: Notes on the Art Treasures at Penicuik House Midlothian by Gray John Miller - Penicuik House (Penicuik Scotland); Art Scotland Penicuik

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NOTES ON THE ART TREASURES AT PENICUIK HOUSE MIDLOTHIAN BY JOHN M. GRAY F.S.A. SCOT. CURATOR SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.

FIFTY COPIES FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 1889.

THE ART TREASURES OF SCOTLAND.

There are few Scottish families that, during the last two hundred years, have been more closely connected with the progress of culture in their native country than the Clerks of Penicuik.

Claiming descent from the Drummonds of Hawthornden, through Elizabeth Henderson, grand-daughter of the poet and first wife of the first Baronet of Penicuik, they have produced, both in the main line and in its younger branches, a goodly proportion of men of intellect and mark. At present we need only name Sir John Clerk, the second Baronet, one of the Commissioners for the Union, and a Baron of the Exchequer, a man of varied attainments and the strongest individuality, and known as an enthusiastic antiquary; his son, Sir James, who was the architect of the present mansion of the family; whose brother, Sir George Clerk Maxwell, the fourth Baronet, distinguished himself by his efforts to promote the commercial interests of his country, establishing a linen manufactory at Dumfries, engaging in mining schemes for copper and lead, and writing much upon agricultural and industrial subjects; John Clerk of Eldin, younger brother of the last-named, author of the celebrated "Essay on Naval Tactics," and known as an artist by his series of etchings which preserve in a manner so interesting to the antiquary the aspect of many of the historical edifices of Scotland; his well-known son John Clerk, "the Coryphaeus of the Scottish Bar," afterwards Lord Eldin; and the Right Hon. Sir George Clerk, sixth Baronet, the friend of Sir Robert Peel, one of the prominent politicians of his time, and especially versed in all matters of statistics. William Aikman, the portrait-painter, too, was descended from the house of Penicuik, his mother having been the eldest sister of Sir John Clerk, the first Baronet; and, in our own time, Professor James Clerk Maxwell, whose father was grandson of the fourth Baronet and brother of the sixth, has by his eminence in science added new lustre to his parental name.

But not only have the Clerks been themselves witty--using the word in its best, its old English, sense--they have been the cause of wit in others; by their loyal friendships with the best Scottish painters and poets of their time, and their open-handed patronage of these men's work, they have identified themselves with the history of art and literature in Scotland. One can hardly pronounce the name of Allan Ramsay without thinking of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, or the name of Alexander Runciman, without recalling that of Sir James, his son and successor.

The mansion of the family is situated about a mile and a half from the village of Penicuik, on a commanding situation, overlooking the wooded valley of the Esk, a "classic stream" which, at this point, is still uncontaminated by the chemicals of the paper-makers, whose manufactories begin to appear a little lower, at the village itself. Manifestly great care and the finest taste have been expended by the successive owners of the place in laying out the grounds, which are a triumph of landscape-gardening, so filled are they with pleasant combinations of woodland, lawn, and flowers; and we shall hardly forget their gorgeous aspect on that summer day when we first saw them, with their wealth of purple rhododendron blossoms, and, here and there, a touch of particularly vivid crimson of beech-leaves diversifying the "greenery" of June. Especially noticeable is the skill which has arranged that spaces of shadowed and closely enclosed foliage shall lead, with all the force of sharp and grateful contrast, to amplest breadth of outlook and extended view; and so aptly does the peak of the Black Hill top the belt of trees that bounds the Upper Pond, and with such a perfect sense of definitely calculated balance, of satisfying composition, does the blue outline of Mendick complete the view as we look up the stream from near the south front of the house, that, in a fanciful mood, we could well believe the whole to have been the result of something more than a mere happy chance,--could almost imagine that he who designed the place had been gifted with a wizard's power, greater than that of the Prophet himself, that the mountains had indeed been at his beck and call, that they had come at his bidding, and taken their stations, each in the precise spot best fitted to give to the prospect its last, its crowning perfection.

