “The Landing of St. Margaret.” -Its background is a rich blue sky, and a distance -of stormy sea. In the centre is King Malcolm, -clad in a broad Scottish bonnet with a little white -plume, red knee-breeches, white hose and white -shoes with ample rosettes, and with a red cloak -flapping around him in voluminous folds. With -one hand he leads the lady, robed in a yellow -mantle and a white dress, her long yellow hair -tossed by the wind, and with the other points -energetically towards the church before them,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">{59}</span> -where white-robed monks, with clasped hands, -are awaiting their arrival.</p> - -<p>The second subject is “The Royal Wedding.” -The pair are being united by a venerable and -aged ecclesiastic with a grey beard, whose -bronzed, weather-beaten countenance tells splendidly -against his elaborate white vestments. To -his right is the King, crowned and robed in red, -placing the ring on the hand of the Queen, who -stands draped in gold-brocaded white and green. -An altar appears to our right, and beside it a -mail-clad knight, with head bowed in worship. -The figures of women are introduced to our left, -and white flowers and a steaming censer lie on -the ruddy marble pavement beneath.</p> - -<p>The third subject shows the manner of the -saint’s queenship. She is known to her people in -the breaking of bread; clad in the same robes -that she wore at the marriage festival, she is -feeding the poor, and her husband, in his red -mantle and wearing his royal crown, follows in -attendance upon her, bearing a heaped platter.</p> - -<p>The fourth subject shows the final development -of Queen Margaret’s saintship. Having on -earth filled herself with the life of heaven, she is -now seen, white-clad, and with a red robe falling -from her shoulders like the mortal life that she is -done with, ascending inevitably into skies, where -the clouds dispart to disclose the benignant figure -of the Almighty Father and the white shape of -the Holy Dove. Beneath is outspread a familiar -landscape which she is leaving for ever—the Fifeshire -hills appear on the right on the farther side -of the Firth, and beneath is the town of Edinburgh, -with the Palace, and the Castle rock crested with -her chapel, and to the left the Pentlands which -overlook Penicuik, with a kindly ray streaming -from above, and irradiating their summit.</p> - -<p>In spite of all deductions that may be made on -account of occasional crudities and defects, and of -the glaring anachronisms of costume that are apt -to offend our more archæologically cultured eyes, -the series is a remarkable one, with great richness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">{60}</span> -and variety of colouring, and with a dramatic -power which goes directly to the heart of the -legendary tale, and portrays its incidents in a -vivid and impressive manner. Dealing for the -most part with definite history, the series is more -complete in its realisation than was possible in -some of the visionary subjects from Ossian which -the painter afterwards essayed in the Hall of -Penicuik House.</p> - -<p>The three last-named subjects are signed: the -second bears the date of “Sept. 7, 1772,” the -third “Octr. 14, 1772,” and the fourth “Octr. -6, 1772.” The inscriptions are interesting as -showing that the subjects were executed immediately -after the painter’s return from Italy, and -as illustrating the impetuous speed with which -he must have worked.</p> - - -<h2>XII.</h2> - -<p>Runciman next turned to the larger undertaking -of which the St. Margaret Cupola was but -the prologue, and upon which he worked with -equal energy, for the ceiling of the Ossian Hall -of Penicuik House can hardly have been commenced -before the end of 1772, and it was -certainly completed during the following year.</p> - -<p>It was just ten years previously that “Fingal” -(1762) and “Temora” (1763) first appeared, and -the controversy regarding their authenticity still -raged fiercely. Dr. Johnson and David Hume -denied their claim to be regarded as genuine -Celtic poems, but they were defended by Lord -Kames, Dr. Gregory, and by Dr. Blair, who -pointed out their adaptability to the purposes of -the painter, as presenting fitting subjects for the -exercise of his brush. It was probably upon this -suggestion that the Ossian ceiling was commissioned -by Sir James Clerk, and commenced by -Alexander Runciman.