Dundee celebrities of the nineteenth century : being a series of biographies of distinguished or noted persons connected by birth, residence, official appointment, or otherwise, with the town of Dundee and who have died during the present century / compiled by W. Norrie.
- Norrie, W.
- Date:
- 1873
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Dundee celebrities of the nineteenth century : being a series of biographies of distinguished or noted persons connected by birth, residence, official appointment, or otherwise, with the town of Dundee and who have died during the present century / compiled by W. Norrie. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
91/416 (page 87)
![lower; my flesh, was held less and less firmly; in short, in the language of the prices current, it was expected that I must ‘ submit to a decline. ’ The doctors who were called in declared imperatively that a mercantile life would be the death of me—that, by so much sitting, I was hatching a whole brood of complaints, and that no physician would insure me as a merchantman from the port of London to the next spring. Hood’s father seems to have preserved a kindly remembrance of his native place, and of his relatives there; and to recruit his son’s critical health, he sent him to Dundee. ‘ Accordingly/ says the prince of humorists, ‘ I was soon shipped, as per advice, in a Scotch smack, which “ smacked through the breeze,” as Dibdin sings, so merrily, that, on the fourth morning, we were in sight of the prominent Old Steeple of “ Bonnie Dundee.” ’ He does not give the date of this early visit to our shores, but there is reason to believe that it was towards the end of 1814; and the writer knows a retired merchant, now (1872) in advanced life, who was then serving his apprenticeship, and who remembers him, with his peculiar ways, and quaint artistic fancies, quite well. Hood's own reminiscences of Dundee, and his sojourn here, extending over nearly two years, were most pleasant, vivid, and gratefuL After some trouble, he found lodgings in the house of an old lady —£ a sort of widow, with a seafaring husband, “ as good as dead.” ’ The first day of his term, he adds, happened to be also the first day of the New Year ; and on leaving his bed-room, he encountered the hostess, ‘ like a witch, and her familiar spirit, with a huge bottle of whisky in one hand, and a glass in the other/ As has been said, Hood spent nearly two years in Dundee, where, in walking, fishing, boating at the Craig Pier—(he tells us he was fond of the sea all his life)—and other exercises, his health became quite re-established for the time. Indeed, one of the most remarkable passages in his Reminiscences is that in which he pays a tribute to the amazing healthiness of the climate. ‘ The air evidently agreed with the natives; and Auld Robin Grays and John Andersons were plentiful as blackberries, and even Auld Lang Syne himself seemed to walk about amongst them.’ He then mentions meeting venerable uncles, aunts, and cousins; ‘ and finally,’ he adds, ‘ I enjoyed an interview with a relation oftener heard of traditionally than encountered in the body—a great-great- grandmother.’ [We cannot question Hood’s veracity, but think his memory must surely be at fault here; for, considering that he him- self was then nearly 17, his great-great-grandmother, if alive, could scarcely have been less than 100 years old.] Still dwelling on the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28146128_0091.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
