door of a patient's house, Moir sustained further injuries to his
already partially disabled leg. Failing to rally from the effects of
this accident, and hoping to derive benefit from rest and change, about
a week later he set out upon a short excursion. Mrs Moir accompanied
him, and they had reached Ayr, and had visited the cottage where Burns
first saw the light, when the Doctor became seriously ill. Declining
medical assistance, however, he struggled on to Dumfries, where he
became so much worse as to be forced to take to his bed. It was soon
evident that death was at hand. On hearing of his illness, several of
his friends had hastened to his side, and surrounded by these and by
members of his family, faithfully attended by his wife, and fortified by
a firm religious faith, he passed away on the morning of Sunday, the 6th
July. The inhabitants of the town in which he had laboured so
indefatigably decreed him a public funeral, paying every mark of respect
in their power to his memory, and shortly afterwards his statue,
executed by a sculptor named Ritchie, who had been a pupil of
Thorwaldsen, was erected in a commanding situation on the banks of the
river Esk. Besides his professional labours, he had been a Member of the
Council of his native town and of its Kirk Session, had attended the
General Assembly as a Representative Elder, and had acted as Secretary
to a local Reform Committee appointed on the eve of the passing of the
great Bill. In fine, his life had been essentially that of the good
citizen--an honourable part for which we have so high a respect that we
should be glad to see it oftener adorned with literary distinction.
In person Moir was tall, well-formed and erect, of sanguine complexion
and with hair tending to the 'sandy' hue, his keen sense of humour,
during friendly intercourse, being particularly manifest in his
countenance. In private life, he was amiable and exemplary, and much
beloved by many friends, including several distinguished writers--'a
man,' says the writer of his obituary in _Blackwood's Magazine_, 'who,
we verily believe, never had an enemy, and never harboured an angry or
vindictive thought against a human being.' Nor did this proceed from
any lack of determination or force of character, of which he had plenty.
* * * * *
Did not one recognise the relation subsisting between humour and pathos,
it would be a surprise to find the melancholy Moir--the mourner of a
score of dirges--figuring as author of a succession of broadly and
farcically comic episodes; for such, in the main, is the _Life of Mansie
Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith_. The book was conceived in avowed imitation
of Galt; and, in general outline, the autobiographical tailor, with his
unconscious self-revelation, is obviously suggested by the Provosts and
Micah Balwhidders of that writer. For in literature Galt is as much the
originator of the 'pawky' Scotsman of the commercial or professional
class as was the creator of Dinmont and Headrigg of the Scotsman living
on the soil and racy of it. But if Delta borrowed the first idea of the
story from his friend, the means by which he develops it owe little or
nothing to that source. There, indeed, the sprightly little volume
reminds us of a very different class of literature. In their frank
appeal to those who are easily amused (happily a numerous body), and in
the pleasant clownishness of their fooling, a large proportion of the
scenes recall forcibly the ancient folk-tales, 'drolls' and chap-books,
or the more modern collections of local stories founded upon the same,
and the peculiar style of humour associated with such time-honoured
popular favourites as Lothian Tom and George Buchanan, the King's
Jester. Incidents, for instance, like that of James Batter, the weaver,
concealed in the closet during the visit of the Minister, and of his
inopportune fall through the bottomless chair and imprisonment there, or
of the big suit of clothes being sent home to the little man, and the
little suit to the big man, belong to the primeval stock-in-trade of the
rustic humourist; whilst as for the episode of Deacon Paunch and the
cat--probably there are few parishes in the country boasting the
possession of a phenomenally heavy man where some 'variant' of this
story is not current at the present day. The epigram--if I may so call
it--of the book is also conceived after the popular model; as, for
instance, when the aggrieved collier-woman, taunting Cursecowl on the
prominence of one of his features, declares that he has 'run fast when
the noses were dealing'; when it is observed, in reference to the
various grades of society and their interdependence, that 'we all hang
at one another's tails like a rope of ingans'; or when the writer speaks
of an 'evendown pour of rain, washing the very cats off the house-tops,'
or remarks of hopes not quite likely to be fulfilled that 'many a
rottener ship has come to land.' Some of these phrases may perhaps be
proverbial, but at any rate into just such verbal moulds flows, or used
to flow, the expression of the livelier fancy of the people. The Scotch,
too, in which the book is written is singularly rich and racy.
