CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library Z325.B87 W17 Aberdeen awa' : sketches ,8',,jJi?,ii,ni,f,'Jiiii,'^'" olin 3 1924 029 509 993 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029509993 ABERDEEN AWA' George Walker. ABERDEEN AWA' SKETCHES OF ITS MEN, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS AS DELINEATED IN Brown's Book-Stall, 1892-4 BY GEORGE WALKER,c| nbeiTeS&ei ,t ,sl Revised and largely extended, with Portraits and Illustrations ABERDEEN- A. BROWN & CO EDINBURGH : J. MENZIES & CO 1897 PREFACE. The origin of tliis volume is entirely fortuitous and acci- dental, and but for the solicitation of Mr. E. T. Smith, my successor as proprietor of the business of A. Brown & Co., it would not have appeared in print, or obtruded itself on the attention of the public. In the go-ahead style of the youth of the present day, he aspired to have an advertising medium of his own, in- tended for circulation amongst the customers of the old firm of A. Brown & Co., and knowing that during my fifty years' connection I had accumulated much information regarding the firm and its various partners since it began in 1785, he asked me to furnish some details of its origin, progress, and work, which might be padding to his projected serial, and form something like a thread through it to bind the past with the present. His singular venture became plural, and for three years (1892-94) I had to furnish samples of my reminiscences, such as they were, and had to adapt them according to the space allowed. As they progressed in number the interest in them increased, and numerous demands for the earlier numbers of the Book-Stall were received which could not be supplied. From being considered mere padding, the sketches came to be eagerly looked for, were most favour- ably criticised by the press, and on their conclusion were considered by the proprietor as " our mainstay, our back- bone ... so appreciated that the pubhc, like another Oliver Twist, is asking for more.'' So, in reply to numerous requests from many .\ber- donians at home and abroad, backed up by the press critics these sketches are submitted to the public as now revised, corrected, and largely extended, by desire. Preface. When, sixty years ago, I first read Pryse L. Gordon's article, I was much impressed with the desirabihty of pre- serving it, and have not only done so (see Chapters ix. and X.), but appropriated the title he adopted ; because, during the long life of Alexander Brown, the founder of the Book- Stall, extending from 1766 to 1843, the prominent part he took among the citizens, and the influential position he occupied, made him one of the principal actors in all the important events of the marvellous period of change which has made Aberdeen awa' what it now is. In this fleeting world it is a pleasure Tu help to " save from what traditions glean, Or age remembers, or ourselves have seen ; The scattered relics care can yet collect. And fix such shadows as these lines reflect." It has been asked, " What is history for but to recover forgotten names that ought not to be forgotten, to make rich our memories, to connect the life of the present through an avenue of increasingly strong recollections with the life of the past I " and to recall past times, and bring back the days of old. Acknowledgments are due to my esteemed friend, Dr. Alexander Walker, for his ready assistnnce both in informa- tion and illustration ; to Mr. Isaac Smith for specially pro- viding for my use the portrait of his father, to Messrs. Wilson k Co., Mr. William Smith, printer, Messrs. Lewis Smith & Son, and to Messrs. Falconer & Co. for the use of illustrations. G. W. October, 1896. CONTENTS. I. — Aberdeen of yore. The Craigdam minister. Hi.s son Alexander Brown begins business, i u. — Alexander Sheriffs and his stock. Old books. The Grey Goose Quill &c. Shorter Calhechism, 12 III. — The Upperkirkgate shop. Customers. Town squabbles. David Wyllie and Lewis Smith. Broad Street shop. Marriage. Publications. Shop signs. Homer's head, 23 IV. — The passing century. Dawn of Reform. Light and leading. The Scottish burnie. Police bill, 32 V. — Extension of the city. New streets and buildings. Suburbs. Antiquity, 41 VI. — Mr. Brown prospers. Social position. Old limes. Con- vivial clubs. Distributor of stamps. William i'"arquhar. Forbes Frost. Paper ruling. James Brownie. The Mogul Club, - 53 VII. — Early printers and booksellers. Angus and Sons. The Narrow Wynd. London smacks. Publishing. Dr. George Campbell, 71 VIII. — Municipal election. Management. "Sandy Banner- man " and Blumine. Baillie Brown at Edinburgh. Sir William Curtis. Provost. Bridge of Don. New Parishes. Stormy times. Augean stables. Provost Hadden. Farcical elections, 84 IX.— Pryse Gordon on Aberdeen. Sir W. Scott's kindness. Kennedy the Annalist. High jinks. Duellings. Pro- fessor Gordon. The Laird of Culrossie. Sheriffs and Russel. Adams and Chalmers. W. Forsyth's cure, 106 X. — Clerk Carnegie introduced to Bailie Nicol Jarvie. Young Aberdeen. County characters. Lord Kintore. City riots. Loyalty of Aberdeen mob, 122 Contents. XI. — Town Council Work. William Brown. David Wyllie. Forbes Frost. Jacobitism. The Gentle Persuasion. " Honest John." A young bookworm, 134 XII. — Brisk publishing. Union Buildings. Sir Alex. Anderson and his litany. Ritualism, Jacobitism and Persecution, 143 XIII. — Book-Stall employees. Succession. John Cormack. Colonel Fraser, 155 XIV. — Bigotry and prejudice. Romance. The old, old story. 166 XV. — Influence of books. Examples. Voung pilgrims. Power of fiction. Spiritual manifestations. Convivial raillery. Clerk Carnegie, 175 XVI. — In memoriam. G. W. Wilson. Experiments. Excur- sions. West Coast. Staffa. Simples in medicine, 189 XVI1-— (Continued) Elgin. Travelling trials. Royal Patronage. A lost friend, - 202 XVIII.— Music in Aberdeen. Appreciation. William Brown. Organ Question, 212 XIX. — (Continued) Ancient celebrity. Thomas Shannon. Sang Schule. Musical Society. Precentors. James Davie. Geordie Weir. Piganini. 223 XX. — Foreign visitors. Religious revival. W. C. Burns. Moderates. Disruption, 236 XXI. —Address to Library association. Aberdeen, a royal city. The Scottish Oxford. "A lazy town"- A sterile soil, 244 XXII. — Bookmakers. Churchmen. Civic corporations. Univer- sities. Professors. Printers. Libraries. Eminent Men, 25s XXIII. — The Victorian Era. Scott and other poets. Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. Constable. Annuals. Periodi- cals, 26s XXIV.— The local poets. Booksellers. Lewis Smith. Lemon Tree. . 277 XXV. — Chess play and clubs. Steel pens and envelopes. Annuals. Theological literature. G. King, - . . 289 Contents. XXVI. — Bibliomaniacs. Dummy books. The road to Scotland. Caller water at home and abroad, 299 XXVU. — Edinburgh booksellers and society. Sydney Smith, &c. , \ Charles Elliot, 311 xXTlit. — Aberdeen Booksellers. Lewis Smith and old books. Revolution in Book-Stall, - 318 XXIX. — Permanency of books. Prestige of Scotland. Dislike of Scotchmen, 328 XXX. — Old book catalogues. Sales by auction. Book buyers, 335 xxxi.^Downie's slaughter. Author of the story. Fictitious autobiography of Laurence Langshank, 343 XXXH. — Use of Free Libraries. Robert Mudie. Sandy Banner- man and Clerk Carnegie. Bannerman's new history of Aberdeen, - 357 XXXIII. — Value of portraits. The Little Club. Carnegie's en- counter with Auld Hornie, 362 XXXIV. — George Colman. His escapades at Oxford. Banish- ment to Old Aberdeen. Rory Macleod. Coll. McLeane. Oxford versus Aberdeen. English students. Robert Hall. Chas. Burney and James Mackintosh, 370 XXXV. — Aberdeen characters. Historians. Wags and wickedness. The baby Mrs. Grundy, 384 XXXVI. — Forbes Frost. Deaths of partners in the Book-Stall, 394 W. JOLLY & SONS, PRINTERS, ABERDEEN. ILLUSTRATIONS. Author, Front. Provost Brown, 92 William Brown, 216 Baillie L. Smith, 282 Market Cross, Title. Upperkirkgate Shop, 9 Wallace Neuk, - 22 Narrow Wynd, - 76 Jamesone's House, 105 Byron's House, 235 King's College, 288 Old East Church, 298 St. Machar's Cathedral, 350 Brig o' Balgownie, - 98, 393 Municipal Buildings, . \'' . . 399 Union Bridge, 1820, - - 400 Errata. — Page 62, line 4, for "instuted" read instituted. ,, 77, ,, 4, „ "Excerises" „ Exercises. ,, 80, ,, 28, ,, "similiar" ,, similar. „ 151, ,, I, ,, "Carlyle" ,, Carlisle. II 303i >, 7i II "let" „ lit. ABERDEEN AWA' I. INTRODUCTION. " Every- one of the ages are telling on us at the present time ; every man who thought or worked in them has contributed to the good or evil which is now around us. The past ages are not dead, they cannot be. If we listen they will speak to us." — Carlyk. " Prythee, friend, Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear The good and bad \.o^e.'Ca.ex."~-Shakespeare. " Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things which we call books. Still does the Press toil ! innumerable Papermakers, Com- positors, Printers' Devils, Bookbinders, and Hawkers grown hoarse with proclaiming, rest not from their labours : and stiTl in torrents rushes on the great array of publications, unpausing to their final home ; and still oblivion, like the grave, cries Give, Give." — Carlyle. , BERDEEN, now reputed to be one of the most radical cities in the country, y^zs, at one time considered the Oxford of Scotland, Is it the principle of heredity operating on men— enabling them when so often inclined as they are — to lay all their faults on their fore-fathers, and claim all their virtues foj themselves, which has, to a certain extent, preserved that fine, old, and altogether respectable conservative feeling which undoubtedly exists in the city and also in the surrounding district? For in. Aberdeenshire the old Catholi- cism had deeply rooted itself in the primitive and granitic district, and could never be entirely extirpated from its suitable soil. There in after days was the stronghold of the newer metamorphic Episcopacy, the outcome of the age ; where in spite of ail that the' Covenanters could do in I 2 Aberdeen Awa'. I. the way of rough persuasion, its adherents got the ugly name of " Malignants " and so earned the thorny crown of irritating persecution, although locally "No martyr fires could witness be 'Twixt Presbytrie and Prelacy." Thus there it lingered longest, suffered less severely than elsewhere in Scotland, and more readily revived. There in 1688 the Revolution settlement was not cordially welcomed, owing to the strong Royalist and Episcopalian element being in the ascendant. There in 1 7 15 the Earl of Mar raised the banner of revolt against the Hanoverian dynasty, proclaiming the Chevalier at the Market Cross, while James holding his mock regal court at Fetteresso was there presented by the City Magistrates (of his own making) by the University Professors, and Episcopalian clergy with ''a foolish address." There in 1745, although the cannie citizens when they saw which was likely to be the winning side gave an effusive welcome to the butcher Duke of Cumberland, yet only some months previous the fickle mob smashed the windows of those who would not accept Prince Charlie as their darling. Not for nearly a generation after the Revolution were the parishes supplied with Presbyterian clergymen, and considering that some of them had to be inducted by an armed force it is not much to be wondered at although the district became known as " the dead sea of Moderatism," and that the ' deil's books ' as playing cards were in Aberdeen- shire not held in that " holy " horror as they were in more puritanic districts. Moreover, the county contains the residences of some of the oldest Scottish families, some of whom carry their pedigrees, their titles, their position, and culture back for hundreds of years. Four centuries ago the poet Ariosto mentions the Aberdeenshire Forbesses as leaders of men, and we have them still. "The Forbes and the Farquharson Are ours, and bailh are names o' note ; By Bogie, Deveron, Dee and Don The Gordons hae the guidin' o't, Frae Border Tweed to John O' Groat Can lives o' meikle fame afford, But nane mair free o' blur or blot Than what belang to Bon-Accord." Long, Long Ago. 3 Joseph Robertson, in his Book of Bon-Atcord, informs us that the earliest theatrical exhibition on record in Scotland is the play of the Haly blude, acted on the Windmill hill in 1440 ; and that in such like performances Aberdeen was pre-eminent. The tailors had to provide "Our Ladye, Sancte Bride, Sancte Helene, Sancte Joseph, and their attendants. An Emperour, the three Kings of Cologne, twa Bishops, tvva Doctors, four Angels with one Messenger, the Archangel Gabriel, Symon, Moses, twa or three Wood- men [Satyrs], Knights in harnace, Menstralls " ; and honest Squires were all to be provided by the other crafts, and each ccdSx.—with the exception of the tailors — had to provide '■'■honest squires." So conservative were the citizens that neither legal en- actments, nor statutes and ordainments made and provided by the Magistrates and Kirk Session could eradicate the love of the drama from the hearts of the people. An attempt to prevent a pageant of this character in 1785 led to a riot, when, the mob took their revenge by breaking the windows of the Town House, and human nature being always the same, a partial revival, but in great style of splendour, of this drama, dazzled and delighted our young eyes on the 8th of August, 1832. All these things are influences, silently but surely opera- tive in their action on the inhabitants of the district ; plainly visible to those who study the men, and who look under the surface, but not visible to the same extent in more changeable places as Glasgow and Dundee. One proof of the existence of this reverence for antiquity is evidenced by many business firms in the city retaining their old titles long after the founders have been dead and gone. " Men may come and men may go," but these old firms, changed indeed in men, manners, and, it may be, in place, go on, still retaining the old business and the old name. Brown's Aberdeen Book-Stall may justly be reckoned one of these. A generation has come and gone since a " Brown " had any connection with it, and of the five individuals who at various times have been partners, only two of them were " Browns," yet the others have all been willing to sink their own personalities and loyally give honour to whom honour was due in the person of the founder, who was connected with it for sixty years. 4 Aberdeen Awa. I. This was Alexander Brown, the third son of the Rev. William Brown, the first Secession minister of Craigdani (born 1728, ordained 1752, died 1 801), a man of marked individuality, of abou-nding zeal and untiring activity, and whose influence for good spread far and wide, and has not ceased yet. In 1758 there was published — " ' The Great and Chief-Concerning Gospel Question,' being the substance of some Discourses delivered on the Lord's Day, the first of October, 1758, at Cortecram, in the parish of Lonmay, by William Brown, Minister of the Gospel in the associate con- gregation at Craigdam. Published at the desire of the hearers. 2 Cor. iv. 5. Printed by J. Chalmers & Co., Aberdeen. i2mo pp. 52." Some traits of his character are given in a booklet ("Craigdam and its Ministers"), pub- lished by the firm, which does not by any means exhaust the subject. There are yet some additional stories worth preservation. In building up the Craigdam congregation, the novelty of the doctrines and the earnestness and zeal with which these were proclaimed drew large audiences ; and large audiences in themselves have a tendency to keep together, from various reasons. One farm servant, who came from a long distance away, frankly admitted that the powerful magnet which drew him for miles to the church every Sabbath was not the sermons, but the bright eyes and comely looks of a young lass who was one of Mr. Brown's members, and to whom he had lost his heart. Whether in consequence of his regular attendance, his kindly glances, and his honeyed words (without the first, the last two would have been certainly useless) his suit prospered, and when he got a farm of his own, but at a considerable distance from Craigdam, Jeannie became his wife, and, of course, was married by her own minister. After the ceremony there was an entertainment, and the company were handsomely treated. Mr. Brown had been narrowly scrutinizing the husband, and watching all the proceedings, which were of a' free and jovial character; perhaps rather more so than he approved of. Before leaving, in reply to the toast of his health, after thanking the company for the honour done him, and giving some exhortation to the husband, he turned to the new-married wife, and couthily addressing her as one of his own flock, he said — " Noo, Jeanie, my lass, I'm very The Craigdam Minister. S blithe to see you married, and weel married, I hope. You've got a good-looking husband, a good doon-sitting, a braw house, and plenty o' frien's — but, Jeanie, I've missed ane I would have liket to meet wi' here " — the company wondered, but he continued — " Christ was bidden to the marriage at Cana, an' He cam' ; ye've maybe forgotten to bid Him, but it's no too late ; He winna tak' it ill to be bidden yet ; and O, Jeanie, if He comes He'll turn a' your bread into manna and your water into wine, and a' your joys into foretastes o' heaven itsel'." Thus plainly, faithfully, and affectionately did Mr. Brown deal with the members of his flock. Need it be added that they were members of his flock to the last of their lives. And like pastor, like people ; the model being set up, the power and example and the force of imita- tion came into play, with results varied by national characteristics and hereditary influences. What a sturdy, freely, outspoken race his flock proved themselves to be, copying their pastor in his pithy sayings ! In these old days, with remnants of the feudal system still existing, there was an agreement in tenants' leases that so many days' services were to be given to the Laird at harvest. So one autumn a good many Seceders were in the draft, getting in the crop at Haddo House under the superintend- ence of Mr. Ciialmers the overseer. He, noticing that whether at work or meals, the Craigdam folks always contrived to be together, though he could find no fault with their work, yet, as often as he could, he managed to show his aversion, saying in their hearing — " I must say I don't like thae Seceders ; " when one of them, Andrew Coutts of Belgove, turned up his big burly head and broad face, and with grc.it coolness, said— "Weel, Sir! I dinna wunner at that — the deevil disna like them aither, an' it's bit naatural for his bairns to tak' aifter their father." While his family was young Mr. Brown carefully superin- tended their education, and one of the exercises prescribed was that they should take notes of his sermons, which notes were read over to him afterwards. How his two elder brothers acquitted themselves is not recorded, but on the best authority it is said that Alexander, who was slow at writing, never made a good job in recording the rapid and 6 Aberdeen Awa'. I. impassioned oratory of his father, and was out-distanced by him. His notes were meagre and unsatisfactory, and he was told he had not been attending properly. In this dilemma he had recourse to Nanny Lind, an old member, and a constant attender at Church, who had a remarkable memory and a thorough knowledge of the evangelical doctrines she had been accustomed to hear and to relish. With her assistance Alexander passed muster for a time, and was even commended. But on one occasion as he was reading, he was peremptorily stopt by his father with "What! what! I certainly never said anything like that — indeed, it is an entirely new idea to me and rather interest- ing ! " Making the best excuse he could, but concealing the source of his information, he speedily found his way to Nanny and told her the serious difficulty she had brought him into. Nanny instantly scouted any possibility of difficulty. His notes were produced and read over to her and the particular new passage objected to was pointed out to her. "That's it, is it?" said Nanny, " weel, weel, all I can say is that if he didna say it he ought to have said it, for its juist a naitural inference." Nanny Lind of Craigdam and the great Roman painter Raphael were farther removed from each other's influence than the poles ; but one touch of nature making the whole world kin, how naively and unconsciously does she repeat the painter's saying that "he painted that which ought to be!" Although she did not pretend to be able to make a sermon, yet it is clear that she could draw an inference. After enjoying and profiting by the services of Mr. Cowie, a then student of divinity, who for a time was a tutor in Mr. Brown's family, afterwards a minister in Huntly, and celebrated by George Macdonald in his Alec Forbes ; Alex- ander, like his two brothers, John and William, migrated to Aberdeen, then considered a very land of Goshen for all the aspiring young people of the district who declined to be farmers. John— the eldest — was a student of medicine, and died in comparatively early life. William was apprenticed to a merchant there, and afterwards went to Dundee, where he became editor of the Dundee Repository; went from there to Edinburgh, and had a bookseller's shop in the Parliament William Brown. 7 Close in 1793 ; edited the Edinburgh Herald and Chronicle ; next he became editor and part proprietor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal^ and while prospering in business died in 1809. In 1793 he published in Aberdeen a clever satirical poem in the broad Buchan dialect, entitled, Look before ye hup, or a Box d Healin' Safor the Cracket Crowns o' Country Politicians, which went through several editions. By his poetical productions he earned a place in The Bards of Bon-Accord, where there is an appreciative notice of him, from whence the following stanzas to his brother John are extracted. Ye flinna sham folk wi' riff-raff, Hech ! hoo ye screed the Latin aff ; That classic lear is noble scaff — I'd fill ye fou Wi' Fairintosh, to hae it half As ready's you. Ye ken, I ne'er was well vers'd iu't, But wha: I had is feckly tint. The best's awa, an' left ahint. But jist a smatterin', My niither's tongue is a' the print, I read or clatter in. Alexander was sent in to Aberdeen in 1782, specially recommended to the care of his father's friend, Mr. Knight, an old Antiburgher seceder bookseller in the Gallowgate, whose shop is unchanged, as it is still No. 12 ; was slightly projecting and was entered by some steps up from the pavement. But by the extension of the University buildings it will soon be amongst the things that were. At the time, Aberdeen, with its 20,000 inhabitants, was compressed into small compass, and the Gallowgate competed with the Broadgate as to supremacy in stately buildings and influential residents, although in width the Broadgate appropriately carried off the palm. The Shiprow was the main approach from the South, as the Gallowgate was from the North, and the last was considered the first fashionable street of the town, for in 1494 the earl of Mar had his corbelled and castellated mansion in it, still to be seen, and the street retained this character far longer than the Shiprow, for in Pigot's Directory for 1825-6, in the list of " Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, and Advocates," no fewer than 8 Aberdeen AwW. I. sixteen names are given as resident in the Gallowgate, and within the recollection of many still living, two Provosts resided there. In 1833, there were several houses in it, with wood fronts which overhung the street and the Vennel, one of the most disorderly places in the city, led out of it towards George Street in the line of what is now St. Paul Street. Rich and poor, high and low, the best and the worst society lived in the closest proximity. That "elegant street," Queen Street, was only laid out in 1776, and it was fourteen years after before the Lochlands were feued, and George Street, Charlotte Street, John Street, and St. Andrew Street were formed ; and it is amusing to read that at the time this was thought " to be the only quarter in which the town could be extended to any great extent." So, from its proximity to Marischal College, and being the direct approach from Old Aberdeen, the Gallowgate was a good business street, and Mr. Knight's shop was the natural resort of the Professors and literary men in the city. His son, William, was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy in Marischal College, and held this from 1822 to 1844, having the character of a strict disciplinarian, and very exacting in money fines from the students. On his death in 1844, the Rev. Dr. William Pirie conducted the funeral service in the College Hall, and alluding to heaven in his prayer, and using the Scriptural language that "there shall be no night there," the irreverent nickums of students — overjoyed at the thought of no more fines — ruffed loudly, greatly to the discomposure of the gravity of those present. Alexander Brown, a brisk, active, good-looking young fellow of sixteen, kept his eyes and his ears open to all the influences by which he was surrounded, and profited by them as he might have been expepted to do at his age. Three years' service seems to have given him confidence in himself, and he then started business on his own account in a very humble way in a small shop on the north side of the Upperkirkgate, next to Drum's Lane, buying the stock of a Mr. Taylor. He opened this humble shop on June 7th, 1785, and the first entry in his Day Book is the sale of Guthrie's Grammar of Geography, price 7s. 6d. Alexander Brown. 