238 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
The entry money to the Club, which was originally half-a-crown, gradually rose to a guinea,
and it seems to have latterly assumed a very aristocratic character. A great regard for
economy, however, remained with it to the last. On the 10th of June 1776 it is resolved,
that they shall at no time take bad half-pence from the house, and also recommend it to
the house to take none from them I ” and one of the last items entered on their minutes,
arises from an intimation of the landlord that he could not afford them suppers under
sixpence each, when it is magnanimously determined by the Club in full conclave, I‘ that
the suppers shall be at the old price of four-pence half-penny I ” Sir Cape, the comedian,
appears to have eked out the scanty rewards of the drama, by himself maintaining a tavern
at the head of the Canongate, which was for some time patronised by the Knights of the
Cape. They afterwards paid him occasional visits to Comedy Hut, New Edinburgh, a
house which he opened beyond the precincts of the North Loch about the year 1770, and
there they held their ninth Grand Cape, as their great festival was styled, on the 9th of
June of that year.’ This sketch of one of the most famous convivial clubs of last century
will suffice to give some idea of the revels in which grave councillors and senators were
wont to engage, when each slipt off his professional formality along with his three-tailed
wig and black coat, and bent his energies to the task of such merry fooling, while his
example was faithfully copied by clerk and citizen of every degree. “ Such, 0 Themis,
were anciently the sports of thy Scottish children! ” The same hanut of revelry and wit
witnessed in the year 1785 the once celebrated charlatan, Dr Katterfelto, immortalised by
Cowper in “ The Task,” among the quackeries of old London,-
With his hair on end,
At hia own wonders wondering for his bread !
His advertisement a sets forth his full array of titles, as Professor of Experimental Philosophy,
Lecturer on Electricity, Chemistry, and Sleight of Hand, &c., and announces to his
Patrons and the Public, that the Music begins at six and the Lecture at seveu o’clock, at
Craig’s Close, High Street.
Another of the old lanes of the High Street, which has been an object of special note
to the local antiquary is Anchor Close. Its fame is derived, in part, at least, from the
famouR corps of Crochallan Fencibles, celebrated by Burns both in prose and verse-a
convivial club, whose festive meetings were held in Daniel Douglas’s tavern at the head of
the alley. Burns was introduced to this club in 1787, while in Edinburgh superintending
the printing of his poems, when, according to custom, one of the corps was pitted against
the poet in a contest of wit and irony. Burns bore the assault with perfect good humour,
and entered into the full spirit of th’e meeting, but he afterwards paid his antagonist the
compliment of acknowledging that ‘‘ he had never been so abominably thrashed in all his
life I ” The name of this gallant corps, which has been the subject of learned conjecture,
is the burden of a Gaelic song with which the landlord occasionally entertained his guests.a
The Club was founded by Mr William Smellie, Author of the Philosophy of Natural
History, and numbered among its members the Honourable Henry Erskine, Lords Newton
1 Provincial Cape Cluba, deriving their authority and diplomss from the parent body, were auccessively formed in
Glasgow, Manchester, and London, and in Charlestown, South Carolina, each of which was formally established in
virtue of a royal mmmisaion granted by the Sovereign of the Cape. The American off-ahoot of this old Edinburgh
frat’er Cnaitleyr loisn ascaMidI Mto ebme ust~ilyl J,f alonuurairsyh in2g4 tihn, t1h7e8 S8.o uthern States. Kerr’a Life of William Smellie, vol. ii. p. 256.
