Montpelier, Thursday.

My dear Friend--I did not like to intrude on you in the very freshness of your home sorrow. But you know how much I loved and respected your brother, and how truly and heartily I sympathise with you. There were few in Edinburgh so much beloved as Sir William, and it will be long indeed ere the memory of his goodness shall pass away. Such men in the quiet, private, and unassuming walk, are often much more missed and more extensively lamented than men who have been more in the eye of the public, and during their life have had much of public observation and favour. It is trying for us who are far on in the pilgrimage to see one and another of our brothers and sisters pass away before us. I have seen ten go before me, and am the only one left; and yet it seems as if the old feeling of their leaving us is being exchanged for the brighter and happier consciousness that they are coming to meet us, or at least that the gathering band are BEFORE us, and looking our way, expecting the time when we too shall pass through the veil, leaning on the arm of the Beloved. I earnestly pray, my dear friend, for the Master's loving help and comfort to you from henceforth even for ever.
I cannot close this without, in a sentence, expressing my very great delight in reading your words regarding brotherly intercommunion among members of Churches who hold the same Truth, love the same Lord, and are bound to the same "better land." I do rejoice with all my heart that you have given utterance to the sentiments so carefully and admirably expressed by you. I go heart and soul with you in the large and liberal and Christ-like spirit of the views you propound; and feel with you that all such brotherly esteem and hearty and candid co-operation only makes me love my own church better, because such love is unmixed with the exclusiveness which sees nothing good save in the Communion to which we ourselves belong.

Thank you most heartily for what you have written.--Ever very affectionately yours,

D.T.K. DRUMMOND.

When the Ramsays were under the necessity of selling most of their property in the Mearns, the purchaser of Fasque was Mr. Gladstone, not yet a baronet; and, what does not always happen, the families of the buyer and the seller continued good friends, and Sir John, the great merchant, by his advice and perhaps other help, assisted some of the young Ramsays, who had still to push their way to fortune. I believe William, afterwards Admiral, was guided by him in the investment and management of a little money, which prospered, notwithstanding his innumerable bounties to the poor. The Dean also was obliged to Sir John Gladstone, but only for kindness and hospitalities.

On the Ramsays going to London in the summer of 1845, the journal records what nice rooms they had, and how happy they were at Mr. Gladstone's, where they saw a good deal of their host--"a man who at eighty-one possesses the bodily and mental vigour of the prime of life." The Dean was struck with the old man's abilities. "Mr. Gladstone would have been successful in any undertaking or any pursuits--a man fitted to grapple with the highest subjects."

From that period much intercourse took place between the Premier and our Dean. There are mutual visits between Hawarden and Edinburgh, and I find a good deal of correspondence between them; at least I find the letters on one side. The Dean preserved Mr. Gladstone's letters, but the counterparts are probably not preserved. One-sided as they are, the little packet in my hand, of letters from the great Statesman to the rural clergyman is not without interest. The correspondence has been friendly, frank and confidential, the writers often differing in immaterial things, but showing the same liberality in "Church and State;" so that we are not surprised to find, when the time came, that of the friends, the churchman approved of Irish disestablishment as heartily as the layman who was its author.

10 Downing Street, Whitehall,
Jan. 20, 1869.

My dear Dean Ramsay--I need not tell you I am no fit judge of your brother's claims, but I shall send your letter privately to the First Lord, who, I am sure, will give it an impartial and friendly consideration.

Pray remember me to the Admiral, and be assured it will give me sincere pleasure if your wish on his behalf can be gratified.

I write from Hawarden, but almost en route for London, and the arduous work before us.

My mind is cheerful, and even sanguine about it.

I wish I had some chance or hope of seeing you, and I remain affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

The Bishop of Salisbury has been for days at the point of death. He is decidedly better, but cannot recover. Let him have a place in your prayers.

Windsor Castle, June 24, 1871.

My dear Dean Ramsay--The attraction of the Scott Centenary to Edinburgh is strong, and your affectionate invitation makes it stronger still. I do not despair of being free, and if free, I mean to use my freedom, so as to profit by both. At the same time the delays and obstructions to business have been so formidable that I must not as yet presume to forecast the time when I may be able to escape from London, and therefore I fear I must draw upon your indulgence to allow me some delay. The session may last far into August, but the stars may be more propitious.

We are all grumbling at an unusually cold year, and the progress of vegetation seems to be suspended, but I trust no serious harm is yet done; as Louis Napoleon said, tout peut se retablir.

It would indeed be delightful could I negotiate for a right to bring you back with me on coming southwards.

So glad to hear a good account of your health and appearance from our Lord Advocate; a clever chiel, is he not?--Ever affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

10 Downing Street, Whitehall,
July 25, 1871.

My dear Friend--From day to day my hopes of attending the Scott Centenary have been declining, and I regret much to say that they are now virtually dead. The extraordinary obstructions which have been offered to public business during the present session have now, as you will see, brought us to such a pass that some suggest an adjournment from August to some period in the autumn, to enable us to get through what we have in hand. Whether we do this, or whether we finish off at once, it is now, I fear, practically certain that there is no chance of my being free to leave town at the time of the Centenary.

We paid Tennyson a visit from last Saturday to Tuesday. He is a sincere and ardent admirer of Scott, and heartily wishes well to anything which is likely to keep him before the minds of the on-coming generation.

His Sussex abode is beautiful, 600 feet above the sea, with a splendid view. He seems to be very happy in his family.

With regard to the Emperor of Brazil, I think any application made to him would come best from those officially connected with the celebration. At any rate, I fear it would be obtrusive on my part to mix in it, as I have no special relation with him, though he has made a most pleasing impression on me.

I now expect to go to Balmoral in the middle of September, and should much wish to know whether I might visit you on my way north or south.--Always affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

10 Downing Street, Whitehall,
August 8, 1871.

My dear Dean Ramsay--Do what you like with the inclosed. It is written at the last moment, and because you asked for it, by a man who was nine hours in the House yesterday, and has to be there nine to-day, besides a fair share of a day's work outside it to boot.

I hope you received a subscription from Royal Bounty which I sent for Archibald's family. I can give five pounds myself also.--Ever your affectionate friend,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

11 Carlton House Terrace, S.W.,
August 8, 1871.

My dear Dean Ramsay---I wish I could convey to you adequately the regret with which I find myself cut off from any possibility of joining in the tribute to be paid to-morrow to the memory of the first among the sons of Scotland. He was the idol of my boyhood, and though I well know that my admiration is worth little, it has never varied.

In his case the feeling is towards the man as much as towards his works. Did we not possess a line from his pen, his life would stand as a true epic.

I will not say I think him as strong in his modern politics as in some other points, but I find my general estimate of the great and heroic whole affected only in the slightest degree by this point of qualified misgiving.

If he is out of fashion with some parts of some classes, it is their misfortune, not his. He is above fluctuations of time, for his place is in the Band of the Immortals.

The end of my letter shall be better worth your having than the beginning. A fortnight ago I visited Tennyson, and found him possessed with all the sentiments about Scott which your celebration is meant to foster.--I remain in haste, affectionately yours.

W.E. GLADSTONE.

Hawarden Castle, Chester,
January 12, 1872.

My dear Dean Ramsay--I was at once obliged, gratified, and comforted by your letter. This has been a great storm, but it has not rooted you up, and He whom you live to serve, evidently has yet more service for you to do. Those remaining in the world cannot be wife or brother to you, but how many there are who would if they could, and who will be all they can!

The testimonies you send me are full of touching interest.

My wife has received to-day the beautiful present of the new edition of your book. She will enjoy it immensely. I hope to send you, when I get to London, a little work called the "Mirror of Monks." Let not the title alarm you. It is in the manner of à Kempis, and is original, as well as excellent and lofty. I have had much Scotch reading. The "Life of Dr. Lee;" Macdonald's "Love, Law, and Theology;" last, not least, Lady Nairne. I am equally struck with her life, and her singularly beautiful songs, and this though she was Tory and Puritan; I am opposed to both. Her character brings into view a problem common to all times, but also I suppose special to this. I take it that if there is a religious body upon earth that fully and absolutely deserves the character of schismatical, it is your Drummond secession. Yet not only is this noble and holy woman in it, but even my own narrow experience has supplied me with other types of singular excellence and elevation within its pale; and the considerations hereby suggested are of immensely wide application.

I trust that your Walker Cathedral will be thoroughly good, and that your Bishop's book is prospering.

You will be glad to hear that the solemn thanksgiving at St. Paul's may be regarded as decided on, to my great satisfaction.

If you will let me have particulars of any case such as you describe, I will most readily see what can be done; and now farewell, my dear friend.--Always affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

If not quite so popular as some of the Dean's other correspondents, he whose letter I bring forward here stood as high as any man in the estimation of the better and most thinking classes of Scotsmen.

Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, though no clergyman, had his mind more constantly full of divine thoughts than most priests; though no technical scholar perhaps, he kept up his Greek to read Plato, and did not think that his enjoyment of the works of high reach in classical times unfitted him for Bible studies, which were the chief object of his existence.

127 George Street, 19th Oct. 1869.

Dear Dean--I return you many thanks for that kind letter. Neither you nor I can now be far from death--that commonest of all events, and yet the most unknown. The majority of those with whom you and I have been acquainted, have passed through it, but their experience does not help us except by calling us to prepare for it. One man indeed--the Head and Lord of men--has risen from the dead, thereby declaring death overcome, and inviting us all to share in his victory. And yet we feel that the victory over death cannot deliver us from fear, unless there be also a victory over that which makes death terrible--a victory over him that hath the power of death, that is the devil, or prince and principle of sin. And our Lord has achieved this also, for he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; but this sacrifice can only really profit us when it is reproduced in us--when we, as branches of the true Vine, live by the sap of the root, which sap is filial trust, the only principle which can sacrifice self, because the only principle which can enable us to commit ourselves unreservedly into the hands of God for guidance and for disposal. We are thus put right by trust, justified or put right by faith in the loving fatherly righteous purpose of God towards us.

Dear George Dundas's death has taken from me my chief social support in Edinburgh. I was fourteen years his senior, but I had known and loved him from his childhood. Our mothers were sisters, and thus we had the same family ties and traditions. I think of him now in connection with that verse, "to those who by patient continuance in well-doing," etc.

And now farewell. Let us seek to live by the faith of the Son of God--his filial trust I suppose, which I so much need.--Ever truly and gratefully yours,

T. ERSKINE.

The three following letters hardly help on the story of the Dean's life, but I could not pass them when they came into my hands.

The writer is Adam Sedgwick, the well-known Cambridge Professor and Philosopher. In another capacity he was still better known. He was tutor and vice-master of Trinity, and in his time an outside stranger of any education, even a half-educated Scot, dropping into Cambridge society, found a reception to be remembered. Take for choice one of their peculiar festivals--Trinity Sunday comes to my mind--the stranger partook of the splendid feast in that princely hall of Trinity, where the massive college plate was arrayed and the old college customs of welcome used, not from affectation, but kindly reverence. When the dinner was over, the large party of Doctors and Fellows, with hundreds of the noble youth of England, all in surplice, moved to the chapel, all joining with reverence in the august service of the church, and later, they and their guests, or as many as could be held, crossed to the Combination Room, where Sedgwick filled the chair, and led the conversation, not to glorify himself, not to display his own powers, which were great, but to let his guests know among whom they were placed--philosophers, first men of science, first scholars, leaders in all kinds of learning, meeting in a noble equality, proud to meet under his presidency--that I take to be the highest triumph of civilised hospitality. At the time of these letters the philosopher is old, but vigorous in mind, and even gay at the age of eighty-eight.

The death of Bishop Terrot called forth the following letter from the venerable Professor:--

Trinity College, Cambridge, May 1, 1872.

Dear Mr. Malcolm--I had been previously informed of the death of my dear old friend, the Bishop of Edinburgh, but I am very grateful to you for thinking so kindly of me, and for communicating particulars about which I was not acquainted previously. Accept my expressions of true-hearted sympathy, and pray impart them to the surviving members of dear Bishop Terrot's family. He was an old, an honoured and beloved friend; God laid upon his old age an unusual load of the labours and sorrows of humanity, but they are over now, and he has reached his haven of shelter from external sorrow and his true and enduring home of joy and peace, in the presence of his Maker and Redeemer. I am very infirm, and am affected by an internal malady, which, through the past winter, has confined me to my college rooms, but I have to thank my Maker for thousands of little comforts to mind and body, by which I am hourly surrounded, and for His long-suffering in extending my probation till I have entered on my 88th year. My eyes are dim-sighted and irritable, so that I generally dictate my letters; now, however, I am using my own pen to express my thanks to you, in this time of your sorrow for the loss of one so nearly and dearly connected with your clerical life. My memory is not much shaken, except in recalling names not very familiar to me, and I think (with the painful exception I have alluded to) that my constitutional health is sound. When my friends call upon me, my deafness generally compels me to use an ear-trumpet, and I yesterday took it to our college walks, to try if I could catch the notes of the singing birds, which were piping all round me. But, alas! I could not hear the notes of the singing birds, though I did catch the harsher and louder notes of the rooks, which have their nests in some college grounds.

May the remaining years of your life be cheered and animated by good abiding Christian hope.--I remain very faithfully yours,

ADAM SEDGWICK.

Trinity College, Cambridge,
29th May 1872.

My dear Dean--I this morning received your kind presentation copy of your Reminiscences, which I shall highly value for its own sake, and as your gift. I read little now because my eyes are both dim-sighted and very irritable; but your book will just suit me, as it is not a continuous tale, but a succession of tales, each of which is perfect in itself, and I hope to read it bit by bit without worrying my enfeebled powers of sight.

I meant to have thanked you in an autograph, but there has been a sudden change in the atmosphere, which is dark, heavy and wet, and when there is a defect of light I am almost constrained to dictate my letters to my factotum.

I am delighted, too, with the single sheet containing verses addressed to yourself. The first copy by Bishop Wordsworth appears to me quite admirable from the beauty and simplicity of his Latin; and the other copies are good in their way.

I dare say you have seen the short verses he wrote on the death of his first wife. They are of Roman brevity and of exquisite tenderness.

One of the very pleasant days of my life was spent in a visit to the small country living of Mr. Dawes of Downing, afterwards Dean of Hereford. Your late brother was one of the happy party. We returned together to Cambridge at a rattling pace, and I am not sure that I ever saw his face afterwards, for very soon he had a bilious attack which induced him to seek health in his native country, and, alas! he sought it in vain, for he sickened and died, to the deep sorrow of all his friends.--I remain, my dear Dean, very truly and gratefully yours,

A. SEDGWICK.

Trinity College, Cambridge,
January 18, 1873.

My dear Mr. Malcolm--The infirmity of my sight compels me to dictate this letter to one who often writes for me. Such a bright day as this, and while the sun is shining, I could see the traces of my pen upon a sheet of paper; but the act of writing greatly fatigues me, and I dictate nearly all my letters.

I very much value your melancholy memorial of my late dear and honoured friend, the late Bishop Terrot. Though the photo represents our late friend the bishop with his features shrouded in the cold fixity of death, yet it does bring back the original to the memory of those who knew him well, and I am greatly obliged to you for this memorial of one who has gone from our sight for ever, so far as this world is concerned. It was very kind of you to remember the photo.

I did not know Bishop Cotterell intimately, but I have met him many times, and I think you very happy in obtaining the services of a man of such experience, talent, and zeal, in the good cause of Christian truth.

I am now a very feeble, infirm, old man, toiling in the last quarter of my 88th year. I ought to be thankful that my mind, though feeble, remains entire: my memory is often defective, but I have been enabled, though with great labour to myself, and with many interruptions, to dictate a preface to a catalogue published by the university of the older fossils of our collection. They have kindly printed and given to me some extra copies of my preface, one of which I will forward to you by the book-post.

I know it can have no interest to you, excepting, perhaps, a few paragraphs in the conclusion of only two or three pages.--I remain, my dear Mr. Malcolm, very faithfully and gratefully yours,

A. SEDGWICK.

I have printed already more than one letter from the Rev. D.T.K. Drummond, from admiration of their intrinsic merit, and because I wish here to collect proofs that no diversity of Church rites or Church policy could separate our Dean from brethren whom he regarded perhaps as erroneous, but recognised as teaching and leading by the same principles of freedom, which he himself revered and followed.

Montpelier, Saturday.

My dear Friend--Very many thanks for your most touching note, and for the extract from your book you so kindly sent me. The more I look into it the more I like it, and thank God for the testimony you so unequivocally and fearlessly hear to the unity of the True Church of Christ of any age, however much the great army he made up of various sections, of diverse uniforms, and with special duties to perform.....

Again thanking you very warmly, and earnestly praying for all the precious consolations of the Great Head of the Church to be largely vouchsafed to you, believe me to be always most affectionately yours,

D. T. K. DRUMMOND.

The subject of the following letter cannot be overlooked by a biographer of Dean Ramsay:--

52 Melville Street, 18th March 1872.

My dear Dean Ramsay--I have just read with most profound thankfulness and admiration your noble Christian letter in this day's Scotsman. I cannot deny myself the gratification of expressing my feelings to you in this feeble acknowledgment. You have done a signal service to the cause of our Blessed Lord and common Master. I am too infirm to write more fully all that is in my heart. You will pardon all defects, and believe me, yours very truly,

ROB. S. CANDLISH.

The letter referred to by the distinguished divine arose out of what is known in the Scottish Episcopal Church as the cause celèbre of the Bishop of Glasgow against the Bishop of Argyll.

The Rev. Dr. Caird, of the University of Glasgow, having invited the Bishop of Argyll to preach to a mixed Episcopalian and Presbyterian congregation, using his Church's liturgy, from the University pulpit of Glasgow, the Bishop of Glasgow interposed to prevent it.

The interference of the Bishop of Glasgow with his brother prelate of Argyll called forth a letter from Dean Ramsay, which appeared in the Scottish Guardian on 15th March 1872, and in the Scotsman three days later. In it the Dean in fact asserts a religious sympathy towards those who differ from him, comprehensive enough to include all his Protestant countrymen.

