Convivialia.1 ASSEMBLY
presiding officials, male and female, with the names
they adopted, such as Elisha the Prophet, King of
Hell, Old Pluto, the Old Dragon, Lady Envy, and
so forth. ? The Hell-fire Club,? says Chambers in
his ? Domestic Annals,? ?? seems to have projected
itself strongly on the popular imagination in Scotland,
for the peasantry still occasionally speak of it
with bated breath and whispering horror. Many
wicked lairds are talked of who belonged to the
Hell-fire Club, and who came to bad ends, as
might have been expected on grounds involving
no reference to miracle.?
The ASSEMBLY OF BIRDS is the next periodical
gathering, but for ostensibly social purposes, and
to it we find a reference in the Caledonian Mermry
of October, 1733. This journal records
that yesternight there came on at the ?Parrot?s
Nest? in this city the annual election of oficebearers
in the ancient and venerable Assem60 of
Birds, when the Game Cock was elected preses;
the Buck Bird, treasurer; the GZedc, principal
clerk ; the Crow, his depute; the Duck, officer ; all
birds duly qualified to our happy establishment,
and no less enemies to the excise scheme. After
which an elegant entertainment was served up, all
the royal and loyal healths were plentifully drunk
in the richest wines, ?The GZorious 20s? ; ?AZZ
Bonny Birds,? &c. On this joyful occasion nothing
was heard but harmonious music, each bird striving
to excel in chanting and warbling their respective
melodious notes.?
We may imagine the medley of sounds in which
these humorous fellows indulged ; the glorious
205,? towhom reference was made, were those members
of the House of Commons who had recently
opposed a fresh imposition upon the tobacco tax.
Somewhere about the year 1750 a society called
the SWEATING CLUB made its appearance. The
members resembled the Mohocks and Bullies of
London. After intoxicating themselves in taverns
and cellars in certain obscure closes, they would
sally at midnight into the wynds and large thoroughfares,
and attack whomsoever they met, snatching off
wigs and tearing up roqaelaures. Many a luckless
citizen who fell into their hands was chased, jostled,
and pinched, till he not only perspired with exertion
and agony, but was ready to drop down and
die of sheer exhaustion.
In those days, when most men went armed,
always with a sword and a few with pocket-pistols,
such work often proved perilous ; but we are told
that ?even so late as the early years of this century
it was unsafe to walk the streets of Edinburgh at
night, on account of the numerous drunken parties
of young men who reeled about, bent on mischief
OF BIRDS. 123
at all hours, and from whom the Town Guard were
unable to protect the sober citizens.?
In Vol. I. of this work (p. 63) will be found a
facsimile of the medal of the Edinburgh REVOLUTION
CLUB, struck in 1753, ?in commemoration
of the recovery of religion and liberty by William
and Mary in 1688.? It bears the motto, Meminis
seJmabif.
?? On Thursday next,? announces the Advcrtiser
for November, 1764, the 15th current, the
RmoZution CZu6 is to meet in the Assembly Hall at
six o?clock in the evening, in commemoration of
our happy deliverance from Popery and slavery by
King William of glorious and immortal memory ;
and of the further security of our religion and
liberties by the settlement of the crown upon the
illustrious house of Hanover, when it is expected
all the members of that society, in or near the city,
will give attendance.? The next issue records the
meeting but gives no account thereof. Under its
auspices a meeting was held to erect a monument
to King William 111. in 1788, attended by the
Earls of Glencairn, Buchan, Dumfries, and others j
but a suggestion in the Edinburgh magazines of
that year, that it should be erected in the valley of
Glencoe with the King?s warrant for the massacre
carved on the pedestal, caused it to be abandoned,
and so this club was eventually relegated to ? the
lumber-room of time,? like the UNION and four
others, thus ranked briefly by the industrious
Chambers :-
No gentleman to appear in . I clean linen. THEDIRTYCLUB . .
THE BLACK WIGS . . . Members wore black wigs.
THE ODD FELLOWS . .
THE BONNET LAIRDS . . Members wore bonnets.
Members wrote their namea ?{ upside down.
Members regarded as Physicians,
and so styled, wearing
gowns and wigs.
THE DOCTORS OF FACULTY
CLUB . . . . . . .
In Volume 11. of the ? Mirror Club Papers ? we
find six others enumerated:-5?? Whin Bush,
Knz$ts of the Cap andFeather (meeting in the close
of that name), The Tdemade, The Stoic, Th
Hum-drum, and the Antemanurn.
In 1765 the institution of another club is thus
noticed in the. Advertiser of January 29th :-
? We are informed that there was a very numerous
meeting of the Knights Companions of the
Ancient Order of the BEGGARS? BENISON, with
their sovereign on Friday last, at Mr. Walker?s
tavern, when the band of music belonging to the
Edinburgh Regiment (25th Foot) attended. Everything
was conducted with the greatest harmony and
cheerfulness, and all the knights appeared with the
medal of the order.?
