Notes on the Art Treasures at Penicuik House Midlothian — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Notes on the Art Treasures at Penicuik House Midlothian
John Stuart Mill · en
The next portrait by Raeburn represents John Clerk of Eldin, the
seventh son of Baron Clerk, second Baronet of Penicuik, and author of
the celebrated “Enquiry into Naval Tactics.” He was educated at the
Grammar School of Dalkeith and the University of Edinburgh, and in
that city he engaged in business as a merchant till about 1772, when
he purchased the property of Eldin, in the parish of Lasswade, and
obtained a post in connection with the Exchequer, the secretaryship to
the Commissioners on the Annexed Estates in Scotland. He was a man of a
vigorous and active mind, and seems to have possessed equal aptitudes
for art and science. Some of his sketches are dated as early as 1758,
but it was in 1770 that he began to etch upon copper, and in the next
twelve years he produced a series of over a hundred plates. These are
founded upon a careful study of the old Dutch masters of the art. In
their topographical aspect they are of great interest as portraying
many ancient buildings which have since been removed or altered; and as
examples of etching, in spite of certain amateurish defects, they form
a curious connecting-link between the period of Rembrandt and the early
days of our own century, when the process was taken up and carried to
such fine artistic issues by two other Scotsmen, Geddes and Wilkie. A
large collection of Mr. Clerk’s etchings and drawings is preserved in
the Library at Penicuik. A series of the former, tinted by Robert Adam,
the celebrated architect, whose sister, Susannah, Mr. Clerk had married
in 1753, was presented to George III. in 1786, at the suggestion of
the Earl of Buchan. Twenty-eight of them were issued to members of the
Bannatyne Club in 1825, and other of the coppers having been recovered,
a series of fifty-five etchings and reproductions of sketches were
issued to the same Club in 1855 with an admirable memoir by David Laing.
In his scientific pursuits Clerk was the intimate associate of Dr.
James Hutton, whose geological papers his pencil was ever ready to
illustrate, and it is believed that the Professor’s “Theory of the
Earth” owed something to his friend’s suggestions. The first part of
Clerk’s celebrated “Enquiry into Naval Tactics” was published in 1782,
and the second, third, and fourth parts were added in 1797. Though a
work of great interest and value, the assertion that it was the means
of Rodney’s adopting that mode of breaking the enemy’s line which led
to the celebrated victory off Dominique on 12th April 1782, seems to be
one incapable of absolute proof. We have a pleasant characterisation
of him, _à propos_ of his death, May 1812, in Lord Cockburn’s
“Memorials”:—