[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1817]
_Tales of My Landlord_. 4 vols. 12mo. Third Edition. Blackwood,
Edinburgh. John Murray, London. 1817.
These Tales belong obviously to a class of novels which we have already
had occasion repeatedly to notice, and which have attracted the
attention of the public in no common degree,--we mean Waverley, Guy
Mannering, and the Antiquary, and we have little hesitation to pronounce
them either entirely, or in a great measure, the work of the same
author. Why he should industriously endeavour to elude observation by
taking leave of us in one character, and then suddenly popping out upon
us in another, we cannot pretend to guess without knowing more of his
personal reasons for preserving so strict an incognito that has hitherto
reached us. We can, however, conceive many reasons for a writer
observing this sort of mystery; not to mention that it has certainly had
its effect in keeping up the interest which his works have excited.
We do not know if the imagination of our author will sink in the opinion
of the public when deprived of that degree of invention which we have
been hitherto disposed to ascribe to him; but we are certain that it
ought to increase the value of his portraits, that human beings have
actually sate for them. These coincidences between fiction and reality
are perhaps the very circumstances to which the success of these novels
is in a great measure to be attributed: for, without depreciating the
merit of the artist, every spectator at once recognizes in those scenes
and faces which are copied from nature an air of distinct reality, which
is not attached to fancy-pieces however happily conceived and
elaborately executed. By what sort of freemasonry, if we may use the
term, the mind arrives at this conviction, we do not pretend to guess,
but every one must have felt that he instinctively and almost insensibly
recognizes in painting, poetry, or other works of imagination, that
which is copied from existing nature, and that he forthwith clings to it
with that kindred interest which thinks nothing which is human
indifferent to humanity. Before therefore we proceed to analyse the work
immediately before us, we beg leave briefly to notice a few
circumstances connected with its predecessors.
Our author has told us it was his object to present a succession of
scenes and characters connected with Scotland in its past and present
state, and we must own that his stories are so slightly constructed as
to remind us of the showman's thread with which he draws up his pictures
and presents them successively to the eye of the spectator. He seems
seriously to have proceeded on Mr. Bays's maxim--"What the deuce is a
plot good for, but to bring in fine things?"--Probability and
perspicuity of narrative are sacrificed with the utmost indifference to
the desire of producing effect; and provided the author can but contrive
to "surprize and elevate," he appears to think that he has done his duty
to the public. Against this slovenly indifference we have already
remonstrated, and we again enter our protest. It is in justice to the
author himself that we do so, because, whatever merit individual scenes
and passages may possess, (and none have been more ready than ourselves
to offer our applause), it is clear that their effect would be greatly
enhanced by being disposed in a clear and continued narrative. We are
the more earnest in this matter, because it seems that the author errs
chiefly from carelessness. There may be something of system in it,
however: for we have remarked, that with an attention which amounts even
to affectation, he has avoided the common language of narrative, and
thrown his story, as much as possible, into a dramatic shape. In many
cases this has added greatly to the effect, by keeping both the actors
and action continually before the reader, and placing him, in some
measure, in the situation of the audience at a theatre, who are
compelled to gather the meaning of the scene from what the _dramatis
personae_ say to each other, and not from any explanation addressed
immediately to themselves. But though the author gain this advantage,
and thereby compel the reader to think of the personages of the novel
and not of the writer, yet the practice, especially pushed to the extent
we have noticed, is a principal cause of the flimsiness and incoherent
texture of which his greatest admirers are compelled to complain. Few
can wish his success more sincerely than we do, and yet without more
attention on his own part, we have great doubts of its continuance.
In addition to the loose and incoherent style of the narration, another
leading fault in these novels is the total want of interest which the
reader attaches to the character of the hero. Waverley, Brown, or
Bertram in Guy Mannering, and Lovel in the Antiquary, are all brethren
of a family; very amiable and very insipid sort of young men. We think
we can perceive that this error is also in some degree occasioned by the
dramatic principle upon which the author frames his plots. His chief
characters are never actors, but always acted upon by the spur of
circumstances, and have their fates uniformly determined by the agency
of the subordinate persons. This arises from the author having usually
represented them as foreigners to whom every thing in Scotland is
strange,--a circumstance which serves as his apology for entering into
many minute details which are reflectively, as it were, addressed to the
reader through the medium of the hero. While he is going into
explanations and details which, addressed directly to the reader, might
appear tiresome and unnecessary, he gives interest to them by exhibiting
the effect which they produce upon the principal person of his drama,
and at the same time obtains a patient hearing for what might otherwise
be passed over without attention. But if he gains this advantage, it is
by sacrificing the character of the hero. No one can be interesting to
the reader who is not himself a prime agent in the scene. This is
understood even by the worthy citizen and his wife, who are introduced
as prolocutors in Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle. When they are
asked what the principal person of the drama shall do?--the answer is
prompt and ready--"Marry, let him come forth and kill a giant." There is
a good deal of tact in the request. Every hero in poetry, in fictitious
narrative, ought to come forth and do or say something or other which no
other person could have done or said; make some sacrifice, surmount some
difficulty, and become interesting to us otherwise than by his mere
appearance on the scene, the passive tool of the other characters.