Nay, Nature herself, even in her moments of wildest storm, seems to have been working in harmony with the designer of the place, and making for its beauty. When you have surveyed the last-named prospect, and turned a little towards the left to follow the depressions of the ground which mark the position of the unseen bed of the Esk, you note the greensward that borders the stream; and this leads the eye beyond to the further bank, where an open space of clearing among the trees diversifies the succession of their rounded tops, this break and point of pause being again repeated further up to the left among the trees that crest the hill. The last opening was the work of the tempest, which, by overturning a trunk or two, disclosed a glimpse of the distant Peeblesshire moor behind, giving just that final touch, that hint of the beyond "over the hills and far away," which perfects the view,--not only to the painter, as completing the lines of its composition, but to the poet as well, by adding that sense of extended outlook, as of a vista piercing into the breadth of the world, which is needful, for finest imaginative effect, in every landscape.

Then, too, there are the Penicuik Gardens to be seen,--the old garden, lying on a sheltered slope to the south, with its glass-houses, the first, or all but the very first, of the kind in Scotland; the extensive modern garden, bounded by brick walls, the soft mellow colouring of which tells so pleasantly through the green of the trees; and especially the "American Garden," with its wealth of many-coloured azaleas springing from the midmost space of softest turf, "a garden inclosed" like the garden of the Canticles, cloistered and protected, like some princess of romance, by thick-set hedges and a circle of sheltering wood, lest any eager and nipping air of our northern clime should visit its cheek too roughly, and blanch the beauty of its ardent face of flowers.

The house, which fronts us as we approach the termination of the drive, is a modern edifice, built by Sir James, the third Baronet, in 1761, after he had returned from a residence in Italy, saturated with classical ideas. It was erected entirely from the Baronet's own designs; but, doubtless, these were produced under the influence of Robert Adam, the celebrated architect, whose sister had been married in 1753 to John Clerk, author of the "Naval Tactics," Sir James's younger brother. Consequently the present house does not possess the interest of having been the meeting-place of Allan Ramsay, who died in 1758, and his friends and patrons of the Clerk family; an association erroneously assigned to the present structure by Dr. Daniel Wilson in his "Reminiscences of Old Edinburgh," a work which contains many curious particulars regarding the Clerks, and especially of the Baron, the second Baronet. The house in which the poet and the antiquary spent together many a genial evening of "honest talk and wholesome wine" no longer exists. It occupied a site close behind the present mansion, on whose completion it was removed. Some of the old cellars remain under the earthen mound to the south, and are still in use. We may sigh a little over the memories and associations of old Penicuik House, over the vanished picturesqueness of its "crowstep" gables and its circular corkscrew turrets, of which a shadow still survives in the sketch by John Clerk, reproduced in the Bannatyne Club issue of his etchings; but doubtless the present mansion is vastly more commodious and in better harmony with modern ideas of comfort than was its predecessor, and it takes its place excellently in the landscape; its effect not greatly marred by the more recent wings added by Bryce in 1857-8; its straight perpendicular and horizontal lines contrasting excellently with the flowing curves of ground and trees, in that fashion which Turner recognised and loved, and emphasised so delightfully in his early drawings of four-square English mansions set amid the rounded forms of wood and hill and stream.

As we turn our eye towards the offices of Penicuik House, which are situated a little to our right, two objects of rather singular aspect arrest our attention. Regarding one of them--a tall, very ecclesiastical-looking steeple garnished with the usual large gilded clock-face, which in the oddest fashion surmounts the stables--a curious bit of tradition lingers in the neighbourhood. It seems that Sir James designed not only his own mansion, but also the parish church of Penicuik. When the plan of the latter, however, was submitted to the heritors or kirk-session, it appears that they would have none of the steeple,--for what reason is not recorded, whether it was that their architectural tastes did not chime in with those of the Baronet, or that they considered it as too decorative a feature to be in accordance with severe Presbyterian principles, or whether, finally, the expense was too great for their pockets. Declined, at any rate, the steeple was, so local tradition affirms. But Sir James was by no means willing that the structure which his brain had devised should only be dimly visible upon paper, and never take substantial embodiment in stone and lime; so he reared it, at his own proper cost, in his stable-yard, where it still forms so imposing and unusual a feature.

"SIR,--Upon considering the manner of your House of Pennicueik, where I had the pleasure of beeing some days in November last, and admiring the Architecture of it, after 40 years ponderating in my mind a Precept of Cicero's,

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