</p> - -<p>The centre of the ceiling is occupied by a large -elliptical compartment, depicting Ossian old and -blind, singing, and accompanying his songs on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">{61}</span> -harp. In front is seated the white-draped shape -of Malvina, and around are grouped a varied -crowd of listeners. The distance is a rocky coast, -with ruined castles, and a fine expanse of sea, -across which white sails are speeding; and above, -the clouds take strange, fantastic, half-defined -shapes as of spiritual presences, the figures of the -vanished heroes of whom the poet sings,—“The -awful faces of other times look from the clouds of -Crona.” This compartment is surrounded by an -ornamental border of gold, which in its turn is -enclosed in a wreath of vine-leaves and fruit; -and the four corners are occupied by figures -symbolical of the four great rivers of Scotland, -the Tay, the Spey, the Clyde, and the Tweed,—figures -manifestly reminiscent of the work of -Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel.</p> - -<p>Beneath, round the ample cove or <i>volto</i> of the -room, is ranged a series of smaller subjects from -Ossian—“The Valour of Oscar,” “The Death of -Oscar,” “The Death of Agandecca,” “The Hunting -of Catholda,” one of the finest of the subjects, -very graceful in the figure of the nymph drawing -a bow; “The Finding of Corban Cargloss,” an -attractive moonlit scene; “Golchossa mourning -over Lamderg,” “Oina Morval serenading Ossian,” -a vigorous subject of “Cormac attacking the -Spirit of the Waters,” “The Death of Cormac,” -“Scandinavian Wizards at their Incantations,” -in which the grotesque is in excess of the terrible, -and “Fingal engaging the Spirit of Lodi.”</p> - -<p>If we were to criticise the ceiling purely as an -example of decorative art, we might well object -that the elaboration and wealth of detail in the -work is hardly suitable to its position, that -designs so placed should have been simpler and -more salient in their component parts, and -executed in a lighter and more airy scheme of -colouring, so as to carry the eye freely upwards. -But as an example of poetic art, in its earnestness of -aim and vigour of conception, it is deserving of all -praise, as one of the very few instances that Scotland -has to show of a serious effort to produce a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">{62}</span> -monumental work, a pictorial epic,—an effort -honourable alike to the painter and his patron. -The art of Runciman, as here displayed, may be -regarded as the precursor of the art of David Scott, -another of Scotland’s most imaginative painters, -who was also powerfully attracted by the Ossianic -legends, choosing “Fingal and the Spirit of Lodi” -for the subject of one of his earliest works, and in -another depicting Ossian himself, not surrounded -by sympathetic listeners as in this central compartment -by Runciman, but seated alone by the sea-shore, -amid the last dying radiance of a sunset, -with his harp lying idle by his side.</p> - -<p>It is recorded that about 1720 John Alexander, -the grandson of George Jamesone of Aberdeen, -executed a “Rape of Proserpina” on a staircase -in Gordon Castle. After the completion of his -work at Penicuik Runciman decorated a church -in the Cowgate of Edinburgh (now St. Patrick’s -Catholic Chapel) with sacred subjects, of which a -portion still remain; and—presumably in humble -imitation of the Ossian Hall—Alexander Carse -painted an oval subject on the ceiling of the -“Pennecuik Parlor” of New Hall, Mid-Lothian, -depicting “The Troops of Tweedale in the Forest -of Selkirkshire, convened by Royal authority in -May 1685, as described in Dr. Pennecuik’s -Poems.” This brief list may be said to include -almost all the mural art—excepting such as was -simply decorative—executed in Scotland during -modern times.</p> - -<p>The Ossian ceiling formed the subject of a -learned and elaborate descriptive pamphlet, published -anonymously, in 1773, by A. Kinnaird and -W. Creech, Edinburgh; and the painter would -appear to have intended to preserve a record of -his work—in the manner afterwards adopted by -Barry, in the case of the illustrations of “Human -Progress,” with which he decorated the walls of -the Hall of the Society of Arts in London, for -etchings, executed by Runciman’s own hand in a -free and somewhat loose style, of the first two -subjects of the St. Margaret Cupola, and of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">{63}</span> -“Cormac attacking a Spirit of the Waters,” and -“The Finding of Corban Cargloss,” from the -Ossian ceiling, are frequently to be met with.