9 Run -into the Scottish mould, with its native "sagacities, veracities ; vfith its stedfastly fixed moderation, and its sly twinkles of defensive humour " ; he had acquired a thorough THE SHOP IN WHICH ALEXANDER BROWN BEGAN BUSINESS IN lySj. mastery of the broad Buchan dialect which, as he rose in position, he tried to submerge, but which in his uncon- strained moments came out delightfully free and fresh. Aberdeen had never lost the character it acquired of being the most literary city in Scotland, Edinburgh not excepted. In the previous century, and during the Covenanting struggles, the literary productions of its famous doctors in behalf of Charles I. gave it great celebrity in England, where, as has been said, it was reckoned the Scottish Oxford. In a purely literary point of view, and as an educating centre, it even outshone Oxford, for whereas lO Abej-deen Awd. L in all England they had but two Universities, Aberdeen could boast of two for itself. Spalding, in his "Trubles," tells us how dear this reputation cost the city, and how it was the frequent battle-ground of the contending factions, each spoiling it in their turn again and again. Nowhere in all the land could the effects of competition in the dis- semination of knowledge be better observed. Books, even rare and precious, were abundant. The numerous Professors, and the still more numerous students, must have them. Every Highland minister, and each landed proprietor north of the Grampians, and many from the sunnier south, carried with them from Aberdeen their love of literature, and formed valuable libraries. And as death breaks up all things, every now and then in the newspapers of the end of the last century and the beginning of the present, one comes on announcements of the sale of valuable and ex- tensive libraries bought by the Aberdeen booksellers of the time, and advertised by them. In 1780 Joseph Taylor published a small i2mo, entitled Lessons in Prose and Verse. In the Aberdeen Journal, 20th June, 1785, he intimates that he gives up business in favour of Mr. Patterson and A. Brown, who solicit the support of the public. This is the only notice of Patterson which appears, and it may be suspected that he was guarantor for Mr. Brown's liabilities. Or it may have been a similar case to that of the first John Murray, who in 1768 started in business in Fleet Street, London — who, although he had no doubt of success, yet offers his chum, •' Dear Will," a partnership. This was William Falconer, the author of The Shipwreck, a brother Scotchman and a warm friend — blood being thicker than water amongst Scotchmen all over the world. Falconer — a purser in the Navy — preferred the chances of his profession, and sailing in the Aurora frigate bound for India, in 1769, was never heard of afterwards. His poetic Shipwreck brought him fame and fortune, but his real shipwreck cost him his life. The cases are parallel, both Murray and Brown were negotiating for the purchase of businesses ; were willing to share their confidently expected profits with others who disappear, while the firms then proposed still prosper. A bookseller of the present day would hardly recognise The Dress of Books. 1 1 his own business as it was then conducted. New books were delivered from the printer to him in their naked sheets, and he had to clothe them, read them, put them into his own mind, and then into the minds of others, by recommending and selling them. The sheets had to be folded, stitched together in boards, and covered with drab grey paper, with small printed titles on the back, and this was the dress of all new books until about 1825, when gay cloth covers and gilt titles revolu- tionised the trade. Constable's Miscellany was the first issue of books bound in cloth, and the Library of Enter- taining Knowledge the first to have gilt titles. Authors and publishers in those days depended on what was in the inside of a book ; the books were like oysters, and had little attractions on their outside, whereas now-a-days most books — like a great many men — are more or less of a failure, according as they are dressed, and all sorts of devices are now employed to catch the eye, everything being now sacrificed to aesthetics. Such is the way of the world for — " Although it is wrong I must frankly confess To judge of the merits of folk by their dress ; I cannot but think that an ill-looking hat Is a very bad sign of a man for all that." And so elegant bindings, delightful paper, delicious printing, and striking illustrations with old and quaint title pages are half the battle in the first life of the books of to-day. The world has adopted the maxims of Lord Chesterfield : "Not solid virtue, but good manners, good breeding, politeness, and the arts of society " lead to fortune in the career of a man of this world. And the result in the case of his son was that after all the polish and the glitter, the finesse and the falsehood which was inculcated, the son was a failure, and cheated his father by the precepts he had imbibed from him. CHAPTER II. " Once more ^ain unroll the page, Nor need one fear a lack of store; Ungalhered yet is all the lore That groweth still from age to age. We would not that the past should be Forgotten with the years of old, And we would gather into fold All things deserving memory." ™" Books! those miraculous memories of high thoughts and golden moods ; those magical shells tremulous with the secrets of the ocean of life ; those love letters that pass from hand to hand of a thousand lovers that never meet ; those honeycomljs of dreams ; those orchards of knowledge ; those still beating hearts of the noble dead ; those mysterious signals that lieckon along the darksome pathways of the past ; voices through which the myriad lisping voices of the earth find perfect speech ; oracles through which its mysteries call like voices in moonlit woods ; prisms of beauty ; urns stored with all the sweets of all the summers of time ; immortal nightingales that sing for ever to the rose of life ; Books, Bibles — ah me ! what have ye become ! " Richard Le Gallienne, Frose Fancies. "When I unfold some favourite book, Chaucer and I grow boon companions then, And Shakespeare, deigning at my hearth to sit. Charms me with mingled love, philosophy, and wit." NDREW SHERRIES, termed by Burns "a little decrepid body with some abilities : " the brother of Dr. James Sherrifs, minister of St. Nicholas Church, 1778-1814; and of Alexander Sherrifs, President of the Society of Advocates — vi'as a bookseller, a poet, and a musician. In 1786 he published, under the patronage of David, Earl of Buchan, a collection of Forty Pieces of Original Music of his own composition, price six shillings. In addition to his volume of Poems, he issued a rhyming shop bill, in which he has so graphically described his stock in trade, that it may be referred to as a sample of a bookseller's stock, which was somewhat miscellaneous : A Bookseller's Stock. 13 " Imprimis, German flutes and miiic. Variety, of books on physic, All kinds of Classics, Homer's Iliad,, Sermons, Plays, and Balm of Gilead, Songs, Bib'es, Psalm-Books and the like, As mony as would big a dyke Young, guid aul ShaUspear, and some dizzens O' Catechis and Thomson's Seasons ; Hoyle's Rules for those who choose to gamble. Philosophy by Doctors Campbell, Beattie, Gerard, Blair and Reid, The warJd's wonder for a head. .... Books, too, he has for Arithmetic, And Chalmers' Almanacks prophetic.'' And after a clever and whimsical combination of book titles, amusingly placed to be read in rhyme, he ends with — " Scales, Compasses, and ither trocks. Fit only for your learned folks : With mony mair — a strange convention — Too tedious, just now, to mention. In spite of the literary atmosphere which produced musical and poetical booksellers like Sherrifs : in which Dr. Beattie wrote, Dr. Campbell studied, Dr. Gerard lectured, Professor Copland experimented, and Francis Peacock danced, fiddled and painted, while all were readers of books : the new productions of the day did not suffice to occupy the whole time of the booksellers. As compared with the present days life was then longer, if not in years, yet in time at one's own disposal, which seemed to give more seconds to the minute and more hours to the day. So booksellers had to deal in old or second-hand books, and had time to tead them. Mr. Brown did both, and dealt in the books so extensively that he struck out a general overturn in the books and a new activity in the trade, which had formerly been in a very sleepy condition, in which hurry and bustle were unknown things. It was the ordinary practice of the merchants in those days to lock the doors of their shops, placing a notice in the wihdbw that they were off to the links to play golf, but would be back at noon. No special holidays being pro- vided, each merchant made them for himself They did not *ait for customers, these had to wait for the merchants, as. is still the case in many small towns in Germany to the- H Aberdeen Awd. II. present day. All over the town — even in the Rotten Row — the Route de Rot — the King Street, by which his majesty approached the town house from his palace in the Guest- row — :an important thoroughfare, and the scene of many a pageant — it was the same easy going fashion. At the close of the day a merchant there, leaning over his half-closed door, would ask his neighbour across the street — "What ha'e you done the day, John?" to which John would reply — " Oh, nae that ill ; I've drawn fifteenpence." And often, on the heads of that, they would close their shops, adjourn to the New Inn, or to a quiet, cosy " howff," afterwards known as the " Lemon Tree," and spend their day's drawings — perhaps more. Old books are the test of a bookseller's knowledge of literature. New ones may be sold by the hundredweight or the bushel, according to their spicy appearance ; and a present-day bookseller may, in many cases, be as well selling Bathbricks for any knowledge he has of the books. The name " old books " is often a misnomer, for are there not books which can never be termed, or can never grow, old ? They came with, and they have retained, the fresh- ness of the morning dew — and is there not something in having them in the very form which the author designed, and in looking on the page he himself perused ? As Smetham, the artist and writer, says — " An old book is an awful thing. It preserves its identity. Paper is more unchangeable than stone. We have the very books on which Henry of Huntingdon wrote and looked, and the drawings upon which Raffael rested his hand ; but the drifting sand, the changing earthmounds, and crumbling stones have really altered the very being of scenery. Nothing remains but the latitude and longitude. The eye walks the enclosures of an old book as patiently as the feet traverse meadow and wilderness, yet it remains for traveller after traveller to wander in. At a cunning corner of the road, at the same page top or bottom, lies lurking the witty sentence that relaxes every traveller's face into a smile, or the pathetic lines that unlock the fountain of tears : and in years to come the travellers that come that way will weep there." Book-Hunters. 1 5 Again — " Does the reader know the interest belonging to an old book ; an interest quite by itself, something which is not in the date, the shape, the size, the printing, the subject, nor even in the accidental memorials of other possessors long dead? It is somehow compounded of all these, though independent of any one of them ; a sort of animal attraction, like the appearance of a likely covert to a keen foxhunter, or the look of an untried secluded pool to an expert fisherman ; the feeling of having one's hand upon some mysterious, perhaps some long lost thread of humanity going back to the dark depths of the past." — MacMillan, Jan., 1895. How aptly and deftly does the writer describe the feelings of a book hunter in his prowls ! What a romance he manages to throw around an old book ! Let no man say that we live in a prosaic world when an old tome may have as romantic a history as an old castle. And of dress it is said: "A Shakespeare or a Milton (unless the first editions) it were mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel. The possession of them confers no distinc- tion. The exterior of them (the things themselves being so common), strange to say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of property in the owner. Thomson's Seasons, again, looks best a little torn and dog's-eared. How beautiful to a geniune lover of reading are the sullied leaves and worn-out appearance — nay, the very odour, if we would not forget kind feelings in fastidiousness — of an old 'circulating library,' Tom Jones or Vicar of Wakefield 1" And Mr. Dobson tells us how his goodly bindings in goodly cases 'gather the dust no less.' ' For the row that I prize is yonder Away on the unglazed shelves — The bulged and the bruised octavos, The dear and the dumpy twelves, — ' books battered with kindly, constant service." To the student groping in the dark of his winter discon- tent, books are as welcome as the dawn of the day or the breath of spring. " Age cannot wither nor custom stale Their infinite variety." Shakespeare, "young, guid aul' Shakespeare," as Sherrifs calls him, may now be got for one shilling; but the 1632 x6 Abtrdeett Awa. 11- folio brings hundreds of pounds, and in those days copies might have been, and were, picked up for a trifle. And no matter in what " questionable form " they came, whether in the shape of stately, ponderous folios — the delight of Charles Lamb— Baskerville quartos, or duodecimo Elzevirs, so prized by collectors ; whether they came fi-om the press of a German Guttenberg, an English Caxton, the Scotch " immaculate " Foulis, or our own Aberdeen Raban, they were always valuable ; and if the bookseller was not himself a bibliomaniac, could be turned into hard cash for his own sustentation fund, the extension of his i)usiness, or the gratification of an intelligent customer. Sometimes, indeed, none of these inducements could tempt him. Instances are on record when in the eager pursuit of old and rare volumes for their own libraries, collectors have turned booksellers. Dante in his Inferno could scarcely have invented a severer torment than that of the collector, who had patiently and perseveringly gathered a stock of this kind, and who had spent days and nights gloating over his treasures, in the very thought of parting with them. A customer with any of the marks of a book hunter, was a terror to him ; if not, he was a joy. According to Sala, the journalist and historian Tomlins, in his old age, took up the trade, and laid himself out for the purchase of mediaeval literature, and issued a catalogue of the debris of his stock. A customer entered one day and said he would take No. — if it was still to be had. "That book," said Tomlins, " surely that is not in the catalogue." He got his long steps, ascended to the highest shelf, took out the volume, examined title page and colophon, saw that it was complete, put it into his pocket, descended and sternly addressing the would-be purchaser, said : " Sir, if you think that I would part with that volume at any price you might offer, you are greatly mistaken. I bought it for my own use." So Mr. Brown, seeing the good field he had, entered the happy hunting-ground with much enthusiasm and with great tact, buying " old books " in parcels or in whole libraries, and undertaking to auction them on commission. No doubt he. had to learn by experience ; for Mr. Knight's business was a quiet-going concern compared with what Mr. Brown aimed at. He could not certainly have adopted any better The Grey Goose Quill. 17 plan for speedily acquiring that knowledge which he ulti- mately possessed of the mercantile value of books, as well as of their contents and authorship. Of course, he supplied all other requisites necessary for literary men. First and most notable was, we should say, " the grey goose quill," so superior to the painter's brush, which can only depict the lark as a material subject, while the pen can give the very trill of the lark's song. That must have been the way in which Dempster, " The Scottish "Vocalist," acquired his great gift of song, and made his fortune, for Dempster began life as a quill manufacturer on Gilcomston Brae, passing the business, on his retirement, to Duncan in Crown Court, to whom the tuneful Gordon (long first violinist in the Catholic Church choir) succeeded, carrying on the business in the " elegant " Queen Street. And on his death Aberdeen lost the credit and renown of having the largest quill manufactory in the world, by Waterston, of Edinburgh, buying the business and goodwill, and to make assurance doubly sure, in order to secure the genuine original article, taking over the employees along with the business, just as the miners in Fifeshire went along with the property ; and so worthily retaining in Edinburgh its prestige, let us note. But we in Aberdeen may well ask — What has become of the old familiar grey goose quill ? that little instrument which Lord Lytton in his Richelieu so truthfully says " is mightier than the sword," in all the contentions and quarrels of men. Do the degenerate geese of the present day pro- duce it, or are they trained now to grow steel pens ? Has any one, under twenty years of age, ever seen a quill in actual use ? There are floating traditions in some Govern- ment offices of its existence in some remote sanctum, like traditions regarding the Great Auk ; but it is never seen, and only heard of by reading the estimates, which show a good round sum given to provide its continuance. That always ensures a long life, though it may be an invisible one. But when it was not only visible but in common use, big officials — -like our celebrated Carnegie, " who had been Town Clerk of Aberdeen ever since his father dee'd," never used a quill twice. That he or Government officials, like Her Majesty's ministers and the humblest clerk to them, should have to waste their precious moments in mending a 2 1 8 Aberdeen Awd. II. pen was considered a waste of Her Majesty's stores of time ; and so up to the year i860, if not to the present day, those second-hand pens were sold all over England, and, being the very best that could be got, were largely purchased. Cardinal Newman never mended a pen, and even Charles Lamb never did so, at least so long as he was in the East India House, but on his retirement says, "now I cut 'em to the stumps : I cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing." And he wielded the stumps to such good purpose that he might have said : — " Ve artists, and ye etchers all, Of velveteen and plush ; With easels, stools, and stretchers tall. Chalk, needle, stump and brush. I dare yuur whole utensils fine, Your oils and pigment mill. To match, with paints of pencil fine. My old goose quill." In consequence of the large and regular trade which Aberdeen had with the Baltic, exporting stockings, wool, yarn, with smoked herring and pickled pork ; and importing in return timber, flax, and quills, Aberdeen-manufactured quills were famous. But the manufacture is now extinct. Like the poor wifie who, on the introduction of gas, and the consequent decrease in the demand for oil, in pity asked : — " Fat would come o' the peer whaals noo ? " one is tempted to sympathize with the geese ; for, without the annual plucking, life must become very monotonous to them. The wailing cry, "Is life worth living?" heard so much of some time ago, can only have been originated by the unplucked geese; and it shows that education has been really brought down to the ineanest capacity when that cry found its way into the newspaper press. And yet this all important question was answered in the negative by such men as Carlyle and Tennyson, when their medical advisers ordered them to give up smoking. Tennyson could see no beauty, not even in Venice, simply because he could get no good tobacco in it. Life to him was not worth living — at leist there. Disappointed men like Kossuth might say,' "Plato was right; life is no blessing, no gift, but "a duty," but such sentiments depended on their digestion, and that again on the attainment of their desires. Life not worth Living. 19 "Boileau, the celebrated French comedian, delighted in assembling the most eminent genuises of the age in his villa of Auteuil, where Chapelle, Racine, Moliere, and La Fontaine met. On one occasion the company having largely indulged in wine, were led into a grave discussion as to the value of life, and all agreeing that it was not worth living, heroically resolved to drown themselves in the Seine, and it being not far off, they proceeded there at once. Moliere however, remarked, that such a noble action ought not to be buried in the obscurity of night, but was worthy to be performed in the face of day and before the eyes of the world. A pause ensued. Some one said, ' He is right.' Chapelle said, 'We had better wait till morning, and meantime return and finish our wine.' They did return, but did not again revisit the river to carry out their resolution." " Life is not worth living" has been blas[)hemously said, as if the creatures were the supreme judges of the wisdom of their Creator in bringing them into being. In these mad moments, being left to the freedom of their own will, if they, discarding their God-given reason, chose to drink the cup of sensual indulgence to its very dregs and find it a cesspool and utterly nauseous, beyond endurance, a broad and easy path to lunacy and suicide, certainly life was not worth living to them. Bat the saying is utterly opposed to general human experience. Mr. Brown would also sell wafers for the commonalty, and sealing wax for the nobility and gentry and advocates in the Gallowgate. Here again a qu-stion arises — Has any young person ever seen a wafer, or knows what it is? Wafers and quills ought to have been shown in the Industrial Exhibition, and specimens secured for the proposed Anti- • quarian Museum before they become obsolete. Of course, ink was requisite ; of course it was, for it is said by Byron : — " Words are things, ant! a small drop of ink Falling like dew upon a thought, produces Thai which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. And then it was supplied to the bookseller by the cask by some native intelligent druggist, or, as we should now cdl 20 Aberdeen Awa'. IL him, a chemist. The selling of it was a black business for booksellers' assistants who wished to preserve their white hands, while others contrived to save black gloves by dabbling in it. Not till half-a-centiiry after did Morrison, of Perth, taking advantage of the cheapness of stoneware and glass bottles, make its manufacture a specialty and a fortune for himself He sold paper also, which, in those good, old-fashioned days, was indeed paper, and not, as so much of it is at present, a film of cotton or jute, plastered over with pipe- clay. It was good, honest hand-made paper, which would have satisfied even Mr. Ruskin. It was kept in two sizes — post, for ordinary correspondence ; and foolscap, for writers of accounts, Gallowgate advocates. Government officials, and those who wished to save double postage ; for, with tormenting ingenuity to torture, the authorities charged single postage for every slip of paper enclosed. So ex- cessively stupid were the then restrictions on corres- pondence that it is a wonder they did not attempt to prohibit" the use of ink itself, or at least tax it heavily. Account-books of native manufacture were unruled. If money columns were required they were added by the booksellers' assistant. If blue-lined the books had to be got from Edinburgh. How Mr. Brown fretted over this, and got it remedied, will, as Clerk Spalding would say, be seen afterwards. Long before 1785 the Hornbooks, those manuals of education from which children learnt their letters, had died out, like the Dodo ; in the process of evolution their place was filled by the Shorter Catechis?n — that manual which, "along with a little oatmeal," has made Scotchmen a race of Metaphysicians, not only with a school of its own amongst philosophical systems, but one which originated the philosophy of Kant in Germany, and of Cousin in France, and through Hutcheson of Glasgow first enunciated for the good of mankind the principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," the main tenet of our political economy in Free Trade. Every aspiring bookseller had an edition of the Shorter Catechism of his own, in which rudimentary lessons were printed ; and this along with a Bible, was supposed to contain the necessary material for carrying a scholar through all the six standards. Oatmeal and the Catechism. 