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
