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.