21 A politician of no mean celebrity, driven to his wit's-end lately to find a passable excuse for opening a bazaar, facetiously gave credit to the modern bazaar for developing the shrewdness of Scotchmen and so ensuring their success abroad. If this were of modern growth we should hear less of it. It comes entirely from the Shorter Catechism and from the national dish for weans — "gweed halesome porridge." Well may the poet sing : — " Whence springs the power of Scottish grit — Staunch loyalty, bold enterprise, Her grand romance o' wizard wit — Whence did these glorious gifts arise ? The hardy sons o' Scotia's soil, Their stedfast will, and dauntless courage, For martial or for mental toil, Supped from the bowl o' oatmeal porridge. A better fare for bone and brain Than modern food, — Liebig or Ridge, The' quickening dust o' genial grain. Compounded in a plate o' porridge." There is a natural constitutional reason for boys not objecting to this wholesome hunger-satisfying dish, which does not exist in the case of the Catechism. For in 1700 the Magistrates enacted that in the Grammar School " all the rules and questions of the Shorter Catechism were to be repeated publiclie once a week." This was found so difficult and irksoiiie to most of the youths, that nothing but its being modified to " Scripture Lessons " prevented a serious riot and rebellion, and yet only very wicked boys rebel against it. Some years since the principal of A. Brown & Co., was standing conversing with a minister, when a farmer boy came bouncing into the shop, bawling out, " H&e yo\x Jack Sheppardl" "No, my boy," said the principal; "but we have some nice Shorter Catechisms, much : better than Jack Sheppard." " Lat's see them ; " and^ directions being given to an assistant to bring them, their real nature suddenly dawned on the rustic intelligence, and exclaiming, " Na, na ; gweedsake ! we get owre muckle o' that at hame," off he bolted, on the direct road to the Reformatory. It was an unsuccessful case of trying to gild the philosophic pill. Jack Sheppard was evidently the Scottisli boys' high ideal, but it is otherwise in the east-end of London. There a teacher examining his class, and telling them that Shakespeare 22 Aberdeen Awd. IL was the writer of the best ^lays in the English language, asked if any scholar could name any of his ])lays ; when a boy shouted, ''Dick Jurpin \" " What?" said the teacher, "who told you that Shakespeare wrote that ? " " You, sir ! " "I never said so !" "Yes, sir, you did ; you said that Shakespeare wrote the best plays." Wallace neuk, Fso« A Photoskaph av G. W. Wilson i Cc. CHAPTER III. It was the time when " the giants of social foice advanced from the sombre shadows of the past with the thunder and the hurricane in their hands." " BacilU in trees, germs in the running brooks, Microbes in stones, and death in every thing." fMFjHE rent of the small shop in the Upperkirkgate opened ■^1^ by Mr. Brown in 1785 being only £12, inclusive of ^-"^ a workshop, was not, even with the then enhanced value of money, such a very serious venture we would now think. Allan Rarnsay's first shop in Edinburgh was not much better. But it was serious enough for a prudent Scotchman, who, brought up to know the value of a penny, knows full well the value of a pound. Not being one of those men who call upon Jupiter to aid them, while they sit with folded hands waiting for customers, Mr. Brown took measures to bring them, and by his general intelligence, and attractive- ness of manner, he, as it were, compelled them to come in, and once in, the most casual visitor became a regular customer. It has been well said that : " Heaven helps those who help themselves ; " and also that :— " The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daiing to attempt them : sloth and folly Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and danger. And ii/aie the impossibility they fear." and /lere, his heredity and his training stood him in good stead, for like Hezekiah ''In every work that he began . . . he did it with all his heart and prospered." Activity of mind and body was hereditary, and in a marked degree has been transmitted through, at least three generations. Given the proper soil and suitable conditions, this mental activity in families, and also in communities, seems an erratic and uncontrollable quantity ; it may lie dormant long, and 24 Aberdeen Aiaa'. III. suddenly it breaks out with the — at present — seeming irregularity of sun-spots, new stars, bad seasons, commercial panics, and epidemics, for none of which we have as yet discovered the bacillus, nor the mode of inoculation to mitigate its effects. All historical writers notice the outburst of mental activity which took place at the end of last century, after a long period of intellectual palsy, or mental inanity, as Carlyle would phrase it. Germany had been so exhausted by the Thirty Years' War that it had never recovered, and was even yet sunk in lethargy, but France was in a state of fermentation. Had Voltaire and the French Encyclopaedists been stamped out in time, this torpor might have been indefinitely prolonged all over the continent. But the Liber Expurgatorious was of no avail. Liberty of thought and speech were the bacilli of the age, and were everywhere present, especially so in France, where they found a congenial soil and a feverish atmosphere, in which corruption revelled. There it simmered, all the tokens of Revolution being previously observed by the astute Lord Chesterfield so early as 1758; by the sharp and clever Smollett in 1764; and by the keen observer Arthur Young in T789 on the very eve of the convulsion. What a hideous picture of the corrupt old world France he gives ! " An Englishman," he says, " cannot imagine the look of the women of France, looking at twenty-eight as if they were sixty or seventy ; haggard, bare and stockingless; living in hovels with no glass in the windows, and no light but from the door ; utterly crushed down by toil and famine." And all this in what was termed La Belle France I " Ah, freedom is a noble thing ! Freedom makes men to have liking. To man all solace freedom gives ; He lives at ease who freely lives ; And he that aye has lived free May not well know the misery, The wrath, the hate, the spite, and all That's compass'd in the name of Thrall." Little wonder then that when Thrall had done its very ut- most to make life not worth living, misery should have bred discontent and resistance, that this should have simmered and effervesced to the boiling point, and when the steam valve The Freedom-Seekers. 25 of petition or remonstrance of famishing multitudes had been ofificially closed, " the kettle o' the Kirk and State " should have exploded with disastrous result, with utter ruin to red tape and officialism, with great loss of life, with sans- culottism, communism, devilry (nothing less), and with a great fund of experience which has been found most valuable to the world ever since. But " Revenons a nos moutons," for we have wandered. Comparing great things with small, the bacilli seem to have been in the air at the time and to have reached Aberdeen at an early stage, for at this time there was great fermenta- tion among the Burgesses of Guild. The last straw had been laid on their hitherto patient and long-suffering backs, but now they made loud and indignant complaints of the tyrannical actings of the self-elected Council and Magistrates, of the increased and ever-increasing charges of the Town Clerk, Carnegie. They demanded access to the records of the town, and a fair representation in the Council from their number. The pages of the Aberdeen Journal are full of their complaints, and these were all collected in a pamphlet, published in j 785, which shows that John Ewen, jeweller, Castle Street (author of The Boatie Rows), Patrick Barron, of Woodside, and some fifty other true and faithful citizens were reformers before the Reform Bill, and set the ball a-rolling which — not however until fifty years after — gave the citizens civil rights and privileges unknown before, and long so ob- stinately withheld that there was positive danger of an explosion, even amongst cannie Aberdonians. The man who cannot conduct his own business well is not likely to manage public business efficiently, and Mr. Brown, being prudent, was far too busy looking after his business to take part in this scrimmage. His exertions were soon crowned with success. From the very first Drs. Beattie, Hamilton, Glennie, Livingston and other professors were customers, and so were their students. The patronage of men like these was a good testimonial, almost of itself sufficient to ensure success, and so in a very short time his business connection was large, and so much was he trusted that he had orders from many county families to forward all books of merit to them immediately on publication. No doubt he kept them well posted up in current literature, and so made his own private interest subserve the public benefit. 26 Aberdeen Aw a'. Ill- But that this confidence was not abused is evident, because it was continued for full fifty years with great satisfaction to- both parties, his rule of business being that laid down by Pegolotti, an old Tuscan poet, in the early years of the i4tb century ; — Always, in all with uprightness to dwell, And careful foresight shall become him well ; And ne'er to fail of any promise plight ; And nobly live, if that he may aright With sanction both of reason and of trade ; And largely sell with little purchase iiiaJe, But without blame, honoured in good men's sight. The Church to serve, and to God's service give : By one just rule of sale, good fame to win. Apart from gambling and from usury live, Casting them altogether hence as sin. He had thus this immense advantage, that of all standard books, "which no gentleman's library should be without,"" he could with perfect safety order a quantity which must have been gratifying to the publishers. They are always quick enough to recognize the value of agents who can dispose of the largest number of their publications, and so it came to- pass that in all after advertisements of books in the local papers by southern publishers Mr. Brown's name always- stood first as their agent. Where neither his name nor that of Angus & Son was attached, the advertisement was looked upon somewhat with suspicion, which in the long-run was- generally justified. His first year's cash sales amounted to nearly ^^300, while his debits amounting to seven times this amount, encouraged him to become a Burgess of Guild, in 1787, Sept., 15 (the- entry money having been raised in 1779 from ^^13 to £26),. and his stock accumulating, in 1 790 he published a catalogue of his books. Next yeur he began the formation of a cir- culating library, following this new fashion first introduced into Scotland by Allan Ramsay about 1725 ; he also adver- tised a sale by auction in Provost Jopp's Close, Broad Street, of eight nights of books and three of prints, which seems to show that he had not neglected to cultivate a taste for the fine arts. It was generally, but erroneously,, supposed, that he was the first in Aberdeen to introduce the auctioning of books, but traditions were current some thirty years ago, that his sales were the resort of all the literary Publications. 27 men of tlie city, attracted by his knowledge of books, and by the free, very free, witty remarks in which he gilded the philosophic pill. Instances raight be given, but they do not suit the latitude nor the longitude of the present day. In one of the local papers, Nov., 1836, there is a notice of Aberdeen Citizens by James Bruce, in which appears the following: — "Brown, Alexander, Bookseller: an ex- Provost. It was when he rame out of office last that Bailie Milne expected to go in, when, being disappointed, he got new light on the subject, and became one of Mr. Banner- man's tail, which at that time was drawing two-thirds of men after it. Provost Brown, however, is not viciously Toryish, he is too good-humoured for that, and can crack a joke against Tories as well as the Williams, Philip or Clyne. He fairly beat our friend, James Ig. Massie, in the rostrum : and when we were young, we used to spend whole evenings rejoicing at his book sales. Mr. Peter Brown, his name- sake, is the only one of the hammer who is fit to be put in comparison, but even he couldn't palm off an old edition like the Provost." In 1792, Mr. Brown published his Annual Sale Catalogue, which included the libraries of Mrs. Stewart of Edinglassie, and that of a clergyman. The Catalogue of 1801, 8vo, pp. 212, had 15,000 volumes in 7159 lots, and included the libraries of Principal Chalmers, Professor Thomas Gordon, Dr. Dunbar of King's College, James Gordon of Craig, Rev. Mr. Maitland of Tarland, Rev. Mr. Knolls of Tarves, and Mr. Alexander Glennie. In 1803, Mr. Brown published for Captain Beatson, of Aberdeen, Naval and Military Memoirs, 8vo, 3 vols., and Murray of London published a supplement to it in other three volumes. He had gradually increased the number of his assistants. And in 1791, he took as an apprentice David Wyllie, who continued in his employment for twenty-four years ; and then, starting in business on his own account, he took as his first apprentice a very young boy named Lewis Smith, who in after years filled most worthily the offices of Councillor, Baillie, and Treasurer of the City, and was one of our most notable citizens. Of him much might, and may yet be said; but on the principle of never putting off till to-morrow what may be done to-day, let it be now said, that, next to Provost 28 Aberdeen Awa'. Ill- Brown, no man was better entitled to be considered a literary benefactor to the city than Baillie Smith, who is still well represented in business by his sons. He was a model man of business ; quick in temper, and as quick in exposing all humbug and pretence. He was much too practical a man to ply the pen himself, although he could do it ; but of all men he had the keenest appreciation of rising literary talent in others, and in his day, which was much later than Provost Brown's, he did more than any other to encourage and bring to the front the literary talent of the city. He had no petty jealousy of rivals-in-trade, as the present writer can testify, and here he gratefully acknowledges many obligations to him for his invariable kindness and courtesy. At the writer's request, and among the last things he did, Baillie Smith drew out for him, his " Recollections of his Connection with Aberdeen Literature." This is still in ex- istence, and it is matter of regret that neither of his sons, nor his talented and literary son-in-law, have made this public, or even semi-public. It embraced the most interesting period of the history of literature in Aberdeen — the period of transi- tion between the old regime and the new — an era worthy of remembrance, and no one better than Baillie Smith could possibly do it the same justice, for no one knew it so well. In his small den in the Upperkirkgate — not to be looked upon without reverence, however — Mr. Brown soon found himself so "cribbed, cabined, and confined" that, like the hermit crab, he was obliged to look out for a new shell. His frequent auctions in Jopp's Close had doubtless drawn his attention to the adjoining property — the corner house of Queen Street and Broad Street — and on March 23, 1793, he leased the whole house at a rent of ^60 los., with £,2 for a workshop, taking over as tenants a Mrs. Paul, and James Staats Forbes, who was Quarter-master, wine merchant in Queen Street, and the proprietor of the Lochlands, which in after years he sold to a Tontine Society for the then very large sum of ;^io,ooo. A man of property like this bulked largely in Aberdeen Society at the time, and he and Mr. Brown had many business transactions together. The leasing of this house (afterwards his own property) was an immense advance for Mr. Brown ; it was five times his former rent, but it is quite clear he had all his wits about him, and it was well considered. Shop Signs. 29 Two years after (17th Feb., 1795) he married Catherine, daughter of James Chahners, printer, the proprietor of the Aberdeen Journal, and the successor of our first printer, Raban ; and, getting rid of his tenants, he got installed into a home of his own. His new family connection seems to have stimulated his publishing propensities, for he now issued a catalogue, including the libraries of the late Dr. Gerard, the Rev. Hugh Hay, Dr. Copland, and Dr. Duncan Shaw, of Aberdeen, all recently purchased by him. The following year (r797) he published Leland's Deistical Writers, which cost him ^243 7s. 5d.; but it was success- ful, and paid him satisfactorily. There being an invasion panic in 1798, Mr. Brown then published three editions of Bishop Watson's Patriotic Address, and next year was appointed Captain in the Light Infantry Volunteer Regiment, his commission being signed by the Duke of Portland ; but his publishing went on briskly — Hamilton's Course of Mathematics, Riddoch's Sermons, 3 vols., 8vo, and Campbell's Lectures, 2 vols, (for the copyright of which he paid ;^ioo), were all brought out in two years, while he had meanwhile instituted a musical library to supply a needed want to the music-loving citizens. So much had his old books accumulated that in 1801 he published a catalogue of J S,ooo volumes, and his London correspondent and new-found relative, Alex. Chalmers, of the Biographical Dictionary, says of it that " the classifica- tion is just as good as any here. Your prices are upon the whole very moderate — far below the London ones." And he points out some great bargains in it, but says — "For your market it may be necessary to keep a moderate pro- portion to London prices." When it is remembered that then there were no numbers to the houses or shops in the streets, we see in the olden time quite sufficient reason for the distinctive signs adopted by innkeepers and merchants, as trade marks are at the present day. Signs originated when people had not yet learnt to read. Then, pictures being a universal language " understanded by all," a representation of the article sold was used to attract customers. The Ducal Palace in Venice with its carved pillars was the people's Bible for the tirne, being "sermons in stones." And for booksellers nothing could be more appropriate than the heads of those eminent 30 Aberdeen Aiva'. III. authors by whose brains booksellers made their bread. When, in 1785, Allan Ramsay removed from Niddrie's VVynd to the I.uckenbooths, for his first sign of the Mercury he adopted as his new sign the head of Ben Jonson con- joined with that of Drummond of Hawthornden. Andrew Shirrefs might well have had Allan Ramsay's head painted as his sign, Burnett & Carlier had Burns, Gordon & Clark had Milton, VVm. Mortimer had Shakespeare, Samuel Maclean had Scott, and Mr. Brown had that of Homer. His shop was known as "Homer's Head "down to 1831, when, on the removal to a numbered shop in Union Street, this sign disappeared. ^ Other heads lingered longer, and were sometimes curiously emblematic ot the class of the literature dealt in by the occupants. William Russell, of genial memory, fell heir to "Shakespeare's Head," and so his shop was the natural haiint of all the actors who visited the city. On his rct'reraent important look-out is evident from a description of it irs Forbes's Account of Aberdeen, written about 1715 (Spalding' Club), where it is said "St. Katerns here oflTers to the beholders the amusing sight of the river Dee and its beautifuli Bridge, the monument of a Bishop's piety." The Gallowhill on the North, the Castle Hill on the East, and St. Catherine's Hill on the South and West, were the sentinel posts of the city where the citizens kept watch and ward, by " scot and lot." Round its eastern and southern sides the Shipraw winded in ever-increasing steepness, with the " yairdens " of the burghers on its sides lying to the sun ; and, qs old historians tell us, was embowered in verdure. On the north it overlooked the Rotten Raw and the Round Table (now the site of the offices of the Free Press). On the north-west, hanging on its side, was the Netherkirkgate ; while on the west, its boundary was Carnegie's Brae leading to Putachie- side, named after the property of Lord Forbes, whose country seat was Putachie Castle, now styled Castle Forbes. Carnegie's Brae is still in existence, but Putachieside is Simon Grant. 