was concluded on the strength of “a dinner of dead fish,” and all
that remained to do was the tying of the nuptial knot. The coalman
and the creelwife belonged to a class not in very close touch with
the Church—they were representative of the “lapsed masses” in a time
before that phrase was coined—and they did not, therefore, trouble
themselves about marriage in the orthodox fashion. A “Cheap Priest” was
requisitioned. He tied the Gordian knot as securely as the Moderator of
the General Assembly could have done, and as perfunctorily as the High
Priest of Gretna Green would have done if an enraged parent had been
knocking at the door for admission with the butt-end of a well-primed
pistol. The slipshod manner was not altogether lost on the creelwife.
The priest,[18] says Graham, gave them “twa-three words and
twa-three lines, took their penny and a good drink, wished
them joy, and gaed his wa’s. ‘Now,’ said auld Be-go, ‘if that
be your minister, he’s but a drunken ——; mony a ane drinks
up a’, but he leaves naething; he’s got that penny for deevil
a haet; ye micht hae cracked lufes on’t, tane ane anither’s
word, a kiss and a hoddle at a hillock side, and be as well
if no better; I hae seen some honest men say mair o’er their
brose nor what he said a’ thegither; but an ye’re pleased, am
pleased; a bout in the bed ends a’ and makes firm wark, sae
here’s to you and joy to the bargain—it’s ended now, weel I
wat!’”
The _History of the Haverel Wives_, another of Graham’s chapbooks,
differs widely from those already mentioned, but is not the least
important of his works. Many editions have been issued. One, printed at
Stirling by William Macnie, bears the following elaborate title:—
“_The History of the Haverel Wives; or, The Folly of Witless
Women Displayed._ Written by Humphrey Clinker, the Clashing
Wives’ Clerk. Being a Comical Conference between Maggy and
Janet, his Two Old Aunts. With Janet’s advice to Maggy
concerning marriage, with the manner in which she courted her
husband, which began by taking him by the twa lugs and kissing
him. To which is added, An Oration on the Virtues of the Old
Women and the Pride of the Young. Dictated by Janet Clinker,
and written by Humphrey Clinker, the Clashing Wives’ Clerk.”
This dual production—the _History_ was sometimes published apart from
the _Oration_—is freer from indecencies than certain others of Graham’s
compositions. In it the author indulges his satire against “clashing
wives.” A prefatory note reads:—
“It is a certain old saying, That where women are conven’d
in crowds, there can be but little silence; and some have
acknowledged that it was a great bondage for them to hold their
peace in the church; and where there is much talk by ignorant
speakers, it is diverting for persons of understanding to hear
them. Therefore, we have furnished the public with a small
collection of old wives’ noted sayings and wonders, which they
relate happened in their own time, also what has been told them
by their forefathers.”
With this preface, we are introduced to Maggy and Janet busily “cracking”
“at their rocks.” The first subject they discuss is Maggy’s age, and
this leads to an interesting description of Scottish life and custom in
pre-Reformation times.
“‘Indeed, Janet,’ replies Maggy, in answer to the question of
how old she may be, ‘that’s what naebody kens, for my father
and mother had sae mony o’ us they ne’er counted how auld ane
o’ us was; they minded ay wha o’ us was born first, and wha was
neist ane anither, and that was a’ that e’er we socht to ken
aboot it; but I ha’e mind o’ the mirk Munanday.’[19]
“‘Hout, tout, woman, the mirk Munanday,’ exclaims Janet, ‘I
mind since there was na Munandays at a’, and Sabbath days
was nae come in fashion; there was a day they ca’d Sunday
came ance i’ the ouk for it; we ken’d ay when it came, for
my father cow’d ay his beard when the bell rang, and then
everybody ran to the kirk that had onything to do, gin it were
to buy saut or shune, for the chapman chiels set up a’ their
creims at the kirk door, and the lasses wad a gotten keeking
glasses, red snoods, needles, prins, elshinirons, gimblets,
brown bread, and black saep, forby sweety wives’ things, and
rattles for restless little anes; the men wad a bought pints
o’ ale and gotten a whang o’ gude cheese to chew i’ the time
o’ drinking o’t. Ay, ay, there was braw markets on Sunday i’
the time o’ paepery; we had nae ministers then but priests,
mess Johns, black friars and white friars, monks, abbots,
and bishops; they had nae wives, yet the best o’ them wad a
spoken baudy language, and kissed the lasses; fickle, sykin
bodies they were, unco ill to please; they wad baith curs’d
folk and bless’d them just as we paid them; indeed, they were
unco greedy o’ the penny, and pray’d ay to the dead fouk, and
gard the living pay them for’t; and although they had play’d
the loon wi’ a poor hizey, she durst na speak o’t for her very
life, for they could gie ony body o’er to the de’il when they
liket. They didna gar fouk learn to read, and pray like our new
ministers, but thump on your breast, strake your fingers o’er
aboon your nose, tell your beads, and rin bare-fit thro’ amang
hard stanes and cauld snaw.”
