230 OLD AND NEW EDINBUXGH. [High Street.
?; two such animals in the whole island of Great
Britain.?
Between the back and front tenements occupied
of old by Andro Hart is a house, once a famous
tavern, which formed the meeting-place of the Cape
Club, one of the most noted of those wherein the
leading men of ? Auld Reekie? were wont to seek
relaxation-one celebrated in Fergusson?s poem on
the city, and where a system of ? high jinks ? was
kept up with an ardour that never abated.
In this tavern, then, the IsZe of Man Arms, kept
by James Mann, in Craig?s Close, the ? Cape
Club? was nightly inaugurated, each member receiving
on his election some grotesque name and
character, which he was expected to retain and
maintain for the future. From its minutes, which
are preserved in the Antiquarian Museum, the club
appears to have been formally constituted in 1764,
though it had existed long before. Its insignia
were a cape, or crown, worn by the Soverezgn of the
Cape on State occasions, when certain other members
wore badges, or jewels of office, and two
maces in the form of huge steel pokers, engraven
with mottoes, and still preserved in Edinburgh,
formed the sword and sceptre of the King in Cape
Hall, when the jovial fraternity met for high jinks,
and Tom Lancashire the comedian, Robert Fergusson
the poet, David Herd, Alexander Runciman,
Jacob More, Walter Ross the antiquary,
Gavin Wilson the poetical shoemaker, the Laird
of Cardrona a ban zivani of the last century, Sir
Henry Raeburn, and, strange to say, the notorious
Deacon Brodie, met round the ?flowing bowl.?
Tom Lancashire-on whom Fergusson wrote a
witty epitaph-was the first sovereign of the club
after 1764, as Sir Cape, while the title of Sir Poker
belonged to its oldest member, James Aitken.
David Herd, the ingenious collector of Scottish
ballad poetry, succeeded Lancashire (who was a
celebrated comedian in his day), under the sobriquet
of Sir Scrape, having as secretary Jacob More,
who attained fame as a landscape painter in Rome ;
and doubtless his pencil and that of Runciman, produced
many of the illustrations and caricatures
with which the old MS. books of the club abound.
When a knight of the Cape was inaugurated he
was led forward by his sponsors, and kneeling
before the sovereign, had to grasp the poker, and
take an oath of fidelity, the knights standing by
uncovered :-
.
? I devoutly swear by this light.
With all my might,
Both day and night,
To be a tme and faithful knight,
So help me Poker !?
The knights presented his Majesty with a contribution
of IOO guineas to assist in raising troops in
1778. The entrance-fee to this amusing club was
originally half-a-crown, and eventually it rose to a
guinea ; but so economical were the mevbers, that
among the last entries in their minutes was one to
the effect that the suppers should be at ?the old
price ? of 44d. a head. Lancashire the comedian,
leaving the stage, seems to have eked out a meagre
subsistence by opening in the Canongate a tavern,
where he was kindly patronised by the knights of
the Cape, and they subsequently paid him visits at
? Comedy Hut, New Edinburgh,? a place of entertainment
which he opened somewhere beyond the
bank of the North Loch ; and soon after this convivial
club-one of the many wherein grave citizens
and learned counsellors cast aside their powdered
wigs, and betook them to what may now seem madcap
revelry in very contrast to the rigid decorum
of everyday life-passed completely away j but a
foot-note to Wilson?s ? Memorials ? informs us that
? Provincial Cape Clubs, deriving their authority
and diplomas from the parent body, were successively
formed in Glasgow, Manchester, and London,
and in Charleston, South Carolina, each of
which was formally established in virtue of a royal
commission granted by the Sovereign of the Cape.
The American off-shoot of this old Edinburgh fra
ternity is said to be still flourishing in the Southern
States.?
In the ?Life of Lord Kames,? by Lord Woodhouselee,
we have an account of the Poker Club,
which held its meetings near this spot, at ?? our old
landlord of the Diversorium, Tom Nicholson?s, near
the cross. The dinner was on the table at two
o?clock ; we drank the best claret and sherry ; and
the reckoning was punctually called at six o?clock.
After the first fifteen, who were chosen by nomination,
the members were elected by ballot, and two
black balls excluded a candidate.?
A political question-on the expediency of establishing
a Scottish militia (while Charles Edward and
Cardinal York were living in Rome)-divided the
Scottish public mind greatly between 1760 and
1762, and gave rise to the club in the latter yean
and it subsisted in vigour and celebrity till 1784,
and continued its weekly meetings with great replarity,
long after the object of its institution had
ceased to engage attention; and it can scarcely be
doubted that its influence was considerable in fostering
talent and promoting elegant literature in
Edinburgh, though the few publications of a literary
nature that had been published under the auspices
of the club were, like most of that nature, ephemeral,
and are now utterly forgotten.