43 now buried under Market Street. Those interested in old landmarks should explore the close at the back of the Cafe, the courts in the Shi|irow, and the ground to the west of the Adelphi, and they will thus get a better idea of the old city, and the great change in this portion, consequent on the opening up of the new western approach. It was a stroke of genius, and the precursor of railway cuttings, to think of obliterating St. Catherine's Hill ; bridging over the wide chasm which intervened between it and the Denburn, and crossing it by a bridge which, except that over the Dee at Chester, was then the largest span of any bridge in the Kingdom. The Londoners, who profess to teach the world, had, and still have, the most absurd ideas of any place beyond the sound of Bow Bells, and especially if in Scotland ; for in a Gazetteer published in this century, Aberdeen was described as a "small fishing village on the east coast of Scotland, the inhabitants of which live chiefly on fish and seaweed." While, that the Dee flows under Union Bridge, and that the inhabitants all wear kilts, are errors which seem persistent and ineradicable. But what shall we say of thousands of our own citizens who walk along Union Street daily, without having the slighest idea that they are traversing an artificial road partly under, and in some parts again from 20 to 50 feet above the natural level of the ground? In the "teens" of this century, it was literally an entrance to the city, up in the air, striding over, and standing up high above the roofs of the neighbouring houses, and quite justifying Lord Medwyn's saying. The conception was decidedly ahead of the age, for even in the "thirties," the houses in Union Street were few and far between, and the blanks on the north side of the Green were filled up by a low brick wall. Over this wall, when Simon Grant, " the toon's officer,'' and the " Tak' a' " of the time, then considered a very host in him- self, and quite equal to Mr. Wyness'and a hundred modern policemen, was not in sight (which, however, did not ensure , immunity, for — witchcraft being not quite extinct — it was believed that Simon had the remarkable faculty of being in two places at once), the errand boys (some of whom in after years actually became magistrates), partly owing to the principle of original sin, and partly arising from the natural desire to exercise their skill, often endeavoured to drop 44 Aberdeen Awd. V. stones down the chimneys of the houses in the Green, for they looked so temptingly and invitingly open below the level of the street, that any boy who could resist the temp- tation was considered more than mortal. It is a fortunate thing that forty years gives exemption, else as magistrates, some of these old boys would have felt it necessary to bring the young boy before himself as an old man, and give himself a serious admonition, or, if there was no sign of contrition, inflict a fine of 2/6 or twenty-four hours. Travellers tell us wonderful stories of the catacombs of Rome, but how few dwellers in Bon-Accord are aware that under Union Street there are many huge vaults — some actually with roofs over them — the dark and dismal abodes of spirits of diverse qualities, under the supervision of the priests of the Excise, by whose permission only can they reascend into the regions of light. Meantime, kept in strict durance, they peacefully repose, in what, in the olden time, may once have been the site of some blithe and cheer- ful parlour, where bairnies, long since dead and gone, once romped and played ; the cosy bedroom of some old world citizen of credit and renown, who, there, doffing his wig and donning a Kilmarnock, lay down and slept the sleep of the just : or it may have been a dining-room where — • The guests for whose presence a table was spread May now enter as ghosts for they're every one dead. So soon is merit forgotten, and so greatly is the precept of " honour to whom honour," violated now-a-days, that nine persons out of every ten give the credit of initiating these improvements to Provost James Hadden, who was four times elected Provost, and served for nine years as such. But the nine persons are wrong, for although he worked ably and energetically in carrying them out, it is to the fine taste and discriminating foresight of Provost Thomas Leys of Glasgoforest that we are mainly indebted for their conception and commencement, — although, dying in 1809, he did not live to see their completion. Fifty years ago a tradition was current that the first idea of the improvement of the town was limited to cutting down St. Catherine's Hill, and making a straight street down from Castle Street to the Green, as the Denburn and the high ground to the west of it presented "insurmountable" Union Street. 45 difficulties it was then thought. But on consulting Mr. Abercromby, the Edinburgh architect, he pointed out that the street \yould run into a ml de sac, from which there was no outlet, and no means of entrance into the fine building ground lying direct to the west. Taking advantage of the suggestions of a woolcomber in Provost Ley's employment, whose rough drafts were submitted to him, Mr. .A.bercrombie planned Union Street with a bridge of several arches over the Denburn, the piers of which were afterwards pulled down, and a single arch adopted. A writer in the Aberdeen Herald in 1866 says that the ground westwards was occupied by patches of cornfields and waste ground covered with whins and broom. The only grumbler against the plan was a Mr. Beggrie, the proprietor of a strip of ground stretching from Little Chapel Street to Langstane Place. He seems to have reclaimed his ground, and formed it into a garden, which then was the general resort of the citizens in summer for curds and cream, and strawberries ; while every Saturday for the small charge of twopence, boys were allowed to eat any quantity of gooseberries they could gorge, but no pouching was allowed, and it was the general trysting place for budding sweethearts. In the Bill which passed as an Act, 4th April, 1800, it was provided that Union Street should be sixty feet wide, with fifty feet on each side for building areas. But on the Bill being taken into consideration, some one on the Parliamentary Committee remarked that an additional width of ten feet would make it a very splendid street. It is said the remark was made by Dundas himself, and when the provision in the Bill of only " sixty feet in width " was pointed out, he in his despotic way pooh-pooed it, and said it should be disregarded. (The Council Records contain no reference to it, but all the feu-charters are correct as to the increased width). On this, it is said, that an express was instantly sent off by the Aberdeen Committee, ordering the deviation pegs, marking the line of the new street, to be shifted in the night-time ten feet wider, which was done. And so it comes to pass that although the Act specifies sixty feet, yet Union Street is seventy feet in width, save at Union Place (now obliterated), where it was carried through John Cadenhead's garden ground. Potatoes were not then, as now, a field produce, and John's garden crop having 46 Aberdeen Awa'. V. very likely been over manured, were blown upon by Dr, Kidd, who made a very practical application of them from the pulpit ; comparing them to the hypocrite as " fair with- out, but rotten at the heart," which he, having been confronted with some of John's legal relations, had to retract and apologise for afterwards. So even before the Act passed, his garden ground was feued, and the houses on it were originally built as summer residences for the citizens, the two on the east of Rose Street being con- sidered as model houses ! Very luckily, the restrictions on the feus were sufficient to protect the amenity of the street from its being narrowed more than it is at this point. The wide gulf between St. Catherine's hill and the Doo'cot brae having been bridged over, and the promised land of the period been reached, there resulted what might be termed a boom in the building trade. As a rule, booms generally result in a reaction, and in this case the boom resulted in the temporary bankruptcy of the city some years after, in 1817. Meantime, everything went on swimmingly. The steep brae of the churchyard, Aidie's Wynd, a continu- ation of the Back AVynd, and Belmont Street, were each filled up to the level of Union Street. St. Nicholas Street was opened, and in doing so, two earthen jars, each con- taining an immense quantity of silver coins, were discovered, buried, as was supposed, some four hundred years previously. Beyond the Bridge, . the. proprietors of the ground were all busy planning new streets ; and unhampered by the restrictions of the Town Council as to the style of buildings, their ground was rapidly feued and built on ; more rapidly, indeed, than Union Street was. Many reflections have been made on the unwisdom of the dealings of the Council regarding their alienation of their property in the Stocket, for it is so easy to be wise now-a-days, and long after the event. Charity should induce caution in judgment, and should lead us to imagine that their heads were as long and — fed by good oatmeal — their brains were almost, if not altogether, as big as ours. The ground was very poor, it was not of that kind that if you tickled it with a hoe you could expect it to laugh with a harvest — nay, " it girned a' winter, and grat a' summer," and was so covered with stones, that The family Residences. 47 If only you'd seen it before it was feued, The reasons would seem both abundant and good. The bankruptcy of the city was not entirely a misfortune — possibly it might have been averted by a sale of the feus without restrictions, in which case Union Street might have been ruined, as a specimen of a noble street, by the erection of mean and ignoble buildings. But the creditors of the city had faith, and knowing well that both time and the building boom were in their favour, the restrictions were maintained, and in six years the creditors were all repaid — leaving an immense reversion of unbuilt on feus for the benefit of the common good. The only two houses built in the west in 1806 were the mansion-house of John Milne of ■Crimmonmogate (now occupied by the Northern Club), ■with its then wonderful monolith pillars, and that on the west side of Diamond Street, long occupied by Miss Brebner ■of Learney, and now by the Royal Bank. The site of the Northern Assurance Office was at that time a stubble field, in which the Dove cot (dookit) stood ; the steep bank was all waste, and in it the horses of the " bonnet-lairds '' of Deeside were tethered, when they came in with articles of home manufacture to the Timmer Market. Gordon Street, and Huntly Street now occupy the place of ■old rope walks. Fashion — that fickle jade — forsook her old quarters and patronised a new locality for the residences of her votaries in each decade of the century. In primeval times our ancestors, the Picts, dwelt in artificial underground caves to protect themselves from enemies of their own species, from wild beasts or wild weather. In the process of Evolution, ■our buildings are now a test of our civilization. In the earlier decades, the county families had their town residences alongside those of the local grandees, in the Shiprow and other places like it, in which one can still find houses with carved stone entrances, monograms, and traces of coats-of-arms, and rooms in them with fine, richly carved panels, chimney pieces, and ceilings, now strangely out of place with their present surroundings and occupants. And the older the family was the more its members seemed to ■cling to these old residences ; for as Ruskin says, or means to say, " Is not a house a sacred thing ? " . . . " Why," he asks, " should not our houses be as interesting things to 48 Aberdeen AwcC. V. angels, as bullfinches nests are to us ?" Ay, why not indeed ? In the old days of sturt and strife, houses were built with as much care as castles, '' They dreamt not of a perishable home who thus could build." But as it is with nests, so it is with houses; when the summer is past and gone, when the wild blasts of winter lay bare and open the nests of the birds, they become to us something like the old houses, so rich in their bv-gone history, in the Shiprow or the Gallowgate. What tragedies and comedies have been acted in them ! Gradually, however, the prosperous merchants of the town, attracted by fresh air, open space, and cleanliness, migrated westwards, and houses of all grades, and to suit all purses, were run up in new streets, squares, and terraces, of which there were no fewer than thirty-seven in ten years ! John Cadenhead must have been a far-seeing man, although his model houses are now mere curiosities. He had already feued much of his ground, and it is said that some of the houses on the south side of Union Place were built as country lodgings to front Justice Mill Lane, and thus we only see their hinder parts. And so, although the houses on the west side of the Guestrow had gardens, and a good out look behind, Union Place outrivalled them, and was soon occupied by a row of houses which fitted into the line of Union Street, and so were untouched by the Act. In its ultimate results the opening up of Union Street was one of the most profitable investments ever made by the city, quite justifying the bold policy of the promoters in every way. But it proved the death blow to the gentility of the older streets. Within twenty years both the Shiprow and the Gallowgate lost their proud position as the principal ap- proaches to the city ; and many of their houses became ever more and more squalid as the proprietors removed or died out, till, before being condemned, they had become like mere "'styes for human swine." The modern and fashionable Marischal Street, and the still more fashionable Carmelite Street — in which some of the best county families had their residences — were quite eclipsed by Union Ten ace, in which the feuars have largely benefited by unearned increments, as, by the spirited action of the Town Council, it promises to be ever more and more a centre of attraction to all eyes — quite irrespective of the The Hub of the Universe. 49 cost ; for some things are worth paying for, especially when art can beautify nature. After 1830 the county families and gentry forsook Carmelite Street, in consequence of the dung stance of the city being placed at the Poynernook. Then Golden Square, with a Silver Street on each side — "an apple of gold in a basket of silver" — became the masher of the period and the residence of the elite ; to be followed in turn by Crown Street, Bon-Accord Square and Terrace, until in succession they were all eclipsed by the magnificent suburbs which arose in the west under the brilliant light and leading of Sir Alexander Anderson. Than these suburbs, there is really nothing finer anywhere, and all strangers willingly admit this ; but some of our citizens, with perceptive eyes half blinded by too much familiarity, do not see it. They have paced the suburbs a hundred times without observation, without thought, and therefore, have never really seen them. To cure this, let each of them, fancying themselves strangers, step out to the suburbs and look around them with a stranger's eyes, and as seeing .Aberdeen for the first time, and then, wherever they have travelled, if they do not get a new revelation, they are blind indeed. It is a thousand times more likely that they will come round to the general opinion of the citizens that .Aberdeen is the hub of the universe, near which the garden of Eden was placed, and that it is not to be wondered at although all men who attain eminence are anxious to claim connection with it. Children drink in this idea with their mother's milk, and not being contra- dicted in the Shorter Catechism, it is believed in from the earliest times, and is ingrained in their hearts. That ever since the Union, Scotland is the capital of England and Aberdeen the capital of Scotland — if not taught in the Board Schools — is believed by all true bairns of Bon-Accord, and most foreigners, especially the French, and is a proof of the great advantage which England secured to herself by the Treaty of Union. So, also, that Aberdeen is the first of Scottish towns, is a mere truism, for Aberbrothick being obsolete, this was settled in the earliest times by the Gazetteers, and later on by that leal son of Bon-Accord, our own native born talented artist, James Cassie, who, at a dinner of Royal 4 50 Aberdeen Aw a'. V. Academicians unanswerably asked in regard to its men and scenery, "Tak' avva' Aberdeen and twal' miles roon' it and faur are ye' ? " That tival' miles has since then greatly affected the civilization of the world. It threatens to em- brace the universe and to boss creation, and had only its circumference been doubled it would have done so. And then for the belief that the garden of Eden was in its immediate neighbourhood, there are so many testimonies, so cumulative and convincing to Aberdonians who do not require surgical operations to put things into their minds, that it may be considered as settled. For, Paradise must have been placed on a primitive geological formation, and of all places Aberdeen best supplies this requisite. It is confirmed by ancient and modern authorities. Ptolemy places it in Ultima Thule, then supposed to be near Mony- musk, and sure enough there it is still. That Gaelic was the language spoken is confidently affirmed. Even more certain is it, that the Urquhart clan trace their unbroken genealogical pedigree from Adam, which they could hardly do unless he had been a neighbour. Then, the Grants in the vicinity maintain that they are specially mentioned in "Genesis," although, by a very simple and easily accounted for error, the highly improbable word "Giants" has been substituted by some sleepy transcriber, stupid comp., or wicked P.D. And, when the plentiful supply of fine timber on Donside is considered, their claim to have had a boat of their own at the flood is surely possible, then probable, and so feasible. For Professor Aytoun assures us that " Fhairshon had a son who married Noah's daughter, and helped to assuage the flood;" and John Dempster, 1490- 1557, in his Ecclesiastical History 0/ Scotland maintains that the Maccabees were an old Highland clan. Should some incredulous persons still doubt — which is always dangerous — they should remember the treatment of Galileo. Should they demand " a grain of salt " before accepting this, then it is furnished by a perfectly unbiassed witness, the last, the learned, and the most sensible of all the pre-reformation writers — John Mayor or Mair. He was the teacher of Robert Hamilton, the martyr, of John Knox and George Buchanan, and must have sown in their minds principles far in advance of those prevalent in his time — 1469-1550. His De Gestis Scotorum, or "Greater Britain," has been ' The Silver City by the Sea! 5t recently translated and reprinted, and in it he states that Aberdeen was the original seat of the Scottish monarchy. And does not Cosmo Innes say : " Long before Edinburgh had acquired the precedence of a capital or even yet the first place among the Four Burghs of Southern Scotland — while Glasgow was yet an insignificant town dependent on its bishop — Aberdeen had taken its place as a great and independent Royal Burgh, and a port of extensive foreign trade." And so, in far-back times, long before Dunfermline, Perth, Stirling, or even that upstart Edinburgh, were taken into royal favour, ungratefully returning this by barbarous treatment, Aberdeen — with a population of not more than 3,000, who mostly dwelt in wooden booths or clay-built hovels with thatched roofs, and whose palatial residences were only distinguishable by their stone walls and red-tiled roofing — was the residence of the monarch, and its citizens ■were accustomed to shine in the splendours of a court, to bask in the smiles of a sovereign, and to blossom blithesomely in the Royal radiance. Is it any wonder that men desire io be connected with "Aberdeen Awa'"? or that William Forsyth wrote : My Silver City by the Sea, Thy while foot rests on golden sands ; A radiant robe encircles thee Of woody hills and garden lands. I'll lift my cap and sing thy praise By silent Don and crystal Dee : Oh, bravely gentle all thy days, Fair City by the Sea ! Bonaillie,* O Bonaillie ! My Silver City by the Sea. I'll love thee till my tongue be mute, For all thy fame of ancient years. Thy tender heart and resolute, Thy tale of glory and of tears ; The might that from thy bosom springs To free thy sons where'er they be, And for a thousand noble things, Brave City by the Sea ! Bonaillie, O Bonaillie I My Silver City by the Sea. * From the French Bon A Uie. 52 Aberdeen Awd. V. Fair city of the rivers twain, No child of iflle dalliance thou ; The silvery borders of thy train Come from the rugged mountain's brow. And well I wot thy best of wealth The wind of God brings fairly free, Thy brave bright eyes and ruddy health, Fair City by the Sea ! Bonaillie, O Bonaillie ! My Silver City by the Sea. Really, the only reason why Aberdeen was "cuist aff" from being the capital of Scotland was not its cold climate, nor even its sterile soil, for these produced its strong men, mentally and physically. Has not the most eminent physicians certified to its health-giving properties and recommended it as the residence of our most Gracious- Sovereign ! and has not their wise recommendation been entirely justified ! The district was always a favourite one with all our sensible monarchs, and their visits frequent and prolonged, so much so that our magistrates and citizens were often hard pressed to find them fitting sustenance. True, so long as the game lasted in the forest of the Stocket, and the hunting monarchs killed it, they could live well and provide the citizens besides. But if that failed, so miser- ably small was the agricultural produce that even kings and queens, being only human, had to leave the place irv consequence of " skearsitie of viveris," notwithstanding the plentifulness of salmon, considered as only fit food for menials. — ;2si^l^E:-_ CHAPTER VI. " Some brag o' this, some brag o' that, The Cockney craws fu' saucy, At bouncing, few can rival Pat, The Yankee crowns the causey. But I've a boast that beats them a', I'm gratefu' air' and late for't, Gae hide your heads, bailh grate an' sma'. For I'm a Scot, thank Fate for't." |5) Y the close of the century Mr. Brown's confidence in himself, increased by his fifteen years' experience in business had secured success, and enabled him to firmly plant his feet up two or three rungs of the social ladder. The Scotchman's four points of breeding being Patriotism, Principle, Pluck and Push, "Forwards," the celebrated motto of Marshal Blucher, had long been familiar to young Scotchmen ; for " Haud forrit " was given to the brothers Chambers as their rule in life by their mother, and the Scottish mottoes of " Birse yont," and " Thou shalt want ere I want," were well known. Like Longfellow's aspiring hero, but with less bravado, their course was always " Onwards and Upwards," and so was Mr. Brown's ; and cannie Aberdonian that he was, instead of attempting to climb the mountain with a huge unwieldy banner in his hand, he adopted the quiet prudent course of securing a wide business connection, a good social position, and the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens which had already won for him (in 1796) the presidentship of the St. Andrew's Society, which com- prised the ^lite of the city. This office he held frequently, and from his social qualities always with much acceptance. He did not seek honours : honours sought him. As a host or a chairman Mr. Brown was a very despot, and never left his position while he had a single subject ; made speeches and jokes which suited the occasion admirably, and gave birth to immense laughter; proposed toasts, in- comprehensible in their meaning, but multifarious in their character and number, the chief merit being that there was 54 Aberdeen Aiud. VI. always a dram at the end of each, and no heel-taps permitted. Punctuality, however, was not one of his cardinal virtues at any period of his life. Homer sometimes nods, and he was the trial of a dinner party. His presence being eagerly desired he would be waited for until patience being exhausted and the viands growing cold, the dinner would be begun without him. During the second course he would burst into the room, exclaiming, " Now did you ever see me in time before?" which elicited shouts of laughter, and it was impossible to be angry with him. In many of his characteristics and in his position in society Mr. Brown resembled the bookseller Creech of Edinburgh, but he treated his_ guests more generously. At one of Creech's entertainments he was shrewdly suspected by his guests to be '■ haining " some choice old Madeira, which it was known he possessed, and pushing some poor Cape wine on them. Harry Erskine was present, and when, notwith- standing all the broad hints and plain suggestions of the guests as to their desire for an introduction to the old Madeira, Creech remaining obdurate, Harry said, "Well, well ! if we cannot get as far as Madeira let us at least double the Cape." Mr. Brown always gave his best, mentally or spiritually. As commander of the " Bookstall '' he had hitherto sailed his craft in comparatively tranquil waters, but there were then ahead some rocks and shoals in the political and social conditions of the day, which had better be noticed here. According to current history, George III. was then King of England. But as Professor Masson, in a brilliant essay, recently reprinted, shows, the virtual King of Scotland from 1783 to 1806, was Henry Dundas, known afterwards as first Viscount Melville, just as Archibald, Earl of Islay, was the virtual king during the first half of the century. During the troublous and disastrous times at the close of Lord North's administration, 1770-82, which ended in the resignation of the Government, the younger Pitt had begun to show his amazing powers, so rivalling his father that Burke said of him, " It is not a chip of the old block, it is the old block itself." Then Dundas, so able and versatile, that Sheridan skilfully retorted on a speech of his, that " he was indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his Parliamentary Representation. 