Dougal was never a friend of the Roman hierarchy. In his metrical
_History of the Rebellion_ he apostrophises the children of the Pope in
lines beginning—
“You Papists are a cursed race,”
and the _History of the Haverel Wives_ testifies that he was equally
unfriendly in prose. The description of a Scottish Sunday before the
Reformation is historically true, and proves that the prolific pedlar was
not ignorant of the social life of an earlier day. Maggy, after listening
to the harangue of her friend, and learning that the priests were
possessed of all power over men and death and devils, asks pertinently
enough—
“What’s come o’ them a’ now? I’m sure the like o’ thae fouks
that had sae meikle power needed neither dee nor yet be sick:
they wad live a’ their days.”
The answering of this question affords Janet another opportunity of
indulging her antipathy to “Paepery,” and gives her a chance to air
her views on Episcopacy. This part of the chapbook is interesting as
preserving a fair reflection of the minds of the common people on the
subject of Prelacy. Lonely graves on the moorlands of the west, and
memories of the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, could still move men to
tears; the terrible sufferings of the Covenant days were things but of
yesterday, and—rightly or wrongly—Bloody Claverhouse and his Dragoons,
and relentless Archbishop Sharp, were still emissaries of the devil
and typical representatives of Scottish Episcopacy. In these days a
good true-blue Presbyterian can sit down to breakfast and make a hearty
meal in spite of the fact that his newspaper tells him the Churches are
“praying for union;” but at the time when the chapbook was written,
things were very different. Every Presbyterian held the same opinion as
the Skellat Bellman of Glasgow, and only refrained from expressing it
because, unlike Dougal Graham, he was seldom “unco glib at the pen.”
The most of the priests, says Janet, are “dead and rotten, and
the rest o’ them gade awa to Italy, where the auld Pape their
faither, the deil, the witches, brownies, and fairies dwal;[20]
and than we gat anither sort o’ gospel fouks they ca’d
curits—fine sort o’ dainty honest fouks they war, but geyan
greedy.... They bid to hae tithes o’ everything that grew; mony
a time my faither wisht they wad tak tithes o’ his hemp too, if
it were to hang themsels. They were ay warst whare a puir man
or wife died, though they left weans fatherless and mitherless:
a deed they wad a sent their bellman, and wi’ his lang prelatic
fingers he wad a harled the upper pair o’ blankets aff o’ the
poor things’ bed for some rent that they gard fouks pay for
dying, a sae did they een, and yet they keepit a hantle o’ braw
haly days and days o’ meikle meat—Fastren’s-e’en and Yule days,
when we got our wames fou o’ fat brose, and suppit Yule sowens
till our sarks had been like to rive; and, after that, eaten
toasted cheese and white puddings well spiced. O! braw times
for the guts! Well, I wat, onybody might live then that had
onything to live on.”
In this strain, Janet “haivers” on to the end of the chapter, in answer
to Maggy’s questions. She discusses the devil and his wife (is there any
other record of Satan having added matrimony to his sins?); blackamoors
and what they are made of; and that fruitful subject of discussion in
all ages—the minister. Janet points out, in a woman’s unerring way, the
many faults of the minister, his wife, and “twa gigglet, gilliegaukies
o’ dochters;” and tells how _she_ would preach if she had the chance of
“wagging her pow in the pu’pit.” Then she proceeds to give her younger
sister some advice concerning marriage; and the chapbook—in some of its
editions—concludes with her “Oration on the Virtues of the Old Women and
the Pride of the Young.” In a humorous fashion she expatiates on her sex,
pointing out their many vices, and wherein they have fallen from the high
estate they enjoyed when she, “Janet, was a Janet.” She regrets that they
will not speak their mother tongue, and will not even swear in it, “but
must have southern oaths.” Having said her say, she imparts some advice
to her readers as to waling a good husband or a perfect wife.
