Lumisden, Andrew
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- Lumisden, Andrew
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(1720 - 1801), o. s. of William Lumisden of Edinburgh; trained as an advocate; sec. to Young Pretender, Edinburgh 1745; attainted and escaped to France 1746; Paris 1769 - ; returned to Scotland 1773; pardoned 1778.
1749 - 69 Rome ( - 10 Apr. 1769)
Following his escape abroad after the 1745 rebellion, Lumisden lived precariously in Rouen. In the summer of 1749 he received, as a Jacobite exile, a modest (and irregular) French pension and then in August John Daniel took him to Rome, where they had arrived by the end of the year.1 By 1751 he had become assistant to James Edgar, the Pretender's secretary. His letter books (Lumisden letters MSS), written in 'a precise style and beautiful penmanship', deal principally with the grievances of impoverished Jacobites. He had much time for other things and turned to the study of antiquity. In 1750 he visited Herculaneum, and in 1752 he was reading Rymer's Foedera: 'I now converse more with the illustrious dead than with the trifling living', he wrote in 1753 (1:155).
He described 'the disagreeable, uncertain way in which things are here' (9 Sep. 1755; 1:163) and the gradual recession of Jacobite hopes did nothing to improve his morale. In 1758 he was sent to Paris on a secret mission, leaving Rome on 8 October and returning the following May. Edgar died early in 1764 and Lumisden was promoted in his place and given his apartment. After the death of the Pretender in January 1766, Lumisden was kept fully occupied by his son. 'Almost from break of day to midnight, I am employed about the King. Besides serving him as his secretary, I am obliged to attend him as a gentleman of the bed-chamber when he goes abroad, both morning and evening; and after dinner and supper I retire with him into his closet ... I have lived for many years in a sort of bondage; but I may name these past months a mere slavery' (2:107). There was little money, the life was aimless and the Pope refused to recognise the Young Pretender's titles. On 14 December 1768 Lumisden was dismissed, along with John Hay of Restalrig and Captain Adam Urquhart, apparently as the consequence of the Young Pretender's intemperance. He left Rome with Urquhart on 10 April 1769.
Throughout his time in Rome Lumisden had been helpful to visitors. Although some travellers were wary of him as a Jacobite (as Allan Ramsay in 1755), Jonathan Skelton found him 'Universally learned, extremely communicative, possessed with a vast good Nature and good Sense', and Boswell, consulting him over the choice of an historical subject for a painting, thought him 'genteel' and the soul of tact.2 Many young Scottish artists found an introduction to Lumisden of the greatest service (Chalmers, Cosmo Alexander, Katherine Read and Anne Forbes, for example). Chalmers left an unfinished portrait of him and Gavin Hamilton once invited him to his studio especially to see his Lucretia, which Lumisden thought the best picture he had painted.3 Lumisden knew Piranesi (and tried to establish a relationship between him and his brother-in-law Robert Strange) and he had known Mengs well from the time the painter arrived in Rome in 1752; between 1752 and 1761 he recommended six Scottish pupils to him (James Byres, Edward Cunningham, Colin Morison, James Nevay, George Willison and Campbell).4 Lumisden's considerable knowledge of Rome was eventually published in 1797 as Remarks on the Antiquities of Rome and its Environs. By that time Lumisden had been able to return to Scotland, 'a lively, laughing old gentleman, with polish'd manners and stiff curls'.5
1. See Dennistoun, 1:70 - 228; 2:74 - 126 (refs. given in brackets). 2. Skelton 1960, 40. Boswell, Italy, 64n2. 3. Aug. 1767; B. Skinner, Burl.Mag., 103[1961]:146. 4. Notes by B. Skinner. 5. W. Stirling-Maxwell, Works, 6:105.