Lord Monboddo’s Suppers—The Sister of Smollett—Anecdote of Henry Dundas.

St John Street, so named with reference to St John’s Cross above mentioned, was one of the heralds of the New Town. In the latter half of the last century it was occupied solely by persons of distinction—nobles, judges, and country gentleman; now it is possessed as exclusively by persons of the middle rank. In No. 13 lived that eccentric genius, Lord Monboddo, whose supper-parties, conducted in classic taste, frequented by the literati, and for a time presided over by an angel in the form of a daughter of his lordship, were of immense attraction in their day. In a stair at the head of this street lived the sister of the author of Roderick Random.

Smollett’s life as a literary adventurer in London, and the full participation he had in the woes of authors by profession, have perhaps conveyed an erroneous idea of his birth and connections. The Smolletts of Dumbartonshire were in reality what was called in Scotland a good old family. The novelist’s own grandfather had been one of the commissioners for the Union between England and Scotland. And it is an undoubted fact that Tobias himself, if he had lived two or three years longer, would have become the owner of the family estate, worth about a thousand a year. All this, to any one conversant with the condition of the Scottish gentry in the early part of the last century, will appear quite consistent with his having been brought up as a druggist’s apprentice in Glasgow—‘the bubbly-nosed callant, wi’ the stane in his pouch,’ as his master affectionately described him, with reference to his notorious qualities as a Pickle.

The sister of Smollett—she who, failing him, did succeed to the family property—was a Mrs Telfer, domiciled as a gentle widow in a common stair at the head of St John Street (west side), first door up. She is described as a somewhat stern-looking specimen of her sex, with a high cast of features, but in reality a good-enough-natured woman, and extremely shrewd and intelligent. One passion of her genus possessed her—whist. A relative tells me that one of the city magistrates, who was a tallow-chandler, calling upon her one evening, she said: ‘Come awa, bailie, and take a trick at the cartes.’

‘Troth, ma’am,’ said he, ‘I hav’na a bawbee in my pouch.’

‘Tut, man, ne’er mind that,’ replied the lady; ‘let’s e’en play for a pund o’ candles!’

During his last visit to Edinburgh (1766)—the visit which occasioned Humphry Clinker—Smollett lived in his sister’s house. A person who recollects seeing him there describes him as dressed in black clothes, tall, and extremely handsome, but quite unlike the portraits at the front of his works, all of which are disclaimed by his relations. The unfortunate truth appears to be that the world is in possession of no genuine likeness of Smollett! He was very peevish, on account of the ill-health to which he had been so long a martyr, and used to complain much of a severe ulcerous disorder in his arm.

His wife, according to the same authority, was a Creole, with a dark complexion, though, upon the whole, rather pretty—a fine lady, but a silly woman. Yet she had been the Narcissa of Roderick Random.[241]

In Humphry Clinker, Smollett works up many observations of things and persons which he had made in his recent visit to Scotland. His relative Commissary Smollett, and the family seat near Loch Lomond, receive ample notice. The story in the family is that while Matthew Bramble was undoubtedly himself, he meant in the gay and sprightly Jerry Melford to describe his sister’s son, Major Telfer, and in Liddy to depict his own daughter, who was destined to be the wife of the major, but, to the inexpressible and ineffaceable grief of her father, died before the scheme could be accomplished. Jerry, it will be recollected, ‘got some damage from the bright eyes of the charming Miss R——n, whom he had the honour to dance with at the ball.’ Liddy contracted an intimate friendship with the same person. This young beauty was Eleonora Renton, charming by the true right divine, for she was daughter of Mr Renton of Lamerton, by Lady Susan Montgomery, one of the fair offshoots of the house of Eglintoune, described in a preceding article. A sister of hers was married to Smollett’s eldest nephew, Telfer, who became inheritor of the family estate, and on account of it took the surname of Smollett: a large modern village in Dumbartonshire takes its name from this lady. It seems to have been this connection which brought the charming Eleonora under the novelist’s attention. She afterwards married Charles Sharpe of Hoddam, and became the mother of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, the well-known antiquary. Strange to say, the lady whose bright eyes had flamed upon poor Smollett’s soul in the middle of the last century, was living so lately as 1836.

When Smollett was confined in the King’s Bench Prison for the libel upon Admiral Knowles, he formed an intimacy with the celebrated Tenducci. This melodious singing-bird had recently got his wings clipped by his creditors, and was mewed up in the same cage with the novelist. Smollett’s friendship proceeded to such a height that he paid the vocalist’s debts from his own purse, and procured him his liberty. Tenducci afterwards visited Scotland, and was one night singing in a private circle, when somebody told him that a lady present was a near relation of his benefactor; upon which the grateful Italian prostrated himself before her, kissed her hands, and acted so many fantastic extravagances, after the foreign fashion, that she was put extremely out of countenance.

On the west side of the street, immediately to the south of the Canongate Kilwinning Mason Lodge, there is a neat self-contained house of old fashion, with a flower-plot in front. This was the residence of —— Anderson, merchant in Leith, the father of seven sons, all of whom attained respectable situations in life: one was the late Mr Samuel Anderson of St Germains, banker. They had been at school with Mr Henry Dundas (afterwards Lord Melville); and when he had risen to high office, he called one day on Mr Anderson, and expressed his earnest wish to have the pleasure of dining with his seven school companions, all of whom happened at that time to be at home. The meeting took place at Mr Dundas’s, and it was a happy one, particularly to the host, who, when the hour of parting arrived, filled a bumper in high elation to their healths, and mentioned that they were the only men who had ever dined with him since he became a public servant who had not asked some favour either for themselves or their friends.

The house adjoining to the one last mentioned—having its gable to the street, and a garden to the south—was, about 1780, the residence of the Earl of Wemyss. A Lady Betty Charteris, of this family, occupied the one farthest to the south on that side of the street. She was a person of romantic history, for, being thwarted in an affair of the heart, she lay in bed for twenty-six years, till dismissed to the world where such troubles are unknown.