“If a puir man want a perfect wife, let him wale a weel-blooded
hissie, wi’ braid shouders and thick about the haunches, that
has been lang servant in ae house, tho’ twice or thrice awa’
and ay fied back; that’s weel liket by the bairns and the
bairns’ mither; that’s naeway cankard to the cats nor kicks
the colley-dogs amang her feet; that wad let a’ brute beasts
live, but rats, mice, lice, flaes, neits, and bugs, that
bites the wee bairns in their cradles; that carefully combs
the young things’ heads, washes their faces and claps their
cheeks, snites the snotter frae their nose as they were a’ her
ain—that’s the lass that will mak’ a good wife; for them that
dauts the young bairns will ay be kind to auld folk an they had
them.
“And ony hale-hearted, halsome lassie that wants to halter a
good husband, never tak’ a widow’s ae son, for a’ the wifely
gates in the world will be in him, for want of a father to
teach him manly actions; neither tak’ a sour-looking sumf wi’
a muckle mouth and a wide guts, who will eat like a horse and
soss like a sow, suffer none to sup but himsel’, eat your meat
and the bairns’ baith; when hungry angry, when fu’ of pride,
ten sacks will not haud his sauce, tho’ a pea-shap wad haud his
siller. But go, tak’ your chance, and, if cheated, chamer not
on me, for fashionable fouk flee to fashionable things, for
lust is brutish blind and fond love is blear-ey’d.”
The three works of Dougal Graham, with which we have dealt, and from
which we have given extracts illustrative of their style and the
subjects of which they treat, are, in certain respects, different from
the other productions attributed to the Skellat Bellman’s pen. They show
that their author was possessed of an inventive faculty, and that he
could create characters and make them play their parts in the development
of a plot. The plot was never intricate, but the sketches had a dramatic
construction which is wanting in his other chapbooks. Such histories,
for example, as those which relate the _Entertaining Exploits of George
Buchanan_, or the _Comical Transactions of Lothian Tom_, are merely a
number of stories gathered from many sources, and thrown together with a
certain amount of local colour. _John Falkirk the Merry Piper_, _Paddy
from Cork_, and _Simple John_—like George Buchanan and Lothian Tom—are
called into service merely to enable Graham to weave his anecdotes, wise
and otherwise, and his witticisms, new and old, into a composite whole.
It would seem, indeed, as though the Skellat Bellman, like authors of
a later date, had found it impossible to keep up a continuous output
of original matter, and had descended to mere hackwork or pot-boiling.
To say this is not to say that there is nothing of interest in these
collections of facetious anecdotes and droll misfortunes. Like his other
sketches, they are valuable for the light they shed on Scottish life and
custom in a by-gone time.
Two chapbooks, attributed to Graham, differ in construction from the
anecdotal compilations such as _The Exploits of George Buchanan_, or
the dramatic sketches of the nature of _Jockey and Maggy’s Courtship_.
These are _John Cheap the Chapman_, and _Leper the Taylor_. The former is
understood to be autobiographical in part. “John Cheap” is an interesting
fellow, and in his company—though often-times it is more agreeable than
polite—we can wander over a large stretch of lowland Scotland and learn
something of the life he lived. He got his
“name of John Cheap the chapman, by his selling twenty needles
for a penny, and twa leather laces for a farthing. He swore no
oaths but one, Let me never sin; and he used no imprecations
but, Let me never cheat nor be cheated, but rather cheat than
be cheated.”
Many a man in a higher walk of life than that in which John Cheap moved,
could plead guilty to harbouring the same wish.
In this sketch, the author paints with a broad brush. The trials of
a pedlar’s life are duly set forth. One quotation will suffice for
illustration.
“I prevailed,” says John Cheap, “to get staying in a great
farmer’s house, about two miles from Haddington; they were
all at supper when I went in; I was ordered to sit down
behind their backs. The goodwife then took a dish, went
round the servants, and collected a sowp out of every cog,
which was sufficient to have served three men. The goodwife
ordered me to be laid in the barn all night for my bed, but
the bully-fac’d goodman swore he had too much stuff in it to
venture me there; the guidwife said I should not ly within the
house, for I would be o’er near the lasses’ bed; then the lads
swore I should not go with them, for I was a forjesket little
fellow, and (wha kens whether I was honest or not) he may fill
his wallet wi’ our cloaths and gang his wa’ or daylight. At
last I was conducted out to the swine’s stye, to sleep with an
old sow and seven pigs, and there I lay for two nights.”
