Volume 2 > Half-Volume 4

415
K.
KAMES, LORD.   See HOME (HENRY).
KAY, JOHN, long well known in Edinburgh as
a miniature-painter and caricaturist, and almost the
only artist of the latter kind produced in Scotland,
was born in April, 1742, at a place called Gibraltar,
near Dalkeith. His father and an uncle named
Norman were both stone-masons, and he was him-
self destined to follow the same profession. Having
lost his father, however, in his eighth year, this
scheme was given up, and he was placed with some
relations of his mother in Leith, who, it appears,
treated the poor orphan boy with great cruelty�
almost to the hazard of his life. He also was oftener
than once, while in this situation, in danger of drown-
ing in Leith harbour.
At the age of thirteen he was placed by his mother
with a barber in Dalkeith, whom he served for six
years; he then set up in Edinburgh, having first paid
about �40 to the society of surgeon-barbers for the
freedom of the corporation, and soon after married
a young woman, by whom he had eleven children,
all of whom long predeceased himself. The trade
of a barber was then more lucrative, and consequently
more dignified, than latterly. Kay had good employ-
ment in dressing the wigs and trimming the heads
of a certain number of gentlemen every morning, all
of whom paid him a certain annual sum (generally
about four guineas) for his trouble. Among his
customers was a fine specimen of the old Jacobite
country gentleman, Mr. Nisbet of Dirleton, who took
a fancy for him, and frequently invited him to the
country, to the great injury of his business. Kay
had, even in his boyhood when residing in Leith,
manifested a turn for sketching familiar objects, such
as horses, dogs, ships, &c., using chalk or coal, and
tracing his delineations on such pieces of dead wall
as presented a large enough ground. Now and then
in later life he made some attempts in miniatures
and pencil sketches. It may easily be conceived
that, finding himself possessed of this talent, and
encouraged by a man of rank in developing it, he
felt some difficulty in restraining himself to the
humble career which destiny seemed to have marked
out for him. At Mr. Nisbet's country-seat he for
the first time found proper opportunities and proper
materials for his favourite study; while any com-
punctious visitings he might feel as to the danger to
which he thus exposed the permanent livelihood of
himself and family, were laid to rest by the kindness
of his patron, who, in the meantime, sent money to
support his domestic establishment in Edinburgh,
and promised speedily to obtain for him some per-
manent provision which should render him inde-
pendent of business. Unfortunately, in 1782, Mr.
Nisbet died, without having executed his kind inten-
tion; and Mr. Kay was left in somewhat awkward
circumstances, having, as it were, fallen to the ground
between certainty and hope. The heir, however, so
far repaired the omission of his predecessor as to
settle an annuity of �20 upon Kay for life.
He now began effectually to follow out his bent
for limning and etching, and, after a few trials, aban-
doned his trade as a barber. In 1784 he published
his first caricature, which represented a half-crazed
Jacobite gentleman, named Laird Robertson, who
was wont to amuse the citizens of Edinburgh by cut-
ting caricatured resemblances of public characters,
which he fixed on the head of his stick, and whose
figure was perfectly known to all the inhabitants.
The portrait accordingly excited some attention, and
the author was induced to attempt others. The style
assumed by Mr. Kay was the stippled or dotted style,
and nothing could equal the felicity of the likeness.
From that time forward, till he was about eighty
years of age, this untutored son of genius pursued
his vocation, taking off, one after another, the whole
of the public and eccentric persons who appeared in
the Scottish capital, and occasionally caricaturing
any jocular incident that happened to attract atten-
tion. To speak of his portraits as caricatures is
doing them signal injustice. They were the most
exact and faithful likenesses that could have been
represented by any mode of art. He drew the man
as he walked the street every day: his gait, his cos-
tume, every peculiarity of his appearance, done to a
point, and no defect perceptible except the stiffness
of the figures. Indeed, he may be said to have
rather resembled one of the prosopographuses or
apographs of modern times, than a living artist
trusting to his eye and hand. Hence, nothing can
be more valuable in the way of engraved portraits
than his representations of the distinguished men
who adorned Edinburgh in the latter part of the
eighteenth century�the Blairs, the Smiths, and the
Robertsons. It was only in certain instances that
his productions could be considered as caricatures,
namely, in those combinations by which he meant
to burlesque any ridiculous public transaction : and
even here his likenesses displayed all his usual cor-
rectness. During a considerable part of his career
Mr. Kay was a professed miniature painter, and
executed some specimens which, for delicacy and
finish, would surprise such individuals as have only
been accustomed to inspect his published etchings.
It is said that his only fault in this capacity was a
rigid and unbending adherence to likeness�a total
want of the courtly system practised in so eminent a
degree by Lawrence and other fashionable painters.
Once, it is related, he was "trysted" with an exceed-
ingly ill-looking man, much pimpled, who, to add
to the distresses of the artist, came accompanied by
a fair nymph to whom he was about to be married.
Honest Kay did all he could in favour of this gen-
tleman, so far as omitting the ravages of bacchan-
alianism would go; but still he could not satisfy his
customer, who earnestly appealed to his inamorata
as to the injustice which he conceived to be done to
him, and the necessity of improving the likeness, for
so he termed the flattery which he conceived to be
necessary. Quite tired at length with this literally
ugly customer, and greatly incensed, the miniaturist
exclaimed, with an execration, that he would "paint
every plook in the puppy's face : would that please
him!" It is needless to remark that in this, as in
other instances, Mr. Kay lost by his unbending accu-
racy of delineation.
During almost the whole of his career as an artist
Mr. Kay had a small print-shop in the Parliament
Square, the window of which was usually stuck full
of his productions. He etched in all nearly nine
hundred plates, forming a complete record of the
public characters, of every grade and kind, includ-
ing many distinguished strangers, who made a figure
in Edinburgh for nearly half a century. It may be
safely affirmed that no city in the empire can boast