"In an address to the Bishop of Glasgow, signed by sixty-two clergymen, it is stated that the service contemplated in the chapel of the University of Glasgow would be a 'lax proceeding, and fraught with great injury to the highest interests of the Church,' Accordingly the Bishop of Glasgow prohibited the service, to guard the Church from complicity in a measure which he considered subversive of her position in this country.' In other words," says Dean Ramsay, "we are called upon to believe that, as members of the Scottish Episcopal Church, it is our bounden duty to withhold every appearance of any religious sympathy with our Presbyterian fellow-countrymen and fellow-Christians. I now solemnly declare for myself that, had I come to the conclusion that such was the teaching of our Church, and such the views to which I was bound--viz. that her object was thus to sever man from man, and to maintain that the service proposed at Glasgow was really 'fraught with great injury to the highest interests of my Church,' because it would promote union and peace--the sun should not again set till I had given up all official connection with a Church of which the foundations and the principles would be so different from the landmarks and leading manifestations of our holy faith itself. Were the principles and conduct laid down in this address and in the answer to it fairly carried out, I cannot see any other result than the members of our Church considering the whole of Scotland which is external to our communion as a land of infidels, with whom we can have no spiritual connection, and whom, indeed, we could hardly recognise as a Christian people."

The Dean's letter is chiefly remarkable as showing that age had not frozen his charity. It called forth many letters like that of Dr. Candlish, and one from the little Somersetshire society which he loved so well.

The Cottage, Frome, 21st March 1872.

Very dear and reverend Sir--I have to thank you for the Scottish Guardian which you have kindly sent me. I regret the divisions which appear to have arisen in your church. Whatever comes from your pen has special interest for me; and I am glad to see it (as it always has been) pleading the cause of Christian charity. It appears to me that the welfare of your church would have been promoted by acceding to the invitation,

I think I have mentioned to you that we had lately a visit from good Archdeacon Sandford, which we much enjoyed. We learn with sorrow that since attendance at the Convocation and a stay at Lambeth Palace, he has been suffering great weakness and exhaustion, and been confined to his bed for a month. He is now slowly recovering; but we fear his exertions have been beyond his strength, and that his life must be very precarious.

I hope your health is not more seriously impaired; but we must be looking more and more, dear sir, towards the home which pain and strife cannot enter.

My beloved Susan is very zealous as the animals' friend, and birds of many sorts welcome and solicit her as their patroness. She desires to be most kindly remembered to you, with, my dear Dean, your attached old friend,

JOHN SHEPPARD.

P.S.--Susan instructs me to say for her that, "since reading your letter to the Guardian, she loves you more than ever, if possible." My words are cool in comparison with hers; and this is a curious message for an ancient husband to convey.

She thinks we have not thanked you for the Bishop's Latin verses and the translations of them. If we have not, it is not because our "reminiscences" of you are faint or few.

I wish to preserve a note of a dear old friend of my own, whose talents, perhaps I might say whose genius, was only shrouded by his modesty. I know that the Dean felt how gratifying it was to find among his congregation men of such accomplishment, such scholarship, as George Moir and George Dundas, and it is something to show that they responded very heartily to that feeling.

Monday morning, 14 Charlotte Square.

My dear Dean--My condition renders it frequently impossible to attend church, from the difficulty I have in remaining for any length of time. But I have been able to be present the last two Sundays, and I cannot refrain from saying with how much pleasure I listened yesterday to your discourse on charity. It was not unworthy of the beautiful passage which formed its ground-work; clear, consecutive, eloquent, and with a moral application of which I wish we may all avail ourselves.

Long may you continue to advise and instruct those who are to come after me.

I was delighted to see you looking so well, and to notice the look of vigour with which the discourse was delivered. Believe me ever most truly yours,

GEO. MOIR.

In 1866 the Dean had delivered two lectures upon "Preachers and Preaching," but which were afterwards published in a volume called Pulpit Table-Talk. That is the subject of the following letter from a great master of the art:--

Inchgrundle, Tarfside, by Brechin,
31st August 1868.

My dear Mr. Dean--Your Pulpit Table-Talk has been sent here to gratify, delight, and edify me. A most entertaining book; and full of wise and admirable sentiments. All ministers and preachers should read and digest it. Age seems to have no more dulling effect on you than it had on Sir David Brewster, who retained, after he had turned the threescore and ten, all the greenery, foliage, and flowers of youth--presenting at once the freshness of Spring, and the flowers of Summer, and the precious fruits of Autumn.

May your bow long abide in strength! and the evening of your days be calm and peaceful, bright with the sure and certain hope of that better world, where, I hope, we shall meet to be for ever with the Lord! With the greatest respect and affectionate regards, yours ever,

THOMAS GUTHRIE.

I cannot fix the date of the following anecdote, nor does the date much matter:--Some years ago a child, the son of the U.P. minister of Dunblane, was so dangerously ill, that a neighbouring lady, the wife of the Episcopal clergyman, who was much interested in the little boy, asked her husband if it might be permitted to beg the prayers of the congregation for his recovery. The clergyman readily assented; and when the facts came to the knowledge of Dean Ramsay, and that it was a suggestion of a dear friend of his, he sent the lady a copy of his Reminiscences, with a letter to her husband, in which he says--"I was greatly charmed with your account of prayers offered up for poor little Blair. Tell your Mary I love her more than ever. It has quite affected me, her proposing it." The husband is the Rev. Mr. Malcolm; the lady his wife, daughter of the Dean's dear friend, Bishop Terrot.

But the end was approaching. In December 1872 it was noticed with sorrow that for the first time since the commencement of the Church Society (1838), of which Ramsay was really the founder, the Dean was absent from the annual meeting of the general committee. Soon it became known that his illness was more than a mere passing attack. During its continuance the deepest interest was manifested in every quarter. Each day, and "almost from hour to hour, the latest tidings were eagerly sought for. In many churches and in many families besides those of our communion, prayers were offered for his recovery. And when at last it became known that he had indeed passed away from this life, it was felt that we had lost not only a venerable Father of the Church, but one whose name, familiar as a household word, was always associated with kindly loving thoughts and deeds--one who was deservedly welcome wherever he went, and whose influence was always towards peace and goodwill." The Rev. Mr. Montgomery, our present Dean of Edinburgh, whose words I quote, truly says that "he was a Churchman by conviction, but was ever ready to meet, and, where occasion offered, to act with others upon the basis of a common humanity and common Christianity."

FOOTNOTES:

[9] The margin seems to show that this page of the journal was not written till 1843.

[10] The Bishop said that the two impediments to profitable or amusing conversation were humdrum and humbug.

On another occasion, the Bishop having expressed his doubt of the truth of spirit-rapping, table-turning, etc., and being pressed with the appeal, "Surely you must admit these are indications of Satanic agency," quietly answered, "It may be so, but it must be a mark of Satan being in a state of dotage!"

[11] Alluditur ad titulum libri Reminiscences, etc.

[12] Here is the passage referred to by Mr. Dickens:--"There are persons who do not sympathise with my great desire to preserve and to disseminate these specimens of Scottish humour; indeed, I have reasons to suspect that some have been disposed to consider the time and attention which I have given to the subject as ill-bestowed, or at any rate, as somewhat unsuitable to one of my advanced age and sacred profession. If any persons do really think so, all I can say is, I do not agree with them. National peculiarities must ever form an interesting and improving study, inasmuch as it is a study of human nature; and the anecdotes of this volume all tend to illustrate features of the Scottish mind, which, as moral and religious traits of character, are deeply interesting. I am convinced that every one, whether clergyman or layman, who contributes to the innocent enjoyment of human life, has joined in a good work, inasmuch as he has diminished the inducement to vicious indulgence. God knows there is enough of sin and of sorrow in the world to make sad the heart of every Christian man. No one, I think, need be ashamed of his endeavours to cheer the darker hours of his fellow-travellers' steps through life, or to beguile the hearts of the weary and the heavy laden, if only for a time, into cheerful and amusing trains of thought. So far as my experience of life goes, I have never found that the cause of morality and religion was promoted by sternly checking the tendencies of our nature to relaxation and amusement. If mankind be too ready to enter upon pleasures which are dangerous or questionable, it is the part of wisdom and of prudence to supply them with sources of interest, the enjoyment of which are innocent and permissible."

APPENDIX.

When this Memoir was only begun I was anxious to say something of the Dean's musical powers; and, not venturing to speak of music myself, I asked the Dean's sister Lady Burnett to supply my deficiency. In reply I had the following letter:--

... As a flute-player the Dean attained a proficiency rarely seen in an amateur, and used frequently to play the very difficult flute-obligatos of some of Handel's songs, which are considered a hard task even for professionals. Besides playing the flute he was thoroughly conversant with the mechanism of the organ, and had some knowledge of the violoncello, though he never gave much time to the study of that instrument. But perhaps the most interesting point in this part of the character of my brother was his ardent love for Handel's music. There was not a song or chorus of the great master that he was not acquainted with, and in his younger days he used to sing the bass music from the Messiah and other Oratorios with great taste and skill--his voice, a fine mellow baritone, being well suited to these songs. You may remember his lectures on Handel delivered at the Philosophical Institution some years ago, and how enthusiastic he was when describing the manifold beauties of his favourite composer, and how interested and eager he became when the choir sang the music he knew and loved so well....

I wrote this on Saturday evening when sitting alone, thinking of the great loss I had sustained; the variety there was in Edward's character; how accomplished he was; what knowledge he had on many subjects; his fine taste, his gentleness and Christian piety; and then his strong sense of humour and fun; how amusing he was, and such droll things broke out every now and then! even to the very last so genial and social, and altogether such a man that we "ne'er shall look upon his like again."--Yours very sincerely,

LAUDERDALE BURNETT.

REMINISCENCES.

PREFACE

EDINBURGH, 23 AINSLIE PLACE. St. Andrew's Day[13]

FOOTNOTES:

[13] These words, "St. Andrew's Day," were deleted by the Dean; and though he lived till the 27th December, he did not touch the proof-sheets after the 19th November 1872.

REMINISCENCES

OF

SCOTTISH LIFE AND CHARACTER.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

Now, when we come to examine the general question of memoirs connected with contemporary history, no work is better known in connection with this department of Scottish literature than the History of his Own Times, by my distinguished relative, Dr. Gilbert Burnett, Bishop of Salisbury. Bishop Burnett's father, Lord Crimond, was third son of my father's family, the Burnetts of Leys, in Kincardineshire. There is now at Crathes Castle, the family seat, a magnificent full-length portrait of the Bishop in his robes, as Prelate of the Garter, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. It was presented by himself to the head of his family. But, as one great object of the Bishop's history was to laud and magnify the personal character and public acts of William of Orange, his friend and patron, and as William was held in special abhorrence by the Jacobite party in Scotland, the Bishop holds a prominent, and, with many, a very odious position in Scottish Reminiscences; in fact, he drew upon himself and upon his memory the determined hatred and unrelenting hostility of adherents to the Stuart cause. They never failed to abuse him on all occasions, and I recollect old ladies in Montrose, devoted to the exiled Prince, with whom the epithet usually applied to the Prelate was that of "Leein' Gibby[14]."

Such language has happily become a "Reminiscence." Few would be found now to apply such an epithet to the author of the History of his Own Times, and certainly it would not be applied on the ground of the Jacobite principles to which he was opposed. But a curious additional proof of this hostility of Scottish Jacobites to the memory of Burnett has lately come to light. In a box of political papers lately found at Brechin Castle, belonging to the Panmure branch of the family, who, in '15, were forfeited on the ground of their Jacobite opinions and adherence to the cause of Charles Edward, there has been found a severe and bitter supposed epitaph for Bishop Burnett. By the kindness of the Earl of Dalhousie I was permitted to see this epitaph, and, if I chose, to print it in this edition. I am, however, unwilling to stain my pages with such an ungenerous and, indeed, I may say, so scurrilous a representation of the character of one who, in the just opinion of our Lyon King-at-Arms, himself a Burnett of the Kemnay branch, has characterised the Bishop of Salisbury as "true and honest, and far beyond the standard of his times as a Clergyman and as a Bishop." But the epitaph found in these Panmure papers shows clearly the prejudices of the age in which it was written, and in fact only embodies something of that spirit and of those opinions which we have known as still lingering in our own Reminiscences.

If it were not on my part a degree of presumption, I might be inclined to consider myself in this volume a fellow-labourer with the late accomplished and able Mr. Robert Chambers. In a very limited sphere it takes a portion of the same field of illustration. I should consider myself to have done well if I shall direct any of my readers to his able volumes. Whosoever wishes to know what this country really was in times past, and to learn, with a precision beyond what is supplied by the narratives of history, the details of the ordinary current of our social, civil, and national life, must carefully study the Domestic Annals of Scotland. Never before were a nation's domestic features so thoroughly portrayed. Of those features the specimens of quaint Scottish humour still remembered are unlike anything else, but they are fast becoming obsolete, and my motive for this publication has been an endeavour to preserve marks of the past which would of themselves soon become obliterated, and to supply the rising generation with pictures of social life, faded and indistinct to their eyes, but the strong lines of which an older race still remember. By thus coming forward at a favourable moment, no doubt many beautiful specimens of SCOTTISH MINSTRELSY have in this manner been preserved from oblivion by the timely exertions of Bishop Percy, Ritson, Walter Scott, and others. Lord Macaulay, in his preface to The Lays of Ancient Rome, shows very powerfully the tendency in all that lingers in the memory to become obsolete, and he does not hesitate to say that "Sir Walter Scott was but just in time to save the precious relics of the minstrelsy of the Border."

It is quite evident that those who have in Scotland come to an advanced age, must have found some things to have been really changed about them, and that on them great alterations have already taken place. There are some, however, which yet may be in a transition state; and others in which, although changes are threatened, still it cannot be said that the changes are begum I have been led to a consideration of impending alterations as likely to take place, by the recent appearance of two very remarkable and very interesting papers on subjects closely connected with great social Scottish questions, where a revolution of opinion may be expected. These are two articles in Recess Studies (1870), a volume edited by our distinguished Principal, Sir Alexander Grant. One essay is by Sir Alexander himself, upon the "Endowed Hospitals of Scotland;" the other by the Rev. Dr. Wallace of the Greyfriars, upon "Church Tendencies in Scotland." It would be quite irrelevant for me to enlarge here upon the merits of those articles. No one could study them attentively without being impressed with the ability and power displayed in them by the authors, their grasp of the subjects, and their fair impartial judgment upon the various questions which come under their notice.

From these able disquisitions, and from other prognostics, it is quite evident that sounder principles of political economy and accurate experience of human life show that much of the old Scottish hospital system was quite wrong and must be changed. Changes are certainly going on, which seem to indicate that the very hard Presbyterian views of some points connected with Church matters are in transition. I have elsewhere spoken of a past sabbatarian strictness, and I have lately received an account of a strictness in observing the national fast-day, or day appointed for preparation in celebrating Holy Communion, which has in some measure passed away. The anecdote adduced the example of two drovers who were going on very quietly together. They had to pass through a district whereof one was a parishioner, and during their progress through it the one whistled with all his might, the other screwed up his mouth without emitting a single sound. When they came to a burn, the silent one, on then crossing the stream, gave a skip, and began whistling with all his might, exclaiming with great triumph to his companion, "I'm beyond the parish of Forfar now, and I'll whistle as muckle as I like." It happened to be the Forfar parish fast-day. But a still stricter observance was shown by a native of Kirkcaldy, who, when asked by his companion drover in the south of Scotland "why he didna whistle," quietly answered, "I canna, man; it's our fast-day in Kirkcaldy." I have an instance of a very grim assertion of extreme sabbatarian zeal. A maid-servant had come to a new place, and on her mistress quietly asking her on Sunday evening to wash up some dishes, she indignantly replied, "Mem, I hae dune mony sins, and hae mony sins to answer for; but, thank God, I hae never been sae far left to mysell as to wash up dishes on the Sabbath day."

I hope it will not for a moment be supposed we would willingly throw any ridicule or discouragement on the Scottish national tendencies on the subject, or that we are not proud of Scotland's example of a sacred observance of the fourth commandment in the letter and the spirit. We refer now to injudicious extremes, such, indeed, as our Lord condemned, and which seem a fair subject for notice amongst Scottish peculiarities. But the philosophy of the question is curious. Scotland has ever made her boast of the simplest form of worship, and a worship free from ceremonial, more even than the Church of England, which is received as, in doctrine and ritual, the Church of the Reformation. In some respects, therefore, may you truly say the only standing recognised observance in the ceremonial part of Presbyterian worship is the Sabbath day--an observance which has been pushed in times past even beyond the extreme of a spirit of Judaism, as if the sabbatical ceremonial were made a substitute for all other ceremony. In this, as well as in other matters which we have pointed out, what changes have taken place, what changes are going on! It may be difficult to assign precise causes for such changes having taken place among us, and that during the lifetime of individuals now living to remember them. It has been a period for many changes in manners, habits, and forms of language, such as we have endeavoured to mark in this volume. The fact of such changes is indisputable, and sometimes it is difficult not only to assign the causes for them, but even to describe in what the changes themselves consist. They are gradual, and almost imperceptible. Scottish people lose their Scotchness; they leave home, and return without those expressions and intonations, and even peculiarity of voice and manner, which used to distinguish us from Southern neighbours. In all this, I fear, we lose our originality. It has not passed away, but with every generation becomes less like the real type.

I would introduce here a specimen of the precise sort of changes to which I would refer, as an example of the reminiscences intended to be introduced into these pages. We have in earlier editions given an account of the pains taken by Lord Gardenstone to extend and improve his rising village of Laurencekirk; amongst other devices he had brought down, as settlers, a variety of artificers and workmen from England. With these he had introduced a hatter from Newcastle; but on taking him to church next day after his arrival, the poor man saw that he might decamp without loss of time, as he could not expect much success in his calling at Laurencekirk; in fact, he found Lord Gardenstone's and his own the only hats in the kirk--the men all wore then the flat Lowland bonnet. But how quickly times change! My excellent friend, Mr. Gibbon of Johnstone, Lord Gardenstone's own place, which is near Laurencekirk, tells me that at the present time one solitary Lowland bonnet lingers in the parish.

Hats are said to have been first brought into Inverness by Duncan Forbes of Culloden, the Lord President, who died in 1747. Forbes is reported to have presented the provost and bailies with cocked hats, which they wore only on Sundays and council days. About 1760 a certain Deacon Young began daily to wear a hat, and the country people crowding round him, the Deacon used humorously to say, "What do you see about me, sirs? am I not a mortal man like yourselves?" The broad blue bonnets I speak of long continued to be worn in the Highland capital, and are still occasionally to be seen there, though generally superseded by the Glengarry bonnet and ordinary hat. It is a minor change, but a very decided one.