</p> - -<p>We have not been able to discover in Penicuik -House Alexander Runciman’s easel Picture of -“Nausicaa at Play with her Maidens,” executed -during his residence at Rome, and shown in -London, in the Free Society of Artists’ Exhibition -of 1767, a work which Allan Cunningham informs -us was “painted for Pennycuik”: and, on account -of the delicacy and transparency of its colouring, -we should be inclined to attribute to John Runciman, -who died at Naples at the early age of -twenty-four, that sketch of “David with the -Head of Goliath,” which has been commonly -assigned to the elder of the two brothers. -Certainly by John Runciman is the excellent -picture of “Belshazzar’s Feast,” hung in the -Billiard-room, a work so delicate in its handling, -so mellow in the golden and ruddy tones of its -colouring, as to support the opinion held by -some discerning critics, that this artist’s brief life -afforded definite promise of his becoming a far -subtler and more refined painter than the better-known -member of his family ever was.</p> - - -<h2>XIII.</h2> - -<p>In the Drawing-room hang many admirable -and interesting works, to a few of which we may -direct attention. Chief among them is the noble -three-quarter-length of Anthony Triest, Bishop -of Ghent, by Rubens, a portrait most characteristic -in pose, vigorously lifelike in expression, -and accomplished in colour. Another portrait of -this prelate, a seated half-length turned to the -right, was painted by Van Dyck, Rubens’ great -pupil, and etched by his own hand in a plate -which was afterwards completed with the graver -by Peter de Jode. In the same room is Van Dyck’s -rendering of “A Lady of the Coningsby Family,” -a graceful full-length, draped in rose-colour, the -gloved right hand resting on a flower-pot which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">{64}</span> -is relieved against a wooded background, and the -right foot raised as the figure stands on a flight of -stone garden-steps. A bust-sized male portrait of -an unknown subject also bears the name of Rubens, -and, by whatever hand, it is certainly an admirable -example of Flemish art. The costume is -black with a piped ruff; the face worn, the brow -furrowed, the hair yellowish, slightly silvered with -age, the thick beard and moustache of a ruddy -colour, and the flesh-tones most attractive in the -quietude and cool grey quality of their shadows. -By Zeeman, an esteemed Dutch painter of naval -subjects, known, too, as an etcher of much -directness and simplicity of method, is a large -sea-piece, with shipping and a great expanse of -sky in which the clouds are beginning to grow -mellow towards the sunset; and by Melchior -Hondecoeter we have a vigorous picture of -“Fighting Cocks,” firmly painted, and effective -in the contrast of the white plumage of the -nearer bird to the glowing brown and ruddy -tones of the rest of the picture.</p> - -<p>The Library, a particularly sunny and spacious -room on the upper floor, contains in addition to -its books—which, as we have already said, include -those bequeathed to the Baron by Boerhaave, his -early friend,—a fine and extensive collection of -prints, duly catalogued and arranged in volumes -according to their various schools. Among the -rest are some rare Dürer items, and a set of John -Clerk’s etchings in their progressive states, along -with many original sketches by his hand.</p> - -<p>Over the fireplace is inlet in the wainscoting -an attractive subject representative of “Music,” -executed in <i>grisaille</i> on canvas, in clever -simulation of a marble bas-relief. It is signed -by its painter, Jacob de Wit, a native of -Amsterdam, born 1695, died 1754, who “attained -a marvellous excellence in the imitation of -sculpture of all kinds of materials, bronze, wood, -plaster, and particularly white marble, in which -he produced such complete illusion that even the -practised eye is deceived.” His most notable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">{65}</span> -work of this kind was the decoration, in 1736, of -a hall in the Hôtel de Ville of Amsterdam; and -it is further stated by Kugler that “a favourite -subject with the master was the representation of -pretty children in the taste of Fiammingo.” The -present picture, in the satisfying arrangement of -its composition and in the grace of its flowing -lines, possesses a more legitimate artistic value -than could come from any merely imitative -dexterity in rendering the effect of sculpture by -means of painting. The musicians are a party of -naked, chubby children. The figure of their -leader is an especially charming one, standing -holding up a music-book in one hand, beating -time with a roll of papers held as a baton in -the other, and singing with open mouth; his -raised face, with the soft hair clustering about -the rounded cheeks, wearing an entranced expression -which embodies the very spirit of -melody. Beside him one of his infant musicians -touches the wires of a lyre, another bends over -a great mandoline, of which a third is tightening -the strings, and a fourth breathes softly on the -flute.