55 imagination for his facts," began to think it was necessary to hedge. P'orseeing the approaching downfall of his party and making siccar of his own safety, he joined the Opposition and was warmly received, for as Macaulay says, though he had not eloquence, he had sense, knowledge, readiness and boldness. He became the colleague of Pitt and his right hand man. That Britain was governed under a representative system previous to T832 is the merest delusion. The representa- tion was either that of caste and selfishness, or of dead bones and inert matter, and not that of healthy, life-giving energy and industry. A crumbling ruin with a single pro- prietor sent two Members to Parliament, while populous places and thriving towns were left out in the cold. More than three hundred members for England and Wales were returned by private patronage. One hundred and fifty-four persons returned three hundred and seven members^ Privileges had been so favoured that the representation of the boroughs was worse than it was in the fifteenth century. Padiament was composed of delegates sent by large land- owners. Ninety members were returned by forty-six places with less than fifty electors in each. Seventy were returned by places like Old Sarum with scarcely any electors at all, the only one in Gatton being Lord Monson, who sent two members to represent one person. Seats were sold at fancy prices to retired Indian Nabobs, and bribery and corruption were practised wholesale. The fact was that those unrepre- sented " were in reality stronger than all the forces of selfish privilege and senseless prejudice of caste and class." Then as in one hand Dundas held the power of coercion by despotic civil and military law, so, in the other, he had the whole Government patronage of Scotland. Thus equipped, he engaged not only to keep the country quiet, but to bring all its influence to the support of the now Tory Government, for with such mighty strides does opinion march that the Liberalism of one century becomes the Toryism of the next. It was much easier to deal with the electors then, than now; when one, or either of the two divisions of Aberdeen has a larger number of voters than what then existed in the whole of Scotland ; its forty- five members, thirty for the counties and fifteen for the burghs being then elected by about two thousand voters, 56 Aberdeen Awa'. VI. and they were so easily managed that Dundas said he could keep them in his pocket. " Popular representation was unknown, and election was a farce." Clustering a number of unconnected places, each with diverse interests together, was certainly not the beau ideal of a good constitution, but was rather an astute scheme to nullify the influence of each place. The burgh member for Montrose represented Brechin, Inverbervie, Arbroath, and Aberdeen, each burgh having by its Town Council a single vote, and was represented by one-fifth of a Member of Parliament, and the group was known as the Montrose burghs. Kintore, with only four resident Councillors, and with a revenue of jQ^o scots, had equal rights of representa- tion with the city of Aberdeen with its population of thirty thousand. The prizes of ofifice in Church and State, the bench and bar, the army and navy, at home or abroad, in churches or schools — even the humblest post in the excise, or the janitor in a public building — were all reserved for Tories. Re- pression of opinion was carried to its utmost limit, and there resulted the appearance of almost entire political stagnation — but not of thought. As the religious life of the period ran mostly underground, so did the profession of what we would term the most moderate Liberalism. Although with greater liberality to men of letters than Pitt showed to his supporters, Dundas had made Burns an exciseman, with seventy pounds a year, yet exclusion from office, favour and patronage, for too free expression of opinion was the least punishment, as our national poet found to his cost. Spies in the pay of Government were employed to evoke, and note it, trials for sedition awaited it, and sentences of fines, imprisonment, or transportation resulted from it. The times of the Pilgrim Fathers, the sailing of the May- flower, and the expatriation for conscience sake of Christians from their native soil seemed to have come again. And yet, even yet, the Covenanting spirit running in the blood, Scotchmen would not have been what they were and are, without an opposition. This had a few. representatives in the higher classes, who were idolised by the lower classes as much as Dundas and those in office were hated, but it was largely supported by all Dissenters, whose firmly held religious opinions subjected them, not only to disfavour, The Dead Sea of Mederatism. 57 but to obloquy and persecution. Naturally this tended to ■make them Radicals of an advanced type, and also, and •unfortunately, it tended to foster amongst them not a little bigotry and intolerance, for which society was really to blame more than they were, seeing they were more sinned ■against than sinning. Owing to the exclusiveness of the upper classes, and their •continued opposition to any amelioration of the condition of the masses, the times had indeed become perilous, when, as Mrs. Oliphant relates, Thomas Chalmers— so celebrated in •after days as a second John Knox — could thus express him- self: "The country bears with it every symptom of decay, •a languishing trade, an oppressed tenantry, a rapacious gentry. . . I heave, with a secret aspiration of contempt for the unprincipled deceit, the mean hypocrisy of our •dignified superiors. . . They are not only a disgrace to Tank, but a disgrace to humanity. It would be well to abolish that putrid system of interest which threatens to ■extinguish all the ardours of a generous and patriotic senti- -ment, to adopt a more just conduct to inferiors." If Chalmers, dwelling so near the centre of Scottish •civilization, could speak thus, what would he have said had he known the state of matters in the distant outlying ■counties, where Dissenters, in religion, or from the political opinion of the Laird were tabooed, and were not allowed to apply for farms, or even employment, in the district ! No "wonder that persecution of this kind, so mean, undignified, unmanly and bigoted should have produced alienation in •democratic Presbyterians, endowed with an equal education in their parish schools with their superiors in rank. The odium theologicum was at the time a virulent epidemic, and the potent healing remedy of toleration had not yet been discovered. Dissenting chapels had to be built in lanes or closes, or if in a public street the entrance was from the back, that members might not be insulted or hustled and molested on their way to worship. In the midst of "the dead sea of Moderatism" around -them, the deep spiritual convictions of the Aberdeenshire ■Seceders made them, in the opinion of their easy-going neighbours, a most intractable race, always regulating their ■conduct by something which they called " conscience " and principle. Here is an illustration : S8 Aberdeen Awa'. VL Robert Morgan, a small farmer, was an extremely regular attender at Craigdam ; although he had some nine or ten miles to travel to it. He was a very plain man, well advanced in years, and used to ride to the kirk with a tether turned up on the saddle behind him, so that during the service his beast might get a bite and a rest on the waste land that then lay around the kirk — the considerate man that he was. Riding thus one Sabbath he was overtaken by a smart young gentleman farmer, on a fine pony and at a brisk trot, on his way to the parish church of Old Meldrum. Drawing up a little he saluted Robert— "Ye'll be for the kirk, I suppose ? ye've a far wye to gang, man ! " " Aye, a gey bit." " But ye've a chapel gey near you " — meaning the Episcopal chapel at Meiklefolla — " is nae the minister there a good preacher?" "I dinna ken, Sir, I never heard him." " Od ! that's queer, man, and you sae near him, I should think he micht do wi' you — he pleases a' the gentry." " That's nae ony better a sign o' him I " " Ow, what ! do you think nane o' the gentry will get to heaven ? " " Na I na I it's no said that nane o' them will get, but it is said that ' not many wise men after the flesh, not many noble will get.' " The democratic principles of the Seceders were not political — they were religious, and were derived from their acquaintance with the Bible, and they believed that "a man's a man for a' that " long before Burns uttered it. In perilous times their loyalty to Government — vainly endeavoured to be aspersed by the Duke of Argyle at the time of the Porteous Riot in 1736 — was clearly proved and admitted, and from that day to this, in all dark and trying periods, as at this time of Henry Dundas's reign, they were the firm friends of all measures which helped on civil and religious liberty, and the promoters of these could confidently depend on them. Their principles might run underground, but from them flowed the fountains of liberty. In those days any attempt at free speech, any talk of public reformation, anything said which might be construed as tending to bring the King and Parliament into contempt, laid the speaker open to a charge of high treason. And in 1795 the Seditious Meetings Bill, prohibiting any assemblage of more than fifty persons, save properly called meetings of Counties or Burghs, was passed in the House of Commons Baillie DutJde. 59 by 266 to 5 1, not without strong opposition in the principal towns of Scotland. Whoever dares to attack strong institutions does so with a halter round his neck. So few will ever be found to denounce abuses, to advocate alterations, or attempt innova- tions but men of more spirit than prudence, of more sincerity than caution, of warm, eager and impetuous tempers. Consequently as Dr. Paley says, " If we are to wait for improvement till the cool, the calm, the discreet part of mankind begin it, till Church authorities solicit, till councils, governors or ministers of state propose it, we may be sure that without the interposition of Him with whom nothing is impossible, we may remain as we are till the renovation of all things." As Professor Masson says, "It was a country without political life, without public meetings, without newspapers, without hustings; could any endurable existence be led in such a set of conditions, could any good come out of it ? " And yet, as he says, it was a very jolly time, for lairds, " moderate " ministers, provosts, baillies, and generally for people in power. Certainly it produced quite a remarkable crop of eminent men, and memorably good stories. Then, men dressed in a little brief authority, rushed in where angels would now fear to tread. A product of the time, our Aberdeen Baillie Duthie, was in office, when a porter whom he had employed was found fault with by him ; and in reply, the porter gave the Baillie a good bit of his mind, called him no end of uncomplimentary terms, and as Tennyson would phrase it " pelted him with opprobrious epithets." Next day on his way to the Court, the Baillie espied the porter on the Plainstanes in Castle Street, and telling Simon Grant, his officer, to arrest him, in a few minutes the astonished porter found himself in the dock, facing the irate Baillie, who thus addressed him. " Noo't I've got you here, my mannie, wi'd ye jist say to me enoo' fat ye said yesterday ? an' my certy ! bit I'se sort ye ! " Here history is unfortunately silent as to the reply of the porter. It is likely that he was discreet, and that the Baillie had the best of it in the circumstances, and had his innings for the time. That porter was a true type of the Aberdonian character, 6o Aberdeen Awa'. VI. finding out long before Carlyle said, that "if speech was silvern, silence was golden ; deep as eternity, while speech was shallow as time," and garrulous old fellow though he was, adding "one might erect a statue to silence." If so, this porter might have served as the Aberdonian granite model. John Wesley said of Aberdonians, " they were swift to hear, slow to speak, not slow to wrath." Dr. Masson in 1864, says, "they are a population of Saturday Reviewers in a crude state." Dr. Stark compares the native character to " a burning mountain covered with snow," and others have agreed that they are " beggars to think, but take good care not to squander their thoughts." Prudent man ! this porter did not then throw away his pearls, knowing full well that if in opposition to the powers that be it was dangerous, and knowing well also that there was a time for everything under the sun. The good old Scotch saying : — " Sen vord is thrall and thocht is free, Keip vein thye tonge I consel the," was acted on by the porter. But self contradictory although it seems, not only for people in power, but for the general community, it appears to have been "a jolly time." In the dark days of slavery nothing so pleased the planters as to hear the sounds of mirth and revelry in the huts of their slaves. So long as this continued they believed themselves safe, and to promote it they provided a liberal allowance of rum. And as all men on the face of the earth are of one blood, just so in Scotland, — if Henry Dundas the virtual king, was a despot, and his tyrannical despotism made Edinburgh a Whig city and Scotland a Radical country, his prime minister was Whisky-toddy, and for banishing thought, and drowning care, was there ever his equal? If there were no public meetings allowed in the city, there were plenty of private ones, where the prime minister was present and freely accessible. County Club Assemblies ; Elections, where immense assemblies were treated to good cheer, and would not disperse until they were thoroughly soaked ; Synod and Presbytery dinners; Bachelor, Benedict and Regimental balls for the select, and for the rank and file of the citizens any amount of sociality at the taverns. There were nine Mason Lodges whose secret word for Societies. 6i convivial meetings was well known to be "Fork out!" There were many opulent Friendly Societies : — the Narrow VVynd, Shiprow, Shipmasters, Wigmakers, Dyers, Inde- pendent Friends, True Blue Gardeners, and others. The Gardeners had an annual procession through the town dressed in proper insignia, and to the great delight of juveniles had an Adam and Eve as natural as life studies. They processed to the Aulton, were honourably received by the convener and corporations who " drank a glass with them," and as the papers of 1787 say, "they returned to dine and spend the evening with decent mirth and hilarity." In this far off distant time the picture looks pleasant; for the glamour of distance lends enchantment to the view, and this sort of thing was encouraged because it kept down thought on more serious subjects. But as population increased the shoe pinched more and more. The advance of Education demanded Reform, and that rudely disturbed the existing order of things. No sooner was inquiry made than rotten- ness was detected, and then this conviviality was put a stop to by the Government Inspector when the management of these societies was looked into. There was the most antiquated Guildry with its celebrated Wine Fund, somewhat mythical and shadowy, but now solidly represented by the lands of Skene and others ; and the " Incorporated Trades " with its sevenfold proverbial hospitality, neither shadowy nor mythical, but tangible and widely experienced, each trade having convivial meetings of its own, and also in union with the others at an annual assemblageof all the notables in Aberdeen. The funds being admirably managed, its accumulated wealth enabled it with a free hand to eclipse all Dean Ramsay's stories of Scottish, hospitality. It had a public-house of its own ; it brewed potent ale for the citizens; its very snacks of "bread and cheese " at committee meetings had strange and staggering effects ; and if at convivial meetings it did not provide an attendant to unloose the neckties of those who fell under the table, it did better, for as advancing years brought increasing wisdom, it provided comfortable lairs for its guests on their final decease ; killing them with kindness, burying them with profit, and with tenderest care, and for a small consideration, now undertaking to keep their memories evergreen. 62 Aberdeen Awa'. VI. There was the Society of Advocates, and of Writers, each with " recherche " dinners, and the Medical Society, which discussed more than dry bones :— The Philosophical Society, originally instuted in 1758 as the "Wise Club," following the example ot the clerics met in the " Lemon Tree," and with the "prime minister" and Professor Blackie both present, their dry and abstruse discussions became both naturally and spiritually luminous and brilliant after supper ; the ancient Pynours, {vulgo the Shore Porters, traditionally reported to have discharged the cargo from Noah's Ark), who by imbibing their appropriately named malt liquor at proper times, and rising early in the morning became "healthy, wealthy, and wise." All classes being represented, besides all these was there not a demonaic Society, which was designated the Hell-Fire Club ? " Verily, there was ! And it would be unpardonable to omit the Town Council, whose membership was choice and select, while its stock of wines, etc., under the charge of John Home was large and comprehensive. Has he not been represented as singing thus : — " In guid time-; auld, when days were cauld, \Vi' sleet, an' sna', an' n' ihat, The Council board was ayeweel stored Wi' something nice, an a' that. An' 1' that, an' a' that, Wi' sherry, port, an' a that : Aft Baillies spak' wi' draps o' that Like Solomons, an' a' that." To Aberdeen, nay to the world at large, the loss of these drops of wisdom so bottled up, — these lights of knowledge and learning so carefully shrouded under the Council bushel is simply inconceivable. One consolation remains, that it is very questionable whether the wisdom could have been drawn by wild horses, steam pumps, or even modern reporters, who by means of jjen and pencil now draw everything, imaginative or real. Wherever the post of danger was, that is, of course, wherever knives and forks were being plied, and liquor of a fiery nature was flowing, there the Magistrate^, under whose wings safety was secured, were bound to be present. Society required it, patriotism and devotion to civic duty enjoined it, and so in the spirit of martyrs they willingly sacrificed themselves for the interests of tlie community. Conviviality. 63 Upon every business of the slightest importance the city purse was available, and was freely drawn upon for conviviality ; a stingy Treasurer was, if possible, worse than a Dissenter : and to the economists and Trades' Councillors of that day, life must have been one continual purgatory, hardly worth living. Last century Town Councils managed to mix private ■enjoyments with public duties very much more than would now be considered proper. When the Magistrates and Town Council of Edinburgh were planning the new town, they met for the consideiation of the scheme in the Star and 'Garter tavern, and there the Rev. Dr. Webster met them at dinner, in order to give them the benefit of his extensive knowledge and great powers of calculation ; and it may also be added, his great ability for stowing away strong liquor in his capacious corporation, he being al)le to carry the burden discreetly, even after all his companions were under the table, and quite helpless. He was a likeable, and even a loveable man, and so greatly venerated by his flock that they were blind to this failing, because fortunately he was "peaceable in his drink." One night, having extra calculations to make, he indulged even more freely than usual, and thus meeting with more than extra difficulties in his endeavours to find his way home, a friend met him, and said, " Ah ! doctor, doctor, what would the Whigs say if they saw you in this state ? " " Deed, sir, they wudna' believe their ain een," was the reply. Surely this was a striking testimony to the ■charity — which thinketh no evil. Truly as Sir George Trevelyan writes : — "We must revere our sires who were a mighty race of men, For every glass of port we drink they nothing thought of ten ; They lived above the foulest drains, they breathed the foulest air, They had their yearly twinge of gout, and nothing seemed to care." The list of societies given is only a sample, there were many others ranging through all ranks, and allowing all classes to form themselves into congenial coteries; un- disturbed by Forbes Mackenzie, they met in the inns at all seasons and hours. A similar state of things exists in Germany at present, where meetings of all kinds, literary and scientific, political and musical, religious and benevolent, announced from the press and pulpit, are held in beer 64 Aberdeen Awd. VI.. saloons, and where the consumption of Lager beer is some- thing almost fabulous ; so much so, that one of their authors- has characterised his countrymen as " beer barrels in the morning, and barrels of beer at night." If, as ambassadors tell us, some of the most important treaties in the world have- been floated by champagne, it is no wonder that drink was the accompaniment of births, marriages, and funerals, of every business transaction, every rise in life, and almost every gathering. On the founding of any building, and the- completion of every work, drink money was always looked for, over and above the regular payment. It was the fruitful source of many mad pranks, of outrageous conduct, of constant brawls, of much domestic misery, and great loss of reputation and life. The boom of these Societies, of ancient existence, culminated about this time, and the inevitable reaction began by the formation of the Temperance Society. It had hard uphill work for many years, and but for the indomitable energy of its promoters, aided by the newly awakened intelligence caused by discussions on the Reform Bill, it would have sunk under the ridicule which it excited at first. Generation after generation had indulged in strong drink ; all classes had encouraged smuggling, and habits were formed which by heredity still injuriously affect society. As an illustration of the hospitable manners and customs- of the time, we find it stated in '■'Robert Gordon: Hw Hospital," that the Rev. Dr. Thom succeeded Dr. Cruden as parish minister of Nigg. Dr. Cruden was very hospit- able and liberally dispensed drams in inclement weather. This was stopt by Dr. Thom, and a fisher-wife said of him, " Aye, aye, maister Tarn's a fine preacher, Betty ; nae doot, nae doot, 'oman ! but Dr. Cruden's dram, tho' it was sma', wis aye sure, my lass ! " And now, these rocks and shoals having been put down on the chart, we note that in 1801 the office of Distributor of Stamps for Aberdeen and Kincardine Shires became vacant, and as apart from its emoluments it would bring customers, Mr. Brown became one of the candidates for the appointment. Seeing how patronage was then ad- ministered, it will not be wondered at although patrons made Distributor of Stamps. 