The insipidity of this author's heroes may be also in part referred to
the readiness with which the twists and turns his story to produce some
immediate and perhaps temporary effect. This could hardly be done
without representing the principal character either as inconsistent or
flexible in his principles. The ease with which Waverley adopts and
after forsakes the Jacobite party in 1745 is a good example of what we
mean. Had he been painted as a steady character, his conduct would have
been improbable. The author was aware of this; and yet, unwilling to
relinquish an opportunity of introducing the interior of the Chevalier's
military court, the circumstances of the battle of Preston-pans, and so
forth, he hesitates not to sacrifice poor Waverley, and to represent him
as a reed blown about at the pleasure of every breeze: a less careless
writer would probably have taken some pains to gain the end proposed in
a more artful and ingenious manner. But our author was hasty, and has
paid the penalty of his haste.
We have hinted that we are disposed to question the originality of these
novels in point of invention, and that in doing so, we do not consider
ourselves as derogating from the merit of the author, to whom, on the
contrary, we give the praise due to one who has collected and brought
out with accuracy and effect, incidents and manners which might
otherwise have slept in oblivion. We proceed to our proofs.[1]
[1] It will be readily conceived that the curious MSS. and other
information of which we have availed ourselves were not accessible
to us in this country; but we have been assiduous in our inquiries;
and are happy enough to possess a correspondent whose researches on
the spot have been indefatigable, and whose kind, and ready
communications have anticipated all our wishes.
* * * * *
The traditions and manners of the Scotch were so blended with
superstitious practices and fears, that the author of these novels seems
to have deemed it incumbent on him, to transfer many more such incidents
to his novels, than seem either probable or natural to an English
reader. It may be some apology that his story would have lost the
national cast, which it was chiefly his object to preserve, had this
been otherwise. There are few families of antiquity in Scotland, which
do not possess some strange legends, told only under promise of secrecy,
and with an air of mystery; in developing which, the influence of the
powers of darkness is referred to. The truth probably is, that the
agency of witches and demons was often made to account for the sudden
disappearance of individuals and similar incidents, too apt to arise out
of the evil dispositions of humanity, in a land where revenge was long
held honourable--where private feuds and civil broils disturbed the
inhabitants for ages--and where justice was but weakly and irregularly
executed. Mr. Law, a conscientious but credulous clergyman of the Kirk
of Scotland, who lived in the seventeenth century, has left behind him a
very curious manuscript, in which, with the political events of that
distracted period, he has intermingled the various portents and
marvellous occurrences which, in common with his age, he ascribed to
supernatural agency. The following extract will serve to illustrate the
taste of this period for the supernatural. When we read such things
recorded by men of sense and education, (and Mr. Law was deficient in
neither), we cannot help remembering the times of paganism, when every
scene, incident, and action, had its appropriate and presiding deity. It
is indeed curious to consider what must have been the sensations of a
person, who lived under this peculiar species of hallucination,
believing himself beset on all hands by invisible agents; one who was
unable to account for the restiveness of a nobleman's carriage horses
otherwise than by the immediate effect of witchcraft: and supposed that
the _sage femme_ of the highest reputation was most likely to devote the
infants to the infernal spirits, upon their very entrance into life.
* * * * *
To the superstitions of the North Britons must be added their peculiar
and characteristic amusements; and here we have some atonement to make
to the memory of the learned Paulus Pleydell, whose compotatory
relaxations, better information now inclines us to think, we mentioned
with somewhat too little reverence. Before the new town of Edinburgh (as
it is called) was built, its inhabitants lodged, as is the practice of
Paris at this day, in large buildings called _lands_, each family
occupying a story, and having access to it by a stair common to all the
inhabitants. These buildings, when they did not front the high street of
the city, composed the sides of little, narrow, unwholesome _closes_ or
lanes. The miserable and confined accommodation which such habitations
afforded, drove _men of business_, as they were called, that is, people
belonging to the law, to hold their professional rendezvouses in
taverns, and many lawyers of eminence spent the principal part of their
time in some tavern of note, transacted their business there, received
the visits of clients with their writers or attornies, and suffered no
imputation from so doing. This practice naturally led to habits of
conviviality, to which the Scottish lawyers, till of very late years,
were rather too much addicted. Few men drank so hard as the counsellors
of the old school, and there survived till of late some veterans who
supported in that respect the character of their predecessors. To vary
the humour of a joyous evening many frolics were resorted to, and the
game of _high jinks_ was one of the most common.[1] In fact, high jinks
was one of the _petits jeux_ with which certain circles were wont to
while away the time; and though it claims no alliance with modern
associations, yet, as it required some shrewdness and dexterity to
support the characters assumed for the occasion, it is not difficult to
conceive that it might have been as interesting and amusing to the
parties engaged in it, as counting the spots of a pack of cards, or
treasuring in memory the rotation in which they are thrown on the table.