To the pictures of early Church life, which are found in the _History of
the Haverel Wives_, may be added one from _Leper the Taylor_. It belongs
to a later age, and while the others dealt with the Church in the days
of Popery and Episcopacy, this gives us a glimpse of matters as they
existed under Presbytery. It illustrates ecclesiastical life in Glasgow
at the time when Dougal Graham held the position of Skellat Bellman. The
Kirk-Session, acting in conjunction with the Town Council, appointed
certain officers, known as “civileers,” whose duty was to see that
everybody attended Church at both diets of worship on Sabbath.[21] These
functionaries pounced upon Leper on one occasion, and the following
extract narrates the sequel:—
“Leper was in use to give his lads their Sunday’s supper, which
obliged him to stay from the kirk in the afternoon, he having
neither wife nor servant maid; so on Sunday afternoon, as he
was at home cooking his pot, John Muckle-cheeks and James
Puff-and-Blaw, two Civileers, having more zeal than knowledge,
came upon him and said, What’s the matter, Sir, you go not to
the kirk? Leper replied, I am reading my book, and cooking my
pot, which I think is the work of necessity. Then says the one
to the other, Don’t answer the graceless fellow, we’ll make
him appear before his betters; so they took the kail-pot, and
puts a staff through the bowls, and bears it to the Clerk’s
chamber. Leper, who was never at a loss for invention, goes
to the Principal of the College, his house, no body being at
home but a lass roasting a leg of mutton; Leper says, My dear,
will you go and bring a pint of ale, and I’ll turn the spit
till you come back; the lass was no sooner gone than he runs
away with the leg of mutton, which served his lads and him
for his supper. When the Principal came home, he was neither
to bin nor ha’d, he was so angry; so on Monday he goes and
makes complaint to the Lord Provost, who sends two officers for
Leper, who came immediately. My Lord asked him, How he dared to
take away the Principal’s mutton? Leper replied, How came your
Civileers to take away my kail-pot? I am sure there is less sin
in making a pot-full of kail than roasting a leg of mutton:
Law-makers should not be law-breakers, so I demand justice on
the Civileers. The Provost asked him what justice he would
have? Says he, Make them carry the pot back again; as for the
Principal, a leg of mutton won’t make him and me fall out. So
they were forced to carry the pot back again, and Leper caused
the boys to huzza after them to their disgrace.”
Of the other humorous chapbooks attributed to Graham, no lengthy mention
need be made. At most, as has been indicated, he was only editor of them;
and they are, for the greater part, merely collections of _facetiæ_.
Many of the stories were chestnuts even in Dougal’s time, and some of
them are none the fresher for the fact that they have been fathered on
every beadle and minister of distinction within the last decade. He had
an eye for a good story, and one seldom lost anything in being retailed
by him. If the George Buchanan of his pages is rather a buffoon than the
first statesman of his age, it should be borne in mind that the Bellman
wrote for a people who demanded mirth, and that the George Buchanan of
history—if Graham had chosen to treat him seriously—would have cut a
sorry figure in the company of Paddy from Cork and Lothian Tom, and would
not have been so much appreciated as the ribald courtier of a ribald age.
Besides the Skellat Bellman of Glasgow, there were a number of others
who contributed humour to Scottish chapbook literature. One of the most
notable of these was William Cameron, who in certain respects was a
fitting successor to Dougal Graham. He, like Graham, was born within
sight of Stirling Castle; like him, too, he wandered over a large part of
Scotland as a “flying stationer;” and, like him, he ultimately settled
down in Glasgow and became one of the worthies of St. Mungo.[22] Cameron
has a connection with Graham’s work in respect that he edited _Janet
Clinker’s Oration_, and, giving it a new title, sent it forth on a fresh
lease of life. His own words are:—
“I fell in with _Janet Clinker’s Oration on the Wit of the
Old Wives and the Pride of the Young Women_. This piece never
fails. I have turned it ‘heels over head’ many times; and, when
it would sell no longer, I gave it a fresh name, as well as a
new introduction, and sold it as freely as ever.... I changed
its title to _Grannie M’Nab’s Lecture on the Women_, and sold
it through the West of Scotland.”
Cameron was author of one or two chapbooks. He wrote _The Prophecies of
‘Hawkie’: a Cow_, which poked fun at a prophet who “prophesied in Fife
and appeared in Glasgow, and converted numbers.” The book sold well, and
secured for Cameron the name by which he was subsequently known—he was
“Hawkie” to two generations of Glaswegians. Another of his productions is
_The Gauger’s Journey to the Land of Darkness: what he discovered there
and his journey back_. It narrates the story of an exciseman who, being
found drunk and asleep by some colliers, was taken down a pit and laid in
a corner. When he awoke, he fancied he was in another world.