</p> - -<p>At the entrance to the Library door are placed -two large glass cases, one filled with natural -history specimens, the other containing the -valuable collection of Roman remains, in metal, -pottery, coins, etc., accumulated by Baron Clerk, -which it would require the skill of an archæologist -rightly to estimate. Among them is a -curious and most interesting ivory carving, -inscribed, on a parchment label, in the Baron’s -handwriting, “An Antient piece of Sculpture on -the Tooth of a Whale,—it was found by John -Adair, Geographer, in the North of Scotland, -Anno 1682, all the figures are remarkable.” In -this year Adair, the Geographer for Scotland, -was appointed by the Privy Council of Scotland -to make a survey of the kingdom and maps of -the shires, of which only a portion was published. -The carving represents a crowned queen, seated -holding a lapdog on her knees; with a knight,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">{66}</span> -wearing a surcoat over chain-armour, and bearing -a sword and a shield blazoned with a <i>chevron -chequé</i>, standing on her left; and on her -right a musician playing on a crowde, an old instrument -resembling a violin; while between these, -round the rest of the ivory, is a row of female -figures, wearing long flowing robes, standing with -clasped hands, that beside the musician holding -a palm-branch. The carving is described and -figured in Dr. Daniel Wilson’s “Prehistoric Annals -of Scotland.” Dr. Wilson considers it to be a -queen piece of a chess set, and assigns it to the -fourteenth century.</p> - - -<h2>XIV.</h2> - -<p>In the Charter-room are preserved, in addition -to documents, many curious miscellaneous relics -of an artistic and personal sort. The MSS. -include the account-books of the family, extending -well into the seventeenth century, kept with -the minutest accuracy, and containing many -entries of great interest to the student of the -social manners of the past. There are also -voluminous devotional compositions, commonplace-books, -etc., by the first Baronet; and the -<span class="allsmcap">MS.</span> “History of my Life,” and the two volumes -of the “Journal of my Travells for 5 years -Through Holland, Germaine, Italy, France, and -Flanders,” by the second Baronet, Baron Clerk, -along with the MSS. of several of his published -and unpublished historical and antiquarian -pamphlets.</p> - -<p>A somewhat grim development of portraiture -is seen in a couple of waxen death-masks—one of -them shows the face of Lady Margaret Stuart, -the Baron’s much-loved first wife—each casketed -in its little wooden case or shrine. The habit of -preserving such masks seems to have been -common in Scotland during the seventeenth and -eighteenth centuries,—we remember that the -Abertarff sale included several representing various -members of the Lovat family: a survival, one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">{67}</span> -may call it, of the old Roman custom of preserving -the waxen images of ancestors, which -prevailed, too, in France, in the days when Clouet -was summoned to Rambouillet, to cast the waxen -effigy of the dead Francis <span class="allsmcap">I.</span></p> - -<p>In the Charter-room are various interesting old -miniatures and drawings, among the latter one -of a cupid and a griffin, attributed to Raphael; -one by Guido; a couple of designs by Inigo -Jones—one marked “given me by the Earl of -Burlington in 1727” (the year of the Baron’s -visit to London), “I very much value this and -the other drawing by Inigo. John Clerk, 1744;” -and the original sketch for the picture of St. -Cecilia, still preserved at Penicuik, by Francesco -Imperiali, an artist of repute in his day, who died -at Rome in 1741, under whom the Baron studied -art when in Italy, and who was afterwards one of -the instructors of Allan Ramsay, the portrait-painter.</p> - -<p>Another relic of the Baron’s days in Italy is -the small marble bust of Cicero—preserved in the -Charter-room—which, as he tells us in his “History,” -was bequeathed to him by “Montignia Chapigni, -a learned antiquarian and philosopher.” Yet -another is a little wooden casket, fragrant still -with a sweet old-world perfume, as we open the -drawers filled with neatly stoppered bottles. This -is the “Box of Chymical Medicines, still at Penicuik,” -which was presented to the Baron on his -leaving Florence, along with “all the variety of -wines and sweet meats which his country produced,” -by the Grand Duke Cosimo <span class="allsmcap">III.