I have often thought that the Brownie, of whom the south country legends are so full, must have been some such misshapen creature, strong, willing, and forlorn, conscious of his hideous forbidding looks, and ready to purchase affection at any cost of labour, with a kindly heart, and a longing for human sympathy and intercourse. Such a being looks like the prototype of the Aiken-Drum of our infancy, and of that "drudging goblin," of whom we all know how he
".... Sweat
To earn his cream-bowl daily set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day.lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubber * fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And cropful out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings."
* Lob-lye-by-the-fire.
My readers will, I am sure, more than pardon me for giving them the following poem on Aiken-Drum, for the pleasure of first reading which, many years ago, I am indebted to Mr. R. Chambers's _Popular Rhymes of Scotland,_ where its "extraordinary merit" is generously acknowledged.
THE BROWNIE OF BLEDNOCH.
There cam' a strange wicht to our town-en',
An' the fient a body did him ken;
He tirl'd na lang, but he glided ben
Wi' a dreary, dreary hum.
His face did glow like the glow o' the west,
When the drumlie cloud has it half o'ercast;
Or the struggling moon when she's sair distrest,
O Sirs!'twas Aiken-drum.
I trow the bauldest stood aback,
Wi' a gape an' a glow'r till their lugs did crack,
As the shapeless phantom mum'ling spak,
Hae ye wark for Aiken-drum?
O! had ye seen the bairns's fricht,
As they stared at this wild and unyirthy wicht,
As they skulkit in'tween the dark an' the licht,
An' graned out, Aiken-drum!
"Sauf us!'' quoth Jock, "d'ye see sick een?"
Cries Kate, "There's a hole where a nose should ha' been;
An' the mouth's like a gash that a horn had ri'en;
Wow! keep's frae Aiken-drum!"
The black dog growlin' cow'red his tail,
The lassie swart'd, loot fa' the pail;
Rob's lingle brack as he mendit the flail,
At the sicht o' Aiken-drum.
His matted head on his breast did rest,
A lang blue beard wan'ered down like a vest;
But the glare o' his e'e hath nae bard exprest,
Nor the skimes o' Aiken-drum.
Roun' his hairy form there was naething seen,
But a philabeg o' the rashes green,
An' his knotted knees played aye knoit between;
What a sicht was Aiken-drum!
On his wauchie arms three claws did meet,
As they trail'd on the grun' by his taeless feet;
Even the auld gudeman himsel' did sweat,
To look at Aiken-drum.
But he drew a score, himsel' did sain,
The auld wife tried, but her tongue was gane;
While the young ane closer clespit her wean,
And turn'd frae Aiken-drum.
But the canty auld wife cam till her braith.
And she thocht the Bible might ward aff skaith;
Be it benshee, bogle, ghaist, or wraith--
But it fear'd na' Aiken-drum.
"His presence protect us!" quoth the auld gudeman;
"What wad ye, where won ye,--by sea or by Ian'?
I conjure ye--speak--by the Beuk in my han'!"
What a grane gae Aiken-drum!
"I lived in a Ian' whar we saw nae sky,
I dwalt in a spot whar a burn rins na by;
But I'se dwall noo wi' you if ye like to try--
Hae ye wark for Aiken-drum?
"I'll shiel a' your sheep i' the mornin' sune, *
I'll berry your crap by the licht o' the moon,
An' ba the bairns wi' an unkenn'd tune,
If ye'll keep poor Aiken-drum.
"I'll loup the linn when ye canna wade,
I'll kirn the kirn, and I'll turn the bread;
An' the wildest fillie that e'er can rede
I'se tame't," quoth Aiken-drum.
"Towear the tod frae the flock on the fell--
To gather the dew frae the heather-bell--
An' to look at my face in your clear crystal well,
Micht gie pleasure to Aiken-drum.
"I'e seek nae guids, gear, bond, nor mark;
I use nae beddin', shoon, nor sark;
But a cogfu' o' brose'tween the licht an' the dark,
Is the wage o' Aiken-drum."
Quoth the wylie auld wife, "The thing speaks weel;
Our workers are scant--we hae routh o' meal;
Gif he'll do as he says--be he man, be he de'il,
Wow! we'll try this Aiken-drum."
But the wenchcs skirl'd, "He's no' be here!