High Street.] THE POKER CLUB. a31
The only publication of sterling merit which enlivened
the occasion that called it forth was ?? The
History in the Proceedings of Margaret, commonly
called Peg,? written in imitation of Dr. Arbuthnot?s
?History of John Bull.? In the memoirs of Dr.
Carlyle of Inveresk an amusing account is given
of the Poker Club, of which he was a zealous and
constant attender. About the third or fourth meeting
of the club, after 1/62, he mentions that members
were at a loss for a name for it, and wished one
that should be of uncertain meaning, and not so
directly offensive as that of Militia Club, whereupon
Adam Fergusson, the eminent historian and moral
philosopher, suggested the name of Poker, which
the members understood, and which would ?be
an enigma to the public.?
It comprehended all the Ziterati of Edinburgh
and its neighbourhood, most of whom-like Robertson,
Hair, and Hume-had been members of the
select society (those only excepted who were enemies
to the Scottish militia scheme), together with a
great many country gentlemen whose national and
Jacobite proclivities led them to resent the invidious
line drawn between Scotland and England.
Sir William Pulteney Johnston was secretary of
the Poker Club, with two members, whom he was
to consult anent its publications in a laughing hour.
?? Andrew Crosbie, advocate, was appointed assassin
to the club, in case any service of that sort should
be needed ; but David Hume was named for his
assistant, so that between the plus and minus there
was no hazard of much bloodshed.?
After a time the club removed its meetings to
Fortune?s Tavern, at the Cross K$, in the Stamp
Office Close, where the dinners became so showy
and expensive that attendance began to decrease,
and new members came in ?who had no title to be
there, and were not congenial? (the common fate
of all clubs generally) ?and so by death and desertion
the Poker began to dwindle away, though
a bold attempt was made to revive it in 1787 by
some young men of talent and spirit.? When Cap.
tain James Edgar, one of the original Pokers, was
in Paris in 1773, during the flourishing time of the
club, he was asked by D?Alembert to go with him
to their club of literati, to which he replied with
something of bluntness, I? that the company 01
literati was no novelty to him, for he had a club at
Edinburgh composed, he believed, of the ablest
men in Europe. This? (adds Dr. Carlyle, whose
original MS. Lord Kames quoted) ?was no singular
opinion ; for the most enlightened foreigners
had formed the same estimate of the literary society
of Edinburgh at that time. The Princess Dashkoff,
disputing with me one day at Buxton about the
superiority of Edinburgh as a residence to most of
the cities of Europe, when I had alleged various
particulars, in which I thought we excelled, ? No,?
said she, ?but I know one article you have not
mentioned in which I must give you clearly the
precedence, which is, that of all the societies of nieii
of talent I have met with in n;y travels, yours is the
first in point of abilities.? ?
A few steps farther down the street bring us
to the entrance of the Old Stamp Office Close,
wherein was the tavern just referred to, Fortune?s,
one in the greatest vogue between 1760 and 1770.
?The gay men of the city,?? we are told, the
scholarly and the philosophical, with the common
citizens, all flocked hither; and here the Royal
Commissioner for the General Assembly held his
leve?es, and hence proceeded to church with his
co~tt!gz, then- additionally splendid fiom having ladies
walking in it in their court dresses, as well as
gentlemen.?
Thz house occupied by this famous tavern had
been in former times the residence of Alexander
ninth Earl of Eglinton, and his Countess Susanna
Kennedy of the house of Colzean, reputed the most
beautiful woman of her time.
From the magnificent but privately printed
Memorials of the hfontgomeries,? we learn many
interesting particulars of this noble couple, who
dwelt in the Old Stamp Office Close. Whether
their abode there was the same as that stated, of
which we have an inventory, in the time of ?
Hugh third Earl of Eglinton, ?at his house in
Edinburgh, 3rd March, 1563,? given in the ? Memorials,?
we have no means of determining. . Earl
Alexander was one of those patriarchal old Scottish
lords who lived to a great age. He was thrice
married, and left a progeny whose names are interspersed
throughout the pages of the Douglas
peerage. His last Countess, Susanna, was the
daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy, a sturdy old
cavalier, who made himself conspicuous in the
wars of Dundee. She was one of the co-heiresses
of David Leslie Lord Newark, the Covenanting
general whom Cromwell defeated at Dunbar.
She was six feet in height, extremely handsome,
with a brilliantly fair complexion, and a face of
? the most bewitching loveliness.? She had many
admirers, Sir John Clerk of Penicuick among
others; but her friends had always hoped she
would marry the Earl of Eglinton, though he was
more than old enough to have been her father,
and when a stray hawk, with his iordship?s name
on its bells, alighted on her shoulder as she was
one day walking in her father?s garden at Colzean.
it was deemed an infallible omen of her future.
