HKB
"The Poker Club." I have seen my father's diploma of membership; it was tastefully drawn on parchment, with the poker duly emblazoned on it as the regalia of the club.
In my own time, the club that he was most connected with was the Dilettanti Club. Its meetings were held every fortnight, on Thursday evenings, in a commodious tavern in the High Street. The members were chiefly artists, or men known for their love of art. Among then were Henry Raeburn, Hugh Williams (the Grecian), Andrew Geddes, William Thomson, John Shetkay, William Nicholson, William Allan, Alexander Nasmyth, the Rev. John Thomson of Duddingston, George Thomson, Sir Walter Scott, John Lockhart, Dr. Brewster, David Wilkie, Henry Cockburn, Francis Jeffrey, John A. Murray, Professor Wilson, John Ballantyne, James Ballantyne, James Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd), and David Bridges, the secretary.* [footnote... Davie Bridges was a character. In my early days he was a cloth merchant in the High Street. His shop was very near that gigantic lounge, the old Parliament House, and was often resorted to by non-business visitors. Bridges had a good taste for pictures. He had a small but choice collection by the Old Masters, which he kept arranged in the warehouse under his shop. He took great pride in exhibiting them to his visitors, and expatiating upon their excellence. I remember being present in his warehouse with my father when a very beautiful small picture by Richard Wilson was under review. Davie burst out emphatically with, "Eh, man, did ye ever see such glorious buttery touches as on these clouds!" His joking friends clubbed him "Director-General of the Fine Arts for Scotland," a title which he complacently accepted. Besides showing off his pictures, Davie was an art critic, and wrote articles for the newspapers and magazines. Unfortunately, however, his attention to pictures prevented him from attending to his shop, and his customers (who were not artists) forsook him, and bought their clothes elsewhere. He accordingly shut up his shop, and devoted himself to art criticism, in which, for a time, he possessed a monopoly. ...]
The drinks were restricted to Edinburgh ale and whisky toddy.
An admirable picture of the club in full meeting was painted by William Allan, in which characteristic portraits of all the leading members were introduced in full social converse. Among the more prominent portraits is one of my father, who is represented as illustrating some subject he is describing, by drawing it on the part of the table before him, with his finger dipped in toddy. Other marked and well-known characteristics of the members are skilfully introduced in the picture. The artist afterwards sold it to Mr. Horrocks of Preston, in Lancashire.
Besides portrait painting, my father was much employed in assisting the noblemen and landed gentry of Scotland in improving the landscape appearance of their estates, especially when seen from their mansion windows. His fine taste, and his love of natural scenery, gave him great advantages in this respect. He selected the finest sites for the new mansions, when they were erected in lieu of the old towers and crenellated castles. Or, he designed alterations of the old buildings so as to preserve their romantic features, and at the same time to fit them for the requirements of modern domestic life.