The worst of the game was what that age considered as its principal
excellence, namely, that the forfeitures being all commuted for wine, it
proved an encouragement to hard drinking, the prevailing vice of the
age.
[1] We have learned, with some dismay, that one of the ablest lawyers
Scotland ever produced, and who lives to witness (although in
retirement) the various changes which have taken place in her courts
of judicature, a man who has filled with marked distinction the
highest offices of his profession, _tush'd_ (pshaw'd) extremely at
the delicacy of our former criticism. And certainly he claims some
title to do so, having been in his youth not only a witness of such
orgies as are described as proceeding under the auspices of Mr.
Pleydell, but himself a distinguished performer.
On the subject of Davie Gellatley, the fool of the Baron of
Bradwardine's family, we are assured there is ample testimony that a
custom, referred to Shakespeare's time in England, had, and in remote
provinces of Scotland, has still its counterpart, to this day. We do not
mean to say that the professed jester with his bauble and his
party-coloured vestment can be found in any family north of the Tweed. Yet
such a personage held this respectable office in the family of the Earls
of Strathemore within the last century, and his costly holiday dress,
garnished with bells of silver, is still preserved in the Castle of
Glamis. But we are assured, that to a much later period, and even to
this moment, the habits and manners of Scotland have had some tendency
to preserve the existence of this singular order of domestics. There are
(comparatively speaking) no poor's rates in the country parishes of
Scotland, and of course no work-houses to immure either their worn out
poor or the "moping idiot and the madman gay," whom Crabbe characterizes
as the happiest inhabitants of these mansions, because insensible of
their misfortunes. It therefore happens almost necessarily in Scotland,
that the house of the nearest proprietor of wealth and consequence
proves a place of refuge for these outcasts of society; and until the
pressure of the times, and the calculating habits which they have
necessarily generated had rendered the maintenance of a human being
about such a family an object of some consideration, they usually found
an asylum there, and enjoyed the degree of comfort of which their
limited intellect rendered them susceptible. Such idiots were usually
employed in some simple sort of occasional labour; and if we are not
misinformed, the situation of turn-spit was often assigned them, before
the modern improvement of the smoke-jack. But, however employed, they
usually displayed towards their benefactors a sort of instinctive
attachment which was very affecting. We knew one instance in which such
a being refused food for many days, pined away, literally broke his
heart, and died within the space of a very few weeks after his
benefactor's decease. We cannot now pause to deduce the moral inference
which might be derived from such instances. It is however evident, that
if there was a coarseness of mind in deriving amusement from the follies
of these unfortunate beings, a circumstance to the disgrace of which
they were totally insensible, their mode of life was, in other respects,
calculated to promote such a degree of happiness as their faculties
permitted them to enjoy. But besides the amusement which our forefathers
received from witnessing their imperfections and extravagancies, there
was a more legitimate source of pleasure in the wild wit which they
often flung around them with the freedom of Shakespeare's licensed
clowns. There are few houses in Scotland of any note or antiquity where
the witty sayings of some such character are not occasionally quoted at
this very day. The pleasure afforded to our forefathers by such
repartees was no doubt heightened by their wanting the habits of more
elegant amusement. But in Scotland the practice long continued, and in
the house of one of the very first noblemen of that country (a man whose
name is never mentioned without reverence) and that within the last
twenty years, a jester such as we have mentioned stood at the side-table
during dinner, and occasionally amused the guests by his extemporaneous
sallies. Imbecility of this kind was even considered as an apology for
intrusion upon the most solemn occasions. All know the peculiar
reverence with which the Scottish of every rank attend on funeral
ceremonies. Yet within the memory of most of the present generation, an
idiot of an appearance equally hideous and absurd, dressed, as if in
mockery, in a rusty and ragged black coat, decorated with a cravat and
weepers made of white paper in the form of those worn by the deepest
mourners, preceded almost every funeral procession in Edinburgh, as if
to turn into ridicule the last rites paid to mortality.
