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
Turning, however, to the house itself, we may remark, as we enter, that
the ornaments of the front—the stone vases that break the sky-line,
and the graceful “Chippendale” shield of arms, furnished with the
decorative, not heraldic, adjunct of wings—were designed by John
Clerk of Eldin, author of the “Naval Tactics,” a cadet of the family.
Also that the _grisaille_ painting on the lower side of the roof of
the raised portico was executed—so James Jackson’s “Account of the
Parish of Penicuik” informs us—by Alexander Runciman, when he was
an apprentice with John Norie, the well-known decorative painter and
landscapist of Edinburgh, and that it was the ability displayed in
this work that induced Sir James to assist in sending the youth for
four or five years to Rome, whence he returned to execute the mural
paintings of the St. Margaret Staircase and the Ossian Hall of Penicuik
House. The motto, from Cicero’s _De Officiis_ with which the portal is
inscribed, was chosen by the Earl of Perth, grandson of John Drummond,
the attainted Earl of Melfort, a close friend of Sir James’s; and a
letter regarding it may be transcribed, as a quaint example of the
stately epistles of our ancestors.
“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
(_sic_) in my mind a Precept of Cicero’s,
_Non Domo Dominus, sed Domino Domus honestanda est,_
found for the first time that it was obtemperate, and should
wish for leave to inscribe it on Pennicueik House as the real
sentiment of
Your most obedient
Servant and Cousin
PERTH.
“_LUNDIN HOUSE, Ap. 22, 1771._”
III.
In the Entrance Hall various antiquarian and artistic treasures
decorate the walls or are preserved in glass cases,—the colours of
the local volunteer regiment that was raised at the time of the French
Invasion scare, full-sized marble copies of various antique statues,
excellent old china, several fine missals, the fan and necklace of
Mary Queen of Scots, said to have come into the Clerk family from Mary
Gray, wife of the first John Clerk of Penicuik, through her mother,
Mary Gillies, to whom it was given before the execution at Fotheringay,
and the gold snuff-box presented by the Scottish Widows’ Fund to Lord
Eldin, in 1825, in recognition of his services at the time of the
foundation of the company.
IV.