The changes which have taken place, and which give rise to such "Reminiscences," are very numerous, and meet us at every turn in society. Take, for example, the case of our Highland chieftains. We may still retain the appellation, and talk of the chiefs of Clanranald, of Glengarry, etc. But how different is a chieftain of the present day, even from some of those of whom Sir Walter Scott wrote as existing so late as 1715 or 1745! Dr. Gregory (of immortal mixture memory) used to tell a story of an old Highland chieftain, intended to show how such Celtic potentates were, even in his day, still inclined to hold themselves superior to all the usual considerations which affected ordinary mortals. The doctor, after due examination, had, in his usual decided and blunt manner, pronounced the liver of a Highlander to be at fault, and to be the cause of his ill-health. His patient, who could not but consider this as taking a great liberty with a Highland chieftain, roared out--"And what the devil is it to you whether I have a liver or not?" But there is the case of dignity in Lowland Lairds as well as clan-headship in Highland Chiefs. In proof of this, I need only point to a practice still lingering amongst us of calling landed proprietors, not as Mr. So-and-so, but by the names of their estates. I recollect, in my early days, a number of our proprietors were always so designated. Thus, it was not as Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Irvine, etc., but as Craigo, Tillwhilly, Drum, etc.

An amusing application of such a territorial denominative system to the locality of London was narrated to me by a friend who witnessed it. A Scottish gentleman, who had never been in the metropolis, arrived fresh from the Highlands, and met a small party at the house of a London friend. A person was present of most agreeable manners, who delighted the Scotsman exceedingly. He heard the company frequently referring to this gentleman's residence in Piccadilly, to his house in Piccadilly, and so on. When addressed by the gentleman, he commenced his reply, anxious to pay him all due respect--"Indeed, Piccadilly," etc. He supposed Piccadilly must be his own territorial locality. Another instance of mistake, arising out of Scottish ignorance of London ways, was made by a North Briton on his first visit to the great city. He arrived at a hotel in Fleet Street, where many of the country coaches then put up. On the following morning he supposed that such a crowd as he encountered could only proceed from some "occasion," and must pass off in due time. Accordingly, a friend from Scotland found him standing in a doorway, as if waiting for some one. His countryman asked him what made him stand there. To which he answered--"Ou, I was just stan'ing till the kirk had scaled." The ordinary appearance of his native borough made the crowd of Fleet Street suggest to him the idea of a church crowd passing out to their several homes, called in Scotland a "kirk scaling." A London street object called forth a similar simple remark from a Scotsman. He had come to London on his way to India, and for a few days had time to amuse himself by sight-seeing before his departure. He had been much struck with the appearance of the mounted sentinels at the Horse Guards, Whitehall, and bore them in remembrance during his Eastern sojourn. On his return, after a period of thirty years, on passing the Horse Guards, he looked up to one, and seeing him, as he thought, unchanged as to horse, position, and accoutrements, he exclaimed--"Od, freend, ye hae had a lang spell on't sin' I left," supposing him to be the identical sentinel he had seen before he sailed.

It is interesting to preserve national peculiarities which are thus passing away from us. One great pleasure I have had in their collection, and that is the numerous and sympathetic communications I have received from Scotsmen, I may literally say from Scotsmen in all quarters of the world; sometimes communicating very good examples of Scottish humour, and always expressing their great pleasure in reading, when in distant lands and foreign scenes, anecdotes which reminded them of Scotland, and of their ain days of "auld langsyne."

There is no mistaking the national attachment so strong in the Scottish character. Men return after long absence, in this respect, unchanged; whilst absent, Scotsmen never forget their Scottish home. In all varieties of lands and climates their hearts ever turn towards the "land o' cakes and brither Scots." Scottish festivals are kept with Scottish feeling on "Greenland's icy mountains" or "India's coral strand." I received an amusing account of an ebullition of this patriotic feeling from my late noble friend the Marquis of Lothian, who met with it when travelling in India. He happened to arrive at a station upon the eve of St. Andrew's Day, and received an invitation to join a Scottish dinner party in commemoration of old Scotland. There was a great deal of Scottish enthusiasm. There were seven sheep-heads (singed) down the table; and Lord Lothian told me that after dinner he sang with great applause "The Laird o' Cockpen."

Another anecdote arising out of Scotsmen meeting in distant lands, is rather of a more serious character, and used to be told with exquisite humour by the late lamented Dr. Norman Macleod. A settler in Australia, who for a long time had heard nothing of his Scottish kith and kin, was delighted at the arrival of a countryman direct from his own part of the country. When he met with him, the following conversation took place between them:--Q. "Ye ken my fouk, friend; can ye tell me gin my faather's alive?" A.--"Hout, na; he's deed." Q.--"Deed! What did he dee o'? was it fever?" A.--"Na, it wasna fever." Q.--"Was it cholera?" A.--"Na." The question being pressed, the stranger drily said, "Sheep," and then he accompanied the ominous word by delicately and significantly pointing to the jugular under his ear. The man had been hanged for sheep-stealing!

It must always be amusing for Scotsmen to meet in distant lands, and there to play off on each other the same dry, quaint humour which delighted them in their native land, and in their early days at home. An illustration of this remark has been communicated by a kind correspondent at Glasgow. Mrs. Hume, a true Scot, sends me the following dialogue, accompanied by a very clever etching of the parties, from the Melbourne Punch, August 17, 1871, headed "Too Poor,--Night of Waverley Concert."

Southron.--You here, Mac! you ought to have been at the concert, you know. Aren't you one of the 'Scots wha hae?'

Mac.--Indeed no. I'm are o' the Scots wha hae na, or I wadna be here the nicht.

He would not have stayed at home if he had been one of the "Scots wha hae."

I am assured that the genuineness of the following anecdote is unquestionable, as my informant received it from the person to whom it occurred. A popular Anglican Nonconformist minister was residing with a family in Glasgow while on a visit to that city, whither he had gone on a deputation from the Wesleyan Missionary Society. After dinner, in reply to an invitation to partake of some fine fruit, he mentioned to the family a curious circumstance concerning himself--viz. that he had never in his life tasted an apple, pear, grape, or indeed any kind of green fruit. This fact seemed to evoke considerable surprise from the company, but a cautious Scotsman, of a practical, matter-of-fact turn of mind, who had listened with much unconcern, drily remarked, "It's a peety but ye had been in Paradise, and there micht na hae been ony faa." I have spoken elsewhere of the cool matter-of-fact manner in which the awful questions connected with the funerals of friends are often approached by Scottish people, without the least intention or purpose of being irreverent or unfeeling. By the kindness of Mr. Lyon, I am enabled to give an authentic anecdote of a curious character, illustrative of this habit of mind, and I cannot do better than give it in his own words:--"An old tenant of my late father, George Lyon of Wester Ogil, many years ago, when on his deathbed, and his end near at hand, his wife thus addressed him: 'Willie, Willie, as lang as ye can speak, tell us are ye for your burial-baps round or square?' Willie having responded to this inquiry, was next asked if the murners were to have glooes (gloves) or mittens, the former being articles with fingers, the latter having only a thumb-piece; and Willie, having also answered this question, was allowed to depart in peace."

There could not be a better example of this familiar handling, without meaning offence, than one which has just been sent to me by a kind correspondent. I give her own words. "Happening to call on a poor neighbour, I asked after the children of a person who lived close by." She replied, "They're no hame yet; gaed awa to the English kirk to get a clap o' the heid. It was the day of confirmation for St. Paul's. This definition of the 'outward and visible sign' would look rather odd in the catechism. But the poor woman said it from no disrespect; it was merely her way of answering my question." But remarks on serious subjects often go to deeper views of religious matters than might be expected from the position of the parties and the terms made use of.

Of the wise and shrewd judgment of the Scottish character, as bearing upon religious pretensions, I have an apt example from my friend Dr. Norman Macleod. During one of the late revivals in Scotland, a small farmer went about preaching with much fluency and zeal the doctrine of a "full assurance" of faith, and expressed his belief of it for himself in such extravagant terms as few men would venture upon who were humble and cautious against presumption. The "preacher," being personally rather remarkable as a man of greedy and selfish views in life, excited some suspicion in the breast of an old sagacious countryman, a neighbour of Dr. Macleod, who asked him what he thought of John as a preacher, and of his doctrine. Scratching his head, as if in some doubt, he replied, "I'm no verra sure o' Jock. I never ken't a man sae sure o' Heaven, and sae sweert to be gaing tae't." He showed his sagacity, for John was soon after in prison for theft.

Another story gives a good idea of the Scottish matter-of-fact view of things being brought to bear upon a religious question without meaning to be profane or irreverent. Dr. Macleod was on a Highland loch when a storm came on which threatened serious consequences. The doctor, a large powerful man, was accompanied by a clerical friend of diminutive size and small appearance, who began to speak seriously to the boatmen of their danger, and proposed that all present should join in prayer. "Na, na," said the chief boatman; "let the little ane gang to pray, but first the big ane maun tak an oar." Illustrative of the same spirit was the reply of a Scotsman of the genuine old school, "Boatie" of Deeside, of whom I have more to say, to a relative of mine. He had been nearly lost in a squall, and saved after great exertion, and was told by my aunt that he should be grateful to providence for his safety. The man, not meaning to be at all ungrateful, but viewing his preservation in the purely hard matter-of-fact light, quietly answered, "Weel, weel, Mrs. Russell; Providence here or Providence there, an I hadna worked sair mysell I had been drouned."

Old Mr. Downie, the parish minister of Banchory, was noted, in my earliest days, for his quiet pithy remarks on men and things, as they came before him. His reply to his son, of whose social position he had no very exalted opinion, was of this class. Young Downie had come to visit his father from the West Indies, and told him that on his return he was to be married to a lady whose high qualities and position he spoke of in extravagant terms. He assured his father that she was "quite young, was very rich, and very beautiful." "Aweel, Jemmy," said the old man, very quietly and very slily, "I'm thinking there maun be some faut." Of the dry sarcasm we have a good example in the quiet utterance of a good Scottish phrase by an elder of a Free Kirk lately formed. The minister was an eloquent man, and had attracted one of the town-council, who, it was known, hardly ever entered the door of a church, and now came on motives of curiosity. He was talking very grand to some of the congregation: "Upon my word, your minister is a very eloquent man. Indeed, he will quite convert me." One of the elders, taking the word in a higher sense than the speaker intended, quietly replied, "Indeed, Bailie, there's muckle need."

A kind correspondent sends me an illustration of this quaint matter-of-fact view of a question as affecting the sentiments or the feelings. He tells me he knew an old lady who was a stout large woman, and who with this state of body had many ailments, which she bore cheerfully and patiently. When asked one day by a friend, "How she was keeping," she replied, "Ou, just middling; there's ower muckle o' me to be a' weel at ae time." No Englishwoman would have given such an answer. The same class of character is very strongly marked in a story which was told by Mr. Thomas Constable, who has a keen appreciation of a good Scottish story, and tells it inimitably. He used to visit an old lady who was much attenuated by long illness, and on going up stairs one tremendously hot afternoon, the daughter was driving away the flies, which were very troublesome, and was saying, "Thae flies will eat up a' that remains o' my puir mither." The old lady opened her eyes, and the last words she spoke were, "What's left o' me's guid eneuch for them."

The spirit of caution and wariness by which the Scottish character is supposed to be distinguished has given rise to many of these national anecdotes.

Certainly this cautious spirit thus pervaded the opinions of the Scottish architect who was called upon to erect a building in England upon the long-lease system, so common with Anglican proprietors, but quite new to our Scottish friend. When he found the proposal was to build upon the tenure of 999 years, he quietly suggested, "Culd ye no mak it a thousand? 999 years'll be slippin' awa'."

But of all the cautious and careful answers we ever heard of was one given by a carpenter to an old lady in Glasgow, for whom he was working, and the anecdote is well authenticated. She had offered him a dram, and asked him whether he would have it then or wait till his work was done--"Indeed, mem," he said, "there's been sic a power o' sudden deaths lately that I'll just tak it now." He would guard against contingency and secure his dram.

The following is a good specimen of the same humour:--A minister had been preaching against covetousness and the love of money, and had frequently repeated how "love of money was the root of all evil" Two old bodies walking home from church--one said, "An' wasna the minister strang upo' the money?" "Nae doubt," said the other, rather hesitatingly; and added, "ay, but it's grand to hae the wee bit siller in your haund when ye gang an errand."

I have still another specimen of this national, cool, and deliberative view of a question, which seems characteristic of the temperament of our good countrymen. Some time back, when it was not uncommon for challenges to be given and accepted for insults, or supposed insults, an English gentleman was entertaining a party at Inverness with an account of the wonders he had seen and the deeds he had performed in India, from whence he had lately arrived. He enlarged particularly upon the size of the tigers he had met with at different times in his travels, and by way of corroborating his statements, assured the company that he had shot one himself considerably above forty feet long. A Scottish gentleman present, who thought that these narratives rather exceeded a traveller's allowed privileges, coolly said that no doubt those were very remarkable tigers; but that he could assure the gentleman there were in that northern part of the country some wonderful animals, and, as an example, he cited the existence of a skate-fish captured off Thurso, which exceeded half-an-acre in extent. The Englishman saw this was intended as a sarcasm against his own story, so he left the room in indignation, and sent his friend, according to the old plan, to demand satisfaction or an apology from the gentleman, who had, he thought, insulted him. The narrator of the skate story coolly replied, "Weel, sir, gin yer freend will tak' a few feet aff the length o' his tiger, we'll see what can be dune about the breadth o' the skate." He was too cautious to commit himself to a rash or decided course of conduct. When the tiger was shortened, he would take into consideration a reduction of superficial area in his skate.

A kind correspondent has sent me about as good a specimen of dry Scottish quiet humour as I know. A certain Aberdeenshire laird, who kept a very good poultry-yard, could not command a fresh egg for his breakfast, and felt much aggrieved by the want. One day, however, he met his grieve's wife with a nice basket, and very suspiciously going towards the market; on passing and speaking a word, he was enabled to discover that her basket was full of beautiful white eggs. Next time he talked with his grieve, he said to him, "James, I like you very well, and I think you serve me faithfully, but I cannot say I admire your wife." To which the cool reply was, "Oh, 'deed, sir, I'm no surprised at that, for I dinna muckle admire her mysel'."

An answer very much resembling this, and as much to the point, was that of a gudewife on Deeside, whose daughter had just been married and had left her for her new home. A lady asked the mother very kindly about her daughter, and said she hoped she liked her new home and new relations. "Ou, my lady, she likes the parish weel eneuch, but she doesna think muckle o' her man!"

The natives of Aberdeenshire are distinguished for the two qualities of being very acute in their remarks and very peculiar in their language. Any one may still gain a thorough knowledge of Aberdeen dialect and see capital examples of Aberdeen humour. I have been supplied with a remarkable example of this combination of Aberdeen shrewdness with Aberdeen dialect. In the course of the week after the Sunday on which several elders of an Aberdeen parish had been set apart for parochial offices, a knot of the parishioners had assembled at what was in all parishes a great place of resort for idle gossiping--the smiddy or blacksmith's workshop. The qualifications of the new elders were severely criticised. One of the speakers emphatically laid down that the minister should not have been satisfied, and had in fact made a most unfortunate choice. He was thus answered by another parish oracle--perhaps the schoolmaster, perhaps a weaver:--"Fat better culd the man dee nir he's dune?--he bud tae big's dyke wi' the feal at fit o't." He meant there was no choice of material--he could only take what offered.

By the kindness of Dr. Begg, I have a most amusing anecdote to illustrate how deeply long-tried associations were mixed up with the habits of life in the older generation. A junior minister having to assist at a church in a remote part of Aberdeenshire, the parochial minister (one of the old school) promised his young friend a good glass of whisky-toddy after all was over, adding slily and very significantly, "and gude smuggled whusky." His Southron guest thought it incumbent to say, "Ah, minister, that's wrong, is it not? you know it is contrary to Act of Parliament." The old Aberdonian could not so easily give up his fine whisky to what he considered an unjust interference; so he quietly said, "Oh, Acts o' Parliament lose their breath before they get to Aberdeenshire."

There is something very amusing in the idea of what may be called the "fitness of things," in regard to snuff-taking, which occurred to an honest Highlander, a genuine lover of sneeshin. At the door of the Blair-Athole Hotel he observed standing a magnificent man in full tartans, and noticed with much admiration the wide dimensions of his nostrils in a fine upturned nose. He accosted him, and, as his most complimentary act, offered him his mull for a pinch. The stranger drew up, and rather haughtily said: "I never take snuff." "Oh," said the other, "that's a peety, for there's grand accommodation[15]!"

I don't know a better example of the sly sarcasm than the following answer of a Scottish servant to the violent command of his enraged master. A well-known coarse and abusive Scottish law functionary, when driving out of his grounds, was shaken by his carriage coming in contact with a large stone at the gate. He was very angry, and ordered the gatekeeper to have it removed before his return. On driving home, however, he encountered another severe shock by the wheels coming in contact with the very same stone, which remained in the very same place. Still more irritated than before, in his usual coarse language he called the gatekeeper, and roared out: "You rascal, if you don't send that beastly stone to h---, I'll break your head." "Well," said the man quietly, and as if he had received an order which he had to execute, and without meaning anything irreverent, "aiblins gin it were sent to heevan it wad be mair out o' your Lordship's way."

I think about as cool a Scottish "aside" as I know, was that of the old dealer who, when exhorting his son to practise honesty in his dealings, on the ground of its being the "best policy," quietly added, "I hae tried baith"

In this work frequent mention is made of a class of old ladies, generally residing in small towns, who retained till within the memory of many now living the special characteristics I have referred to. Owing to local connection, I have brought forward those chiefly who lived in Montrose and the neighbourhood. But the race is extinct; you might as well look for hoops and farthingales in society as for such characters now. You can scarcely imagine an old lady, however quaint, now making use of some of the expressions recorded in the text, or saying, for the purpose of breaking up a party of which she was tired, from holding bad cards, "We'll stop now, bairns; I'm no enterteened;" or urging more haste in going to church on the plea, "Come awa, or I'll be ower late for the 'wicked man'"--her mode of expressing the commencement of the service.

Nothing could better illustrate the quiet pawky style for which our countrymen have been distinguished, than the old story of the piper and the wolves. A Scottish piper was passing through a deep forest. In the evening he sat down to take his supper. He had hardly begun, when a number of hungry wolves, prowling about for food, collected round him. In self-defence, the poor man began to throw pieces of his victuals to them, which they greedily devoured. When he had disposed of all, in a fit of despair he took his pipes and began to play. The unusual sound terrified the wolves, which, one and all, took to their heels and scampered off in every direction: on observing which, Sandy quietly remarked, "Od, an I'd kenned ye liket the pipes sae weel, I'd a gien ye a spring afore supper."