H is eldritch look gars us swarf wi1 fear;
An' the fient a ane will the house come near,
If they think but o' Aiken-drum.
"For a foul and a stalwart ghaist is he,
Despair sits broodin' aboon hise'e-bree,
And unchancie to light o' a maiden's e'e,
Is the glower o' Aiken-drum."
* On one occasion, Brownie had undertaken to gather the
sheep into the bught by an early hour, and so zealously did
he perform his task, that not only was there not one sheep
left on the hill, but he had also collected a number of
hares, which were found fairly penned along with them. Upon
being congratulated on his extraordinary success, Brownie
exclaimed, "Confound thae wee gray anes! they cost me mair
trouble than a' the lave o' them."
"Puir clipmalabors! ye hae little wit:
Is t na hallowmas noo, an' the crap out yet?"
Sae she scelenced them a' wi' a stamp o' her fit
Sit-yer-wa's-doun, Aiken-drum."
Roun a' that side what wark was dune,
By the streamer's gleam, or the glance o' the moon.
A word, or a wish--an' the Brownie cam sune,
Sae helpfu was Aiken-drum.
But he slade aye awa or the sun was up,
He ne'er could look straught on Macmillan's cup:
They watch'd--but nane saw him his brose ever sup,
Nor a spune sought Aiken-drum. -
On Blednoch banks, an' on crystal Cree,
For mony a day a toil'd wicht was he;
And the bairns they play'd harmless roun' his knee,
Sae social was Aiken-drum.
But a new-made wife, fu' o' rippish freaks,
Fond o' a'things feat for the five first weeks,
Laid a mouldy pair o' her ain man's breeks
By the brose o' Aiken-drum.
Let the learn'd decide when they convene,
What spell was him an' the breeks between
For frae that day forth he was nae mair seen
An sair miss'd was Aiken-drum.
He was heard by a herd gaun by the Thrieve,
Crying,: "Land, lang now may I greet an' grieve;
For alas! I hae gotten baith lee an' leave,
O luckless Aiken-drum!"
Awa! ye wrangling sceptic tribe,
Wi your pro's an' your con's wad ye decide
Gainst the 'sponsible voice o' a hale country-side
On the facts'bout Aiken-drum?
Tho' the "Brownie o' Blednoch" lang be gane,
The mark o his feet 's left on mony a stane;
An mony a wife an' mony a wean
Tell the feats o' Aiken-drum!
E en now, licht loons that gibe an' sneer
At spiritual guests an' a' sic gear,
At the Glasnock mill hae swat wi' fear,
An' look'd roun' for Aiken-drum.
An' guidly folks hae gotten a fricht, _
When the moon was set, an' the stars gied nae licht,
At the roaring linn in the howe o' the nicht,
Wi' sughs like Aiken-drum.
We would rather have written these lines than any amount of Aurora Leighs, Festuses, or such like, with all their mighty "somethingness," as Mr. Bailey would say. For they, are they not the "native wood-notes wild" of one of nature's darlings? Here is the indescribable, inestimable, unmistakable impress of genius. Chaucer, had he been a Galloway man, might have written it, only he would have been more garrulous, and less compact and stern. It is like Tam o' Shanter, in its living union of the comic, the pathetic, and the terrible. Shrewdness, tenderness, imagination, fancy, humour, word-music, dramatic power, even wit--all are here. I have often read it aloud to children, and it is worth any one's while to do it. You will find them repeating all over the house for days such lines as take their heart and tongue.
The author of this noble ballad was William Nicholson, the Galloway poet, as he was, and is still called in his own district. He was born at Tanimaus, in the parish of Borgue, in August 1783; he died circa 1848, unseen, like a bird. Being extremely short-sighted, he was unfitted for being a shepherd or ploughman, and began life as a packman, like the hero of "the Excursion and is still remembered in that region for his humour, his music, his verse, and his ginghams; and also, alas! for his misery and his sin. After travelling the country for thirty years, he became a packless pedlar, and fell into "a way of drinking;" this led from bad to worse, and the grave closed in gloom over the ruins of a man of true genius. Mr. M'Diarmid of Dumfries prefixed a memoir of him to the Second Edition of his _Talcs in Verse and Miscellaneous Poems_. These are scarcely known out of Galloway, but they are worth the knowing: none of them have the concentration and nerve of the Brownie, but they are from the same brain and heart. "The Country Lass," a long poem, is excellent; with much of Crabbe's power and compression. This, and the greater part of the volume, is in the Scottish dialect, but there is a Fable--the Butterfly and Bee--the English and sense, the fine, delicate humour and turn of which might have been Cow-per's; and there is a bit of rugged sarcasm called "Siller," wihich Burns need not have been ashamed of. Poor Nicholson, besides his turn for verse, was an exquisite musician, and sang with a powerful and sweet voice. One may imagine the delight of a lonely town-end, when Willie the packman and the piper made his appearance, with his stories, and jokes, and ballads, his songs, and reels, and "wanton wiles."