It has been generally supposed that in the case of these as of other
successful novels, the most prominent and peculiar characters were
sketched from real life. It was only after the death of Smollet, that
two barbers and a shoemaker contended about the character of Strap,
which each asserted was modelled from his own: but even in the lifetime
of the present author, there is scarcely a dale in the pastoral
districts of the southern counties but arrogates to itself the
possession of the original Dandie Dinmont. As for Baillie Mac Wheeble, a
person of the highest eminence in the law perfectly well remembers
having received fees from him.
* * * * *
Although these strong resemblances occur so frequently, and with such
peculiar force, as almost to impress us with the conviction that the
author sketched from nature, and not from fancy alone; yet we hesitate
to draw any positive conclusion, sensible that a character dashed off as
the representative of a certain class of men will bear, if executed with
fidelity to the general outlines, not only that resemblance which he
ought to possess as "knight of the shire," but also a special affinity
to some particular individual. It is scarcely possible it should be
otherwise. When Emery appears on the stage as a Yorkshire peasant, with
the habit, manner, and dialect peculiar to the character, and which he
assumes with so much truth and fidelity, those unacquainted with the
province or its inhabitants see merely the abstract idea, the beau ideal
of a Yorkshireman. But to those who are intimate with both, the action
and manner of the comedian almost necessarily recall the idea of some
individual native (altogether unknown probably to the performer) to whom
his exterior and manners bear a casual resemblance. We are therefore on
the whole inclined to believe, that the incidents are frequently copied
from _actual_ occurrences, but that the characters are either entirely
fictitious, or if any traits have been borrowed from real life, as in
the anecdote which we have quoted respecting Invernahyle, they have been
carefully disguised and blended with such as are purely imaginary. We
now proceed to a more particular examination of the volumes before us.
They are entitled "Tales of my Landlord": why so entitled, excepting to
introduce a quotation from Don Quixote, it is difficult to conceive: for
Tales of my Landlord they are _not_, nor is it indeed easy to say whose
tales they ought to be called. There is a proem, as it is termed,
supposed to be written by Jedediah Cleishbotham, the schoolmaster and
parish clerk of the village of Gandercleugh, in which we are given to
understand that these Tales were compiled by his deceased usher, Mr.
Peter Pattieson, from the narratives or conversations of such travellers
as frequented the Wallace Inn, in that village. Of this proem we shall
only say that it is written in the quaint style of that prefixed by Gay
to his Pastorals, being, as Johnson terms it, "such imitation as he
could obtain of obsolete language, and by consequence in a style that
was never written nor spoken in any age or place."
* * * * *
We have given these details partly in compliance with the established
rules which our office prescribes, and partly in the hope that the
authorities we have been enabled to bring together might give additional
light and interest to the story. From the unprecedented popularity of
the work, we cannot flatter ourselves that our summary has made any one
of our readers acquainted with events with which he was not previously
familiar. The causes of that popularity we may be permitted shortly to
allude to; we cannot even hope to exhaust them, and it is the less
necessary that we should attempt it, since we cannot suggest a
consideration which a perusal of the work has not anticipated in the
minds of all our readers.
One great source of the universal admiration which this family of Novels
has attracted, is their peculiar plan, and the distinguished excellence
with which it has been executed. The objections that have frequently
been stated against what are called Historical Romances, have been
suggested, we think, rather from observing the universal failure of that
species of composition, than from any inherent and constitutional defect
in the species of composition itself. If the manners of different ages
are injudiciously blended together,--if unpowdered crops and slim and
fairy shapes are commingled in the dance with volumed wigs and
far-extending hoops,--if in the portraiture of real character the truth
of
history be violated, the eyes of the spectator are necessarily averted
from a picture which excites in every well regulated and intelligent
mind the hatred of incredulity. We have neither time nor inclination to
enforce our remark by giving illustrations of it. But if those
unpardonable sins against good taste can be avoided, and the features of
an age gone by can be recalled in a spirit of delineation at once
faithful and striking, the very opposite is the legitimate conclusion:
the composition itself is in every point of view dignified and improved;
and the author, leaving the light and frivolous associates with whom a
careless observer would be disposed to ally him, takes his seat on the
bench of the historians of his time and country. In this proud assembly,
and in no mean place of it, we are disposed to rank the author of these
works; for we again express our conviction--and we desire to be
understood to use the term as distinguished from _knowledge_--that they
are all the offspring of the same parent. At once a master of the great
events and minuter incidents of history, and of the manners of the times
he celebrates, as distinguished from those which now prevail,--the
intimate thus of the living and of the dead, his judgment enables him to
separate those traits which are characteristic from those that are
generic; and his imagination, not less accurate and discriminating than
vigorous and vivid, presents to the mind of the reader the manners of
the times, and introduces to his familiar acquaintance the individuals
of his drama as they thought and spoke and acted. We are not quite sure
that any thing is to be found in the manner and character of the Black
Dwarf which would enable us, without the aid of the author's
information, and the facts he relates, to give it to the beginning of
the last century; and, as we have already remarked, his free-booting
robber lives, perhaps, too late in time. But his delineation is perfect.