65 the very utmost of the appointments they conferred, and that the terms were somewhat strange and unsatisfactory. The previous holder, Mr. Auldjo, who kept the Stamp Office in his house in the Upperkirkgate, and whose son was the author of " The Ascent of Mont Btanc"~ha.d received the appointment, subject to an annual payment of ;i^i8o to Provost Duncan, his predecessor. And the very hard bargain Avas now attempted to be driven by Ferguson of Pitfour, the county M.P., that Mr. Brown should receive only five-twelfths of the income, the remainder to be divided between the nominees of the patron, a Mr. and Mrs. Diirno, and Mr. and Mrs. Auldjo, and their assignees. Mr. Brown having re- presented that the large annuity for four lives was unduly burdensome, but that the introduction of assignees was simply intolerable — -this last was departed from, and he was appointed, giving a cautionary bond of ;£3ooo for his intromissions, signed by Dr. William Dyce, James Chalmers, the Printer, and James Ferguson of Kinmundy, his brother- in-law. But on the first settlement of accounts, when it was proposed to disallow his office expenses, and to take from him the seven-twelfths of the gross profits (which amounted to about ;£^43o), he very properly resented and resisted this. His idea of the value of the appointment was a shrewd and thoroughly commercial one ; he was willing to pay ;^i6o per annum for the office, or resign it on receipt of ;£i2o per annum. In this dispute the much respected Mr. Irvine of Drum was chosen arbitrator with full powers, and to Mr. Brown's glad relief, it was settled that after deduction of ^80 per annum for office expenses, the Durno's were to receive f^32, and the Auldjo's ;^24 per annum, thus entirely discard- ing the absurd proportionate payment of unearned increments to these parties, and making the appointment one which could bear examination a little better ! So much did the use of stamps increase in Aberdeen, that in twenty years after it was more than four times its then amount. William Farquhar, who had charge of the stamp depart- ment for about thirty years, was said to have been an original character. His rude, but effective method of checking the sale was by keeping each description of stamps in a separate drawer, and as they were sold, putting in the cash received for them — the drawer thus checked itself. 5 66 Aberdeen Aw a'. VI. It was in August, 1801, that Forbes Frost, then a boy of twelve, the son of a gardener at Dudwick in Buchan, entered as an apprentice. He rose afterwards to be a partner, and for many years prior to his death in 1845, was the practical steersman of the "Book-stall." It has been already mentioned that the development of a stationery business was sadly hindered by all account books having to be procured from Edinburgh, or the paper sent there to be ruled to the desired pattern. Mr. Brown was already a bookbinder ; he was desirous to manufacture account books, and he aspired to be a papermaker also. So, along with Mr. Chalmers, this last business was started at the Craiglug, in 1804, but by the action of the tidal water the manufacture proving unsuccessful, the buildings were sold in 1807 to the Devanha Brewery Co. The business was carried on under the firm of Brown, Chalmers & Co. {and the late Charles Chalmers, of Monkshill, served as an apprentice, but forsook it for the more congenial, and, to him, lucrative legal profession). The engines and apparatus were purchased by the then proprietor of Culter Mills (a Lewis Smith, who died in 18 19), while the premises were purchased by William Black, of the Gilcomston Brewery, who originated the Devanha one. Like a true wife, who has her husband's interest at heart, the thrifty, prudent, yet energetic Mrs. Brown came to the rescue. She purchased a ruling machine from Benjamin Fleet, of London, for ;^35, and her receipt bears that this "includes instructing her in the art of ruling." (Parenthetically, and simply to save the reader from interjecting it, was it not dog-cheap at the price? For how many women, wives, and mothers would gladly pay for more than this to acquire this practical and dearly loved power?) Being the first machine of the kind north of Edinburgh, its working was kept as secret as possible, and certainly, it was far more so kept than most secrets entrusted to females. It was placed in an attic, under lock and key, and the strictest surveillance kept over its working, lest any one should see it; and there, assisted by Margaret Edwards, her domestic servant, whose wages were ^5 per annum ; at early morn, and dewy eve, Mrs. Brown, for years, kept the ruling lines straight iii Aberdeen. All honour to her ! long before her husband was known in the gates, or sat amongst the magistrates as A Worthy Helpmeet. 6y their chief, she, adorned in a meek and quiet spirit, through good works, ruled well in every department committed to her, and by example taught others. Is it any wonder that her husband praised her, and that hei children for genera- tions still call her blessed ! In all the relations of life she was respected and honoured as a noble woman, a faithful helpmeet, and a godly mother, with quiet, yet firm traits of religious principle, and a Bunyan-like piety, possibly the inheritance from a female ancestor, Mrs. Jean Chalmers, who lived a hundred years previously. Her pious Briefe Account how the Lord was pleased to lei me see my lost estate in Ada7n, and some of the motions and strivings of His spirit upon the heart of a stubborn and rebellious sinner, and that from my youth until now [1710], has been lovingly preserved and privately printed by one of her descendants. And it was well worth printing. Apparently it has been printed verb, et lit. : for the whole sixteen pages, 8vo, form one continuous paragraph without a single break ! Since the publication of Bunyan's autobiography there have been few such introspective, heart-searching confessions given to the world. Considering — that Jean married her cousin-german, the Rev. James Chalmers, of Dyke, who in 1726 was forcibly and notoriously intruded by the Town Council as an Aber- deen minister, in spite of the opposition of the Synod, and even of the Assembly, because it was the first clear case of a breach of the Treaty of Union and a wanton invasion of the rights of the Church as by law established — it is refreshing to think that in the darkest and murkiest times, the streams of divine grace may run underground ; and that the seed to serve Him never fail, and are nourished by unseen influences. It is difficult to realise now the interest which this bold procedure on the part of Mrs. Brown excited in the then small community, and specially amongst the other book- sellers. But so long as it was considered necessary the secret was well kept, and the business so prospered that another larger and finer machine had soon to be procured, which cost ;£so, and extra assistants, including her son William, had to be trained. Then an errand boy, James 68 Aberdeen Awd. VL Brownie, was taught, and so it continued until other machines having been introduced, and Brownie having the misfortune to lose his leg, the flourishing business was ultimately handed over to him, and for many years he was the principal ruler to the " trade." Latterly he became a slave to opium eating, keeping a lump always beside him, and continually nibbling away at it as if it had been liquorice, and paying, in days and nights of unmitigated misery, the unutterable fearful penalties which this vice exacts from its votaries. Before he became an entire wreck, bodily and mentally, he had engaged as an assistant a boy named James Emslie, who had sometimes to act as a keeper at night, when Brownie had taken an extra dose, which seemed to act on him as a stimulant, and not a narcotic, and fearful nights they were. To this boy, Mr. Frost formed a strong attach- ment, and got him apprenticed to D. Chalmers & Co. as a printer, stipulating that he should always be the messenger between the printers and the " Book-Stall." On the expiry of his apprenticeship Emslie went to London, soon got into the employment of the Bank of England, where he speedily rose to be the head of their stationery and printing depart- ment, every Note having to pass under his inspection, and this year (1892), he has retired with the respect of all the officials, and with a valuable pension in return for his long and faithful service. Of course, he attributes his success in life, first, to his having been born in Aberdeen ; next, to oatmeal and the Shorter Catechism ; and last, but not least, to his connection with "■Brown's Aberdeen Book-Stall" As has been already said, the clubs in Aberdeen were numerous, and traces of them are frequently met with. In these days of a cheap, daily, almost hourly press, the clubs have died of pure inanition. Had the modern reporter been in existence then, what a flood of light would have been thrown on the social life of the period t Here is an unconsidered trifle which points out the characteristics of some men of the time, and all well known. \Tke Mogul Club. 69 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MOGUL CLUB. An Address to Baillir Littlejohn. To be said or sung at their first full meeting in Widow Anderson^ s. Tune — " Away with Melancholy." Sir Baillie, Sir Baillie, I'll tell ye, I'll tell ye, That your head to the ancients belongs ; Father Care you have scared, Chained Old Time by the beard — May you long have yoiir jests and your songs, Sir Baillie. Bank Sandy, Bank Sandy, so quiet and handy, Why yours is a mystified plan ; Yet wonders are wrought. And would you take thought, You might still be a marrying man. Bank Sandy. Friend Homer, Friend Homer, I mean no misnomer. Do you know ? — I don't know if 'tis slander — But they say you declare, Look confounded and stare, Pop puns, and dash double entendre. Friend Homer. Tolly James, Jolly James, when the dreamer of dreams Calls his worm-eaten scarecrows to battle, Let Soup Maigre alone, We'll soon bring him to bone, Mighty Mars ! how we'll carve his lean cattle. Jolly James. Brother Mill, Brother Mill, what ! a devotee still ; O how few have the grace to repent ! To St. Andrew and John, Your devotions are known. And in time you'll be crowned for a saint, Brother Mill. Rambling Willie, Rambling Willie, you're a curious billie. Had the poet the skill to define you ; Both good humoured and trusty — Yet if once you get crusty, Ev'n old Dickie himself wont divine you, Rambling Willie. 70 Aberdeen Awd. VL Dr. Sage, Dr. Sage, thou bright gem of the age! Sent by Jove this dark orb to enlighten ; Dare we venture to gaze ? So effulgent your rays, Ten to one our dull wits you would frighten, Dr. Sage. Daft Lyall, Daft Lyall, when you entered on tryal. To pass muster you'd no cause to doubt ; You're as truly a brother As one pea to another ; But I pray you remember the Gout, Daft Lyall. According to the Rev. James Hall in his Travels in Scotland, I>on. 1807, 320, this is how some Scotchmen conducted themselves : " Though the Aberdonians be re- markably hospitable at their own houses, they still keep up the fashion of periodical clubs ; and some of them meet together like the common tradesmen of London, at a public-house every night. I was amused with a droll anecdote of two of these social men : Baillie Burnett and Baillie Littlejohn. These two, who were dear friends, met every night in the week at a tavern, from which they seldom stirred till they could not get home without a contrivance. What first failed BaiUie Littlejohn was his tongue, what failed first in Baillie Burnett was his legs. Baillie Littlejohn, therefore, about two or three in the morning, would take Baillie Burnett on his back, who if it was necessary, as it sometimes was, could inquire at a watchman, or any one, the way home." CHAPTER VII. " Great ark of our freedom ! the Press we adore — Our glory and pride are in thee, A voice thou hast wafted to earth's farthest shore — The shout of the brave and the free ! The slave's galling fetters are burst by thy might. The empire of reason is thine, And nations rejoice in the glorious light Which flows from a fountain divine." .AVID MELVILL, whose shop was at the "end of " jT^ the Broadgate," and who died in 1658, was the first '^-^^'^ distinctive bookseller in the city, although a " stationarius " to sell the books required was one of the usual ofificials at all universities. But our David had a wider public than the students, and must have been an enterprising man, for many of the earliest publications were printed specially for him, and at his expense. At his death, his spirit and enterprise seems to have ceased for about a hundred years afterwards. Edward Raban, our first printer (1622 to 1650), had his first printing shop " above the meill mercat," on the north side of the Castlegate. If we may judge from the number of books printed by him, and considering that he had oiily one man as an assistant, he must have been extremely in- dustrious. On Melvill's death, his " bueth " or shop was taken by Raban, as a convenient place for the sale of Almanacs, or "Prognostications," which he originated in 1623, and which became so famous that 50,000 copies were sold all over the Kingdom : and so popular did they become, that they were pirated and sold as Aberdeen Almanacs by printers in Edinburgh and Glasgow, up to 1684, when the pirated copies were interdicted by an act of the Privy Council of Scotland. But Raban composed and printed his Prognostications with brains ; (the first one appeared in 1623, the same year in which Shakespeare's Plays were first published)— and so did his successors. And when the Southern pirates found 72 Aberdeen Awa'. VII. the hope of their gains was lost by piracy, the pirates in Edinburgh acquired from the proprietors, by purchase, a license to reprint the Aberdeen Almanack, verb et lit., which was continued with mutual profit to both parties for upwards of twenty years,— during all which time Aberdeen was verily the capital of Scotland and thus of a considerable territory far beyond the original twal' miles. For from it issued the decrees which regulated the weather, and the events of the year, as determined by the editor, composers, and printer's devils of the Aberdeen Prognostications. They advised when farmers should sow and when they should reap, when men should take certain medicines (query, had they a commission on this ?) and when they should be bled ; in short, if a man regulated his conduct as directed, he was safe from peril and sure of prosperity for a whole year, and all at the small charge of one penny Scots ! On Raban's arrival in Aberdeen, he dropt his distinctive sign of the "A.B.C," used by him in Edinburgh and also in St. Andrews, for the more pretentious one of "The Townes Armes," which was long continued by his successors ; and a la Scottice, he took the quaint title of the Laird of Letters, being both an author as well as a printer. The succession of Townes Printers was as follows : — 1622 — 1650 Edward Raban, The Psalter, &c., &c. 1650 — 1661 James Brown, mostly small books. T662 — 1666 John Forbes, sen., The Cantus, &c. 1668 — 1704 John Forbes (son), two editions of the same. 1704 — 1 7 10 Margaret Cuthboord (widow of the last). J 7 10 — 1736 James Nicol (who married her daughter). From the commencement of the art of printing in Aberdeen, 1622 down to 1736, about four hundred and seventy-six speci- mens of the work of these six printers have been found and chronicled, of which Raban contributes 208, Brown 40, Forbes {Senior), 18, Forbes {Junior), log, Cuthboord 20, and Nicol 8r, and it is not unlikely that others will yet come to light. 1736 — 1764 James Chalmers, founder oi \}<\t Journal. 1764 — 1810 James Chalmers, Jun., the enlarged Almanack in 177 1. 1810 — 1854 David Chalmers, son. 1854 — 1876 James and John Chalmers, sons of the last, when the business was transferred to a company. First Booksellers. 73 For a long time these printers, while quite ready to print books at the author's risk, were often the proprietors and publishers of the books ihey printed, and all seem to have sold many of the productions of their press direct to chapmen, and to the public, without the intervention of booksellers. They seem to have enjoyed a sort of practical monopoly of producing and disposing of books, which was broken in upon by Robert Farquhar, who died 1753, "quondam Bibliopola," aged 61, and is buried in St. Nicholas Churchyard, and who was succeeded in business by a nephew, Robert, some of whose family rose to distinction in the Navy ; also by Francis Douglas about 1 748, who, with a William Murray, a literary druggist, set up a printing and publishing house in 1750. In such a bookish place as Aberdeen, the seat of two universities, there must have been, and there were, many individuals who made at least part of their living by the sale of books ; and on the title-pages of numerous books published last century, we find a good many names of parties who were not professed booksellers, were "mer- chants," but yet had books specially printed for them, and at whose shops they were sold. Nothing is known of John Scroggs, Broadgate, 1759; George Fowler and Alex. Cheyne, 1764; George Johnstone, printer, and John Fotheringham, merchant, 1769; J. Menzye, 1770; or W. Coutts, 177s ; but simply that certain volumes were printed for, or sold by them. It is likely that they were of the nature of cometary bodies or irregular stars, attracted out of their usual course by religious or philanthropic influences, ■who had thus wandered into the constellation of booksellers and disappeared again into the region of dark oblivion. Wm. Clark, ironmonger, Castle Street, 181 6; and Jas. Clark, clothier. Broad Street, 1833, were well known and much respected agents for Bible or Tract Societies. But there was one highly respectable firm which began before Francis Douglas, 1748 69,"^ or A. Thomson, Broad- gate, 1752; or J. Boyle, head of the Broadgate, opposite Marischal College, 1760-1806;^ or "the cripple votary of Parnassus," the " little decrepit body with some abilities," ^The author of Rural Love, 1759; the printer of Beattie's Poems, 1761, and the writer ai A Description of the East Coast of Scotland, 1782. ''■ Who published an edition of the poets, in 24mo, and failed in business in 1806. 74 Aberdeen Awd. VII. as Burns called Andrew Sheriffs ' (1780) — which began even before Mr. Brown was born, and continued well into this century, leaving very few landmarks in their career, and from which much more literary work might have been expected, namely, Alexander Angus & Sons. True, their name is conjoined with others, on books issued about the end of the century, but there is little sign of any ventures in publication of their own, save Scougal's Reflections, 1765, and a very ill printed and worse edited fiist issue of Spalding's Memorials of the Troubles in Scotland, 1624- 1645 — which attracted attention thirty years afierwards. The founder, Alexander (b. 1721, d. 1802), a son of the minister of Kinellar, author of " An Explanation of the Shorter Catechism, by Question and Answer, 1770, began life as a bookseller about 1774, and thus was one of the earliest booksellers, as apart from printers. He had a numerous family, most of whom died yotmg, but the sons, John and Andrew, were bred to the father's business, and the firm continued to exist until the death of John in 1828, when the last survivor, Andrew, gave up business, and died two years after at his villa of Angusfield, near Rubistaw Quarries. He had bought this property before 1784. From a volume entitled " Present State of Husbandry in Scotland," Edinburgh, 1784, we quote; — ■ I called .upon Mr. Angus, late bookseller in Aberdeen ; for men of all ranks here are struck with the enthusiasm of farming ; and in no place of the known world is such enthusiasm more necessary than about the town of Aberdeen. This gentleman obtained in a feu, some miles from the town, about forty acres of the same stony muir, and pays a very high feu-duty, no less than £,z^ Sterling. I met him in the fields attending his labourers carrying off stones. The largest stones were carried off in a slip, drawn by four stout oxen, much larger than what are commonly bred in this country. This improver is not only full of enterprise, but skilful in conducting his operations in the best manner. As trenching with spade and mattock is slow and expensive, Mr. Angus turned his thoughts upon doing it with the plough. He began with clearing the ground from every large stone upon the surface and under it, which work alone cost him ^ 10 Sterling per acre. He then set to work a strong plough drawn by six capital oxen, and took so deep a furrow as to be equal to a trenching. So plentiful were the stones, that more than a hundred 1 The author and publisher of Jamie and Bess, and also a volume of his own poems, (Seep, 12.) Angus and Sons. 75 years after, the walls of the garden are eight feet wide, and now the ground is fruitful. This long continuance of eighty-six years in business is ex- tremely uneventful. The partners seem to have been content to pursue the even tenor of their way, undistinguished by enterprise in their business, or by entering into public life or civic work of any kind. Douglas, and Boyle, and Sheriffs also, all bulked largely in our local annals, but not so Angus & Sons, so that one is thankful for some human notice of their personality, like this in a letter of Baillie John Burnett, of Elrick, to a friend in i 791, where he says : — - "Your friend, Jackie Angus, is now the greatest Beau in town ; he has got the showiest shop in town — a large new door, and two of the very largest windows in the City." (Thanks, Baillie, for this slight gliminer in the gloom !) The windows would be about 6 feet by 4J, with twelve panes of glass, and the shop was situated in the Narrow Wynd, on the site of which the town-house now stands. Here the booksellers did mostly congregate, and it might have been considered a local Paternoster Row, for in addition to that of Angus & Sons, it contained the shops of Mr. Chalmers, Mrs. 