There is one story about him which has always appeared to me quite perfect. A farmer in a remote part of Galloway, one June morning before sunrise, was awakened by music; he had been dreaming of heaven, and when he found himself awake, he still heard the strains. He looked out, and saw no one, but at the corner of a grass field he saw his cattle, and young colts and fillies, huddled together, and looking intently down into what he knew was an old quarry. He put on his clothes, and walked across the field, everything but that strange wild melody, still and silent in this "the sweet hour of prime." As he got nearer the "beasts," the sound was louder, the colts with their long manes, and the nowt with their wondering stare, took no notice of him, straining their necks forward entranced. There, in the old quarry, the young sun "glintin'" on his face, and resting on his pack, which had been his pillow, was our Wandering Willie, playing and singing like an angel--"an Orpheus; an Orpheus."
[Illustration: 307]
What a picture! When reproved for wasting his health and time by the prosaic farmer, the poor fellow said: "Me and this quarry are lang acquant, and I've mair pleasure in pipin' to thae daft cowts, than if the best leddies in the land were figurin' away afore me."
$HORAE SUBECIVAE.
"With BRAINS, Sir."
"Multi multa sciunt, pauci multum."
"It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another thing to wish to be on the side of truth."--Whately.
[Greek]--Thucydides.
"The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind, only staves off our ignorance a little longer; as, perhaps, the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind, serves only to discover larger portions of it."--David Hume.
|Pray, Mr. Opie, may I ask what you mix your colours with?" said a brisk dilettante student to the great painter. "With _Brains_, Sir," was the gruff reply--and the right one. It did not give much of what we call information; it did not expound the principles and rules of the art; but, if the inquirer had the commodity referred to, it would awaken him; it would set him a-going, a-thinking, and a-painting to good purpose. If he had not the wherewithal, as was likely enough, the less he had to do with colours and their mixture the better. Many other artists, when asked such a question, would have either set about detailing the mechanical composition of such and such colours, in such and such proportions, rubbed up so and so; or perhaps they would (and so much the better, but not the best) have shown him how they laid them on; but even this would leave him at the critical point. Opie preferred going to the quick and the heart of the matter: "With _Brains_, Sir."
Sir Joshua Reynolds was taken by a friend to see a picture. He was anxious to admire it, and he looked it over with a keen and careful but favourable eye. "Capital composition; correct drawing; the colour, tone, chiaroscuro excellent; but--but--it wants, hang it, it wants--_That!_" snapping his fingers; and wanting "that," though it had everything else, it was worth nothing.
Again, Etty was appointed teacher of the students of the Royal Academy, having been preceded by a clever, talkative, scientific expounder of æsthetics, who delighted to tell the young men _how_ everything was done, how to copy this and how to express that. A student came up to the new master, "How should I do this, Sir?"
"Suppose you try." Another, "What does this mean, Mr. Etty?"
"Suppose you look."
"But I have looked."
"Suppose you look again." And they did try, and they did look, and looked again; and they saw and achieved what they never could have done, had the how or the what (supposing this possible, which it is not in its full and highest meaning) been told them, or done for them; in the one case, sight and action were immediate, exact, intense, and secure; in the other, mediate, feeble, and lost as soon as gained. But what are "_Brains?_" what did Opie mean? and what is Sir Joshua's "_That?_" What is included in it? and what is the use, or the need of trying and trying, of missing often before you hit, when you can be told at once and be done with it; or of looking when you may be shown? Everything in medicine and in painting--practical arts--as means to ends, let their scientific enlargement be ever so rapid and immense, depends upon the right answers to these questions.