124 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. : [Convivialia
In 1783, ? a chapter of the order? was adver
tised ?to be held at their chamber in Anetruther
Dinner at half-past two.?
The LAWNMARKET CLUB, with its so-callec
?gazettes,? has been referred to in our first volume
The CAPILLAIRE CLUB was one famous in thq
annals of Edinburgh convivalia and for it
fashionable gatherings. The Wee24 Xagaziz
for I 7 74 records that ?? last Friday night,?the gentle
men of the Capillaire Club gave their annual ball
The company consisted of nearly two hundrec
ladies and gentlemen of the first distinction. Thei
dresses were extremely rich and elegant. He
Grace the Duchess of D- and Mrs. Gen
S- made a most brilliant appearance. Mrs
S.?s jewels alone, it is said, were above ;C;30,00c
in value. ?The ball was opened about seven, anc
ended about twelve o?clock, when a most elegan
entertainment was served up.?
The ladies whose initials are given were evidentlj
the last Duchess of Douglas and Mrs. Scott, wift
of General John Scott of Balcomie and Bellevue
mother of the Duchess of Portland. She survivec
him, and died at Bellevue House, latterly the Ex
cise Office, Drummond Place, on the 23rd August
1797, after which the house was occupied by the
Duke of Argyle.
The next notice we have of the club in the same
year is a donation of twenty guineas by the mem
bers to the Charity Workhouse. ?? The Capillaire
Club,? says a writer in the ?Scottish Journal o
Antiquities,? ?was composed of all who were in.
clined to be witty and joyous.?
There was a JACOBITE CLUB, presided over a1
one time by tine Earl of Buchan, but of which
nothing now survives but the name.
The INDUSTRIOUS COMPANY was a club composed
oddly enough of porter-drinkers, very. numerous,
and formed as a species of joint-stock company,
for the double purpose of retailing their liquor for
profit, and for fun and amusement while drinking it,
They met at their rooms, or cellars rather, every
night, in the Royal Bank Close. There each member
paid at his entry As, and took his monthly
turn of superintending the general business of the
club; but negligence on the part of some of the
managers led to its dissolution.
In the Advertiser for 1783 it is announced as
a standing order of the WIG CLUB, ?that the
members in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh
should attend the meetings of the club, or if they
find that inconvenient, to send in their resignation;
it is requested that the members will be
pleased to attend to this regulation, otherwise their
places will be supplied by others who wish to be of
the club.-Fortune?s Tavern, February 4th, 1783.??
In the preceding January a meeting of the club is
summoned at that date, ? as St. P-?s day.:? Mr.
Hay of Drumelzier in the chair. As? there is no
saint for the 4th February whose initial is P, this
must have been some joke known only to the club.
Charles, Earl of Haddington, presided on the 2nd
December, 1783.
From the former notice we may gather that there
was a decay of this curious club, the president of
which wore a wig of extraordinary materials, which
had belonged to the Moray faniily,for three generations,
and each new entrant?s powers were tested,
by compelling him to drink ? to the fraternity in a
quart of claret, without pulling bit-i.e., pausing.?
The members generally drank twopenny ale, on
which it was possible to get intoxicated for the
value of a groat, and ate a coarse kind of loaf,
called Soutar?s clod, which, with penny pies of high
reputation in those days, were furnished by a shop
near Forrester?s Wynd, and known as the Ba@n
HoZe.
There was an BSCULAPIAN CLUB, a relic of
which survives in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where
a stone records that in 1785 the members repaired
the tomb of ?(John Barnett, student of phisick (sic)
who was born 15th March, 1733, and departed this
life 1st April, 1755.?
The BOAR CLUB was chiefly composed, eventually,
of wild waggish spirits and fashionable young men,
who held their meetings in Daniel Hogg?s tavern,
in Shakespeare Square, close by the Theatre RoyaL
? The joke of this club,? to quote ? Chambers?s
Traditio? s,? ? consisted in the supposition that all
the members were boars, that their room was a dy,
that their talk was grunting, and in the dozcbZeentendre
of the small piece of stoneware which served
as a repository for the fines, being a &. Upon
this they lived twenty years. I have at some expense
of eyesight and with no small exertion of
patience,? continues Chambers, ?? perused the soiled
and blotted records of the club, which, in 1824,
were preserved by an old vintner whose house was
their last place of meeting, and the result has been
the following memorabilia. The Boar Club commenced
its meetings in 1787, and the original
members were J. G. C. Schetky, a German
nusician ; David Shaw, Archibald Crawford,
Patrick Robertson, Robert Aldrige, a famous pantonimist
and dancing-master ; Jarnes Nelson, and
Luke Cross. . , , Their laws were first written
iown in due form in 1790. They were to meet
:very evening at seven o?clock ; each boar on his
:ntry contributed a halfpenny to the pig. A fine
if a halfpenny was imposed upon any person who