_The Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith_, is a notable chapbook,
and cannot be overlooked in this connection. It is—as many of the
chapbooks were—a condensation of a larger work, and, in its extended
form, is still widely esteemed. There is this difference between
“Delta’s”[23] creation and all of those of Graham, that he is always
respectable. Mansie, like many other mortals in chapbook literature,
finds himself in strange places and the victim of unfortunate
circumstances—such as his experience of “calf-love” and his adventures in
the playhouse—but he never loses his self-respect or finds it necessary
to be obscene to be emphatic. Doubtless these very characteristics led to
his being less widely appreciated by the common people, but he has this
much to his credit that when, in later times, a movement originated to
suppress or supplant the coarse productions of the Skellat Bellman, it
did not—because it could not—affect him.
There were a number of chapbooks in verse which deserve to be noticed
under the present heading. One of the most popular of these was Alexander
Wilson’s[24] humorous poem, _Watty and Meg; or, the Wife Reformed—Owre
True a Tale_, which was first published in 1792, and considered worthy
of the Ayrshire Bard. Another was, _The Comical Story of Thrummy Cap and
the Ghost_, from the pen of John Burness,[25] a cousin of the national
poet. Both of these effusions enjoyed a wide popularity as chapbooks;
they were reprinted time and again, down to the very close of the period
when these books may be said to have ceased to be vended; and then
they passed on into standard collections of our national verse, through
which they are known to a wide circle of readers. Two other publications
which were popular, but which had not that fate, are—(1) _The Comical
Tale of Margaret and the Minister_, which narrates how Margaret, having
been invited to dinner at the manse, accepted the invitation; and then,
through ignorance or misadventure, affixed the table-cover instead of a
napkin to her breast: all went well until, having swallowed some mustard,
she beat a hasty retreat from the room to hide her discomfiture, and
dragged the cloth and dishes with her; (2) _The Dominie Deposed, with a
Sequel_, by William Forbes, A.M., late schoolmaster of Petercoulter. This
sets forth in vigorous verse the lamentation of a dominie, who had the
misfortune to sweetheart, as Mr. Henley might say, “with all his heart,
and soul, and strength.”[26]
While these were the most important of the humorous chapbooks, there were
many others of a similar kind but of lesser merit. Graham called forth
numerous imitators, and stories of love, courtship, and marriage fell
fast from the chapbook press. _The Art of Courtship_,[27] a somewhat
commonplace production, which, in Professor Fraser’s judgment, “bears
strong signs of having been written or edited by Dougal Graham, or at
least suggested by his writings,” was one; _A Diverting Courtship_,[28]
and _The Pleasures of Matrimony_,[29] were others. Subjects of such a
nature lent themselves to broad treatment; and the chapbook writer of a
century ago—like the enterprising publisher of to-day—gave the public
what it wanted, rather than what was good for it. If Graham was imitated
in these productions, he also had companions who issued publications
after the style of _Paddy from Cork_ and the _Exploits of George
Buchanan_.
A collection of amusing, and sometimes coarse, anecdotes was published
at Glasgow in 1767, under title, _The Comical Notes and Sayings of the
Reverend Mr. John Pettigrew, Minister in Govan_,[30] and a budget of
stories of a more general character was issued with the name of _The
Scotch Haggis_.[31] In addition to these, there were _Odds and Ends; or,
a Groat’s Worth of Fun for a Penny_,[32] and _Grinning Made Easy; or,
Funny Dick’s Unrivalled Collection of Jests_.[33] By way of description,
these books of _facetiæ_ do not call for much attention. Anything in the
way of wit and humour was pressed into service. The editors did what
they could to caricature Scotland, before _Punch_ and other enterprising
London periodicals found this a pleasant and paying duty. Many of the
more characteristically Scottish anecdotes in these chapbooks have been
made familiar to modern readers through the dignified pages of Dean
Ramsay’s volume and the works of other gleaners in the field of Scottish
story.
II.
INSTRUCTIVE.
Under the heading of “Instructive Chapbooks,” much falls to be noticed.
It is a section which readily sub-divides itself, although at the
same time it is difficult to arrive at any very exact classification.
Following Professor Fraser’s plan, which, unfortunately, he did not
elaborate, an attempt will be made to range the productions under one or
another of these five heads:—(_a_) Historical; (_b_) Biographical; (_c_)
Religious and Moral; (_d_) Manuals of Instruction; (_e_) Almanacks.