First of all, "brains," in the painter, are not diligence, knowledge, skill, sensibility, a strong will, or a high aim, --he may have all these, and never paint anything so truly good and effective as the rugged woodcut we must all remember, of Apollyon bestriding the whole breadth of the way, and Christian girding at him like a man, in the old sixpenny _Pilgrim's Progress_; and a young medical student may have zeal, knowledge, ingenuity, attention, a good eye and a steady hand--he may be an accomplished anatomist, stethoscopist, histologist, and analyst; and yet, with all this, and all the lectures, and all the books, and all the sayings, and all the preparations, drawings, tables, and other helps of his teachers, crowded into his memory or his notebooks, he may be beaten at treating a whitlow or a colic, by the nurse in the wards where he was clerk, or by the old country doctor who brought him into the world, and who listens with such humble wonder to his young friend's account, on his coming home after each session, of all he had seen and done,--of all the last astonishing discoveries and operations of the day. What the painter wants, in addition to, and as the complement of, the other elements, is _genius and sense_; what the doctor needs to crown and give worth and safety to his accomplishments, is _sense and genius_: in the first case, more of this, than of that; in the second, more of that, than of this. These are the "Brains" and the "That."
And what is genius? and what is sense? Genius is a peculiar native aptitude, or tendency, to any one calling or pursuit over all others. A man may have a genius for governing, for killing, or for curing the greatest number of men, and in the best possible manner: a man may have a genius for the fiddle, or his mission may be for the tight-rope, or the Jew's harp; or it may be a natural turn for seeking, and finding, and teaching truth, and for doing the greatest possible good to mankind; or it may be a turn equally natural for seeking, and finding, and teaching a lie, and doing the maximum of mischief. It was as natural, as inevitable, for Wilkie to develop himself into a painter, and such a painter as we know him to have been, as it is for an acorn when planted to grow up into an oak, a specific _Quercus robur_. But _genius_, and nothing else, is not enough, even for a painter: he must likewise have _sense_; and what is sense? _Sense_ drives, or ought to drive, the coach; sense regulates, combines, restrains, commands, all the rest--even the genius; and sense implies exactness and soundness, power and promptitude of mind.
Then for the young doctor, he must have as his main, his master faculty, SENSE--Brains--[Greek], justness of mind, because his subject-matter is one in which principle works, rather than impulse, as in painting; the understanding has first to do with it, however much it is worthy of the full exercise of the feelings and the affections. But all will not do, if GENIUS is not there,--a real turn for the profession. It may not be a liking for it--some of the best of its practitioners never really liked it, at least liked other things better; but there must be a fitness of faculty of body and mind for its full, constant, exact pursuit. This sense and this genius, such a special therapeutic gift, had Hippocrates, Sydenham, Pott, Pinel, John Hunter, Delpech, Dupuytren, Kellie, Cheyne, Baillie, and Abercrombie. We might, to pursue the subject, pick out painters who had much genius and little or no sense, and _vice versâ_; and physicians and surgeons, who had sense without genius, and genius without sense, and some perhaps who had neither, and yet were noticeable, and, in their own side-ways, useful men.
But our great object will be gained if we have given our young readers (and these remarks are addressed exclusively to students) any idea of what we mean, if we have made them think, and look inwards. The noble and sacred science you have entered on is large, difficult, and deep, beyond most others; it is every day becoming larger, deeper, and in many senses more difficult, more complicated and involved. It requires _more than the average_ intellect, energy, attention, patience, and courage, and that singular but imperial quality, at once a gift and an acquirement, _presence of mind_--[Greek], or nearness of the [Greek], as the subtle Greeks called it--than almost any other department of human thought and action, except perhaps that of ruling men. Therefore it is, that we hold it to be of paramount importance that the parents, teachers, and friends of youths intended for medicine, and above all, that those who examine them on their entering on their studies, should at least (we might safely go much further) satisfy themselves as far as they can, that they are not below _par_ in intelligence; they may be deficient and unapt _qua medici_, and yet, if taken in time, may make excellent men in other useful and honourable callings.
