Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 442

Edinburgh Journal, No. 442, by
Various

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 Volume 17, New Series,
June 19, 1852
Author: Various
Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers
Release Date: March 10, 2007 [EBook #20792]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS,
EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,'
'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
No. 442. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2d.

THE OLD HOUSE IN CRANE COURT.
The roaring pell-mell of the principal thoroughfares of London is
curiously contrasted with the calm seclusion which is often found at no
great distance in certain lanes, courts, and passages, and the effect is
not a little heightened when in these by-places we light upon some old
building speaking of antique institutions or bygone habits of society.
We lately had this idea brought strikingly before us on plunging
abruptly out of Fleet Street into Crane Court, in search of the
establishment known as the Scottish Hospital. We were all at once
transferred into a quiet narrow street, as it might be called, full of
printing and lithographic offices, tall, dark, and rusty, while closing up
the further end stood a dingy building of narrow front, presenting an
ornamental porch. A few minutes served to introduce us to a
moderate-sized hall, having a long table in the centre, and an arm-chair
at the upper end, while several old portraits graced the walls. It was not
without a mental elevation of feeling, as well as some surprise, that we
learned that this was a hall in which Newton had spent many an
evening. It was, to be quite explicit, the meeting-place of the Royal
Society from 1710 till 1782, and, consequently, during not much less
than twenty years of the latter life of the illustrious author of the
Principia, who, as an office-bearer in the institution, must have often
taken an eminent place here. We were not, however, immediately in
quest of the antiquities of the Royal Society. Our object was to form
some acquaintance with the valuable institution which has succeeded to
it in the possession of this house.
We must advert to a peculiarity of our Scottish countrymen, which can
be set down only on the credit side of their character--their sympathy
with each other when they meet as wanderers in foreign countries.

Scotland is just a small enough country to cause a certain unity of
feeling amongst the people. Wherever they are, they feel that Scotsmen
should stand, as their proverb has it, shoulder to shoulder. The more
distant the clime in which they meet, they remember with the more
intensity their common land of mountain and flood, their historical and
poetical associations, the various national institutions which ages have
endeared to them; and the more disposed are they to take an interest in
each other's welfare. This is a feeling in which time and modern
innovations work no change, and it is one of old-standing.
When James VI. acceded to the throne of Elizabeth, he was followed
southward by some of his favourite nobles, and there was of course an
end put to that exclusive system of the late monarch which had kept
down the number of Scotsmen in London, to what must now appear the
astonishingly small one of fifty-eight. Perhaps some exaggerations
have been indulged in with regard to the host of traders and craftsmen
who went southward in the train of King James, but there can be no
doubt, that it was considerable in point of numbers. But where wealth is
sought for, there also, by an inevitable law of nature, is poverty. The
better class of Scotchmen settled in London, soon found their feelings
of compassion excited in behalf of a set of miserable
fellow-countrymen who had failed to obtain employment or fix
themselves in a mercantile position, and for whom the stated charities
of the country were not available. Hence seems to have arisen, so early
as 1613, the necessity for some system of mutual charity among the
natives of Scotland in London. So far as can be ascertained, it was a
handful of journeymen or hired artisans, who in that year associated to
aid each other, and prevent themselves from becoming burdensome to
strangers--an interesting fact, as evincing in a remote period the
predominance of that