With palpable and inexcusable defects in the _dénouement_, there are
scenes of deep and overwhelming interest; and every one, we think, must
be delighted with the portrait of the Grandmother of Hobbie Elliott, a
representation soothing and consoling in itself, and heightened in its
effect by the contrast produced from the lighter manners of the younger
members of the family, and the honest but somewhat blunt and boisterous
bearing of the shepherd himself.
The second tale, however, as we have remarked, is more adapted to the
talents of the author, and his success has been proportionably
triumphant. We have trespassed too unmercifully on the time of our
gentle readers to indulge our inclination in endeavouring to form an
estimate of that melancholy but, nevertheless, most attractive period in
our history, when by the united efforts of a corrupt and unprincipled
government, of extravagant fanaticism, want of education, perversion of
religion, and the influence of ill-instructed teachers, whose hearts and
understandings were estranged and debased by the illapses of the wildest
enthusiasm, the liberty of the people was all but extinguished, and the
bonds of society nearly dissolved. Revolting as all this is to the
Patriot, it affords fertile materials to the Poet. As to the _beauty_ of
the delineation presented to the reader in this tale, there is, we
believe, but one opinion: and we are persuaded that the more carefully
and dispassionately it is contemplated, the more perfect will it appear
in the still more valuable qualities of fidelity and truth. We have
given part of the evidence on which we say this, and we will again recur
to the subject. The opinions and language of the _honest party_ are
detailed with the accuracy of a witness; and he who could open to our
view the state of the Scottish peasantry, perishing in the field or on
the scaffold, and driven to utter and just desperation, in attempting to
defend their first and most sacred rights; who could place before our
eyes the leaders of these enormities, from the notorious Duke of
Lauderdale downwards to the fellow mind that executed his behest,
precisely as they lived and looked,--such a chronicler cannot justly be
charged with attempting to extenuate or throw into the shade the
corruptions of a government that soon afterwards fell a victim to its
own follies and crimes.
Independently of the delineation of the manners and characters of the
times to which the story refers, it is impossible to avoid noticing, as
a separate excellence, the faithful representation of general nature.
Looking not merely to the litter of novels that peep out for a single
day from the mud where they were spawned, but to many of more ambitious
pretensions--it is quite evident that in framing them, the authors have
first addressed themselves to the involutions and developement of the
story, as the principal object of their attention; and that in
entangling and unravelling the plot, in combining the incidents which
compose it, and even in depicting the characters, they sought for
assistance chiefly in the writings of their predecessors. Baldness, and
uniformity, and inanity are the inevitable results of this slovenly and
unintellectual proceeding. The volume which this author has studied is
the great book of Nature. He has gone abroad into the world in quest of
what the world will certainly and abundantly supply, but what a man of
great discrimination alone will find, and a man of the very highest
genius will alone depict after he has discovered it. The characters of
Shakespeare are not more exclusively human, not more perfectly men and
women as they live and move, than those of this mysterious author. It is
from this circumstance that, as we have already observed, many of his
personages are supposed to be sketched from real life. He must have
mixed much and variously in the society of his native country; his
studies must have familiarized him to systems of manners now forgotten;
and thus the persons of his drama, though in truth the creatures of his
own imagination, convey the impression of individuals who we are
persuaded must exist, or are evoked from their graves in all their
original freshness, entire in their lineaments, and perfect in all the
minute peculiarities of dress and demeanour.
* * * * *
Admitting, however, that these portraits are sketched with spirit and
effect, two questions arise of much more importance than any thing
affecting the merits of the novels--namely, whether it is safe or
prudent to imitate, in a fictitious narrative, and often with a view to
a ludicrous effect, the scriptural style of the zealots of the
seventeenth century; and secondly, whether the recusant presbyterians,
collectively considered, do not carry too reverential and sacred a
character to be treated by an unknown author with such insolent
familiarity.
