242 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
up to the full average of poets, yet his vanity was
of a very inoffensive kind.
Mrs. Sarah Siddons, when visiting the Edinburgh
Theatre, always spent an occasional afternoon with
Mr. and Mrs. Home, at their neat little house in
North Hanover Street, and of one of these visits
Sir Adam Fergusson was wont (we have the authority
of Robert Chambers for it) to relate the following
anecdote :-They were seated at early dinner,
attended by Home?s old man-servant John, when
the host asked Mrs. Siddons what liqueur or wine
she preferred to drink.
A.little porter,? replied the tragedy queen, in
her usually impressive voice; and Johs was despatched
to procure what he thought was required,
But a considerable time elapsed, to the surprise
of those at table, before steps were heard in the
outer lobby, and John re-appeared, panting and
flushed, exclaiming, ?I?ve found ane, mem t he?s
the least I could get !? and with these words he
pushed in a short, thickset Highlander, whose
leaden badge and coil of ropes betokened his
profession, ? but who seemed greatly bewildered
on finding himself in a gentleman?s dining-room,
surveyed by the curious eyes of one of the
grandest women that ever walked the earth. The
truth flashed first upon Mrs. Siddons, who, unwonted
to laugh, was for once overcome by a
sense of the ludicrous, and broke forth into something
like shouts of mirth;? but Mrs. Home,
we are told, had not the least chance of ever
understanding i t
Home accepted a captain?s commission in the
Duke of Buccleuch?s Fencibles, which he held till
that corps was disbanded, His last tragedy was
?Alfred,? represented in 1778, when it proved
an utter failure. In 1776 he accompanied his
friend Ilavid Hume, in his last illness, from Morpeth
to Bath. He never recovered the shock of
a fall from his horse when on parade with the
Buccleuch Fencibles ; and his ? History of the
Rebellion,? perhaps his best work in some respects
(though it disappointed the public), and the task
of his declining years, was published at London
in 1802. He died at Edinburgh, in his eightyfourth
par, and was buried in South Leith churchyard,
where a tablet on the west side of the
church marks the spot. It is inscribed :--?In
niemory of John Home, author of \the tragedy
of ?Douglas,? &c. Born 13th September, 1724.
Died 4th September, 1808.?
Before recurring to general history, we may here
refer to another distinguished native of Leith,
Robert Jamieson, Professor of Natural History,
who was born in 1779 in Leith, where his father
was a merchant, and perhaps the most extensive
manufacturer of soap in Scotland. He was appointed
Regius Professor and Keeper of the
Museum, or *? Repository of Natural Curiosities
in the University of Edinburgh,? on the death of
Dr. Walker, in 1804; but he had previously distinguisbed
himself by the publication of three valuable
works connected with the natural history of
the? Scottish Isles, after studying for two years at
Freyberg, under the famous Werner,
He was author of ten separate works, all contributing
to the advancement of natural history, but
more especially of geology, and his whole life was
devoted to study and investigation. Whether in the
class-room or by his writings, he was always alike
entitled to and received the gratitude and esteem
of the students.
In 1808 he founded the Wernerian Natural
History Society of Edinburgh, and besides the
numerous separate works referred to, the world is
indebted to him for the Edinburgh PhiZosophicaZ
Journal, which he started in 1819, and which
maintained a reputhion deservedly high as a repository
of science. The editorial duties connected
with it he performed for nearly twenty
years (for the first ten volumes in conjunction with
Sir David Brewster), adding many brilliant articles
from his own pen, and, notwithstanding the varied
demands upon his timq was a contributor to the
?? Edinburgh Encyclopzdia,? the ?? Encyclopzdia
Britannia,? the Annals of Philosophy,? the
U Edinburgh Cabinet Library,? and many other
standard works.
He was for half a century a professor, and had
the pleasure of sending forth from his class-room
in the University of Edinburgh many pupils who
have since won honour and renown in the seminaries
and scientific institutions of Europe. He was
a fellow of many learned and Royal Societies,
and was succeeded in the Chair of Natural
History in 1854 by Edward Forbes.
