A Dandy in the Highlands

• Posted by mgr on April 19th, 2008 filed in Zeitdokumente
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I CANNOT better exemplify the truth of the above lines, or more pointedly prove that what is a pillow of thorns to one is a bed of roses to another, than by copying literally a letter of a young relation, a very great Exquisite, from the Highlands, where I had myself received so much pleasure;- — where the beauties of Nature enchanted my eyes, and the warmest hospitality still has a claim upon my heart — where I met with so much unaffected and genuine kindness, that the land of blue hether will ever be dear to me, and the children of the mountains will always have an additional title to my sympathy and regard. But I must come to my Exquisite’s letter.

” DEAR UNCLE, ”

You advised me to make a tour to the lakes, and be hanged to them. I wish that I never had gone there. I had, further, the folly, (in imitation of your noble example) to visit the Hebrides, where I am half-starved, and where I have met with such a catalogue of miseries as scarcely ever befel human being. I am embargoed by the rain, poisoned with vile cookery, and disgusted with coarse habits; can’t get so much as a little chicken hazard to amuse me, nor a pretty milliner to kill time with — roads where no curricle or tilbury can pass, and my horses as lame as the devil. How I miss Long’s and the Clarendon, the Countess in the Rules, and the little figurante ! There is not such a thing as an intrigue in these desolate regions. Ice is unknown but on the tops of their cursed mountains! Not a pine-apple for love or money ! No theatre ! no waltzing! the girls don’t understand soft nonsense ! and no one knows how to make Regent punch.

” The names of the places strangle you to pronounce them ! the female wretches of servants go bare-legged! Half the sans-culottes men don’t speak English; and those who do are unintelligible ! Besides, all my clothes are torn, spoiled, and played the devil with; and I laughed at wherever I go. These fellows are three centuries behind us in the St. James’ and Bond Street cut; and don’t know what a dandy is ! My servant is drunk from morning till night; and I am dying of ennui. A pretty name of a place I am going to to-morrow! — Acha de Shenoch, and Ach na Craig! Breakneck Place would be better.

“But to proceed with my misfortunes. It rained so on my road, in my tilbury from Glasgow to Loch Lomond, that I could not see it; and I got so drunk at Mr. Mac ’s house, that I saw double at the other lakes, and had such a head-ache that objects, whether by land or water, swam equally before my eyes. Besides, I was so much out of humour with all the world, that I swore that every thing was frightful. I embarked in a beastly cockboat from Oban; and was almost drowned by the way. In addition to losing my pearl ring, betwixt the landing-place and your friend’s house, I lamed one of my horses, in their perilous and almost inaccessible tracks, which they call roads, and was laughed at by a bare-bottomed scoundrel, and called a molly and a doll to boot. I lost my hat with the high wind; and have been forced to wear my travelling-cap ever since. I dare say my hat will be picked up and preserved as a curiosity; for there is not another made by Bicknell in the whole place.

“I was so wet on arriving, that I called for either Curacoa, Marasquina, or Noyeau. Not a drop to
be had ! But my host almost choked me with a confounded liquid which he called Hottentosh, (Fairentosh,) and which is a compound of fire and smoke — fire, as to its infernal heat and strength; smoke, as to its offensive smell.

“I had scarcely recovered from the agonies of this drug, when dinner was announced. Dinner at four o’clock!!! how barbarous! just about a man of fashion’s breakfast time ! Then we had no delicious soup, no iced wines, no made dishes, nothing but the coarsest and most vulgar fare. I sat behind a huge mountain of beef, which made me imperceptible to the other side of the table! There was a ham too, from which fids were cut as thick as a schoolboy’s bread and butter, instead of being as thin as a wafer! Two pair of fowls! monstrous! I thought to have fared better with what they called venison; but I had nearly lost a couple of teeth in the attempt, the vile animal being as tough as a dead donkey, though they said it was a wild roe (I wish Richard Roe was choked with him) which our host shot with his rifle a few days before. Then the lady of the house proposed ale to me with my cheese! and there was no other wine but vulgar blackstrap and madeira, with a solitary bottle of bad claret, out of compliment to me. Indeed no claret but Lalitte’s is worth a man’s drinking.

“After dinner the barbarians drank toasts! whilst some of the young folks went into an adjacent room, and danced reels like mad people. I proposed a round at Faro, or even at quinze, but the cautious Scotchmen would not touch a card. One fellow sung a song in Gaelic, which was as odious as incomprehensible to me, and they forced me to continue hard drinking until midnight. The next day they brought an amazing turn-out of broiled fish and honey, and marmalade and eggs, with tea and coffee, for breakfast; but the vulgarity of the scene, the rude health of the ladies, and the more rustic unpolished appetites of the men, quite sickened me. Some of the party swallowed bumpers of the liquid tire after breakfast. I took one cup of tea, with some brandy in it, and eat about a quarter of an inch of their dry toast, which smelt of turf smoke.

“I endeavoured to ascend some rugged mountains after breakfast, in order to shoot grouse; but my stay-lace gave way, my morocco boots burst, and my dowlas trowsers got wet through. I returned faint and almost breathless, when my over-kind indelicate host had the impudence to propose a glass of this essence of smoke as a restorative, and to put me into petticoats until my trowsers were dried, holding out to me a tartan worsted scrubbing kelt of his grandfather’s, which he told me, by way of recommendation, had been in four battles. On the third day, we risked our lives in a crazy, rickety boat, and were half drowned in attempting to see Iona, and Staffa — two trumpery islands: the one a ci-devant royal burial-ground, the other not worth of observation. A pretty notion, to bring a man to see ruins and tombs ! as if one could not get agreeable ruin enough in London, or would go to see tombs whilst any livelier amusement was to be found in the world.

” The bread fell short one day; and my horses and myself were both fed on oats. Moreover, I have had a fall in one of their ragged roads, and have torn my tunic; so that I should be obliged to wear an evening frock (could I go out) which would be like a cit or a tradesman. The beast of a washerwoman, too, has spoiled half a dozen of my cravats. She does not know how to starch them; and has torn off the strings that tied them behind. The moment that the weather clears up, I shall quit this prison, where I am the laughing-stock of the profanum vulgus ; but I heartily regret ever having left Bond Street, or having turned my face towards the Highlands, and particularly her savage isles, where I have not seen a tree in a week.

” P. S. Might I trouble you to tell my man to get a new Cumberland corset ? I am as lean as my greyhound. None of my clothes will fit me; and had I not lived upon moor-fowl, madeira, and biscuit, I should have been famished.”

Thus ended this Exquisite’s epistle. I doubt not but that he was the laughing-stock of the island, as he must have exhibited a striking contrast to the robust inhabitants. However, when I visited these
parts I came away lustier than I went; and had only to complain of too much hospitality shewn to

THE HERMIT IN LONDON.

From: M’Donogh, Felix: The Hermit in London, or Sketches of English Manners. New York: Evert Duyckinck, 1820: 261-265.

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