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.