But suppose we have got the requisite amount and specific kind of capacity, how are we to fill it with its means; how are we to make it effectual for its end? On this point we say nothing, except that the fear now-a-days, is rather that the mind gets too much of too many things, than too little or too few. But this means of turning knowledge to action, making it what Bacon meant when he said it was power, invigorating the thinking substance --giving tone, and you may call it muscle and nerve, blood and bone, to the mind--a firm gripe, and a keen and sure eye: _that_, we think, is far too little considered or cared for at present, as if the mere act of filling in everything for ever into a poor lad's brain, would give him the ability to make anything of it, and above all, the power to appropriate the small portions of true nutriment, and reject the dregs.
One comfort we have, that in the main, and in the last resort, there is really very little that _can_ be done for any man by another. Begin with the sense and the genius--the keen appetite and the good digestion--and, amid all obstacles and hardships, the work goes on merrily and well; without these, we all know what a laborious affair, and a dismal, it is to make an incapable youth apply. Did any of you ever set yourselves to keep up artificial respiration, or to trudge about for a whole night with a narcotized victim of opium, or transfused blood (your own, perhaps) into a poor, fainting, exanimate wretch? If so, you will have some idea of the heartless attempt, and its generally vain and miserable result, to make a dull student apprehend, a debauched, interested, knowing, or active in anything beyond the base of his brain--a weak, etiolated intellect hearty, and worth anything; and yet how many such are dragged through their dreary _curricula_, and by some miraculous process of cramming, and equally miraculous power of turning their insides out, get through their examinations: and then--what then? providentially, in most cases, they find their level; the broad daylight of the world--its shrewd and keen eye, its strong instinct of what can, and what cannot serve its purpose--puts all, except the poor object himself, to rights; happy is it for him if he turns to some new and more congenial pursuit in time.
But it may be asked, how are the brains to be strengthened, the sense quickened, the genius awakened, the affections raised--the whole man turned to the best account for the cure of his fellow-men? How are you, when physics and.physiology are increasing so marvellously, and when the burden of knowledge, the quantity of transferable information, of registered facts, of current names--and such names!--is so infinite: how are you to enable a student to take all in, bear up under all, and use it as not abusing it, or being abused by it? You must invigorate the containing and sustaining mind, you must strengthen him from within, as well as fill him from without; you must discipline, nourish, edify, relieve, and refresh his entire nature; and how? We have no time to go at large into this, but we will indicate what we mean: --encourage languages, especially French and German, at the early part of their studies; encourage not merely the book knowledge, but the personal pursuit of natural history, of field botany, of geology, of zoology; give the young, fresh, unforgetting eye, exercise and free scope upon the infinite diversity and combination of natural colours, forms, substances, surfaces, weights, and sizes--everything, in a word, that will educate their eye or ear, their touch, taste, and smell, their sense of muscular resistance; encourage them by prizes, to make skeletons, preparations, and collections of any natural objects; and, above all, try and get hold of their affections, and make them put their hearts into their work. Let them, if possible, have the advantage of a regulated _tutorial_, as well as the ordinary professorial system. Let there be no excess in the number of classes and frequency of lectures. Let them be drilled in composition; by this we mean the writing and spelling of correct plain Énglish (a matter not of every-day occurrence, and not on the increase)--let them be directed to the best books of the old masters in medicine, and _examined in them_,--let them be encouraged in the use of a wholesome and manly literature. We do not mean popular or even modern literature --such as Emerson, Bulwer, or Alison, or the trash of inferior periodicals or novels--fashion, vanity, and the spirit of the age, will attract them readily enough to all these; we refer to the treasures of our elder and better authors. If our young medical student would take our advice, and for an hour or two twice a week take up a volume of Shakspere, Cervantes, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Montaigne, Addison, Defoe, Goldsmith, Fielding, Scott, Charles Lamb, Macaulay, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Helps, Thackeray, etc., not to mention authors on deeper and more sacred subjects--they would have happier and healthier minds, and make none the worse doctors. If they, by good fortune--for the tide has set in strong against the _literae humaniores_--have come off with some Greek or Latin, we would supplicate for an ode of Horace, a couple of pages of Cicero or of Pliny once a month, and a page of Xenophon. French and German should be mastered either before or during the first years of study. They will never afterwards be acquired so easily or so thoroughly, and the want of them may be bitterly felt when too late.