'Burnett,and Mr. Stevenson. In the same block of buildings, but with a window directly facing the door of the Town- house, and entrance from Huxter Row was the shop of the Misses Thompson, daughters and successors of A. Thompson bookseller, which was the grand emporium of books for the young in the early years of the century. Angus's shop was long a well-known lounge of the better class citizens, where the local news was discussed and gossip circulated. There were wits, wags, and satirists amongst their customers, one of whom became notorious for the tricks he played on the citizens, for in 1813, there was said to have been picked up on the floor of the shop a mysteriously dropt manuscript, yclept, " The Book of the Times : or the Wicked of the City pointed out, and of those whom the wicked tormented." This yielded a vast fund of amusement to those who were privileged to peruse it, and copies were taken of it, but it was never published, for if it had, it might have pro- duced an abundant crop of law suits, many of the citizens being treated in no lenient spirit. This peculiar form of satire — if it did not originate in, has been very prevalent 7^ Aberdeen Awa\ VII. in Aberdeen— as witness the "Guessing Glass," "Squib," "Pirate," "Mirror," "Shaver," the "Chameleon," and the productions of James Bruce. And oatmeal being a heat pro- ducer, and the source of that "wut" and humour for which the Scotch are celebrated, this degenerate and dangerous form The London Smacks. jj of it may have originated in an undue indulgence in oatmeal, unqualified by the excellent corrective of the Shorter Cate- chism. Let it be noticed that this wicked brochure appeared four years previous to a si miliar one, the idea of which was thus borrowed from us, in the celebrated " Chaldee Manu- script," which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in 1817, and, setting all the Edinburgh citizens by the ears, it had to be suppressed. Meantime, Mr. Brown was not allowing the grass to grow under his feet. If he was pushing business, it went ahead as fast as he could well follow it. Thit it was remunerative, is evident by his numerous investments ; in house property (in Casde Street and Broadford), in a Tontine and other companies, in a Manganese Quarry at Persley, which though soon exhausted, yielded a profit of £,\^o to each of the four partners. Among other ventures, was the purchase of shares in the London Shipping Company, which paid well. And as the communication with London has become so changed within living memory, it may be worth while briefly to notice how it was then conducted. A voyage to London was so serious an affair then, that most prudent Scotchmen made their wills before they set out. Even a voyage to Edinburgh was made the subject of a small volume in 1825, by Alex. Connon, merchant in King Street, a cannie and worthy Aberdonian, with "moral reflections" thereon. And little wonder, for, with an excess of honesty unknown and in- comprehensible at present, the handbills announcing the sailing of the London smacks were issued without the slightest attempt at gilding the philosophic pill. They were enough to deter all but the resolute and determined. Instead of representing a vessel in full sail, gliding along over a smooth and unruffled sea, with her flags flying in a fair wind, they had a picture of a smack beating up against a head wind, in a stiff gale, with the waves breaking over her prow, the spray drenching her fore and aft, and formidable rocks looming right ahead ; and this — before Mcintosh had invented his waterproofs. The sight of it was enough to make one sea sick, and to induce those who had to make the voyage to call in a lawyer before sailing. No doubt, the main dependence of the Company for profits was on goods, but the many knowing ones in a Scottish and maritime city like Aberdeen, knew that the smacks were well built, well manned, and well found, 78 Aberdeen Awd. VII. that the table was unequalled, that the whisky was cheap (2 Jd. per gill), that the only dangerous part of the voyage was that between the Quay-head at Tarnty Kirk and the Girdleness ; that once past that, if a storm arose, the beggars ashore were more to be pitied than they were, that if it was impossible to proceed, they could run in to any of the coast ports and lie till it blew over, living sumptuously every day ; and the fare being three guineas, the longer the voyage was the better for them. The sea-dogs that they were, knowing nothing of the mal de mer, they took their summer holidays in this way, enjoying congenial society, before trips to Norway were invented. In a short voyage the Company scored a success, but if it lasted three weeks, the consolation which the manager gave to the directors was that the profits on the whisky consumed, largely mitigated, if it did not entirely cover, the loss on the provisions. And now, having twisted this thrum into the thread of the narrative, we notice that on the death of Mr. Burnett, who had a circulating library, Mr. Brown entered into a partner- ship with his widow for working her library, and it being conjoined with his, the "United Public Library" numbered 52,000 volumes. Removed to a shop on the west side of Broad Street, it was placed under the charge of young Forbes Frost, who then got the privilege of selling stationery in it, and he cultivated this branch of business with profit to him- self and satisfaction to his customers ; indeed, rather more so than was quite agreeable to his employer, who began to fear a future rival in business. However, this preference of him over one who had then been about twenty years in Mr. Brown's service, was deeply felt by David Wyllie. In his beautiful current hand, and in a model manner, he sent a most respectful remonstrance to Mr. Brown, but without avail. Hence the origin of a very thinly concealed hostility between these two assistants, which continued as long as they lived, and which, as both after- wards rose to honourable position, might, in their descendants have developed into ri\al civic factions — like the Guelphs and Ghibellines of Rome, or the Montagues and Capulets of Verona, without a Romeo and Juliet to dignify and ennoble it. Or it might have turned into a clannish feud between Publishing. 79 the "great Frosts of the north" and their WyUie rivals. For although Aberdeen had outgrown the village size, it had retained many of its village propensities, and so, much to the amusement of, and partly instigated by onlookers, the quarrel became a pretty little comedy, in which inuendos were used as stilettos, sarcastic remarks as daggers, and the deadliest weapon was that in common use at the period — a good round oath. "Ah me ! these terrible tongues of ours ! We're not half afraid of their mighty powers ! Do we ever trouble our heads at all Where the jest may strike or the hint may fall? The latest chirp of that " little bird," That spicy story " you must have heard " — We jerk them away in our gossip rash, And somebody's glass of course goes smash." The pity was that when both the principals had gone into the land of deep forgetfulness, the small and petty rivalry had not been buried with them, and the rejoicing is that it was much too late in our civilised era to permit of the quarrel developing into a blood feud, or a Sicilian vendetta; and although ill words were hurled at each other there was not heard the clash of the claymore between the rival clans. In 1812, Mr. Brown's business was in full swing, requiring a numerous staff of assistants, and keeping the printing press busy ; and demands being made that he should enter the Town Council and give the city the benefit of his services, his eldest son, William, was entered as an apprentice to the business, and regularly indentured. As a clansman under the sign of the classic Homer, he determined to honour his chieftain, to please the professors and to benefit the students — not forgetting himself, by pub- lishing a useful, and as he hoped, a popular edition of the immortal Iliad and Odyssey, with the Greek and Latin text on alternate pages. To this he was mainly incited by the presence in Aberdeen of Ewan Maclachlan, the teacher of Old Aberdeen GraiTimar School, a young genius whose linguistic abilities and classical attainments rivalled those of any of the professors of the time ; and he gladly undertook the office of Editor. A new fount of Greek type was ordered, but that was easier to procure than, compositors to set it up. 8o Aberdeen Awd. VII. At last, one man made himself competent to put the letters together mechanically, without any knowledge of the language ; and it is said, that as the result of the years spent by him in this dry and uncongenial task, he ended his days in the Lunatic Asylum. But as even Homer sometimes nods, so in this matter did Mr. Brown. A man he was "of cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows ; " keen withal, and sharply shrewd, which was the secret of much success, yet being only mortal he failed to foresee the mighty changes and discoveries which came fast crowding into the coming years. Stereotyping being then unknown, — having faith in his patron classic, he printed thousands of copies, and filled his warehouses with huge bundles of them in sheets. But the text was full of crabbed contractions, bred out of the brains of labour — saving monkish scribes; the edition was superseded by others, and in the course of years was fairly swept out of the field by the cheap German editions which flooded the country forty years ago. The only consolation these bales afforded to one of Mr. Brown's degenerate successors, was that they were valued as waste, and the paper being good and genuine, the sheets did well for wrapping-up purposes, and in some cases positively induced a study of Greek, and galvanized a dead language into temporary life. It is a proof of Mr. Brown's enterprise, that he was the first Aberdeen bookseller who bought copyrights : buying from Mr. Ross, organist of St. Paul's, his Musical Instruction Books, Excerises and Songs ; and numerous School Books from teachers in the town — Mr. Watt, Mr. Welsh, Dr. Melvin, and others. He had secured the copyright of Principal Campbell's Lectures, of which two editions were issued, and the publication of which led to various replies and rejoinders being printed by local authors, and thus giving him the healthy exercise of a good run on a book, than which, to a bookseller, there is nothing more exhilarating. And a still larger venture was the issue of Campbell's Translations of the Gospels, in four volumes, 8vo, which had a large sale and came to a second edition. Of Principal Campbell's merits it is superfluous to write. Of him the saying has come true that "a prophet is not without honour save in his own country, and in his own house," for he was held in far more honour elsewhere than in Dr. George Campbell. 8i Aberdeen. Dr. Somerville says of him, "There was not any member of the General Assembly who was listened to with more attention, or who as a speaker was more successful in producing conviction. The closeness, the force, the condensed precision of his reasoning, exceed the power of description. Not a single superfluous word was used, no weak or doubtful argument introduced. Like a mathematical demonstration every topic produced accumulation of proof, and prepared his audience for the more complete assent to the conclusion drawn from it. His person and manner indicated such simplicity of character, such indifference to personal consequence or the interests of party, that it was impossible to deny him as much credit for the purity of his heart as for the transcendent excellence of his understanding." In 1779 he published an address On Popery, and .spoke out plainly and boldly for toleration in an intolerant age ; saying, " Let Popery be as bad as ye will, — call it Beelzebub if you please. It is not by Beelzebub that I am for casting out Beelzebub, but by the Spirit of God ... In the most unlovely spirit of popery, and with the unhallowed arms of popery ye would fight against popery." Sentiments like these were strange at the time, and required a brave man to utter them and a bold clear-minded man to defend them. To the great delight of Congregationalists he held what was considered very low views as to the constitution of the Christian Church, affirming that it was a merely human and voluntary association, suggested by expediency and con- venience, and ministers had no official character except so long as they held charges. Clear and distinct as was his advocacy, not only of toleration, but of religious liberty, being joined in this by Principal Robertson and others, upon whom the lessons of history had not been lost, Campbell was equally firm in maintaining the rights of the Revolution Establishment in which it was his fortune to find himself. If the Divine right of kings to reign was a dearly cherished tenet of one Church, the Divine right of the present establishment to extensive support, power, privilege, and honour, was as dearly cherished by — in a worldly point of view, the more fortunate Church in which he was placed. The publication of Campbell's Ecclesiastical Lectures by A. Brown & Co. was, as Dean Walker says, " a heavy blow 6 82 Aberdeen Aw a. VII. and a sore discouragement, and fell like a bomb-shell on the Scottish Episcopalians " of the period. For Campbell took his arguments from the common primitive and apostolic sources, and drew his weapons from their armoury. Up to the time of Constantine these seemed to show a process of evolution in the Church, in the adhesion first of the individual soul, and it might be that of his family — then of their junction in a congregation, then of their connection with a presbytery with a temporary chairman or moderator, then this became a diocese with a permanent bishop, and next with a primate claiming extensive jurisdiction. And in process of time he developed into a Pope reigning over the States of the Church, claiming universal rule, crowned with the triple 'coronet indicative of the Trinity, and now sur- mounted by Infallibility. Arguing from these premises, Campbell affirmed that the Scottish Bishops consecrated after the revolution " were solemnly made the depositaries of no deposit, commanded to be diligent in doing no work, vigilant in the oversight of no flock, assiduous in teaching and governing no people, and presiding in no church." Surely this was a poor idea of a spiritual church ! If his works are now dead, they lived and were widely influential then, when he was considered equal to Paley, and higher than Dr. Chalmers even long after. As the ever deepening clouds of oblivion gather over the departed, some luminous points shine through the gloom, and will help to keep him in the ranks of our eminent men : such as — he was a first-rate specimen of a moderate minister; as such, and as the successor of the evangelical John Bisset, he was, by his moderatism, the involuntary originator of the Seceders and the Voluntaries in Aberdeen ; by his con- troversy on miracles with Hume he elevated debate into a fair and candid discussion for truth, and not a mere wrangle and combat for victory ; he had the courage of his convic- tions, and could stand firmly in opposition to all his associates, for when they were all rabid against the proposal to repeal the persecuting statutes against the Roman Catholics, he was for the repeal of the acts and for tolera- tion, even although the fickle mob smashed his windows for this, just as they smashed the windows of Mr. Bisset some forty years previously, because he was against a Popish Government. The ^ Braid Scots! 83 Principal Campbell — or Prinkipal Campbell — as he was styled by his students, as a Scoto-logical and therefore a neces- sary consequence of his insistence on the hard Greek pronun- ciation of the letter c — was married to Grace Farquharson of the Whitehouse family, who, if somewhat hasty, was a good wife to him. She was an active superintendent of household affairs, "cumbered with much serving," and on one occasion, preparing for a social party in their house, 49 Schoolhill, she collided with her husband, who was little of stature and meek in temper. She broke out with, " Oct o' the wye, ye Dodie ! ye're aye i' the road in a steer." " Well, Gracie," said he, "if I were out of the way, maybe there would na be sae muckle steer." This reminds us of the worthy Bishop William Skinner, who was of like meek temper, while Mrs. Skinner was not equally so, nor like- wise. Entering the " Book-Stall " one day the couple came into collision with each other, and Mrs. Skinner exclaimed — " Deil speed ye. Bishop ! ye've trampit on my taes ! " " I'm very sorry, my dear," said he, ".but surely you might have wished me a better wish, even though I did." With our now cultivated taste and our refined manners, the apparently harsh speech and the uncouth terms of the lady's language would be considered improper. But it was not always so. Such was the common speech — known at present as "kailyaird literature" — of the Scotch, whose national motto is Nemo me impune lacessit. And did not Oliver Goldsmith write, " where will you find a language so prettily become a pretty mouth, as the broad Scotch?" Ay ! where? No doubt the matter spoken by the speaker to the hearer is of importance in the judgment, but apart from this, Ruskin characterizes the "braid Scots, as the ■sweetest, subtlest, richest, and most musical of all the hving dialects of Europe." CHAPTER VIII. "The finding of your Ableman, and getting him invested with the symbols of ability, with dignity, worship, (worth-ship), royalty, Iting- hood, or whatever we call it, is the business, well or ill accomplished, of all social procedure whatsoever in this world." ^O says Carlyle — and amongst other symbols was the provostship of a city — the mode in which the com- munity therein marked their choice of an Ableman, and so honoured him. In this " northern city cold," before the year 1469, the choice was made by the whole citizens, in a head-court, and was freely expressed. After that period, some difficulty in getting representatives having been experienced, it was re-enacted by the Scots Parliament in 1474 that the old Town Council should elect the new one, and that the old and new should elect the magistrates ; and the ancient primitive and democratic method of popular election, which had existed from prehistoric times, thus came to a close. In 1 59 1, Letters from James VI. under the Privy Seal were granted ordaining members of the Town Council to be elected yearly — but " to continue in office till their decease, or till found guilty of any fault or crime." Vide Aberdeen Charter xxxvi. In course of time, by inherent corruption, and the force of circumstances, the new rule became the fruitful scource of manifold abuses, and by the ever-increasing complaints of the citizens of want of representation, of want of control, and of want of power to call their rulers to account in any way, it became evident that locally the business was ill accomplished — failure being the harvest of ignorance, as mismanagement is the father of misfortune. In Aberdeen, at the close of last century, it was intensified by the patent fact that the representation on the Police Board, in which the election was by the ratepayers, worked smoothly, and gave entire satisfaction to the citizens. Lord Cockburn in his Memorials claims for Edinburgh the first example of popular election, but he must have been ignorant of the Self -elected Councils. 85 earlier example of Aberdeen, where it was the first popular choice of rate-imposers for a period of well nigh three hundred years. How the power of self-election had operated in former days may be seen in the fact that during the sixteenth century four members of the family of Menzies ruled over the city for the long period of eighty-three years, and that almost continuously; and that from 1426 to 1634 the provost's chair was occupied no fewer than twenty-eight times by members of that family, and but for the Reform Bill of 1832 it seemed probable that a similar state of matters would again have occurred. For in the early years of this century, entrance into the Town Council was either the easiest or the most difficult thing possible — all depended on the entrants having friends already within it. Brains and ability in outsiders were sometimes desirable — under proper control — but otherwise they simply served as tem- porary stop-gaps. The poor man, who, by his wisdom, might be able to save a city, had very little chance indeed of doing so, if he was not connected with, or dependent on, the ruling family for the time. In the Burgh Reform Report, procured by the persistence of the local member, Joseph Hume, aided by Lord Archi- bald Hamilton, and presented to the House of Commons in 181 9, it is stated that — "The old council elect their successors, by which means, it is not only possible, but it almost invariably happens, that by alternate elec- tions of each other, the same party maintains possession of the council, to the entire exclusion of the rest of the burgesses. And although by the sett, fifteen cut of nineteen members composing the council must retire annually, it appears by the return of members of council for the last twenty years, and by the evidence of the town clerk, that during said period Provost Hadden has been fifteen times in council ; his partner Provost Brebner ten times ; his brother Mr. Gavin Hadden ten times, etc., and that the majority of the council have been the same individuals during that time, and chiefly either relations or connections in business with Provost Hadden, who has been considered as the leader of the town council for the last twenty years— and this whether he was in or out of the council at the time." This paragraph conveys only a faint idea of the pre- dominating influence which Provost Hadden exercised, and continued to exercise, for full forty years, from his entrance 86 Aberdeen Awd. VI I L to the Council in 1792, until the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832. Besides those mentioned, here is a list of some other relations and connections in office from 1798 to 1819, with the number of years in which they served, and kept their seats warm for family successors : — his son Alexander, four years ; his son James, three ; his partner. Provost Leys, ten > his cousin Mr. Johnstone, ten ; his relatives, Provost Jas. Young, nine ; John Young, ten ; Provost More, six ; and Alexander More, six. The future services of these last two being lost for half the time by its having been proved before the Court of Session that along with John Rae, merchant, they two had combined to keep down the biddings at the roup of the shore dues in 18 10. And this united family party had devoted adherents and supporters in the persons of Provost Fraser, for eleven years out of the twenty; Baillies Galen, eleven ; Garden, ten ; Lumsden, nine ; McCombie, nine ; and we must add our then Baillie Brown, seven years. In 1 783 a conference of Scottish Burgh delegates agitated for reform, and approached Dundas, who at once refused his aid, although and possibly because Henry Erskine with Sheridan and the opposition were active supporters. In 1 792, awakened and desirous of stilling the rising storm, a Bill was brought in to regulate the mode of accounting for revenues in Burghs, but owing to riots and the fear engendered by the French Revolution, the Bill was withdrawn. It is one of the difficulties of our time that we cannot transport ourselves into the old times and look upon the old government and the proposed changes as the old folks then did. John Ewen and the other Aberdeen Reformers were fifty years ahead of their day. As the law stood in 1785, and down to this time, 181 9, the self-elected Magistrates were not only entitled to spend the public money in any way they thought proper without being obliged to account forit, but they were also entitled to contract debts, for which the Burgesses were personally liable. A Bill to remedy this was proposed in 1787, but never became an Act — it was considered as revolutionary as the sheep controlling the shepherd. In 1815, Wine and Entertainments cost ;^382 iis id., and from 1799 to 1 818 these, along with travelling expenses, cost ^^6123 i6s. Three bottle men were common. States- men like Pitt and Dundas thought no more of two bottles Secret Management. 