</span>, who had -previously honoured the young Scotsman by bestowing -on him “a patent under the privy seal -signed by himself and his Secretary of State, the -Marquise de Ricardi, appointing me a Gentleman -of his Bedchamber, which patent lies now in the -Charter-room.”</p> - -<p>On one of the shelves is placed another curious -family relic, a basket filled with artist’s materials, -marked “Oil colours brought from Rome by Uncle -Sandy,” a son of the first Baronet, that Alexander<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">{68}</span> -Clerk who figures in the Baronage as “bred a -painter,” and whose name appears, in 1729, on -the original indenture of the Edinburgh School -of St. Luke, as a member of that first academy -founded in Scotland for the study of art, in which, -six years later, Strange the engraver received -instruction. In this old document, so significant -in the history of painting in our country, and now -fittingly in the possession of the Royal Scottish -Academy, Richard Cooper, Strange’s master, -appears as Secretary. Among the other signatures -are those of James Clerk, Alexander’s elder -brother, afterwards third Baronet of Penicuik; -his nephew Hugh Clerk, Junr., who “served with -the allied army in Germany, and died soon after -the battle of Minden”; the two Ramsays; “Ja. -Norie” and “Jas. Norie, Junior”; John Patoun, -whose portrait of Thomson the poet is now in the -National Portrait Gallery, London; John Alexander, -the portrait-painter, who engraved the -family group of his grandfather, George Jamesone -of Aberdeen; and William Denune, known by his -portraits of Thomas and Mrs. Ruddiman, of -Professor Robert Simson of Glasgow (1746), and -of the Rev. William Harper, Episcopal clergyman -in Leith (1745).</p> - -<p>There is one other of the contents of the -Charter-room to which we must refer, a volume -containing a complete set of Turner’s “Liber -Studiorum” prints, evidently an original subscriber’s -copy; most of the plates are in excellent -impressions, and some are proofs.</p> - -<p>For permission to examine these, and all the -other Art Treasures at Penicuik House—to many -of which we have been unable even to refer—we -have to express our grateful thanks to Sir George -Clerk, the owner of the mansion, and to the -Dowager Lady Clerk, its present occupant.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">{69}</span></p> - - -<h2><span class="smcap">Note.</span></h2> - -<p class="center">(<a href="#Page_30"><i>See</i> page 30.</a>)</p> - -<p>We have just had an opportunity of examining -the portraits of Sir James Clerk, the third -Baronet, and Elizabeth Cleghorn, his wife, in the -possession of Miss Eliott Lockhart, at 17 Rutland -Street, Edinburgh. In each the figure is seen to -the waist, within a painted oval. The Baronet is -clad in a yellowish pink gown, worn over a red -vest, with the shirt unbuttoned at the throat. -The face, turned slightly to the right, has clear-cut -features, full blue eyes, and dark eyebrows, -the hair being entirely concealed by a blue cap. -The left hand is laid on the top of a folio volume, -resting on a table to the right, which is covered -with a brilliantly patterned cloth; and a green -curtain appears behind to the left. In the portrait -of Lady Clerk the face is seen in three-quarters -to the left, and has pale yellow hair and -eyebrows, and blue eyes. The costume is a white -dress worn low at the throat, and a blue mantle. -A tree-trunk appears behind the head, and a -wooded landscape to the right. Each picture is -signed with the name of a portrait-painter which -we have not elsewhere met with—“<i>Gul: Mosman -pingebat 1739.</i>” The handling of the works is -hard and definite.</p> - - -<p class="center p2">THE END.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<p class="ph3">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> A three-quarters length portrait of the younger -Aikman, with a grave earnest face, clad in a long-skirted -grey coat, and holding a sketch in his hand, is in the -possession of the representative of the family at The -Ross, Hamilton. It is an excellent example of the -elder Aikman’s portraiture.</p> - -</div></div> - - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES ON THE ART TREASURES AT PENICUIK HOUSE MIDLOTHIAN ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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