On the first subject, we frankly own we have great hesitation. It is
scarcely possible to ascribe scriptural expressions to hypocritical or
extravagant characters without some risk of mischief, because it will be
apt to create an habitual association between the expression and the
ludicrous manner in which it is used, unfavourable to the reverence due
to the sacred text. And it is no defence to state that this is an error
inherent in the plan of the novel. Bourdaloue, a great authority,
extends this restriction still farther, and denounces all attempts to
unmask hypocrisy by raillery, because in doing so the satirist is
necessarily compelled to expose to ridicule the religious vizard of
which he has divested him. Yet even against such authority it may be
stated, that ridicule is the friend both of religion and virtue, when
directed against those who assume their garb, whether from hypocrisy or
fanaticism. The satire of Butler, not always decorous in these
particulars, was yet eminently useful in stripping off their borrowed
gravity and exposing to public ridicule the affected fanaticism of the
times in which he lived. It may also be remembered, that in the days of
Queen Anne a number of the Camisars or Huguenots of Dauphiné arrived as
refugees in England, and became distinguished by the name of the French
prophets. The fate of these enthusiasts in their own country had been
somewhat similar to that of the Covenanters. Like them, they used to
assemble in the mountains and desolate places, to the amount of many
hundreds, in arms, and like them they were hunted and persecuted by the
military. Like them, they were enthusiasts, though their enthusiasm
assumed a character more decidedly absurd. The fugitive Camisars who
came to London had convulsion-fits, prophesied, made converts, and
attracted the public attention by an offer to raise the dead. The
English minister, instead of fine and imprisonment and other inflictions
which might have placed them in the rank and estimation of martyrs, and
confirmed in their faith their numerous disciples, encouraged a dramatic
author to bring out a farce on the subject which, though neither very
witty nor very delicate, had the good effect of laughing the French
prophets out of their audience and putting a stop to an inundation of
nonsense which could not have failed to disgrace the age in which it
appeared. The Camisars subsided into their ordinary vocation of
psalmodic whiners, and no more was heard of their sect or their
miracles. It would be well if all folly of the kind could be so easily
quelled: for enthusiastic nonsense, whether of this day or of those
which have passed away, has no more title to shelter itself under the
veil of religion than a common pirate to be protected by the reverence
due to an honoured and friendly flag.
Still, however, we must allow that there is great delicacy and
hesitation to be used in employing the weapon of ridicule on any point
connected with religion. Some passages occur in the work before us for
which the writer's sole apology must be the uncontroulable disposition
to indulge the peculiarity of his vein of humour--a temptation which
even the saturnine John Knox was unable to resist either in narrating
the martyrdom of his friend Wisheart or the assassination of his enemy
Beatson, and in the impossibility of resisting which his learned and
accurate biographer has rested his apology for this mixture of jest and
earnest.
"There are writers," he says (rebutting the charge of Hume against
Knox), "who can treat the most sacred subjects with a levity bordering
on profanity. Must we at once pronounce them profane, and is nothing
to be set down to the score of natural temper inclining them to wit
and humour? The pleasantry which Knox has mingled with his narrative
of his (Cardinal Beatson's) death and burial is unseasonable and
unbecoming. But it is to be imputed not to any pleasure which he took
in describing a bloody scene, but to the strong propensity which he
had to indulge his vein of humour. Those who have read his history
with attention must have perceived that he is not able to check this
even on the very serious occasions."--_Macrie's Life of Knox_, p. 147.
Indeed Dr. Macrie himself has given us a striking instance of the
indulgence which the Presbyterian clergy, even of the strictest
persuasion, permit to the _vis comica_. After describing a polemical
work as "ingeniously constructed and occasionally enlivened with strokes
of humour," he transfers, to embellish his own pages, (for we can
discover no purpose of edification which the tale serves), a ludicrous
parody made by an ignorant parish-priest on certain words of a Psalm,
too sacred to be here quoted. Our own innocent pleasantry cannot, in
this instance, be quite reconciled with that of the learned biographer
of John Knox, but we can easily conceive that his authority may be
regarded in Scotland as decisive of the extent to which a humourist may
venture in exercising his wit upon scriptural expressions without
incurring censure even from her most rigid divines.
It may however be a very different point how far the author is entitled
to be acquitted upon the second point of indictment. To use too much
freedom with things sacred is a course much more easily glossed over
than that of exposing to ridicule the persons of any particular sect.
Every one knows the reply of the great Prince of Condé to Louis XIV when
this monarch expressed his surprize at the clamour excited by Molière's
Tartuffe, while a blasphemous farce called _Scaramouche Hermite_ was
performed without giving any scandal: "C'est parceque Scaramouche ne
jouoit que le ciel et la religion, dont les dévots se soucioient
beaucoup moins que d'eux-mêmes." We believe, therefore, the best service
we can do our author in the present case is to shew that the odious part
of his satire applies only to that fierce and unreasonable set of
extra-presbyterians, whose zeal, equally absurd and cruel, afforded
pretexts for the severities inflicted on non-conformists without
exception, and gave the greatest scandal and offence to the wise, sober,
enlightened, and truly pious among the Presbyterians.
The principal difference betwixt the Cameronians and the rational
presbyterians has been already touched upon. It may be summed in a very
few words.
After the restoration of Charles II episcopacy was restored in Scotland,
upon the unanimous petition of the Scottish parliament. Had this been
accompanied with a free toleration of the presbyterians, whose
consciences preferred a different mode of church-government, we do not
conceive there would have been any wrong done to that ancient kingdom.