87 of strong port than of two dishes of tea, and men who could tuck six bottles under their belt were to be met with. Take A. C. Hunter's account to Constable of what he allows to have been "a most dreadful day at Brechin Castle " in 1804. " It was one of the most awful ever known in that house. What think you of seven of us drinking thirty-o:ie bottles of red champagne, besides Burgundy, &:c., &c. Nine bottles were drunk after Maule had foundered, and of this Murray the London publisher had his share." Up to 1 8 10, things seemed to have gone smoothly enough in their Council management. The expense of the opening up of the new streets, which had purposely been kept in a separate account, had very far exceeded the estimates, and no statement of the expenditure had ever been submitted to the Council or the public, but only to a Select Committee, while there was an anuual deficiency of upwards of .;^5ooo, and which was ever threatening to increase. This cloud on the horizon was a source of trouble to, amongst others, the shrewd Baillie Galen, who as an accountant was familiar with figures and money tiansactions. The city rulers might be able men, but they were not the only able men in the community. Members of Council once admitted soon acquired the lust of appropriation and the desire for secrecy. They said : "What bus'ness has the vulgar rabble, To ken what's done at Council table. Or whether they keep books ava ? Or books be free from stain or flaw ? What signifies the debt's increasing ? It's no' on individuals pressing ; The wheels are aye kept tight and greasy, And Councillors ride soft and easy." The representative system, to be the safeguard of society, required popular election to unite all classes and interests, but instead of that, society had drifted into something like the old feudal system with its divisions into distinct classes — the governors and the governed, and the aim of the governors was to maintain their power by sharing it with their own relations or dependents, and by all means to keep the outside public in entire ignorance of their transactions. In 1811, the stern pressure of financial reasons, — that ever 88 Aberdeen Awa\ VIII. accompanying Nemesis which dogs the steps of rash un- thoughtfulness, — broke in upon the family party with all the disagreeableness of a thunderclap at a pic-nic. And then, but only then, it was felt advisable to open the door of the Council chamber a little wider, in order to admit some new blood other than connections ; and thus try to divide the growing and dangerous responsibility connected with the continual and increasing demand for, and outlay of money, and those "accommodation bills" which, vulture-like, actually began to make their appearance in the financing of a Town Council about this time. Amongst the outsiders, there was one young fellow who, although only twenty-three years of age, had already made his mark in the city by his acknowledged uncommon smartness and ability. Of distinguished personal appear- ance, as his portrait in the Trades' Hall shows, he was " ane o' the wale o' the toon," and so might well be chosen by the Council. He was well connected — the son of a wealthy wine merchant — of a good family, resident for centuries in the district — one of whose ancestors had as Provost uplifted the banner of the city, and held it up in 1 7 1 5 for the Pretender. And notwithstanding the change of dynasty, this banner having still inscribed on it the words " Toryism," " Family Ascendancy," and ''Use and Wont," curiously was yet upheld in Aberdeen. And so, for various reasons, his youth not being considered objectionable (for was not Pitt made Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four), and his antecedents being proper, Sandy Bannerman — the future Sir Alexander — was chosen as a Councillor in 1811 in the usual close manner. And he accepted the office, in ignorance that even then the city Treasurer had to borrowsoniethinglike ^^4000 to pay the annual interest of the ever-increasing debt. In 18 1 9, he said that had he known this and did not oppose it, he deserved to have his back whipped. Meantime he became one of the clique, his talents, success, and popularity, having fairly dazed his enemies and half-crazed his intimate friends. But Sandy was by no means one of these sycophants who were content to obey the Provost's call : the teachings of a century, containing in it two rebellions, a French Revolution with an rnheard of and entirely new flag, which influenced so many young men in this country, had not been without effect on him. He had brains of his own, he could think ' Sandy Bannerman' 89 for himself, and was not content to run quietly in harness which galled him. He might have parodied the speech of Burke to Lord North in 1774, and said : — " I know the map of Aberdeen as well as the Provost ; and I know that the path I take is not the road to preferment." In electing him the Council found they had caught a Tartar. He brought with him an entirely new atmosphere into the Council chamber. He was guilty of insubordination, of kicking over the traces, of speaking outside in Angus's shop of Council proceedings, of criticising his compeers, and actually of speaking for, and voting with — if not leading the minority — and thus after one year's service he, Jonah-like, was thrown overboard and not re-elected. It was the most unwise step the party in power could possibly have adopted, if they wished to retain their ascendancy. His position in society, his intelligence, his ready pen both in prose and verse, his free speech, his courage and talents in debate, had marked him as the popular leader of the Whig opposition to the Tory Council. Had they retained him — poacher on their preserves though they considered him to be — perchance there was a possibility of turning him by blandishment and cajolery into a first-rate gamekeeper. But they had had enough of him, and he was discarded with marked contumely. When old age com- mences a lasting struggle with a fresh and vigorous youth with talents on his side, " every schoolboy " knows who will be the conqueror. For twenty years after he kept them in boiling water as to their harbour management, which he got transferred to a new Board. In 1819 he stewed them in a Committee of the House of Commons regarding the concealing of debts, the over-assessments of taxes, the fabrication of minutes, and issuing accommodation bills, and gave the officials such a sweat as they had never before experienced in this world. And the war between him and the Council being a P outrance, aided by Joseph Hume, and the young democracy, he so roasted the office-holders that, when the Reform Bill passed, the magnates of the city sunk into obscurity, and he became the idol of the period, and the popular first M.P. for the city. Of Sandy Bannerman it might have been said, as Mirabeau said of Robespierre, " that man will go far- he believes every word he says." If Pitt was considered the go Aberdeen Awa'. VIII. greatest citizen in England, Bannerman was most surely believed to be the greatest citizen in Aberdeen. But his popularity was no recommendation to him in the eyes of the civic rulers — quite the contrary. Their senti- ments regarding him are depicted mjohn Homes' Lament: There's yon teem, hungry looking bral, That clashed an' sclaved an' a' that, Fan he was here the ither year, a Councillor an' a' that — An' a' that, an' a' that, oor bits an' sups an' a' that. He raised a sough wi' Johnny Booth, They'll baith get h— 1 an' a' that. Such are the revenges which Time in its whirlgigs brings about ; and the moral it teaches is — let Youth venerate Age, and let Age respect Youth. Not only was the honour of Knighthood conferred on him in 1851, but what is a thousand times more interesting to readers of the " Book- Stall," he has been immortalized by Thomas Carlyle as " Herr Towgood " — the winner in marriage of the fair Margaret Gordon, the "Blumine" in Sartor Resartus. Little did the writer and some of the urchins, who managed to get one of the white and blue ribbon rosettes, she freely scattered from her window in Marischal Street on the day of her husband's nomination — think or know that they had then seen Carlyle's first Divinity, and like the knights in the tournaments of old, had worn her favours in the jousts. Fair in looks, handsome in person, and accomplished in manner, she did credit to Carlyle's good taste ; and her last letter to him, so evidently appreciative of his genius, and yet so full of simple strong common sense, shows a highly cultured and reflective mind. A foster-child, she certainly deserved to be a fostered wife — and she was so : " So proud a thing it was for him to wear Love's golden chain. With wjiich it is best freedom to be bound." Here is Blumine's Farewell Letter to Carlyle : — "Cultivate the milder dispositions of the heart, subdue the mere extravagant visions of the brain. Genius will render you great — may virtue render you beloved. Remove the awful distance between you and other men by kind and gentle manners. Deal gently with their inferiority, and be convinced they will respect you as much and like you more. Carlyle's ' Blumine! 91 Why conceal the real goodness that flows in your heart ? I have ventured this counsel from anxiety for your future welfare, and I would enforce it with all the earnestness of the most sincere friendship. Let your light shine before men, and think them not unworthy the trouble. This exercise will prove its own reward. It must be a pleasing thing to live in the affections of others. Again adieu. Pardon the freedom I have used, and when you think of me, be it as a kind sister to whom your happiness will always yield nelight and your griefs sorrow. Yours with esteem and regard. M." Well .'spoken, and wisely advised by this young and sisterly Divinity ! No doubt her sharp eyes had seen traits of character in Carlyle which largely unfitted him for domestic happiness. Had he been bound to her by " love's golden chain " it is very questionable if he would have called men — " mostly fools." Aberdeen Awa'. ALEXANDER BROWN, Provost of Aberdeen, 1822-3 ani> 1826-7. From a Miniature by A. Robertson, about 1S23. ' The Ableman! 93 ^jp^RESSEn to accept the vacant chair, Mr. Brown entered the Council in 18 1 2, and the election being in September, the reader will notice that each year's service comprised three ixionths of one, and nine months of the succeeding years mentioned. It is a proof of the estima- tion in which Mr. Brown was held, that he was at once elected fourth Baillie, and served two years, and being a good business man there is no doubt that he was the means of introducing a new system of book-keeping, for that year a chamberlain was appointed and the books were kept by double entry. In 18 14 his own business required all his attention, but in 1815 he was re-appointed to the same office, and in 1816 was made second Baillie, and was thus in office when the city was declared bankrupt in February, 1817. In 1818, as Dean of Guild, he continued to give his valuable help in the then critical state of the financial affairs. In 1819 he declined office, but his son William, as Master of Mortifica- tions, kei)t him well posted up in the state of affairs, and then, as afterwards, when he was in the Council, was largely guided by him regarding the measures proposed. Mr. Brown was first Baillie in 1820, and '21, and as such, along with Provost Gavin Hadden and the other magistrates, went to Edinburgh and represented in great state, with handsome equipages, and well dressed attendants in their official liveries, the dignity of the city. In bag-wigs, court dresses, and swords, the magistrates attended the Levee of King George IV., on the 17th of August, 1822, being introduced at Holyrood by Lord Aberdeen — the Aberdeen Address being severely criticised, and not without reason, in the local papers. And as this expensive visit to Edinburgh did not produce any expected honours or profit, and has thus been allowed to fall into oblivion, we insert an account of it by Robert Mudie in his Modern Athens, 1825, which shows a very intimate acquaintance with the city : — "The pride of the North had been more than usually on the qui vive. The Provost had been attitudinizing before the mirror for a week, and getting his pronunciation trans- lated into English by Mr. Megget, of the Academy, for at least a fortnight ; the town clerk had been drudging at steps with Mr. Corbyn for a month ; and the learned Mr. Innes had been applied to, to cast the nativity of the city ; and 94 Aberdeen Aw a. VIII. from the horoscope — Saturn in conjunction with Mars, and Venus lady of the ascendant, it was sagely inferred by the united wisdom of King's and Mareschal that the Provost ' wad get a great mickle purse o' siller for the gweed o' the ceety, forby a trifle to himsel',' and if not a duke the town clerk would be a goose at any rate, if both eschewed during their sojourn that hankering after the sex which was por- tended by the lady Venus being in the middle house. Those polite and philosophic preparations having been made, the state coach, with two cats (the emblems of Bon-Accord) the size of a couple of yearling lambs, gilt w.th Dutch fulzie, and spotted with coffin black, 'all for the sparin' o' the cost,' ratded along the bridge of Dee at the tails of six hardy shelties from the Cabrach, " which could mak' a shift to live upo' thristles, or fool strae, cr onything they could pyke up at a dykeside.' "Still, however, this mighty magisterial meteor streamed across Drumthwackit, along the Howe o' the Mearns, and adown Strathmore, like an aurora borealis, flashing from the pole to the zenith flickering and crackling and smelling of brimstone, while its tail drew the third part of the wilie natives of the city, the other two-thirds took their way in barks and steam-bo.us, because it was ' cheaper by the tae half" . . . " No honours or titles being vouchsafed to the representatives of the loyal Scottish by the powers that were, their disappointment was extreme. . . . Aberdeen blasted the eyes of his own cats and vowed that he would vote for Joseph Heem, ' out o' pyure retrabeeshon.' Aberdeen tarried not the wheels of her chariot until she [«V] had reached her own Casde Street, when the answer she made to the many enquiries as to what she had gotten was, ' It wadna mak ony body very fat ! ' " In Lockhart's Life of Sir Walier Scott, Chap., XII., in the account of the visit of George IV. to Edinburgh, there is an amusing story of the sharp criticism of an Aberdeen Magistrate on the Highland dress of a London Alderman, who in this respect thought he would be all right if he only copied his Majesty as closely as possible. Lockhart says, " A sharp little bailie from Aberdeen tortured Sir William Curtis, as he sailed down the long gallery of Holyrood, by 'A Droll Wag: 95 suggesting that, after all, his costume was not perfect. Sir William, who had been rigged out, as the auctioneers' advertisements say, 'regardless of expense,' exclaimed that ha must be mistaken — begged he would explain his criticism — and as he spoke, threw a glance of admiration on a skean- dhu, which, like a true wairior and hunter of deer, he wore, stuck into one of his garters. "Ouay! ou ay!" quoth the Aber- donian ; " the knife's a' right, mon ; but faar's your speen ? " Who was the BaiUie ? has been asked. Now the only other Baillies present were James Milne, John Young, and Alexander Stewart. The first two do not answer the description, — they were neither little nor sharp. Stewart was indeed a little dapple milliner, and so might have had some slight knowledge of Highland accoutrements, but he had not the cheek to speak so to a Knight, and was by no means accounted sharp, but rather otherwise. The de- scription can only apply to Baillie Brown, who always spoke out frankly and fearlessly to great and small, and when he shot his barbed arrows, they stuck, and were remembered and greatly enjoyed by all those into whom they were pitched, for they were devoid of malice, and by all those who heard of the pitching. As one of his nearest neighbours, — one whose shop and house almost fronted Mr. Brown's, in "the elegant Queen Street," was Mr. Scott, the- fashionable cabinetmaker and upholsterer of his day — the furnisher and decorator of Haddo House, and the correspondent of Lord Aberdeen and many other county magnates. In the Herald, 10th December, 1870, it is said : — " He was an influential member of the Burgher Secession body, and when (in 1802) their first church was built in St. Nicholas Lane, made a presentation to the congregation of a costly and beautiful mahogany pulpit, the like of which was not to be seen in any of our churches, Established or Dissenting, at that time. When this handsome gift was finished, Mr. Scott brought his neighbour, Mr. Alexander Brown .... to see and admire the workmanship. Mr. Brown, who was a droll wag, gravely inspected the elegant rostrum so exquisitely carved and polished, and quietly remarked, "Weel, weel, Mr. Scott, its a braw pulpit — a bonny piece of wood and fine wark ; but tak' ye care that you dinna get a timmer minister to fill it ! " g6 Aberdeen AwoC. V'lII. Mr. Scott and his family were highly intellectual, — were potential factors in the literary society of Aberdeen at the time, and were powerfully influential in the formation of the character of the young preachers in the Secession Church who visited the city. They were astonished and electrified by the intelligence, the wit, and the sly, yet gentle sarcasm of the young ladies who laughed them out of their antiquated bigotry, and made many a preacher more human and humane. Mr. Scott's son, John, who commenced the publication of the London Magazine in 1820, was killed in a duel arising out of a literary quarrel with Lockhart in 182 1. The next two years, 1822 and '23, Mr. Brown filled the Civic Chair, and was largely instrumental in procuring the satisfactory arrangement with the city creditors. In 1823, as official chairman of Robert Gordon's Hospital he had the merit of getting new and more sensible Bye-laws and Regulations adopted, by which the absurd monastic character of the institution was in some degree removed — female servants, surreptitiously employed since 1801, being now sanctioned. In 1824, he was a simple councillor, in 1825, was second Baillie, and in 1826 and '27, filled again the civic chair. As Provost, he laid the foundation-stone of the new bridge of Don. In a local print of the time, the following account appears : — "The ceremony took place on Thursday, 3rd May, 1827, at three o'clock, and it is stated that prior to that hour large crowds lined both the north and south banks of the Don, and that the ' band of the Aberdeenshire Militia took their stand on a gangway across part of the river, and played a few airs.' Into the cavity of the stone were put ( i) a hermetically sealed vase containing the coins of the Kingdom, newspapers, Aberdeen Almanack, &c. ; and (2) two brass plates, upon one of which was engraved a statement in Latin respecting the circumstances of the erection of the bridge, while upon the other was engraved a list of the members of Council, office-bearers, &c. On the stone being lowered the Lord Provost delivered a short speech, congratulating the citizens upon the new access to be formed to the north, stating that the old bridge would for ever be retained as an ' ornament,' The Brig o' Balgownie. 97 and carefully reminding his hearers that the new bridge would, on account of the wealth of Sir Alexander Hay's benefaction, cost them nothing ! Then the band played " God Save the King," a salute was fired from the Preventive Coastguard Station at Donmouth, and the proceedings were ended by the Provost giving the contractor, the late Mr. Gibb of Willowbank, "something" wherewith his men were to refresh themselves after the labours of the day." "In the course of the ceremony, Carnegie, of whom so many good and so many convivial stories are told, read an English -translation of the Latin text of the statement on the brass, and as it is interesting I may reproduce it : — " By the blessing of God, the best and greatest, in the sixth year of the reign of George the Fourth, the father of his country, an Act of the British Parliament having been passed while Gavin Hadden, Esquire, was Provost for the second time, after a period of two years this bridge, an object very much desired, was begun to be built, the whole expense being supplied from an annual fund little exceeding two pounds sterling, giyen and bequeathed A.D. 1605 by Sir Alexander Hay, baronet, clerk of the Scottish Parliament and Council, for the purpose of repairing the neighbouring bridge, built in a most pleasant situation, by authority of Robert the Bruce, the ever invincible King of Scotland, which fund was successfully accumulated by the strictest fidelity of the Magistrates of Aberdeen and the Town Council : Alexander Brown, Esquire, Provost of Aberdeen for the second time, laid the first stone of it on the 3rd day of May, 1827, in presence of the Magistrates and Council." The beautiful old bridge, built about 1320, had a well- known weird prophecy connected with it : — Brig o' Balgownie, wight is thy wa' Wi' a wife's ae son, an' a mare's ae foal Doon sail ye fa'. But it had bad accesses, and was considered entirely unsuitable for modern traffic. Yet its original slender endowment having been carefully managed, out of its accumulated funds the cost of the new bridge was defrayed. Thus the citizens have one bridge suitable for the require- ments of the times, and another as a specimen of antiquity, placed in so romantic a position, that, in itself and with its 7 98 Aberdeen Awd. VIII. picturesque surroundings, it is a showplace ; has been celebrated by Lord Byron, and attempted to be immortalised by all budding artists who aspire to fame, at least as enduring as the bridge — if not longer. Retiring from the Provostship in 1827, he was elected a councillor in 1828, and then, he — the son of a Seceder minister, who in his rural charge was "passing rich with forty pounds a year," but was supplemented by the free gifts of his flock, enabling him to bring up a family, and still leave a good estate — was mainly instrumental in originating, and carrying out a simple act of justice to the city clergy, as to their number, their status, and their emoluments. Aberdeen had for a long time been ecclesiastically one parish, but it was divided into two jireaching churches, and as the population increased, each of these had been made collegiate charges, and to supplement their incomes the incumbents held plural offices either in the University or in Greyfriars Church, which had bequests of its own — so also had Footdee, to supply it with a separate catechist or preacher. In 1 795 the city clergy raised an action for an ncrease of their stipends from ;^i20 to something more The Six Neiv Parishes. 99 reasonable and decent. But they failed, for their action was raised, not before the hearts and consciences of the members of the Christian church, where they would have succeeded, but before the cold, hard, dry, matter-of-fact Law Courts — where Christian principle, or New Testament precepts being unrecorded— it was held that as by the charters of James VI., Charles I., and George II., which granted the teinds, parsonage, and vicarage of the parish for the express relief of the inhabitants ; and that as there were no unexhausted teinds to fall back upon, the pursuers had no case. But while the Council as a corporation stood out for the legal rights of Cassar, the members as Christians succumbed to reason, and so the stipends of the clergy were afterwards raised voluntarily to ^200 each. In 18 19, Joseph Hume and Sandy Bannerman, assisted by the most eminent counsel, had directed their eagle glances and their microscopic researches into the transactions of the Council during bygone years, and these, although defensible and defended, looked somewhat suspicious. These old Use and Wont transactions, magnified in import- ance, and made the worst of by the Reformers of the period, having been brought into the light of day, the prudent men of the Council thought it high time that this question of the action of their predecessors should be minutely examined, and finally settled ; all the more so as an ominous small cloud, called Reform, was looming larger and ever larger on the horizon. After lengthened consulta- tion with all parties, and specially with the Rev. Dr. Thomson, of Footdee, who in 1787 was elected preacher and catechist — one of the shrewdest and most worldly-wise men of his day, who was deeply concerned, and who specially safeguarded his own interests in the setdement, for he bargained with the Council that if he seated the church he was to be allowed to draw the seat rents during his life. He then took good care only to provide seats for those who paid for them ! seats being added as required. With this process kept in retenUs, and all parties agreeing to take the risks of non-compliance with certain statutory enactments regarding the formation of new parishes, which involved much trouble and expense, and which was agreed to be ignored by all parties," an agreement, sanctioned and lOO Aberdeen Awa'. VI 1 1. approved of by all the city clergy, and by both the presby- tery and synod, was come to. Certainly it was so generous that but for its containing a settlement of all past disputes, it would never have been looked at, or agreed to ; even as it was, it was considered by many as extravagantly and lavishly generous, and if submitted to the rate-payers and parishioners, as by law it ought to have been, it would have been strenuously opposed. Aberdeen, instead as hitherto of forming one parish with two preaching churches, was now to be divided into six — the East, West, North, South, Greyfriars, and St. Clements, each with a church and clergyman : and the new churches cost the city about _;^3o,ooo. And instead oi only having to pay in stipends p^Soo per annum as previously, the sum now agreed upon in future was to be no less than £i6s° ^ year. The negotiations, begun while Provost Brown was chief, were long and protracted, and all parties being "ripely and well advised," it was with peculiar satisfaction that by a decreet of the Court of Teinds of 5th March, 1828, Provost Brown got this matter, according to the best legal knowledge of the time, fairly and finally settled ; and thereupon he received the warmest congratula- tions from all the interested parties on his success in inducing the Council to be so generous. That this settlement was acknowledged as generous, and was by all parties intended to be final, is very plainly and clearly seen and acknowledged by a clause in the Decreet, finding and declaring — "That the stipends anj other provisions aforesaid shall be in full to the ministers of the said respective parishes, and their successors in office, of everything they are respectively entitled to, l>y law or otlier- •i^