This imperturbable mode of looking at the events of life is illustrated by perhaps the most cautious answer on record, of the Scotsman who, being asked if he could play the fiddle, warily answered, "He couldna say, for he had never tried." But take other cases. For example: One tremendously hot day, during the old stage-coach system, I was going down to Portobello, when the coachman drew up to take in a gentleman who had hailed him on the road. He was evidently an Englishman--a fat man, and in a perfect state of "thaw and dissolution" from the heat and dust. He wiped himself, and exclaimed, as a remark addressed to the company generally, "D----d hot it is." No one said anything for a time, till a man in the corner slily remarked, "I dinna doubt, sir, but it may." The cautiousness against committing himself unreservedly to any proposition, however plausible, was quite delicious.

A more determined objection to giving a categorical answer occurred, as I have been assured, in regard to a more profound question. A party travelling on a railway got into deep discussion on theological questions. Like Milton's spirits in Pandemonium, they had

A plain Scotsman present seemed much interested in these matters, and having expressed himself as not satisfied with the explanations which had been elicited in the course of discussion on a particular point regarding predestination, one of the party said to him that he had observed a minister, whom they all knew, in the adjoining compartment, and that when the train stopped at the next station a few minutes, he could go and ask his opinion. The good man accordingly availed himself of the opportunity to get hold of the minister, and lay their difficulty before him. He returned in time to resume his own place, and when they had started again, the gentleman who had advised him, finding him not much disposed to voluntary communication, asked if he had seen the minister. "O ay," he said, "he had seen him." "And did you propose the question to him?" "O ay." "And what did he say?" "Oh, he just said he didna ken; and what was mair he didna care!"

I have received the four following admirable anecdotes, illustrative of dry Scottish pawky humour, from an esteemed minister of the Scottish Church, the Rev. W. Mearns of Kinneff. I now record them nearly in the same words as his own kind communication. The anecdotes are as follow:--An aged minister of the old school, Mr. Patrick Stewart, one Sunday took to the pulpit a sermon without observing that the first leaf or two were so worn and eaten away that he couldn't decipher or announce the text. He was not a man, however, to be embarrassed or taken aback by a matter of this sort, but at once intimated the state of matters to the congregation,--"My brethren, I canna tell ye the text, for the mice hae eaten it; but we'll just begin whaur the mice left aff, and when I come to it I'll let you ken."

In the year 1843, shortly after the Disruption, a parish minister had left the manse and removed to about a mile's distance. His pony got loose one day, and galloped down the road in the direction of the old glebe. The minister's man in charge ran after the pony in a great fuss, and when passing a large farm-steading on the way, cried out to the farmer, who was sauntering about, but did not know what had taken place--"Oh, sir, did ye see the minister's shault?" "No, no," was the answer,--"but what's happened?" "Ou, sir, fat do ye think? the minister's shault's got lowse frae his tether, an' I'm frichtened he's ta'en the road doun to the auld glebe." "Weel-a-wicht!"--was the shrewd clever rejoinder of the farmer, who was a keen supporter of the old parish church, "I wad na wonder at that. An' I'se warrant, gin the minister was gettin' lowse frae his tether, he wad jist tak the same road."

An old clerical friend upon Speyside, a confirmed bachelor, on going up to the pulpit one Sunday to preach, found, after giving out the psalm, that he had forgotten his sermon. I do not know what his objections were to his leaving the pulpit, and going to the manse for his sermon, but he preferred sending his old confidential housekeeper for it. He accordingly stood up in the pulpit, stopped the singing which had commenced, and thus accosted his faithful domestic:--"Annie; I say, Annie, we've committed a mistak the day. Ye maun jist gang your waa's hame, and ye'll get my sermon oot o' my breek-pouch, an' we'll sing to the praise o' the Lord till ye come back again." Annie, of course, at once executed her important mission, and brought the sermon out of "the breek-pouch," and the service, so far as we heard, was completed without further interruption.

My dear friend, the late Rev. Dr. John Hunter, told me an anecdote very characteristic of the unimaginative matter-of-fact Scottish view of matters. One of the ministers of Edinburgh, a man of dry humour, had a daughter who had for some time passed the period of youth and of beauty. She had become an Episcopalian, an event which the Doctor accepted with much good-nature, and he was asking her one day if she did not intend to be confirmed. "Well," she said, "I don't know. I understand Mr. Craig always kisses the candidates whom he prepares, and I could not stand that." "Indeed, Jeanie," said the Doctor slily, "gin Edward Craig were to gie ye a kiss, I dinna think ye would be muckle the waur."

Many anecdotes characteristic of the Scottish peasant often turn upon words and ideas connected with Holy Scripture. This is not to be considered as in any sense profane or irreverent; but it arises from the Bible being to the peasantry of an older generation their library--their only book. We have constant indications of this almost exclusive familiarity with Scripture ideas. At the late ceremonial in the north, when the Archbishop of Canterbury laid the foundation of a Bishop's Church at Inverness, a number of persons, amid the general interest and kindly feeling displayed by the inhabitants, were viewing the procession from a hill as it passed along. When the clergy, to the number of sixty, came on, an old woman, who was watching the whole scene with some jealousy, exclaimed, at sight of the surplices, "There they go, the whited sepulchres!" I received another anecdote illustrative of the same remark from an esteemed minister of the Free Church: I mean of the hold which Scripture expressions have upon the minds of our Scottish peasantry. One of his flock was a sick nervous woman, who hardly ever left the house. But one fine afternoon, when she was left alone, she fancied she would like to get a little air in the field adjoining the house. Accordingly she put on a bonnet and wrapped herself in a huge red shawl. Creeping along the dyke-side, some cattle were attracted towards her, and first one and then another gathered round, and she took shelter in the ditch till she was relieved by some one coming up to her rescue. She afterwards described her feelings to her minister in strong language, adding, "And eh, sir! when I lay by the dyke, and the beasts round a' glowerin' at me, I thocht what Dauvid maun hae felt when he said--'Many bulls have compassed me; strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.'"

With the plainness and pungency of the old-fashioned Scottish language there was sometimes a coarseness of expression, which, although commonly repeated in the Scottish drawing-room of last century, could not now be tolerated. An example of a very plain and downright address of a laird has been recorded in the annals of "Forfarshire Lairdship." He had married one of the Misses Guthrie, who had a strong feeling towards the Presbyterian faith in which she had been brought up, although her husband was one of the zealous old school of Episcopalians. The young wife had invited her old friend, the parish minister, to tea, and had given him a splendid "four hours." Ere the table was cleared the laird came in unexpectedly, and thus expressed his indignation, not very delicately, at what he considered an unwarrantable exercise of hospitality at his cost:--"Helen Guthrie, ye'll no think to save yer ain saul at the expense of my meal-girnel!"

The answer of an old woman under examination by the minister to the question from the Shorter Catechism--"What are the decrees of God?" could not have been surpassed by the General Assembly of the Kirk, or even the Synod of Dort--"Indeed, sir, He kens that best Himsell." We have an answer analogous to that, though not so pungent, in a catechumen of the late Dr. Johnston of Leith. She answered his own question, patting him on the shoulder--"'Deed, just tell it yersell, bonny doctor (he was a very handsome man); naebody can tell it better."

To pass from the answers of "persons come to years of discretion"--I have elsewhere given examples of peculiar traits of character set forth in the answers of mere children, and no doubt a most amusing collection might be made of very juvenile "Scottish Reminiscences." One of these is now a very old story, and has long been current amongst us:--A little boy who attended a day-school in the neighbourhood, when he came home in the evening was always asked how he stood in his own class. The invariable answer made was, "I'm second dux," which means in Scottish academical language second from the top of the class. As his habits of application at home did not quite bear out the claim to so distinguished a position at school, one of the family ventured to ask what was the number in the class to which he was attached. After some hesitation he was obliged to admit: "Ou, there's jist me and anither lass." It was a very practical answer of the little girl, when asked the meaning of "darkness," as it occurred in Scripture reading--"Ou, just steek your een." On the question, What was the "pestilence that walketh in darkness"? being put to a class, a little boy answered, after consideration--"Ou, it's just bugs." I did not anticipate when in a former edition I introduced this answer, which I received from my nephew Sir Alexander Ramsay, that it would call forth a comment so interesting as one which I have received from Dr. Barber of Ulverston. He sends me an extract from Matthew's Translation of the Bible, which he received from Rev. L.R. Ayre, who possesses a copy of date 1553, from which it appears that Psalm xci. 5 was thus translated by Matthew, who adopted his translation from Coverdale and Tyndale:--"So that thou shalt not need to be afrayed for any bugge by nyght, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day[16]." Dr. Barber ingeniously remarks--"Is it possible the little boy's mother had one of these old Bibles, or is it merely a coincidence?"

The innocent and unsophisticated answers of children on serious subjects are often very amusing. Many examples are recorded, and one I have received seems much to the point, and derives a good deal of its point from the Scottish turn of the expressions. An elder of the kirk having found a little boy and his sister playing marbles on Sunday, put his reproof in this form, not a judicious one for a child:--"Boy, do ye know where children go to who play marbles on Sabbath-day?" "Ay," said the boy, "they gang doun' to the field by the water below the brig." "No," roared out the elder, "they go to hell, and are burned." The little fellow, really shocked, called to his sister, "Come awa', Jeanie, here's a man swearing awfully."

A Scotch story like that of the little boy, of which the humour consisted in the dry application of the terms in a sense different from what was intended by the speaker, was sent to me, but has got spoilt by passing through the press. It must be Scotch, or at least, is composed of Scottish materials--the Shorter Catechism and the bagpipes. A piper was plying his trade in the streets, and a strict elder of the kirk, desirous to remind him that it was a somewhat idle and profitless occupation, went up to him and proposed solemnly the first question of the Shorter Catechism, "What is the chief end of man?" The good piper, thinking only of his own business, and supposing that the question had reference to some pipe melody, innocently answered, "Na, I dinna ken the tune, but if ye'll whistle it I'll try and play it for ye."

I have said before, and I would repeat the remark again and again, that the object of this work is not to string together mere funny stories, or to collect amusing anecdotes. We have seen such collections, in which many of the anecdotes are mere Joe Millers translated into Scotch. The purport of these pages has been throughout to illustrate Scottish life and character, by bringing forward those modes and forms of expression by which alone our national peculiarities can be familiarly illustrated and explained. Besides Scottish replies and expressions which are most characteristic--and in fact unique for dry humour, for quaint and exquisite wit--I have often referred to a consideration of dialect and proverbs. There can be no doubt there is a force and beauty in our Scottish phraseology, as well as a quaint humour, considered merely as phraseology, peculiar to itself. I have spoken of the phrase "Auld langsyne," and of other words, which may be compared in their Anglican and Scottish form. Take the familiar term common to many singing-birds. The English word linnet does not, to my mind, convey so much of simple beauty and of pastoral ideas as belong to our Scottish word LINTIE.

I recollect hearing the Rev. Dr. Norman Macleod give a most interesting account of his visit to Canada. In the course of his eloquent narrative he mentioned a conversation he had with a Scottish emigrant, who in general terms spoke favourably and gratefully of his position in his adopted country. But he could not help making this exception when he thought of the "banks and braes o' bonny Doon"--"But oh, sir," he said, "there are nae linties i' the wuds." How touching the words in his own dialect! The North American woods, although full of birds of beautiful plumage, it is well known have no singing-birds.

A worthy Scottish Episcopal minister one day met a townsman, a breeder and dealer in singing-birds. The man told him he had just had a child born in his family, and asked him if he would baptize it. He thought the minister could not resist the offer of a bird. "Eh, Maister Shaw," he said, "if ye'll jist do it, I hae a fine lintie the noo, and if ye'll do it, I'll gie ye the lintie." He quite thought that this would settle the matter!

By these remarks I mean to express the feeling that the word lintie conveys to my mind more of tenderness and endearment towards the little songster than linnet. And this leads me to a remark (which I do not remember to have met with) that Scottish dialects are peculiarly rich in such terms of endearment, more so than the pure Anglican. Without at all pretending to exhaust the subject, I may cite the following as examples of the class of terms I speak of. Take the names for parents--"Daddie" and "Minnie;" names for children, "My wee bit lady" or "laddie," "My wee bit lamb;" of a general nature, "My ain kind dearie." "Dawtie," especially used to young people, described by Jamieson a darling or favourite, one who is dawted--i.e. fondled or caressed. My "joe" expresses affection with familiarity, evidently derived from joy, an easy transition--as "My joe, Janet;" "John Anderson, my joe, John." Of this character is Burns's address to a wife, "My winsome"--i.e. charming, engaging--"wee thing;" also to a wife, "My winsome marrow"--the latter word signifying a dear companion, one of a pair closely allied to each other; also the address of Rob the Ranter to Maggie Lauder, "My bonnie bird." Now, we would remark, upon this abundant nomenclature of kindly expressions in the Scottish dialect, that it assumes an interesting position as taken in connection with the Scottish Life and Character, and as a set-off against a frequent short and grumpy manner. It indicates how often there must be a current of tenderness and affection in the Scottish heart, which is so frequently represented to be, like its climate, "stern and wild." There could not be such terms were the feelings they express unknown. I believe it often happens that in the Scottish character there is a vein of deep and kindly feeling lying hid under a short, and hard and somewhat stern manner. Hence has arisen the Scottish saying which is applicable to such cases--"His girn's waur than his bite:" his disposition is of a softer nature than his words and manner would often lead you to suppose.

There are two admirable articles in Blackwood's Magazine, in the numbers for November and December 1870, upon this subject. The writer abundantly vindicates the point and humour of the Scottish tongue. Who can resist, for example, the epithet applied by Meg Merrilies to an unsuccessful probationer for admission to the ministry:--"a sticket stibbler"? Take the sufficiency of Holy Scripture as a pledge for any one's salvation:--"There's eneuch between the brods o' the Testament to save the biggest sinner i' the warld." I heard an old Scottish Episcopalian thus pithily describe the hasty and irreverent manner of a young Englishman:--"He ribbled aff the prayers like a man at the heid o' a regiment." A large family of young children has been termed "a great sma' family." It was a delicious dry rejoinder to the question--"Are you Mr. So-and-so?" "It's a' that's o' me" (i.e. to be had for him.) I have heard an old Scottish gentleman direct his servant to mend the fire by saying, "I think, Dauvid, we wadna be the waur o' some coals."

There is a pure Scottish term, which I have always thought more expressive than any English word of ideas connected with manners in society--I mean the word to blether, or blethering, or blethers. Jamieson defines it to "talk nonsense." But it expresses far more--it expresses powerfully, to Scottish people, a person at once shallow, chattering, conceited, tiresome, voluble.

There is a delicious servantgirlism, often expressed in an answer given at the door to an inquirer: "Is your master at home, or mistress?" as the case may be. The problem is to save the direct falsehood, and yet evade the visit; so the answer is--"Ay, he or she is at hame; but he's no in"

The transition from Scottish expressions to Scottish Poetry is easy and natural. In fact, the most interesting feature now belonging to Scottish life and social habits is, to a certain extent, becoming with many a matter of reminiscence of Poetry in the Scottish dialect, as being the most permanent and the most familiar feature of Scottish characteristics. It is becoming a matter of history, in so far as we find that it has for some time ceased to be cultivated with much ardour, or to attract much popularity. In fact, since the time of Burns, it has been losing its hold on the public mind. It is a remarkable fact that neither Scott nor Wilson, both admirers of Burns, both copious writers of poetry themselves, both also so distinguished as writers of Scottish prose, should have written any poetry strictly in the form of pure Scottish dialect. "Jock o' Hazeldean" I hardly admit to be an exception. It is not Scottish. If, indeed, Sir Walter wrote the scrap of the beautiful ballad in the "Antiquary"--

one cannot but regret that he had not written more of the same. Campbell, a poet and a Scotsman, has not attempted it. In short, we do not find poetry in the Scottish dialect at all kept up in Scotland. It is every year becoming more a matter of research and reminiscence. Nothing new is added to the old stock, and indeed it is surprising to see the ignorance and want of interest displayed by many young persons in this department of literature. How few read the works of Allan Ramsay, once so popular, and still so full of pastoral imagery! There are occasionally new editions of the Gentle Shepherd, but I suspect for a limited class of readers. I am assured the boys of the High School, Academy, etc., do not care even for Burns. As poetry in the Scottish dialect is thus slipping away from the public Scottish mind, I thought it very suitable to a work of this character to supply a list of modern Scottish dialect writers. This I am able to provide by the kindness of our distinguished antiquary, Mr. David Laing--the fulness and correctness of whose acquirements are only equalled by his readiness and courtesy in communicating his information to others:--

SCOTTISH POETS OF THE LAST CENTURY.

ALLAN RAMSAY. B. 1686. D. 1757. His Gentle Shepherd, completed in 1725, and his Collected Poems in 1721-1728.

It cannot be said there was any want of successors, however obscure, following in the same track. Those chiefly deserving of notice were--

ALEXANDER Ross of Lochlee. B. 1700. D. 1783. The Fortunate Shepherdess.

ROBERT FERGUSSON. B. 1750. D. 1774. Leith Races, Caller Oysters, etc.

REV. JOHN SKINNER. B. 1721. D. 1807. Tullochgorum.

ROBERT BURNS. B. 1759. D. 1796.

ALEXANDER, FOURTH DUKE OF GORDON. B. 1743. D. 1827. Cauld Kail in Aberdeen.

ALEXANDER WILSON of Paisley, who latterly distinguished himself as an American ornithologist. B. 1766. D. 1813. Watty and Meg.

HECTOR MACNEILL. B. 1746. D. 1818. Will and Jean.

ROBERT TANNAHILL. B. 1774. D. 1810. Songs.

JAMES HOGG. B. 1772. D. 1835.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. B. 1784. D. 1842.

To this list we must add the names of Lady Nairne and Lady Anne Lindsay. To the former we are indebted for "The Land o' the Leal," "The Laird o' Cockpen," and "The Auld Hoose;" to the latter for "Auld Robin Gray:" and our wonder is, how those who could write so charmingly should have written so little.