But instead of this, the most violent means of enforcing conformity were
resorted to without scruple, and the ejected presbyterian clergy were
persecuted by penal statutes and prohibited from the exercise of their
ministry. These rigours only made the people more anxiously seek out and
adhere to the silenced preachers. Driven from the churches, they held
conventicles in houses. Expelled from cities and the mansions of men,
they met on the hills and deserts like the French Huguenots. Assailed
with arms, they repelled force by force. The severity of the rulers,
instigated by the episcopal clergy, increased with the obstinacy of the
recusants, until the latter, in 1666, assumed arms for the purpose of
asserting their right to worship God in their own way. They were
defeated at Pentland; and in 1669 a gleam of common sense and justice
seems to have beamed upon the Scottish councils of Charles. They granted
what was called an _indulgence_ (afterwards repeatedly renewed) to the
presbyterian clergy, assigned them small stipends, and permitted them to
preach in such deserted churches as should be assigned to them by the
Scottish Privy Council. This "indulgence," though clogged with harsh
conditions and frequently renewed or capriciously recalled, was still an
acceptable boon to the wiser and better part of the presbyterian clergy,
who considered it as an opening to the exercise of their ministry under
the lawful authority, which they continued to acknowledge. But fiercer
and more intractable principles were evinced by the younger ministers of
that persuasion. They considered the submitting to exercise their
ministry under the controul of any visible authority as absolute
erastianism, a desertion of the great invisible and divine Head of the
church, and a line of conduct which could only be defended, says one of
their tracts, by nullifidians, time-servers, infidels, or the Archbishop
of Canterbury. They held up to ridicule and abhorrence such of their
brethren as considered mere toleration as a boon worth accepting. Every
thing, according to these fervent divines, which fell short of
re-establishing presbytery as the sole and predominating religion, all
that did not imply a full restoration of the Solemn League and Covenant,
was an imperfect and unsound composition between God and mammon,
episcopacy and prelacy. The following extracts from a printed sermon by
one of them, on the subject of "soul-confirmation," will at once exemplify
the contempt and scorn with which these high-flyers regarded their more
sober-minded brethren, and serve as a specimen of the homely eloquence
with which they excited their followers. The reader will probably be of
opinion that it is worthy of Kettledrummle himself, and will serve to
clear Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham of the charge of exaggeration.
There is many folk that has a face to the religion that is in fashion,
and there is many folk, they have ay a face to the old company, they
have a face for godly folk, and they have a face for persecutors of
godly folk, and they will be daddies bairns and minnies bairns both;
they will be _prelates_ bairns and they will be _malignants_ bairns
and they will be the people of God's bairns. And what think ye of that
bastard temper? Poor Peter had a trial of this soupleness, but God
made Paul an instrument to take him by the neck and shake it from him:
And O that God would take us by the neck and shake our soupleness from
us.
Therefore you that keeps only your old job-trot, and does not mend
your pace, you will not wone at _soul-confirmation,_ there is a whine
(i.e., _a few_) old job-trot, and does not mend your pace, you will
not wone at _soul-confirmation,_ there is a whine old job-trot
ministers among us, a whine old job-trot professors, they have their
own pace, and faster they will not go; O therefore they could never
wine to _soul-confirmation_ in the mettere of God. And our old
job-trot ministers is turned _curates_, and our old job-trot
professors is joined with them, and now this way God has turned them
inside out, and has made it manifest and when their heart is hanging
upon this braw, I will not give a gray groat for them and their
profession both.
The devil has the ministers and professors of Scotland, now in a sive,
and O as he sifts, and O as he riddles, and O as he rattles, and O the
chaff he gets; And I fear there be more chaff nor there be good corn,
and that will be found among us or all be done: but the
_soul-confirmed_ man leaves ever the devil at two more, and he has ay
the matter gadged, and leaves ay the devil in the lee side,--Sirs O
work in the day of the cross.
