CHAPTER III. EDINBURGH PERIOD AT THE BAR: 1811-1820. ABANDONS MEDICINE FOR THE LAW-VISITS TO OXFORD-ILLNESS AND FACULTY. HAVING now completed his course at Oxford, it was necessary that Mr Hamilton should determine finally on his profession in life. He had hitherto, both at Edinburgh and Oxford, pursued the study of medicine with the view of entering that profession. His prospects of success, moreover, in this line were excellent. Dr Baillie, the eminent London physician, who had been a friend of his father's, and on terms of intimacy with many of his other relations, had promised to start him in the metropolis. He had now, however, to some extent changed his mind on the subject of his profession, and the following letter to his mother shows that his thoughts were turned in the direction of the Scottish Bar. At the time when it was written he was living in London, at Elm Cottage, Brompton, with his friend Alexander Scott: MY DEAR MOTHER, may Wednesday, 20th [Dec. 1811]. I have taken lodgings at Brompton in the same house with Scott. His father is in town at present, and I have had some conversation with him on my views of being an advocate. When I first told him of my thoughts of changing my profession, he said he was very glad to hear it, and advised me strongly to go to the Scotch law. I can pass advocate in a year's time from this, and if I say two years it is nothing to the length of time necessary for medicine. He says that for the first few years I make a hundred or two, and that I am fully too young. I have, however, determined nothing. If I determine on this plan, I shall come down to Scotland in a month or two, and pass my civil law trials. There is no occasion of studying civil law there. I wish you would write me what appears to you. It is evident that I can never expect to make a large fortune by the law, but it is a more sure subsistence, and sooner than physic. I have also great advantages by having been at Oxford; for when I take my Doctor of Laws degree, I could practise in the English Admiralty, Ecclesiastic, and Chancery Courts, and the same knowledge of civil law stands in both the Scotch Court and there. Write me soon. All our friends are well here. I shall write you very soon again, and remain ever your affectionate son, W. H. His time from this date up to March 1812 was spent chiefly with Mr Scott at Brompton. He went occasionally for a short period to Oxford, a certain amount of residence there being necessary to entitle him to retain the Snell exhibition, and to enable him to take the Master of Arts degree, which he did in April 1814. His appearance at Oxford was always most welcome to his old friends, and the occasion. of more than usual social hilarity. "The time when he paid. his annual visit to Oxford," says one of his friends of that period, "was always a most agreeable one,-walking expe ditions to Godstow and the Isis were our great source of enjoyment, the leading purpose being to dine in a village inn, on spitchcooked eels, with the appendages of ham, eggs, potatoes. The usual party were Hamilton, Lockhart, Williams, Traill, myself, and an odd character called Jack Ireland, a Scotchman who had been an apothecary in Oxford, and had retired from business with a handsome competency. On arriving at Godstow, the first step was always to see the eels taken alive out of the boxes with holes, in which they were kept in the river. After that, till all was ready, we usually had a match at leaping, standing, and running, and at vaulting over gates. Hamilton was the best at almost all these trials. After our repast, we indulged in pipes, with excellent shag tobacco, and capital village ale. Jack Ireland exhibited the exploit of inhaling the tobacco-smoke by the mouth and expelling it by the ear. Another great amusement was bathing-parties, the favourite spot being an angle of the river Charwell. Hamilton and Lock hart were excellent swimmers." * Both at Oxford, and after he settled in Edinburgh, his swimming powers were famous. "We used sometimes," says his friend Mr George Moir, speaking of him between 1820 and 1830, "in the evening to go down to Granton to bathe in the Firth of Forth, and on the first occasion I was amazed and somewhat alarmed to see him stretching out to sea to the distance of about a quarter of a mile." In a letter to his mother in March 1812, he mentions being detained in London by the illness of his friend Mr Scott. Mr Scott's health was at no time robust, and this illness speedily took the form of an attack of consumption, which proved fatal in the autumn of the same year. Scott and Hamilton first knew each other at Balliol. Scott was Hamilton's junior by only one year. had sprung up an affection as of brothers. Between them there During the latter *MS. Reminiscences of Eminent Persons, by the late Arthur Connell, Esq. Advocate, Professor of Chemistry, St Andrews. 食 period of Hamilton's course at Oxford, he and his friend were the closest companions, apparently living together whenever they had an opportunity. In general temperament and character the two youths were in many respects unlike. They appear, however, to have found in each other those complementary qualities, which often form the basis of an intense and enduring attachment. It would seem that Scott's gentle and refined nature found rest and support in the stronger and more ardent character of his friend; while Hamilton's tenderness-for this he had not less than strength-and his sympathy with a true and pure nature, bound him not less closely to Scott. There can be no doubt that each exercised a powerful influence on the life of the other. Mr Scott's lingering illness served but to make his character appear in greater force and lustre. The chastened spirit that had lived on earth so loving and beloved, passed away in the possession of a hope and peace which had sprung out of trial, and grown to strength amid bodily sufferings. Hamilton grieved for the loss of his friend with a long and bitter grief. The interest with which he dwelt on every incident of his last days, led him to copy with his own hand the greater part of a journal which Mrs Robertson Scott had kept of her son's illness. Many years afterwards Hamilton named a son, who died in infancy, after his early friend. The following letter refers to a matter of much interest to him at this time-his connection by birth with the family of Preston. Upon his cousin's death in 1799 he had become the head of the Airdrie family, and thus the traditional claim to the Preston baronetcy now rested with him. Though the family belief in its validity was strong, the claim had been suffered to lie in abeyance for a hundred years; and so, before it could be established, it was necessary to present an array of legal evidence on all the points involved. This it was now difficult to do from lapse of time. The degree of uncertainty, however, and the need for exertion to establish the alleged right, only made it an object of greater inter E est to Mr Hamilton. The task, too, was in itself congenial to his tastes, and he was resolved that it should be undertaken and carried through by himself. Of inquiries in this direction we have hints in the correspondence with his mother during his undergraduate life at Oxford. The following tells of further progress made:— ELM COTTAGE, 7th Jany. 1812. MY DEAR MOTHER,—I am wearying to hear from you. Why do not you write me oftener? I shall be in Oxford about a fortnight or three weeks from this, and in a month after I shall be on my way down. I have little if any news to tell you. All our friends are well here, and I am still going on only in the common order of business, without anything of novelty to say. I have lately got a book called 'Faithful Contendings,' which will, if anything, prove that Robert Hamilton succeeded his brother in the baronetcy. It contains the journal of the proceedings of the United Societies of Presbyterians after the defeat at Bothwell. It consists of letters written by them to their commissioners in Holland, &c. Robert Hamilton was one, his brother-in-law Earlston the other. The book is written by Shields, who was the secretary of these societies, and who lived after the Revolution for many years. Herein before the end of the year 1688 he is called only Mr Hamilton, but at the end of that year, in which his brother died, he is always spoken of as Sir Robert. There are a number of original letters of Sir Robert in the volume, and some private anecdotes of his sisters. That he could not have been created a knight is too evident to require proof;-and that a contemporary in intimate habits of acquaintance with him should always call him Sir Robert without his being entitled to it, is absurd to suppose. It therefore remains that he succeeded to his brother. His brother is never mentioned through the whole book, though they must have been in Holland together. I rather think they had quarrelled, for Sir Robert is as bigoted an idiot as could well be,-in fact, he is a frantic fanatic, and the style in which his letters are written shows that he would live in no habits of intimacy unless with one no less furious than himself. King Charles thought him an object suffici * Faithful Contendings displayed, collected, and kept in record by Mr Michael Shields, &c. Collected and transcribed by John Howie. Glasgow, 1780. |