I have no intention of discussing the general question of Scottish poetry--of defending or eulogising, or of apologising for anything belonging to it. There are songs in broad Scottish dialect of which the beauty and the power will never be lost. Words of Burns, Allan Ramsay, and Lady Nairne, must ever speak to hearts that are true to nature. I am desirous of bringing before my readers at this time the name of a Scottish poet, which, though in Mr. Laing's list, I fear is become rather a reminiscence. It is fifty years since his poetical pieces were published in a collected form. I am desirous of giving a special notice of a true-hearted Scotsman, and a genuine Scottish poet, under both characters. I look with a tender regard to the memory of the Rev. JOHN SKINNER of Langside. He has written little in quantity, but it is all charming. He was a good Christian minister. He was a man of learning--a man of liberal and generous feeling. In addition to all this, he has upon me the claim of having been a Scottish Episcopalian divine, and I am always rejoiced to see among learned men of our church sympathies with liberalism, besides what is patristic and theological. John Skinner's name and family are much mixed up with our church. 'Tullochgorum' was father of Primus John Skinner, and grandfather of Primus W. Skinner and of the Rev. John Skinner of Forfar. The youngest brother of Tullochgorum was James Skinner, W.S., who died at ninety-one, and was grandfather of W. Skinner, W.S., Edinburgh. The Rev. J. Skinner was born in Birse, a wild part of Aberdeenshire, 1721. His father was parochial schoolmaster at Gight for nearly fifty years. He worked hard under the care of his father, who was a good Latin scholar. He gained a bursary at Aberdeen, where he studied. When he left college he became schoolmaster at Monymusk, where he wrote some pieces that attracted attention, and Sir Archibald Grant took him into the house, and allowed him the full use of a very fine library. He made good use of this opportunity, and indeed became a fair scholar and theologian. Skinner had been brought up a Presbyterian, but at Monymusk found reasons for changing his views. In June 1740 he became tutor to the only son of Mrs. Sinclair in Shetland. Returning to Aberdeenshire in 1741, he completed his studies for the ministry, was ordained by Bishop Dunbar, and in 1742 became pastor of Langside. He worked for this little congregation for nearly sixty-five years, and they were happy and united under his pastoral charge. One very interesting incident took place during his ministry, which bears upon our general question of reminiscences and changes. John Skinner was in his own person an example of that persecution for political opinion referred to in Professor Macgregor's account of the large prayer-book in the library at Panmure. After the '45, Episcopalians were treated with suspicion and severity. The severe laws passed against Jacobites were put in force, and poor Skinner fined.

However, better and more peaceful times came round, and all that John Skinner had undergone did not sour his temper or make him severe or misanthropical. As a pastor he seems to have had tact, as well as good temper, in the management of his flock, if we may judge from the following anecdote:--Talking with an obstinate self-confident farmer, when the conversation happened to turn on the subject of the motion of the earth, the farmer would not be convinced that the earth moved at all. "Hoot, minister," the man roared out; "d'ye see the earth never gaes oot o' the pairt, and it maun be that the sun gaes round: we a' ken he rises i' the east and sets i' the west." Then, as if to silence all argument, he added triumphantly, "As if the sun didna gae round the earth, when it is said in Scripture that the Lord commanded the sun to stand still!" Mr. Skinner, finding it was no use to argue further, quietly answered, "Ay, it's vera true; the sun was commanded to stand still, and there he stands still, for Joshua never tauld him to tak the road again." I have said John Skinner wrote little Scottish poetry, but what he wrote was rarely good. His prose works extended over three volumes when they were collected by his son, the Bishop of Aberdeen, but we have no concern with them. His poetical pieces, by which his name will never die in Scotland, are the "Reel of Tullochgorum" and the "Ewie with the Crooked Horn," charming Scottish songs,--one the perfection of the lively, the other of the pathetic. It is quite enough to say of "Tullochgorum" (by which the old man is now always designated), what was said of it by Robert Burns, as "the first of songs," and as the best Scotch song Scotland ever saw.

I have brought in the following anecdote, exactly as it appeared in the Scotsman of October 4, 1859, because it introduces his name.

"The late Rev. John Skinner, author of 'Annals of Scottish Episcopacy,' was his grandson. He was first appointed to a charge in Montrose, from whence he was removed to Banff, and ultimately to Forfar. After he had left Montrose, it reached his ears that an ill-natured insinuation was circulating there that he had been induced to leave this town by the temptation of a better income and of fat pork, which, it would appear, was plentiful in the locality of his new incumbency. Indignant at such an aspersion, he wrote a letter, directed to his maligners, vindicating himself sharply from it, which he showed to his grandfather, John Skinner of Langside, for his approval. The old gentleman objected to it as too lengthy, and proposed the following pithy substitute:--

But there is an anecdote of John Skinner which should endear his memory to every generous and loving heart. On one occasion he was passing a small dissenting place of worship at the time when the congregation were engaged in singing: on passing the door--old-fashioned Scottish Episcopalian as he was--he reverently took off his hat. His companion said to him, "What! do you feel so much sympathy with this Anti Burgher congregation?" "No," said Mr. Skinner, "but I respect and love any of my fellow-Christians who are engaged in singing to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ." Well done, old Tullochgorum! thy name shall be loved and honoured by every true liberal-minded Scotsman.

Yes! Mr. Skinner's experience of the goodness of God and of the power of grace, had led him to the conviction that the earnest song of praise, that comes from the heart of the sincere believer in Christ, can go up to Heaven from the humblest earthly house of prayer, and be received before the throne of grace as acceptably as the high and solemn service of the lofty cathedral,

"Where, from the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise."

We must firmly believe that, obsolete as the dialect of Scotland may become, and its words and expressions a matter of tradition and of reminiscence with many, still there are Scottish lines, and broad Scottish lines, which can never cease to hold their place in the affections and the admiration of innumerable hearts whom they have charmed. Can the choice and popular Scottish verses, endeared to us by so many kindly associations of the past, and by so many beauties and poetical graces of their own, ever lose their attractions for a Scottish heart? The charm of such strains can never die.

I think one subsidiary cause for permanency in the popularity still belonging to particular Scottish songs has proceeded from their association with Scottish music. The melodies of Scotland can never die. In the best of these compositions there is a pathos and a feeling which must preserve them, however simple in their construction, from being vulgar or commonplace. Mendelssohn did not disdain taking Scottish airs as themes for the exercise of his profound science and his exquisite taste. It must, I think, be admitted that singing of Scottish songs in the perfection of their style--at once pathetic, graceful, and characteristic--is not so often met with as to remove all apprehension that ere long they may become matters only of reminiscence. Many accomplished musicians often neglect entirely the cultivation of their native melodies, under the idea of their being inconsistent with the elegance and science of high-class music. They commit a mistake. When judiciously and tastefully performed, it is a charming style of music, and will always give pleasure to the intelligent hearer. I have heard two young friends, who have attained great skill in scientific and elaborate compositions, execute the simple song of "Low down in the Broom," with an effect I shall not easily forget. Who that has heard the Countess of Essex, when Miss Stephens, sing "Auld Robin Gray," can ever lose the impression of her heart-touching notes? In the case of "Auld Robin Gray," the song composed by Lady Anne Lindsay, although very beautiful in itself, has been, I think, a good deal indebted to the air for its great and continued popularity. The history of that tender and appropriate melody is somewhat curious, and not generally known. The author was not a Scotsman. It was composed by the Rev. Mr. Leves, rector of Wrington in Somersetshire, either early in this century or just at the close of the last. Mr. Leves was fond of music, and composed several songs, but none ever gained any notice except his "Auld Robin Gray," the popularity of which has been marvellous. I knew the family when I lived in Somersetshire, and had met them in Bath. Mr. Leves composed the air for his daughter, Miss Bessy Leves, who was a pretty girl and a pretty singer.

I cannot but deeply regret to think that I should in these pages have any ground for classing Scottish poetry and Scottish airs amongst "Reminiscences." It is a department of literature where, of course, there must be selection, but I am convinced it will repay a careful cultivation. I would recommend, as a copious and judicious selection of Scottish tunes, "The Scottish Minstrel," by R.A. Smith (Purdie, Edinburgh). There are the words, also, of a vast number of Scottish songs, but the account of their authorship is very defective. Then, again, for the fine Scottish ballads of an older period, we have two admirable collections--one by Mr. R. Chambers, and one by the late Professor Aytoun. For Scottish dialect songs of the more modern type, a copious collection will be found (exclusive of Burns and Allan Earn say) in small volumes published by David Robertson, Glasgow, at intervals from 1832 to 1853, under the title of Whistlebinkie.

But there are more than lines of Scottish poetry which may become matter of reminiscence, and more than Scottish song melodies which may be forgotten. There are strains of Scottish PSALMODY of which it would be more sad to think that they possibly may have lost their charm and their hold with Scottish people. That such psalmody, of a peculiar Scottish class and character, has existed, no one can doubt who has knowledge or recollection of past days. In glens and retired passes, where those who fled from persecution met together--on the moors and heaths, where men suffering for their faith took refuge--in the humble worship of the cottar's fireside--were airs of sacred Scottish melody, which were well calculated to fan the heavenward flame which was kindled in lays of the "sweet Psalmist of Israel." These psalm-tunes are in their way as peculiar as the song-tunes we have referred to. Nothing can be more touching than the description by Burns of the domestic psalmody of his father's cottage. Mr. E. Chambers, in his Life of Burns, informs us that the poet, during his father's infirmity and after his death, had himself sometimes conducted family worship. Happy days, ere he had encountered the temptations of a world in which he had too often fallen before the solicitations of guilty passion! and then, beautifully does he describe the characteristic features of this portion of the cottars worship. How solemnly he enumerates the psalm-tunes usually made use of on such occasions, and discriminates the character of each:--

He was not, alas! always disposed in after life to reverence these sacred melodies as he had done in his youthful days. In his poem of "The Holy Fair," he less reverently adduces mention of these sacred airs:--

These tunes seem to have been strictly and exclusively national. In proof of such psalmody being quite national, I have been told that many of these tunes were composed by artisans, such as builders, joiners, blacksmiths, etc.

Several of the psalm-tunes more peculiar to Scotland are no doubt of an early date. In Ravenscroft's Psalms, published with the music in four parts in 1621, he gives the names of seven as purely Scottish--King's, Duke's, Abbey, Dunfermline, Dundee, Glasgow, Martyrs. I was used to hear such psalmody in my early days in the parish church of Fettercairn, where we always attended during summer. It had all the simple characteristics described by Burns, and there was a heartiness and energy too in the congregation when, as he expresses it, they used to "skirl up the Bangor," of which the effects still hang in my recollection. At that time there prevailed the curious custom, when some of the psalms were sung, of reading out a single line, and when that was sung another line was read, and so throughout[18]. Thus, on singing the 50th psalm, the first line sounded thus:--"Our God shall come, and shall no more;" when that was sung, there came the next startling announcement--"Be silent, but speak out." A rather unfortunate juxtaposition was suggested through this custom, which we are assured really happened in the church of Irvine. The precentor, after having given out the first line, and having observed some members of the family from the castle struggling to get through the crowd on a sacramental occasion, cried out, "Let the noble family of Eglinton pass," and then added the line which followed the one he had just given out rather mal-apropos--"Nor stand in sinners' way." One peculiarity I remember, which was, closing the strain sometimes by an interval less than a semitone; instead of the half-note preceding the close or key-note, they used to take the quarter-note, the effect of which had a peculiar gurgling sound, but I never heard it elsewhere. It may be said these Scottish tunes were unscientific, and their performance rude. It may be so, but the effect was striking, as I recall it through the vista of threescore years and ten. Great advances, no doubt, have been made in Scotland in congregational psalmody; organs have in some instances been adopted; choirs have been organised with great effort by choirmasters of musical taste and skill. But I hope the spirit of PIETY, which in past times once accompanied the old Scottish psalm, whether sung in the church or at home, has not departed with the music. Its better emotions are not, I hope, to become a "Reminiscence."

There was no doubt sometimes a degree of noise in the psalmody more than was consistent with good taste, but this often proceeded from the earnestness of those who joined. I recollect at Banchory an honest fellow who sang so loud that he annoyed his fellow-worshippers, and the minister even rebuked him for "skirling" so loud. James was not quite patient under these hints, and declared to some of his friends that he was resolved to sing to the praise of God, as he said, "gin I should crack the waas o' the houss."

Going from sacred tunes to sacred words, a good many changes have taken place in the little history of our own psalmody and hymnology. When I first came to Edinburgh, for psalms we made use of the mild and vapid new version of Tate and Brady;--for hymns, almost each congregation had its own selection--and there were hymn-books of Dundee, Perth, Glasgow, etc. The Established Church used the old rough psalter, with paraphrases by Logan, etc., and a few hymns added by authority of the General Assembly. There seems to be a pretty general tendency in the Episcopal Church to adopt at present the extensive collection called "Hymns Ancient and Modern," containing 386 pieces. Copies of the words alone are to be procured for one penny, and the whole, with tunes attached, to be procured for 1s. 6d. The Hymns Ancient and Modern are not set forth with any Ecclesiastical sanction. It is supposed, however, that there will be a Hymnal published by the Church of England on authority, and if so, our Church will be likely to adopt it. The Established Church Hymnal Committee have lately sanctioned a very interesting collection of 200 pieces. The compilation has been made with liberality of feeling as well as with good taste. There are several of Neale's translations from mediaeval hymns, several from John Keble, and the whole concludes with the Te Deum taken literally from the Prayer-Book.

This mention of Scottish Psalmody and Scottish Hymnology, whether for private or for public worship, naturally brings us to a very important division of our subject; I mean the general question of reminiscences of Scottish religious feelings and observances; and first in regard to Scottish clergy.

My esteemed friend, Lord Neaves, who, it is well known, combines with his great legal knowledge and high literary acquirements a keen sense of the humorous, has sometimes pleasantly complained of my drawing so many of my specimens of Scottish humour from sayings and doings of Scottish ministers. They were a shrewd and observant race. They lived amongst their own people from year to year, and understood the Scottish type of character. Their retired habits and familiar intercourse with their parishioners gave rise to many quaint and racy communications. They were excellent men, well suited to their pastoral work, and did much good amongst their congregations; for it should be always remembered that a national church requires a sympathy and resemblance between the pastors and the flocks. Both will be found to change together. Nothing could be further from my mind in recording these stories, than the idea of casting ridicule upon such an order of men. My own feelings as a Scotsman, with all their ancestral associations, lead me to cherish their memory with pride and deep interest, I may appeal also to the fact that many contributions to this volume are voluntary offerings from distinguished clergymen of the Church of Scotland, as well as of the Free Church and of other Presbyterian communities. Indeed, no persons enjoy these stories more than ministers themselves. I recollect many years ago travelling to Perth in the old stage-coach days, and enjoying the society of a Scottish clergyman, who was a most amusing companion, and full of stories, the quaint humour of which accorded with his own disposition. When we had come through Glen Farg, my companion pointed out that we were in the parish of Dron. With much humour he introduced an anecdote of a brother minister not of a brilliant order of mind, who had terminated in this place a course of appointments in the Church, the names of which, at least, were of an ominous character for a person of unimaginative temperament. The worthy man had been brought up at the school of Dunse; had been made assistant at Dull, a parish near Aberfeldy, in the Presbytery of Weem; and had here ended his days and his clerical career as minister of Dron.

There can be no doubt that the older school of national clergy supply many of our most amusing anecdotes; and our pages would suffer deplorably were all the anecdotes taken away which turn upon their peculiarities of dialect and demeanour. I think it will be found, however, that upon no class of society has there been a greater change during the last hundred years than on the Scottish clergy as a body. This, indeed, might, from many circumstances, have been expected. The improved facilities for locomotion have had effect upon the retirement and isolation of distant country parishes, the more liberal and extended course of study at Scottish colleges, the cheaper and wider diffusion of books on general literature, of magazines, newspapers, and reviews. Perhaps, too, we may add that candidates for the ministry now more generally originate from the higher educated classes of society. But honour to the memory of Scottish ministers of the days that are gone!

The Scottish clergy, from having mixed so little with life, were often, no doubt, men of simple habits and of very childlike notions. The opinions and feelings which they expressed were often of a cast, which, amongst persons of more experience, would appear to be not always quite consistent with the clerical character. In them it arose from their having nothing conventional about them. Thus I have heard of an old bachelor clergyman whose landlady declared he used to express an opinion of his dinner by the grace which he made to follow. When he had had a good dinner which pleased him, and a good glass of beer with it, he poured forth the grace, "For the riches of thy bounty and its blessings we offer our thanks." When he had had poor fare and poor beer, his grace was, "The least of these thy mercies."

Many examples of the dry, quaint humour of the class occur in these pages, but there could not be a finer specimen than the instance recorded in the "Annals of the Parish" of the account given by the minister of his own ordination. The ministers were all assembled for the occasion; prayers had been offered, discourses delivered, and the time for the actual ordination had come. The form is for the candidate to kneel down and receive his sacred office by the imposition of hands, i.e. the laying on of hands by the whole Presbytery. As the attendance of ministers was large, a number of hands were stretched forth, more than could quite conveniently come up to the candidate. An old minister, of the quiet jocose turn of mind we speak of, finding himself thus kept at a little distance, stretched out his walking staff and put it on the young man's head, with the quiet remark, "That will do! Timmer to timmer"--timber to timber.

Their style of preaching, too was, no doubt often plain and homely. They had not the graces of elocution or elegance of diction. But many were faithful in their office, and preached Christ as the poor man's friend and the Saviour of the lowly and the suffering. I have known Scottish ministers of the old school get into a careless indifferent state of ministration; I have also known the hoary head of many a Scottish minister go down to the grave a crown of glory, in his day and generation more honoured than many which had been adorned by a mitre.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Lying Gilbert.

[15] This anecdote has been illustrated, as taken from these pages, by a very clever sketch of the Highlander and his admirer, in a curious publication at Liverpool called The Tobacco Plant, and devoted to the interests of smoking and snuffing.

[16] The truth is, in old English usage "bug" signifies a spectre or anything that is frightful. Thus in Henry VI., 3d Part, act v. sc. ii.--"For Warwick was a bug that feared us all."

[17] Adds fuel to fire.