The more moderate presbyterian ministers saw with pain and resentment
the lower part of their congregation, who had least to lose by taking
desperate courses, withdrawn from their flocks, by their more zealous
pretenders to purity of doctrine, while they themselves were held up to
ridicule, old jog trot professors and chaff-winnowed out and flung away
by Satan. They charged the Cameronian preachers with leading the deluded
multitude to slaughter at Bothwell, by prophesying a certainty of
victory, and dissuading them from accepting the amnesty offered by
Monmouth. "All could not avail," says Mr. Law, himself a presbyterian
minister, "with McCargill, Kidd, Douglas, and other witless men amongst
them, to hearken to any proposals of peace. Among others that Douglas,
sitting on his horse, and preaching to the confused multitude, told them
that they would come to terms with them, and like a drone was always
droning on these terms with them: 'they would give us a half Christ, but
we will have a whole Christ,' and such like impertinent speeches as
these, good enough to feed those that are served with wind and not with
the sincere milk of the word of God." Law also censures these irritated
and extravagant enthusiasts, not only for intending to overthrow the
government, but as binding themselves to kill all that would not accede
to their opinion, and he gives several instances of such cruelty being
exercised by them, not only upon straggling soldiers whom they shot by
the way or surprized in their quarters, but upon those who, having once
joined them, had fallen away from their principles. Being asked why they
committed these cruelties in cold blood, they answered, 'they were
obliged to do it by their sacred bond.' Upon these occasions they
practised great cruelties, mangling the bodies of their victims that
each man might have his share of the guilt. In these cases the
Cameronians imagined themselves the direct and inspired executioners of
the vengeance of heaven. Nor did they lack the usual incentives of
enthusiasm. Peden and others among them set up a claim to the gift of
prophecy, though they seldom foretold any thing to the purpose. They
detected witches, had bodily encounters with the enemy of mankind in his
own shape, or could discover him as, lurking in the disguise of a raven,
he inspired the rhetoric of a Quaker's meeting. In some cases, celestial
guardians kept guard over their field-meetings. At a conventicle held on
the Lomond-hills, the Rev. Mr. Blacader was credibly assured, under the
hands of four honest men, that at the time the meeting was disturbed by
the soldiers, some women who had remained at home, "clearly perceived as
the form of a tall man, majestic-like, stand in the air in stately
posture with the one leg, as it were, advanced before the other,
standing above the people all the time of the soldiers shooting."
Unluckily this great vision of the Guarded Mount did not conclude as
might have been expected. The divine sentinel left his post too soon,
and the troopers fell upon the rear of the audience, plundered and
stripped many, and made eighteen prisoners.
But we have no delight to dwell either upon the atrocities or
absurdities of a people whose ignorance and fanaticism were rendered
frantic by persecution. It is enough for our present purpose to observe
that the present Church of Scotland, which comprizes so much sound
doctrine and learning, and has produced so many distinguished
characters, is the legitimate representative of the indulged clergy of
the days of Charles II, settled however upon a comprehensive basis. That
after the revolution, it should have succeeded episcopacy as the
national religion, was natural and regular, because it possessed all the
sense, learning, and moderation fit for such a change, and because among
its followers were to be found the only men of property and influence
who acknowledged presbytery. But the Cameronians continued long as a
separate sect, though their preachers were bigoted and ignorant, and
their hearers were gleaned out of the lower ranks of the peasantry.
Their principle, so far as it was intelligible, asserted that paramount
species of presbyterian church-government which was established in the
year 1648, and they continued to regard the established church as
erastian and time-serving, because they prudently remained silent upon
certain abstract and delicate topics, where there might be some
collision between the absolute liberty asserted by the church and the
civil government of the state. The Cameronians, on the contrary,
disowned all kings and government whatsoever, which should not take the
Solemn League and Covenant; and long retained hopes of re-establishing
that great national engagement, a bait which was held out to them by all
those who wished to disturb the government during the reign of William
and Anne, as is evident from the Memoirs of Ker of Kersland, and the
Negotiations of Colonel Hooke with the Jacobites and disaffected of the
year.
A party so wild in their principles, so vague and inconsistent in their
views, could not subsist long under a free and unlimited toleration.
They continued to hold their preachings on the hills, but they lost much
of their zeal when they were no longer liable to be disturbed by
dragoons, sheriffs, and lieutenants of Militia.--The old fable of the
Traveller's Cloak was in time verified, and the fierce sanguinary
zealots of the days of Claverhouse sunk into such quiet and peaceable
enthusiasts as Howie of Lochgoin, or Old Mortality himself. It is,
therefore, upon a race of sectaries who have long ceased to exist, that
Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham has charged all that is odious, and almost all
that is ridiculous, in his fictitious narrative; and we can no more
suppose any moderate presbyterian involved in the satire, than we should
imagine that the character of Hampden stood committed by a little
raillery on the person of Ludovic Claxton, the Muggletonian. If,
however, there remain any of those sectaries who, confining the beams of
the Gospel to the Goshen of their own obscure synagogue, and with James
Mitchell, the intended assassin, giving their sweeping testimony against
prelacy and popery, The Whole Duty of Man and bordles, promiscuous
dancing and the Common Prayer-book, and all the other enormities and
backslidings of the time, may perhaps be offended at this idle tale, we
are afraid they will receive their answer in the tone of the revellers
to Malvolio, who, it will be remembered, was something a kind of
Puritan: "Doest thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no
more cakes and ale?--Aye, by Saint Anne, and ginger will be hot in the
mouth too."