[18] As far as I am aware the only place in which it is practised at present (July 1872), is in the Free Church, Brodick, Arran.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

This is the place to notice a change which has taken place in regard to some questions of taste in the building and embellishing of Scottish places of worship. Some years back there was a great jealousy of ornament in connection with churches and church services, and, in fact, all such embellishments were considered as marks of a departure from the simplicity of old Scottish worship,--they were distinctive of Episcopacy as opposed to the severer modes of Presbyterianism. The late Sir William Forbes used to give an account of a conversation, indicative of this feeling, which he had overheard between an Edinburgh inhabitant and his friend from the country. They were passing St. John's, which had just been finished, and the countryman asked, "Whatna kirk was that?" "Oh," said the townsman, "that is an English chapel," meaning Episcopalian. "Ay," said his friend, "there'll be a walth o' images there." But, if unable to sympathise with architectural church ornament and embellishment, how much less could they sympathise with the performance of divine service, which included such musical accompaniments as intoning, chanting, and anthems! On the first introduction of Tractarianism into Scotland, the full choir service had been established in an Episcopal church, where a noble family had adopted those views, and carried them out regardless of expense. The lady who had been instrumental in getting up these musical services was very anxious that a favourite female servant of the family--a Presbyterian of the old school--should have an opportunity of hearing them; accordingly, she very kindly took her down to church in the carriage, and on returning asked her what she thought of the music, etc. "Ou, it's verra bonny, verra bonny; but oh, my lady, it's an awfu' way of spending the Sabbath." The good woman could only look upon the whole thing as a musical performance. The organ was a great mark of distinction between Episcopalian and Presbyterian places of worship. I have heard of an old lady describing an Episcopalian clergyman, without any idea of disrespect, in these terms:--"Oh, he is a whistle-kirk minister." From an Australian correspondent I have an account of the difference between an Episcopal minister and a Presbyterian minister, as remarked by an old Scottish lady of his acquaintance. Being asked in what the difference was supposed to consist, after some consideration she replied, "Weel, ye see, the Presbyterian minister wears his sark under his coat, the Episcopal minister wears his sark aboon his coat." Of late years, however, a spirit of greater tolerance of such things has been growing up amongst us,--a greater tolerance, I suspect, even of organs and liturgies. In fact, we may say a new era has begun in Scotland as to church architecture and church ornaments. The use of stained glass in churches--forming memorial windows for the departed[19], a free use of crosses as architectural ornaments, and restoration of ancient edifices, indicate a revolution of feeling regarding this question. Beautiful and expensive churches are rising everywhere, in connection with various denominations. It is not long since the building or repairing a new church, or the repairing and adapting an old church, implied in Scotland simply a production of the greatest possible degree of ugliness and bad taste at the least possible expense, and certainly never included any notion of ornament in the details. Now, large sums are expended on places of worship, without reference to creed. First-rate architects are employed. Fine Gothic structures are produced. The rebuilding of the Greyfriars' Church, the restoration of South Leith Church and of Glasgow Cathedral, the very bold experiment of adopting a style little known amongst us, the pure Lombard, in a church for Dr. W.L. Alexander, on George IV. Bridge, Edinburgh; the really splendid Free Churches, St. Mary's, in Albany Street, and the Barclay Church, Bruntsfield, and many similar cases, mark the spirit of the times regarding the application of what is beautiful in art to the service of religion. One might hope that changes such as these in the feelings, tastes, and associations, would have a beneficial effect in bringing the worshippers themselves into a more genial spirit of forbearance with each other. A friend of mine used to tell a story of an honest builder's views of church differences, which was very amusing, and quaintly professional. An English gentleman, who had arrived in a Scottish country town, was walking about to examine the various objects which presented themselves, and observed two rather handsome places of worship in course of erection nearly opposite to each other. He addressed a person, who happened to be the contractor for the chapels, and asked, "What was the difference between these two places of worship which were springing up so close to each other?"--meaning, of course, the difference of the theological tenets of the two congregations. The contractor, who thought only of architectural differences, innocently replied, "There may be a difference of sax feet in length, but there's no aboon a few inches in the breadth." Would that all our religious differences could be brought within so narrow a compass!

The variety of churches in a certain county of Scotland once called forth a sly remark upon our national tendencies to religious division and theological disputation. An English gentleman sitting on the box, and observing the great number of places of worship in the aforesaid borough, remarked to the coachman that there must be a great deal of religious feeling in a town which produced so many houses of God.

"Na," said the man quietly, "it's no religion, it's curstness," i.e. crabbedness, insinuating that acerbity of temper, as well as zeal, was occasionally the cause of congregations being multiplied.

It might be a curious question to consider how far motives founded on mere taste or sentiment may have operated in creating an interest towards religion, and in making it a more prominent and popular question than it was in the early portion of the present century. There are in this country two causes which have combined in producing these effects:--1st. The great disruption which took place in the Church of Scotland no doubt called forth an attention to the subject which stirred up the public, and made religion at any rate a topic of deep interest for discussion and partizanship. Men's minds were not allowed to remain in the torpid condition of a past generation. 2d. The aesthetic movement in religion, which some years since was made in England, has, of course, had its influence in Scotland; and many who showed little concern about religion, whilst it was merely a question of doctrines, of precepts, and of worship, threw themselves keenly into the contest when it became associated with ceremonial, and music, and high art. New ecclesiastical associations have been presented to Scottish tastes and feelings. With some minds, attachment to the church is attachment to her Gregorian tones, jewelled chalices, lighted candles, embroidered altar-cloths, silver crosses, processions, copes, albs, and chasubles. But, from whatever cause it proceeds, a great change has taken place in the general interest excited towards ecclesiastical questions. Religion now has numerous associations with the ordinary current of human life. In times past it was kept more as a thing apart. There was a false delicacy which made people shrink from encountering appellations that were usually bestowed upon those who made a more prominent religious profession than the world at large.

A great change has taken place in this respect with persons of all shades of religious opinions. With an increased attention to the externals of religion, we believe that in many points the heart has been more exercised also. Take, as an example, the practice of family prayer. Many excellent and pious households of the former generation would not venture upon the observance, I am afraid, because they were in dread of the sneer. There was a foolish application of the terms "Methodist" "saints," "over-righteous," where the practice was observed. It was to take up a rather decided position in the neighbourhood; and I can testify, that less than fifty years ago a family would have been marked and talked of for a usage of which now throughout the country the exception is rather the unusual circumstance. A little anecdote from recollections in my own family will furnish a good illustration of a state of feeling on this point now happily unknown. In a northern town of the east coast, where the earliest recollections of my life go back, there was usually a detachment of a regiment, who were kindly received and welcomed to the society, which in the winter months was very full and very gay. There was the usual measure of dining, dancing, supping, card-playing, and gossiping, which prevailed in country towns at the time. The officers were of course an object of much interest to the natives, and their habits were much discussed. A friend was staying in the family who partook a good deal of the Athenian temperament--viz. delight in hearing and telling some new thing. On one occasion she burst forth in great excitement with the intelligence that "Sir Nathaniel Duckinfield, the officer in command of the detachment, had family prayers every morning!" A very near and dear relative of mine, knowing the tendency of the lady to gossip, pulled her up with the exclamation: "How can you repeat such things, Miss Ogilvy? nothing in the world but the ill-natured stories of Montrose!" The remark was made quite innocently, and unconsciously of the bitter satire it conveyed upon the feeling of the place. The "ill-nature" of these stories was true enough, because ill-nature was the motive of those who raised them; not because it is an ill-natured thing of itself to say of a family that they have household worship, but the ill-nature consisted in their intending to throw out a sneer and a sarcasm upon a subject where all such reflections are unbecoming and indecorous. It is one of the best proofs of change of habits and associations on this matter, that the anecdote, exquisite as it is for our purpose, will hardly be understood by many of our young friends, or, at least, happily has lost much of its force and pungency.

These remarks apply perhaps more especially to the state of religious feeling amongst the upper classes of society. Though I am not aware of so much change in the religious habits of the Scottish peasantry, still the elders have yielded much from the sternness of David Deans; and upon the whole view of the question there have been many and great changes in the Scottish people during the last sixty years. It could hardly be otherwise, when we consider the increased facilities of communication between the two countries--a facility which extends to the introduction of English books upon religious subjects. The most popular and engaging works connected with the Church of England have now a free circulation in Scotland; and it is impossible that such productions as the "Christian Year," for example, and many others--whether for good or bad is not now the question--should not produce their effects upon minds trained in the strictest school of Calvinistic theology. I should be disposed to extend the boundaries of this division, and to include under "Religious Feelings and Religious Observances" many anecdotes which belong perhaps rather indirectly than directly to the subject. There is a very interesting reminiscence, and one of a sacred character also, which I think will come very suitably under this head. When I joined the Scottish Episcopal Church, nearly fifty years ago, it was quite customary for members of our communion to ask for the blessing of their Bishop, and to ask it especially on any remarkable event in their life, as marriage, loss of friends, leaving home, returning home, etc.; and it was the custom amongst the old Scottish Episcopalians to give the blessing in a peculiar form, which had become venerable from its traditionary application by our bishops. I have myself received it from my bishop, the late good Bishop Walker, and have heard him pronounce it on others. But whether the custom of asking the bishop's blessing be past or not, the form I speak of has become a reminiscence, and I feel assured is not known even by some of our own bishops. I shall give it to my readers as I received it from the family of the late Bishop Walker of Edinburgh:--

"God Almighty bless thee with his Holy Spirit;
Guard thee in thy going out and coming in;
Keep thee ever in his faith and fear;
Free from Sin, and safe from Danger."

I have been much pleased with a remark of my friend, the Rev. W. Gillespie of the U.P. Church, Edinburgh, upon this subject. He writes to me as follows:--"I read with particular interest the paragraph on the subject of the Bishop's Blessing, for certainly there seems to be in these days a general disbelief in the efficacy of blessings, and a neglect or disregard of the practice. If the spirit of God is in good men, as He certainly is, then who can doubt the value and the efficacy of the blessing which they bestow? I remember being blessed by a very venerable minister, John Dempster of Denny, while kneeling in his study, shortly before I left this country to go to China, and his prayer over me then was surely the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. Its effect upon me then and ever since will never be forgotten."

I quite agree with Mr. Gillespie on the point, and think it not a good sign either of our religious belief or religious feeling that such blessings should become really a matter of reminiscence; for if we are taught to pray for one another, and if we are taught that the "prayer of the righteous availeth much," surely we ought to bless one another, and surely the blessing of those who are venerable in the church from their position, their age, and their piety, may be expected to avail as an aid and incentive to piety in those who in God's name are so blest. It has struck me that on a subject closely allied with religious feelings a great change has taken place in Scotland during a period of less than fifty years--I mean the attention paid to cemeteries as depositories of the mortal remains of those who have departed. In my early days I never recollect seeing any efforts made for the embellishment and adornment of our churchyards; if tolerably secured by fences, enough had been done. The English and Welsh practices of planting flowers, keeping the turf smooth and dressed over the graves of friends, were quite unknown. Indeed, I suspect such attention fifty years ago would have been thought by the sterner Presbyterians as somewhat savouring of superstition. The account given by Sir W. Scott, in "Guy Mannering," of an Edinburgh burial-place, was universally applicable to Scottish sepulchres[20]. A very different state of matters has grown up within the last few years. Cemeteries and churchyards are now as carefully ornamented in Scotland as in England. Shrubs, flowers, smooth turf, and neatly-kept gravel walks, are a pleasing accompaniment to head-stones, crosses, and varied forms of monumental memorials, in freestone, marble, and granite. Nay, more than these, not unfrequently do we see an imitation of French sentiment, in wreaths of "everlasting" placed over graves as emblems of immortality; and in more than one of our Edinburgh cemeteries I have seen these enclosed in glass cases to preserve them from the effects of wind and rain.

In consequence of neglect, the unprotected state of churchyards was evident from the number of stories in circulation connected with the circumstance of timid and excited passengers going amongst the tombs of the village. The following, amongst others, has been communicated. The locale of the story is unknown, but it is told of a weaver who, after enjoying his potations, pursued his way home through the churchyard, his vision and walking somewhat impaired. As he proceeded he diverged from the path, and unexpectedly stumbled into a partially made grave. Stunned for a while, he lay in wonder at his descent, and after some time he got out, but he had not proceeded much farther when a similar calamity befell him. At this second fall, he was heard, in a tone of wonder and surprise, to utter the following exclamation, referring to what he considered the untenanted graves: "Ay! ir ye a' up an' awa?"

The kindly feelings and interest of the pastoral relation always formed a very pleasing intercourse between minister and people. I have received from an anonymous correspondent an anecdote illustrative of this happy connection, for which he vouches as authentic:--

John Brown, Burgher minister at Whitburn (son of the commentator, and father of the late Rev. Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, and grandfather of the present accomplished M.D. of the same name, author of "Rab and his Friends," etc.), in the early part of the century was travelling on a small sheltie[21] to attend the summer sacrament at Haddington. Between Musselburgh and Tranent he overtook one of his own people. "What are ye daein' here, Janet, and whaur ye gaun in this warm weather?" "'Deed, sir," quo' Janet, "I'm gaun to Haddington for the occasion[22] an' expeck to hear ye preach this efternoon." "Very weel, Janet, but whaur ye gaun tae sleep?" "I dinna ken, sir, but Providence is aye kind, an'll provide a bed." On Mr. Brown jogged, but kindly thought of his humble follower; accordingly, after service in the afternoon, before pronouncing the blessing, he said from the pulpit, "Whaur's the auld wifie that followed me frae Whitburn?" "Here I'm, sir," uttered a shrill voice from a back seat. "Aweel," said Mr. Brown, "I have fand ye a bed; ye're to sleep wi' Johnnie Fife's lass."

There was at all times amongst the older Scottish peasantry a bold assertion of their religious opinions, and strong expression of their feelings. The spirit of the Covenanters lingered amongst the aged people whom I remember, but which time has considerably softened down. We have some recent authentic instances of this readiness in Scotsmen to bear testimony to their principles:--

A friend has informed me that the late Lord Rutherfurd often told with much interest of a rebuke which he received from a shepherd, near Bonaly, amongst the Pentlands. He had entered into conversation with him, and was complaining bitterly of the weather, which prevented him enjoying his visit to the country, and said hastily and unguardedly, "What a d--d mist!" and then expressed his wonder how or for what purpose there should have been such a thing created as east wind. The shepherd, a tall, grim figure, turned sharp round upon him. "What ails ye at the mist, sir? it weets the sod, it slockens the yowes, and"--adding with much solemnity--"it's God's wull;" and turned away with lofty indignation. Lord Rutherfurd used to repeat this with much candour as a fine specimen of a rebuke from a sincere and simple mind.

There was something very striking in the homely, quaint, and severe expressions on religious subjects which marked the old-fashioned piety of persons shadowed forth in Sir Walter Scott's Davie Deans. We may add to the rebuke of the shepherd of Bonaly, of Lord Rutherfurd's remark about the east wind, his answer to Lord Cockburn, the proprietor of Bonaly. He was sitting on the hill-side with the shepherd, and observing the sheep reposing in the coldest situation, he observed to him, "John, if I were a sheep, I would lie on the other side of the hill." The shepherd answered, "Ay, my lord, but if ye had been a sheep ye would hae had mair sense."

Of such men as this shepherd were formed the elders--a class of men who were marked by strong features of character, and who, in former times, bore a distinguished part in all church matters.

The old Scottish elder was in fact quite as different a character from the modern elder, as the old Scottish minister was from the modern pastor. These good men were not disposed to hide their lights, and perhaps sometimes encroached a little upon the office of the minister. A clergyman had been remarking to one of his elders that he was unfortunately invited to two funerals on one day, and that they were fixed for the same hour. "Weel, sir," answered the elder, "if ye'll tak the tane I'll tak the tither."

Some of the elders were great humorists and originals in their way. An elder of the kirk at Muthill used to manifest his humour and originality by his mode of collecting the alms. As he went round with the ladle, he reminded such members of the congregation as seemed backward in their duty, by giving them a poke with the "brod," and making, in an audible whisper, such remarks as these--"Wife at the braid mailin, mind the puir;" "Lass wi' the braw plaid, mind the puir," etc., a mode of collecting which marks rather a bygone state of things. But on no question was the old Scottish disciplinarian, whether elder or not, more sure to raise his testimony than on anything connected with a desecration of the Sabbath. In this spirit was the rebuke given to an eminent geologist, when visiting in the Highlands:--The professor was walking on the hills one Sunday morning, and partly from the effect of habit, and partly from not adverting to the very strict notions of Sabbath desecration entertained in Ross-shire, had his pocket hammer in hand, and was thoughtlessly breaking the specimens of minerals he picked up by the way. Under these circumstances, he was met by an old man steadily pursuing his way to his church. For some time the patriarch observed the movements of the geologist, and at length, going up to him, quietly said, "Sir, ye're breaking something there forbye the stanes!"

The same feeling, under a more fastidious form, was exhibited to a traveller by a Scottish peasant:--An English artist travelling professionally through Scotland, had occasion to remain over Sunday in a small town in the north. To while away the time, he walked out a short way in the environs, where the picturesque ruin of a castle met his eye. He asked a countryman who was passing to be so good as tell him the name of the castle. The reply was somewhat startling--"It's no the day to be speerin' sic things!"

A manifestation of even still greater strictness on the subject of Sabbath desecration, I have received from a relative of the family in which it occurred. About fifty years ago the Hon. Mrs. Stewart lived in Heriot Row, who had a cook, Jeannie by name, a paragon of excellence. One Sunday morning when her daughter (afterwards Lady Elton) went into the kitchen, she was surprised to find a new jack (recently ordered, and which was constructed on the principle of going constantly without winding up) wholly paralysed and useless. Miss Stewart naturally inquired what accident had happened to the new jack, as it had stopped. The mystery was soon solved by Jeannie indignantly exclaiming that "she was nae gaeing to hae the fule thing clocking and rinning about in her kitchen a' the blessed Sabbath day."

There sometimes appears to have been in our countrymen an undue preponderance of zeal for Sabbath observance as compared with the importance attached to other religious duties, and especially as compared with the virtue of sobriety. The following dialogue between Mr. Macnee of Glasgow, the celebrated artist, and an old Highland acquaintance whom he had met with unexpectedly, will illustrate the contrast between the severity of judgment passed upon treating the Sabbath with levity and the lighter censure attached to indulgence in whisky. Mr. Macnee begins, "Donald, what brought you here?" "Ou, weel, sir, it was a baad place yon; they were baad folk--but they're a God-fearin' set o' folk here!" "Well, Donald," said Mr. M., "I'm glad to hear it." "Ou ay, sir, 'deed are they; an' I'll gie ye an instance o't. Last Sabbath, just as the kirk was skailin,' there was a drover chield frae Dumfries comin' along the road whustlin,' an' lookin' as happy as if it was ta middle o' ta week; weel, sir, oor laads is a God-fearin' set o' laads, an' they were just comin' oot o' the kirk--'od they yokit upon him, an' a'most killed him!" Mr. M., to whom their zeal seemed scarcely sufficiently well directed to merit his approbation, then asked Donald whether it had been drunkenness that induced the depravity of his former neighbours? "Weel, weel, sir," said Donald, with some hesitation, "may-be; I'll no say but it micht." "Depend upon it," said Mr. M., "it's a bad thing whisky." "Weel, weel, sir," replied Donald, "I'll no say but it may;" adding in a very decided tone--"speeciallie baad whusky!"

I do not know any anecdote which illustrates in a more striking and natural manner the strong feeling which exists in the Scottish mind on this subject. At a certain time, the hares in the neighbourhood of a Scottish burgh had, from the inclemency of the season or from some other cause, become emboldened more than usual to approach the dwelling-places of men; so much so that on one Sunday morning a hare was seen skipping along the street as the people were going to church. An old man, spying puss in this unusual position, significantly remarked, "Ay, yon beast kens weel it is the Sabbath-day;" taking it for granted that no one in the place would be found audacious enough to hurt the animal on a Sunday.

Lady Macneil supplies an excellent pendant to Miss Stewart's story about the jack going on the Sunday. Her henwife had got some Dorking fowls, and on Lady M. asking if they were laying many eggs, she replied, with great earnestness, "Indeed my leddy, they lay every day, no' excepting the blessed Sabbath."

There were, however, old persons at that time who were not quite so orthodox on the point of Sabbath observance; and of these a lady residing in Dumfries was known often to employ her wet Sundays in arranging her wardrobe. "Preserve us!" she said on one occasion, "anither gude Sunday! I dinna ken whan I'll get thae drawers redd up."

In connection with the awful subject of death and all its concomitants, it has been often remarked that the older generation of Scottish people used to view the circumstances belonging to the decease of their nearest and dearest friends with a coolness which does not at first sight seem consistent with their deep and sincere religious impressions. Amongst the peasantry this was sometimes manifested in an extraordinary and startling manner. I do not believe that those persons had less affection for their friends than a corresponding class in England, but they had less awe of the concomitants of death, and approached them with more familiarity. For example, I remember long ago at Fasque, my sister-in-law visiting a worthy and attached old couple, of whom the husband, Charles Duncan, who had been gardener at Fasque for above thirty years was evidently dying. He was sitting on a common deal chair, and on my sister proposing to send down for his use an old arm-chair which she recollected was laid up in a garret, his wife exclaimed against such a needless trouble: "Hout, my leddy, what would he be duin' wi' an arm-chair? he's just deein' fast awa." I have two anecdotes, illustrative of the same state of feeling, from a lady of ancient Scottish family accustomed to visit her poor dependants on the property, and to notice their ways. She was calling at a decent cottage, and found the occupant busy carefully ironing out some linens. The lady remarked, "Those are fine linens you have got there, Janet." "Troth, mem," was the reply, "they're just the gudeman's deed claes, and there are nane better i' the parish." On another occasion, when visiting an excellent woman, to condole with her on the death of her nephew, with whom she had lived, and whose loss must have been severely felt by her, she remarked, "What a nice white cap you have got, Margaret." "Indeed, mem, ay, sae it is; for ye see the gude lad's winding sheet was ower lang, and I cut aff as muckle as made twa bonny mutches" (caps).

There certainly was a quaint and familiar manner in which sacred and solemn subjects were referred to by the older Scottish race, who did not mean to be irreverent, but who no doubt appeared so to a more refined but not really a more religious generation.

It seems to me that this plainness of speech arose in part from the sincerity of their belief in all the circumstances of another condition of being. They spoke of things hereafter as positive certainties, and viewed things invisible through the same medium as they viewed things present. The following is illustrative of such a state of mind, and I am assured of its perfect authenticity and literal correctness:--"Joe M'Pherson and his wife lived in Inverness. They had two sons, who helped their father in his trade of a smith. They were industrious and careful, but not successful. The old man had bought a house, leaving a large part of the price unpaid. It was the ambition of his life to pay off that debt, but it was too much for him, and he died in the struggle. His sons kept on the business with the old industry, and with better fortune. At last their old mother fell sick, and told her sons she was dying, as in truth she was. The elder son said to her, 'Mother, you'll soon be with my father; no doubt you'll have much to tell him; but dinna forget this, mother, mind ye, tell him the house is freed. He'll be glad to hear that.'"

A similar feeling is manifest in the following conversation, which, I am assured, is authentic:--At Hawick the people used to wear wooden clogs, which make a clanking noise on the pavement. A dying old woman had some friends by her bedside, who said to her, "Weel, Jenny, ye are gaun to heeven, an' gin you should see oor folk, you can tell them that we're a' weel." To which Jenny replied, "Weel, gin I should see them I'se tell them, but you manna expect that I am to gang clank clanking through heevan looking for your folk."

But of all stories of this class, I think the following deathbed conversation between a Scottish husband and wife is about the richest specimen of a dry Scottish matter-of-fact view of a very serious question:--An old shoemaker in Glasgow was sitting by the bedside of his wife, who was dying. She took him by the hand. "Weel, John, we're gawin to part. I hae been a gude wife to you, John." "Oh, just middling, just middling, Jenny," said John, not disposed to commit himself. "John," says she, "ye maun promise to bury me in the auld kirk-yard at Stra'von, beside my mither. I couldna rest in peace among unco folk, in the dirt and smoke o' Glasgow." "Weel, weel, Jenny, my woman," said John soothingly, "we'll just pit you in the Gorbals first, and gin ye dinna lie quiet, we'll try you sine in Stra'von."

The same unimaginative and matter-of-fact view of things connected with the other world extended to a very youthful age, as in the case of a little boy who, when told of heaven, put the question, "An' will faather be there?" His instructress answered, "of course, she hoped he would be there;" to which he sturdily at once replied, "Then I'll no gang."

We might apply these remarks in some measure to the Scottish pulpit ministrations of an older school, in which a minuteness of detail and a quaintness of expression were quite common, but which could not now be tolerated. I have two specimens of such antiquated language, supplied by correspondents, and I am assured they are both genuine.

The first is from a St. Andrews professor, who is stated to be a great authority in such narratives.

In one of our northern counties, a rural district had its harvest operations affected by continuous rains. The crops being much laid, wind was desired in order to restore them to a condition fit for the sickle. A minister, in his Sabbath services, expressed their want in prayer as follows:--"O Lord, we pray thee to send us wind; no a rantin' tantin' tearin' wind, but a noohin' (noughin?) soughin' winnin' wind." More expressive words than these could not be found in any language.

The other story relates to a portion of the Presbyterian service on sacramental occasions, called "fencing the tables," i.e. prohibiting the approach of those who were unworthy to receive.

This fencing of the tables was performed in the following effective manner by an old divine, whose flock transgressed the third commandment, not in a gross and loose manner, but in its minor details:--"I debar all those who use such minced oaths as faith! troth! losh! gosh! and lovanendie!"

These men often showed a quiet vein of humour in their prayers, as in the case of the old minister of the Canongate, who always prayed, previous to the meeting of the General Assembly, that the Assembly might be so guided as "no to do ony harm."

A circumstance connected with Scottish church discipline has undergone a great change in my time--I mean the public censure from the pulpit, in the time of divine service, of offenders previously convicted before the minister and his kirk-session. This was performed by the guilty person standing up before the congregation on a raised platform, called the cutty stool, and receiving a rebuke. I never saw it done, but have heard in my part of the country of the discipline being enforced occasionally. Indeed, I recollect an instance where the rebuke was thus administered and received under circumstances of a touching character, and which made it partake of the moral sublime. The daughter of the minister had herself committed an offence against moral purity, such as usually called forth this church censure. The minister peremptorily refused to make her an exception to his ordinary practice. His child stood up in the congregation, and received, from her agonised father, a rebuke similar to that administered to other members of his congregation for a like offence. The spirit of the age became unfavourable to the practice. The rebuke on the cutty stool, like the penance in a white sheet in England, went out of use, and the circumstance is now a matter of "reminiscence." I have received some communications on the subject, which bear upon this point; and I subjoin the following remarks from a kind correspondent, a clergyman, to whom I am largely indebted, as indicating the great change which has taken place in this matter.

"Church discipline," he writes, "was much more vigorously enforced in olden time than it is now. A certain couple having been guilty of illicit intercourse, and also within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, appeared before the Presbytery of Lanark, and made confession in sackcloth. They were ordered to return to their own session, and to stand at the kirk-door, barefoot and barelegged, from the second bell to the last, and thereafter in the public place of repentance; and, at direction of the session, thereafter to go through the whole kirks of the presbytery, and to satisfy them in like manner. If such penance were now enforced for like offences, I believe the registration books of many parishes in Scotland would become more creditable in certain particulars than they unfortunately are at the present time."

But there was a less formidable ecclesiastical censure occasionally given by the minister from the pulpit against lesser misdemeanours, which took place under his own eye, such as levity of conduct or sleeping in church. A most amusing specimen of such censure was once inflicted by the minister upon his own wife for an offence not in our day visited with so heavy a penalty. The clergyman had observed one of his flock asleep during his sermon. He paused, and called him to order. "Jeems Robson, ye are sleepin'; I insist on your wauking when God's word is preached to ye." "Weel, sir, you may look at your ain seat, and ye'll see a sleeper forbye me," answered Jeems, pointing to the clergyman's lady in the minister's pew. "Then, Jeems," said the minister, "when ye see my wife asleep again, haud up your hand." By and by the arm was stretched out, and sure enough the fair lady was caught in the act. Her husband solemnly called upon her to stand up and receive the censure due to her offence. He thus addressed her:--"Mrs. B., a'body kens that when I got ye for my wife, I got nae beauty; yer frien's ken that I got nae siller; and if I dinna get God's grace, I shall hae a puir bargain indeed."

The quaint and original humour of the old Scottish minister came out occasionally in the more private services of his vocation as well as in church. As the whole service, whether for baptisms or marriages, is supplied by the clergyman officiating, there is more scope for scenes between the parties present than at similar ministrations by a prescribed form. Thus, a late minister of Caithness, when examining a member of his flock, who was a butcher, in reference to the baptism of his child, found him so deficient in what he considered the needful theological knowledge, that he said to him, "Ah, Sandy, I doubt ye're no fit to haud up the bairn." Sandy, conceiving that reference was made not to spiritual but to physical incapacity, answered indignantly, "Hout, minister, I could haud him up an he were a twa-year-auld stirk[23]." A late humorous old minister, near Peebles, who had strong feelings on the subject of matrimonial happiness, thus prefaced the ceremony by an address to the parties who came to him:--"My friends, marriage is a blessing to a few, a curse to many, and a great uncertainty to all. Do ye venture?" After a pause, he repeated with great emphasis, "Do ye venture?" No objection being made to the venture, he then said, "Let's proceed."

The old Scottish hearers were very particular on the subject of their minister's preaching old sermons; and to repeat a discourse which they could recollect was always made a subject of animadversion by those who heard it. A beadle, who was a good deal of a wit in his way, gave a sly hit in his pretended defence of his minister on the question. As they were proceeding from church, the minister observed the beadle had been laughing as if he had triumphed over some of the parishioners with whom he had been in conversation. On asking the cause of this, he received for answer, "Dod, sir, they were saying ye had preached an auld sermon to-day, but I tackled them, for I tauld them it was no an auld sermon, for the minister had preached it no sax months syne."

I remember the minister of Banchory, Mr. Gregory, availed himself of the feelings of his people on this subject for the purpose of accomplishing a particular object. During the building of the new church the service had to be performed in a schoolroom, which did not nearly hold the congregation. The object was to get part of the parish to attend in the morning, and part in the afternoon. Mr. Gregory prevented those who had attended in the morning from returning in the afternoon by just giving them, as he said, "cauld kail het again."

It is somewhat remarkable, however, that, notwithstanding this feeling in the matter of a repetition of old sermons, there was amongst a large class of Scottish preachers of a former day such a sameness of subject as really sometimes made it difficult to distinguish the discourse of one Sunday from amongst others. These were entirely doctrinal, and however they might commence, after the opening or introduction hearers were certain to find the preacher falling gradually into the old channel. The fall of man in Adam, his restoration in Christ, justification by faith, and the terms of the new covenant, formed the staple of each sermon, and without which it was not in fact reckoned complete as an orthodox exposition of Christian doctrine. Without omitting the essentials of Christian instruction, preachers now take a wider view of illustrating and explaining the gospel scheme of salvation and regeneration, without constant recurrence to the elemental and fundamental principles of the faith. From my friend Dr. Cook of Haddington (who it is well known has a copious stock of old Scotch traditionary anecdotes) I have an admirable illustration of this state of things as regards pulpit instruction.

"Much of the preaching of the Scotch clergy," Dr. Cook observes, "in the last century, was almost exclusively doctrinal--the fall: the nature, the extent, and the application of the remedy. In the hands of able men, no doubt, there might be much variety of exposition, but with weaker or indolent men preaching extempore, or without notes, it too often ended in a weekly repetition of what had been already said. An old elder of mine, whose recollection might reach back from sixty to seventy years, said to me one day, 'Now-a-days, people make a work if a minister preach the same sermon over again in the course of two or three years. When I was a boy, we would have wondered if old Mr. W---- had preached anything else than what we heard the Sunday before.' My old friend used to tell of a clergyman who had held forth on the broken covenant till his people longed for a change. The elders waited on him to intimate their wish. They were examined on their knowledge of the subject, found deficient, rebuked, and dismissed, but after a little while they returned to the charge, and the minister gave in. Next Lord's day he read a large portion of the history of Joseph and his brethren, as the subject of a lecture. He paraphrased it, greatly, no doubt, to the detriment of the original, but much to the satisfaction of his people, for it was something new. He finished the paraphrase, 'and now,' says he, 'my friends, we shall proceed to draw some lessons and inferences; and, 1st, you will observe that the sacks of Joseph's brethren were ripit, and in them was found the cup; so your sacks will be ripit at the day of judgment, and the first thing found in them will be the broken covenant;' and having gained this advantage, the sermon went off into the usual strain, and embodied the usual heads of elementary dogmatic theology."

In connection with this topic, I have a communication from a correspondent, who remarks--The story about the minister and his favourite theme, "the broken covenant," reminds me of one respecting another minister whose staple topics of discourse were "Justification, Adoption, and Sanctification." Into every sermon he preached, he managed, by hook or by crook, to force these three heads, so that his general method of handling every text was not so much expositio as impositio. He was preaching on these words--"Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child?" and he soon brought the question into the usual formula by adding, Ephraim was a pleasant child--first, because he was a justified child; second, because he was an adopted child; and third, because he was a sanctified child.

It should be remembered, however, that the Scottish peasantry themselves--I mean those of the older school--delighted in expositions of doctrinal subjects, and in fact were extremely jealous of any minister who departed from their high standard of orthodox divinity, by selecting subjects which involved discussions of strictly moral or practical questions. It was condemned under the epithet of legal preaching; in other words, it was supposed to preach the law as independent of the gospel. A worthy old clergyman having, upon the occasion of a communion Monday, taken a text of such a character, was thus commented on by an ancient dame of the congregation, who was previously acquainted with his style of discourse:--"If there's an ill text in a' the Bible, that creetur's aye sure to tak it."

The great change--the great improvement, I would say--which has taken place during the last half-century in the feelings and practical relations of religion with social life is, that it has become more diffused through all ranks and all characters. Before that period many good sort of people were afraid of making their religious views very prominent, and were always separated from those who did. Persons who made a profession at all beyond the low standard generally adopted in society were marked out as objects of fear or of distrust. The anecdote at page 65 regarding the practice of family prayer fully proves this. Now religious people and religion itself are not kept aloof from the ordinary current of men's thoughts and actions. There is no such marked line as used to be drawn round persons who make a decided profession of religion. Christian men and women have stepped over the line, and, without compromising their Christian principle, are not necessarily either morose, uncharitable, or exclusive. The effects of the old separation were injurious to men's minds. Religion was with many associated with puritanism, with cant, and unfitness for the world. The difference is marked also in the style of sermons prevalent at the two periods. There were sermons of two descriptions--viz., sermons by "moderate" clergy, of a purely moral or practical character; and sermons purely doctrinal, from those who were known as "evangelical" ministers. Hence arose an impression, and not unnaturally, on many minds, that an almost exclusive reference to doctrinal subjects, and a dread of upholding the law, and of enforcing its more minute details, were not favourable to the cause of moral rectitude and practical holiness of life. This was hinted in a sly way by a young member of the kirk to his father, a minister of the severe and high Calvinistic school. Old Dr. Lockhart of Glasgow was lamenting one day, in the presence of his son John, the fate of a man who had been found guilty of immoral practices, and the more so that he was one of his own elders. "Well, father," remarked his son, "you see what you've driven him to." In our best Scottish preaching at the present day no such distinction is visible.

The same feeling came forth with much point and humour on an occasion referred to in "Carlyle's Memoirs." In a company where John Home and David Hume were present, much wonder was expressed what could have induced a clerk belonging to Sir William Forbes' bank to abscond, and embezzle £900. "I know what it was," said Home to the historian; "for when he was taken there was found in his pocket a volume of your philosophical works and Boston's 'Fourfold State'"--a hit, 1st, at the infidel, whose principles would have undermined Christianity; and 2d, a hit at the Church, which he was compelled to leave on account of his having written the tragedy of Douglas.

I can myself recollect an obsolete ecclesiastical custom, and which was always practised in the church of Fettercairn during my boyish days--viz., that of the minister bowing to the heritors in succession who occupied the front gallery seats; and I am assured that this bowing from the pulpit to the principal heritor or heritors after the blessing had been pronounced was very common in rural parishes till about forty years ago, and perhaps till a still later period. And when heritors chanced to be pretty equally matched, there was sometimes an unpleasant contest as to who was entitled to the precedence in having the first bow. A case of this kind once occurred in the parish of Lanark, which was carried so far as to be laid before the Presbytery; but they, not considering themselves "competent judges of the points of honour and precedency among gentlemen, and to prevent all inconveniency in these matters in the future, appointed the minister to forbear bowing to the lairds at all from the pulpit for the time to come;" and they also appointed four of their number "to wait upon the gentlemen, to deal with them, for bringing them to condescend to submit hereunto, for the success of the gospel and the peace of the parish."

In connection with this subject, we may mention a ready and complimentary reply once made by the late Reverend Dr. Wightman of Kirkmahoe, on being rallied for his neglecting this usual act of courtesy one Sabbath in his own church. The heritor who was entitled to and always received this token of respect, was Mr. Miller, proprietor of Dalswinton. One Sabbath the Dalswinton pew contained a bevy of ladies, but no gentlemen, and the Doctor--perhaps because he was a bachelor and felt a delicacy in the circumstances--omitted the usual salaam in their direction. A few days after, meeting Miss Miller, who was widely famed for her beauty, and who afterwards became Countess of Mar, she rallied him, in presence of her companions, for not bowing to her from the pulpit on the previous Sunday, and requested an explanation; when the good Doctor immediately replied--"I beg your pardon, Miss Miller, but you surely know that angel-worship is not allowed in the Church of Scotland;" and lifting his hat, he made a low bow, and passed on.

Scottish congregations, in some parts of the country, contain an element in their composition quite unknown in English churches. In pastoral parts of the country, it was an established practice for each shepherd to bring his faithful collie dog--at least it was so some years ago. In a district of Sutherland, where the population is very scanty, the congregations are made up one-half of dogs, each human member having his canine companion. These dogs sit out the Gaelic services and sermon with commendable patience, till towards the end of the last psalm, when there is a universal stretching and yawning, and all are prepared to scamper out, barking in a most excited manner whenever the blessing is commenced. The congregation of one of these churches determined that the service should close in a more decorous manner, and steps were taken to attain this object. Accordingly, when a stranger clergyman was officiating, he found the people all sitting when he was about to pronounce the blessing. He hesitated, and paused, expecting them to rise, till an old shepherd, looking up to the pulpit, said, "Say awa', sir; we're a' sittin' to cheat the dowgs."

There must have been some curious specimens of Scottish humour brought out at the examinations or catechisings by ministers of the flock before the administrations of the communion. Thus, with reference to human nature before the fall, a man was asked, "What kind of man was Adam?" "Ou, just like ither fouk." The minister insisted on having a more special description of the first man, and pressed for more explanation. "Weel," said the catechumen, "he was just like Joe Simson the horse-couper." "How so?" asked the minister. "Weel, naebody got onything by him, and mony lost."

A lad had come for examination previous to his receiving his first communion. The pastor, knowing that his young friend was not very profound in his theology, and not wishing to discourage him, or keep him from the table unless compelled to do so, began by asking what he thought a safe question, and what would give him confidence. So he took the Old Testament, and asked him, in reference to the Mosaic law, how many commandments there were. After a little thought, he put his answer in the modest form of a supposition, and replied, cautiously, "Aiblins[24] a hunner." The clergyman was vexed, and told him such ignorance was intolerable, that he could not proceed in examination, and that the youth must wait and learn more; so he went away. On returning home he met a friend on his way to the manse, and on learning that he too was going to the minister for examination, shrewdly asked him, "Weel, what will ye say noo if the minister speers hoo mony commandments there are?" "Say! why, I shall say ten to be sure." To which the other rejoined, with great triumph, "Ten! Try ye him wi' ten! I tried him wi' a hunner, and he wasna satisfeed." Another answer from a little girl was shrewd and reflective. The question was, "Why did the Israelites make a golden calf?" "They hadna as muckle siller as wad mak a coo."

A kind correspondent has sent me, from personal knowledge, an admirable pendant to stones of Scottish child acuteness and shrewd observation. A young lady friend of his, resident in a part of Ayrshire rather remote from any very satisfactory administration of the gospel, is in the habit of collecting the children of the neighbourhood on Sundays at the "big hoose," for religious instruction. On one occasion the class had repeated the paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, which contains these lines--

"Give us this day our daily bread, And raiment fit provide."

There being no question as to what "daily bread" was, the teacher proceeded to ask: "What do you understand by 'raiment fit,' or as we might say, 'fit raiment?'" For a short time the class remained puzzled at the question; but at last one little girl sung out "stockings and shune." The child knew that "fit," was Scotch for feet, so her natural explanation of the phrase was equivalent to "feet raiment," or "stockings and shune," as she termed it.

On the point of changes in religious feelings there comes within the scope of these Reminiscences a character in Aberdeenshire, which has now gone out--I mean the popular and universally well-received Roman Catholic priest. Although we cannot say that Scotland is a more PROTESTANT nation than it was in past days, still religious differences, and strong prejudices, seem at the present time to draw a more decided line of separation between the priest and his Protestant countrymen. As examples of what is past, I would refer to the case of a genial Romish bishop in Ross-shire. It is well known that private stills were prevalent in the Highlands fifty or sixty years ago, and no one thought there was any harm in them. This good bishop, whose name I forget, was (as I heard the late W. Mackenzie of Muirton assure a party at Dunrobin Castle) several years previously a famous hand at brewing a good glass of whisky, and that he distributed his mountain-dew with a liberal and impartial hand alike to Catholic and to Protestant friends. Of this class, I recollect, certainly forty-five years ago, Priest Gordon, a genuine Aberdonian, and a man beloved by all, rich and poor. He was a sort of chaplain to Menzies of Pitfodels, and visited in all the country families round Aberdeen. I remember once his being at Banchory Lodge, and thus apologising to my aunt for going out of the room:--"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Forbes, for leaving you, but I maun just gae doun to the garden and say my bit wordies"--these "bit wordies" being in fact the portion of the Breviary which he was bound to recite. So easily and pleasantly were those matters then referred to.

The following, however, is a still richer illustration, and I am assured it is genuine:--"Towards the end of the last century, a worthy Roman Catholic clergyman, well known as 'Priest Matheson,' and universally respected in the district, had charge of a mission in Aberdeenshire, and for a long time made his journeys on a piebald pony, the priest and his 'pyet shelty' sharing an affectionate recognition wherever they came. On one occasion, however, he made his appearance on a steed of a different description, and passing near a Seceding meeting-house, he forgathered with the minister, who, after the usual kindly greetings, missing the familiar pony, said, 'Ou, Priest! fat's come o' the auld Pyet? 'He's deid, minister.' 'Weel, he was an auld faithfu' servant, and ye wad nae doot gie him the offices o' the church?' 'Na, minister,' said his friend, not quite liking this allusion to his priestly offices, 'I didna dee that, for ye see he turned Seceder afore he dee'd, an' I buried him like a beast.' He then rode quietly away. This worthy man, however, could, when occasion required, rebuke with seriousness as well as point. Always a welcome guest at the houses of both clergy and gentry, he is said on one occasion to have met with a laird whose hospitality he had thought it proper to decline, and on being asked the reason for the interruption of his visits, answered, 'Ye ken, an' I ken; but, laird, God kens!'"

One question connected with religious feeling, and the manifestation of religious feeling, has become a more settled point amongst us, since fifty years have expired. I mean the question of attendance by clergymen on theatrical representations. Dr. Carlyle had been prosecuted before the General Assembly in 1757 for being present at the performance of the tragedy of Douglas, written by his friend John Home. He was acquitted, however, and writes thus on the subject in his Memoirs:--

"Although the clergy in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood had abstained from the theatre because it gave offence, yet the more remote clergymen, when occasionally in town, had almost universally attended the play-house. It is remarkable that in the year 1784, when the great actress Mrs. Siddons first appeared in Edinburgh, during the sitting of the General Assembly, that court was obliged to fix all its important business for the alternate days when she did not act, as all the younger members, clergy as well as laity, took their stations in the theatre on those days by three in the afternoon."

Drs. Robertson and Blair, although they cultivated the acquaintance of Mrs. Siddons in private, were amongst those clergymen, referred to by Dr. Carlyle, who abstained from attendance in the theatre; but Dr. Carlyle states that they regretted not taking the opportunity of witnessing a display of her talent, and of giving their sanction to the theatre as a place of recreation. Dr. Carlyle evidently considered it a narrow-minded intolerance and bigoted fanaticism that clergymen should be excluded from that amusement. At a period far later than 1784, the same opinion prevailed in some quarters. I recollect when such indulgence on the part of clergymen was treated with much leniency, especially for Episcopalian clergy. I do not mean to say that there was anything like a general feeling in favour of clerical theatrical attendance; but there can be no question of a feeling far less strict than what exists in our own time. As I have said, thirty-six years ago some clergymen went to the theatre; and a few years before that, when my brothers and I were passing through Edinburgh, in going backwards and forwards to school, at Durham, with our tutor, a licentiate of the Established Church of Scotland, and who afterwards attained considerable eminence in the Free Church, we certainly went with him to the theatre there, and at Durham very frequently. I feel quite assured, however, that no clergyman could expect to retain the respect of his people or of the public, of whom it was known that he frequently or habitually attended theatrical representations. It is so understood. I had opportunities of conversing with the late Mr. Murray of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, and with Mr. Charles Kean, on the subject. Both admitted the fact, and certainly if any men of the profession could have removed the feeling from the public mind, these were the men to have done it.

There is a phase of religious observances which has undergone a great change amongst us within fifty years--I mean the services and circumstances connected with the administration of the Holy Communion. When these occurred in a parish they were called "occasions," and the great interest excited by these sacramental solemnities may be gathered from "Peter's Letters," "The Annals of the Parish," and Burns' "Holy Fair." Such ceremonials are now conducted, I believe, just as the ordinary church services. Some years back they were considered a sort of preaching matches. Ministers vied with each other in order to bear away the bell in popularity, and hearers embraced the opportunity of exhibiting to one another their powers of criticism on what they heard and saw. In the parish of Urr in Galloway, on one sacramental occasion, some of the assistants invited were eminent ministers in Edinburgh; Dr. Scot of St. Michael's, Dumfries, was the only local one who was asked, and he was, in his own sphere, very popular as a preacher. A brother clergyman, complimenting him upon the honour of being so invited, the old bald-headed divine modestly replied, "Gude bless you, man, what can I do? They are a' han' wailed[25] this time; I need never show face among them." "Ye're quite mista'en," was the soothing encouragement; "tak' your Resurrection (a well-known sermon used for such occasions by him), an I'll lay my lug ye'll beat every clute o' them." The Doctor did as suggested, and exerted himself to the utmost, and it appears he did not exert himself in vain. A batch of old women, on their way home after the conclusion of the services, were overheard discussing the merits of the several preachers who had that day addressed them from the tent. "Leeze me abune them a'," said one of the company, who had waxed warm in the discussion, "for yon auld clear-headed (bald) man, that said, 'Raphael sings an' Gabriel strikes his goolden harp, an' a' the angels clap their wings wi' joy.' O but it was gran', it just put me in min' o' our geese at Dunjarg when they turn their nebs to the south an' clap their wings when they see the rain's comin' after lang drooth."

There is a subject closely allied with the religious feelings of a people, and that is the subject of their superstitions. To enter upon that question, in a general view, especially in reference to the Highlands, would not be consistent with our present purpose, but I am induced to mention the existence of a singular superstition regarding swine which existed some years ago among the lower orders of the east coast of Fife. I can observe, in my own experience, a great change to have taken place amongst Scotch people generally on this subject. The old aversion to the "unclean animal" still lingers in the Highlands, but seems in the Lowland districts to have yielded to a sense of its thrift and usefulness[26]. The account given by my correspondent of the Fife swinophobia is as follows:--

Among the many superstitious notions and customs prevalent among the lower orders of the fishing towns on the east coast of Fife, till very recently, that class entertained a great horror of swine, and even at the very mention of the word. If that animal crossed their path when about to set out on a sea voyage, they considered it so unlucky an omen that they would not venture off. A clergyman of one of these fishing villages having mentioned the superstition to a clerical friend, and finding that he was rather incredulous on the subject, in order to convince him told him he would allow him an opportunity of testing the truth of it by allowing him to preach for him the following day. It was arranged that his friend was to read the chapter relating to the herd of swine into which the evil spirits were cast. Accordingly, when the first verse was read, in which the unclean beast was mentioned, a slight commotion was observable among the audience, each one of them putting his or her hand on any near piece of iron--a nail on the seat or book-board, or to the nails on their shoes. At the repetition of the word again and again, more commotion was visible, and the words "cauld airn" (cold iron) the antidote to this baneful spell, were heard issuing from various corners of the church. And finally, on his coming over the hated word again, when the whole herd ran violently down the bank into the sea, the alarmed parishioners, irritated beyond bounds, rose and all left the church in a body.

It is some time now, however, since the Highlanders have begun to appreciate the thrift and comfort of swine-keeping and swine-killing. A Scottish minister had been persuaded by the laird to keep a pig, and the gudewife had been duly instructed in the mysteries of black puddings, pork chops, and pig's head. "Oh!" said the minister, "nae doubt there's a hantle o' miscellawneous eating aboot a pig."

Amongst a people so deeply impressed with the great truths of religion, and so earnest in their religious profession, any persons whose principles were known to be of an infidel character would naturally be looked on with abhorrence and suspicion. There is a story traditionary in Edinburgh regarding David Hume, which illustrates this feeling in a very amusing manner, and which, I have heard it said, Hume himself often narrated. The philosopher had fallen from the path into the swamp at the back of the Castle, the existence of which I recollect hearing of from old persons forty years ago. He fairly stuck fast, and called to a woman who was passing, and begged her assistance. She passed on apparently without attending to the request; at his earnest entreaty, however, she came where he was, and asked him, "Are na ye Hume the Atheist?" "Well, well, no matter," said Hume; "Christian charity commands you to do good to every one." "Christian charity here, or Christian charity there," replied the woman, "I'll do naething for you till ye turn a Christian yoursell'--ye maun repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, or faith I'll let ye grafel[27] there as I fand ye." The historian, really afraid for his life, rehearsed the required formulas.

Notwithstanding the high character borne for so many years by our countrymen as a people, and as specially attentive to all religious observances, still there can be no doubt that there has sprung up amongst the inhabitants of our crowded cities, wynds, and closes, a class of persons quite unknown in the old Scottish times. It is a great, difficulty to get them to attend divine worship at all, and their circumstances combine to break off all associations with public services. Their going to church becomes a matter of persuasion and of missionary labour.

A lady, who is most active in visiting the houses of these outcasts from the means of grace, gives me an amusing instance of self-complacency arising from performance of the duty. She was visiting in the West Port, not far from the church established by my illustrious friend the late Dr. Chalmers. Having asked a poor woman if she ever attended there for divine service--"Ou ay," she replied; "there's a man ca'd Chalmers preaches there, and I whiles gang in and hear him, just to encourage him, puir body!"

From the religious opinions of a people, the transition is natural to their political partialities. One great political change has passed over Scotland, which none now living can be said to have actually witnessed; but they remember those who were contemporaries of the anxious scenes of '45, and many of us have known determined and thorough Jacobites. The poetry of that political period still remains, but we hear only as pleasant songs those words and melodies which stirred the hearts and excited the deep enthusiasm of a past generation. Jacobite anecdotes also are fading from our knowledge. To many young persons they are unknown. Of these stories illustrative of Jacobite feelings and enthusiasm, many are of a character not fit for me to record. The good old ladies who were violent partisans of the Stuarts had little hesitation in referring without reserve to the future and eternal destiny of William of Orange. One anecdote which I had from a near relative of the family may be adduced in illustration of the powerful hold which the cause had upon the views and consciences of Jacobites.

A former Mr. Stirling of Keir had favoured the Stuart cause, and had in fact attended a muster of forces at the Brig of Turk previous to the '15. This symptom of a rising against the Government occasioned some uneasiness, and the authorities were very active in their endeavours to discover who were the leaders of the movement. Keir was suspected. The miller of Keir was brought forward as a witness, and swore positively that the laird was not present. Now, as it was well known that he was there, and that the miller knew it, a neighbour asked him privately, when he came out of the witness-box, how he could on oath assert such a falsehood. The miller replied, quite undaunted, and with a feeling of confidence in the righteousness of his cause approaching the sublime--"I would rather trust my soul in God's mercy than Keir's head into their hands."

A correspondent has sent me an account of a curious ebullition of Jacobite feeling and enthusiasm, now I suppose quite extinct. My correspondent received it himself from Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon, and he had entered it in a commonplace-book when he heard it, in 1826.

"David Tulloch, tenant in Drumbenan, under the second and third Dukes of Gordon, had been 'out' in the '45--or the fufteen, or both--and was a great favourite of his respective landlords. One day, having attended the young Lady Susan Gordon (afterwards Duchess of Manchester) to the 'Chapel' at Huntly, David, perceiving that her ladyship had neither hassock nor carpet to protect her garments from the earthen floor, respectfully spread his plaid for the young lady to kneel upon, and the service proceeded; but when the prayer for the King and Royal Family was commenced, David, sans cerémonie, drew, or rather 'twitched,' the plaid from under the knees of the astonished young lady, exclaiming, not sotto voce, 'The deil a ane shall pray for them on my plaid!'"

I have a still more pungent demonstration against praying for the king, which a friend in Aberdeen assures me he received from the son of the gentleman who heard the protest. In the Episcopal Chapel in Aberdeen, of which Primus John Skinner was incumbent, they commenced praying in the service for George III. immediately on the death of Prince Charles Edward. On the first Sunday of the prayer being used, this gentleman's father, walking home with a friend whom he knew to be an old and determined Jacobite, said to him, "What do you think of that, Mr.----?" The reply was, "Indeed, the less we say aboot that prayer the better." But he was pushed for "further answer as to his own views and his own ideas on the matter," so he came out with the declaration, "Weel, then, I say this--they may pray the kenees[28] aff their breeks afore I join in that prayer."

The following is a characteristic Jacobite story. It must have happened shortly after 1745, when all manner of devices were fallen upon to display Jacobitism, without committing the safety of the Jacobite, such as having white knots on gowns; drinking, "The king, ye ken wha I mean;" uttering the toast "The king," with much apparent loyalty, and passing the glass over the water-jug, indicating the esoteric meaning of majesty beyond the sea,--etc. etc.; and various toasts, which were most important matters in those times, and were often given as tests of loyalty, or the reverse, according to the company in which they were given. Miss Carnegy of Craigo, well known and still remembered amongst the old Montrose ladies as an uncompromising Jacobite, had been vowing that she would drink King James and his son in a company of staunch Brunswickers, and being strongly dissuaded from any such foolish and dangerous attempt by some of her friends present, she answered them with a text of Scripture, "The tongue no man can tame--James Third and Aucht" and drank off her glass[29]!