It may possibly be asked whether stories such as those referred to above
have much to gain from literary elaboration, brevity in this peculiar
form of wit appearing perhaps even more than usually desirable. The
answer is that the result has justified the experiment. For one thing,
_Mansie Wauch_--which preceded the _Pickwick Papers_ by some years--is
one of the earliest classic specimens of broad humour which is entirely
free from coarseness; and, secondly, in this instance, most of the
farcical episodes--such as the mock duel, the Volunteering scene, the
scenes in the watch-house or with the dumb spaewife, and the playhouse
scene, where Mansie so artlessly mistakes feigning for reality--are made
in a way to serve the purpose of illustrating character. In the case
last named--even allowing for the tailor's native simplicity, for the
fact that this is his first play, and for the 'three jugs' of which he
has partaken in the company of Glen, the farmer--a pretty strong call is
made on humorous convention, or on the credulity of the reader. But,
after all, in this style of writing, who would 'consider curiously'? No!
give the humourist his head is the rule, concede him a trifle of
exaggeration, and let him make you laugh if he can. This book was never
meant for closets and the midnight oil, but to be read aloud over the
fire on winter's eves in the family circle.
Of course strokes of humorous portraiture somewhat subtler than the
above are by no means wanting, as is shown for instance, in the same
scene, in the fuddled tailor's preoccupation with the clothes worn by
the actors--the good coat 'with double gilt buttons and fashionable
lapells,' or 'the very well-made pair of buckskins, a thought the worse
of the wear, to be sure, but which if they had been cleaned, would have
looked almost as good as new.' But throughout the book little Mansie is
equally 'particular,' especially in regard to clothes,--he has the
loquacity of one occupied in a sedentary manual toil, and the abounding
detail in description of minute occurrences which characterises dwellers
in small towns. The scene of the stampede from the barn, following his
reply to the players, is quite in the best manner of the humourists and
caricaturists of that day,--when uncouth persons tumbling one over the
other in their haste, coat-tails torn off, bull-dogs fastening teeth in
human calves, and wigs flying to the winds, seem to have constituted a
never-failing resource for 'bringing down the house.' Pity that, like
Mercutio, we are become grave men since then! However by far the best
scene of this sort--a classic of its kind--is that which paints the
inroad of the gigantic butcher, infuriated at the misfit of his new
killing-coat, into the tailor's shop, and the subsequent tussle between
him on the one hand and Tommy Bodkin, the three 'prentices, Mansie, and
James Batter on the other. Everywhere George Cruikshank, the illustrator
of the book, is neck and neck with the author, hitting off the very
spirit of his fun, and indeed sometimes adding a point to it; but in his
delineations of this scene and of that with the spaewife he surpasses
himself.
Of course the book would not be Moir's if it entirely lacked poetic and
pathetic relief, which is supplied in the contents of the papers found
in the Welshman's coat-pocket; in the episode of Mungo Glen, the
apprentice from the Lammermoors, who dies of home-sickness and of a
country boy's hatred of the town, and in the story of the _Maid of
Damascus_.
Of the character of Mansie--the keystone, so to speak, of the book--it
cannot be said that it stands out with the firmness and clearness of
Galt's best work in the kind, still less of one of Miss Ferrier's
inimitable creations. Yet, if somewhat faintly limned, the little
tailor--so eager, so busy, and so thrifty, such a queer mixture of
guilelessness, shrewdness, and superstition, 'a douce elder of Maister
Wiggie's kirk,' and abounding in Scriptural allusion accordingly,
cautious, yet apt to be 'overtaken' as well as overreached, but with his
heart exactly in the right place--is a figure who in the long run wins
and holds a place in our sympathy. In the course of his professional
avocations, Moir may have had occasion to observe that tailors generally
are a nervous race of men, and from the commencement of the narrative we
are shown that Mansie is full of groundless fears and anxieties--terrified
to discharge his musket when on parade as a Volunteer, and frightened
out of his wits in the Kirk Session house by night. And yet in the hour
of need, when house and home are in danger on the night of the fire, we
see him brave as a lion and brimful of resource--saving 'the precious
life of a woman of eighty that had been four long years bed-ridden,' and
by well-directed efforts with his bucket accomplishing more than the
local fire-engine had done. Such a contrast as this--at once effective
and true to human nature--or as that where Mansie, finding the escaped
French prisoner concealed in his coal-hole, is divided between wrath
against the enemy of his country and sympathy for a fellow-creature in
distress, put the finishing touches to a genial figure, which in our
Scottish national literature has a little niche of its own.
MISS FERRIER
Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, the great mistress of the novel of manners in
Scotland, was born in Edinburgh on the 7th September 1782, and was the
youngest of her parents' ten children. Her father, James Ferrier, was a
younger son of John Ferrier, laird of Kirklands, in Renfrewshire, and
her mother--whose maiden name was Helen Coutts--was the daughter of a
farmer near Montrose. James Ferrier was by profession a Writer to the
Signet, having been admitted a member of the Society in the year 1770.
He had been trained to his vocation in the office of a distant relative,
who had the management of the Argyll estates, and to this gentleman's
business he ultimately succeeded. He was thus on terms of intimacy with
the Duke of Argyll, through whose instrumentality he was appointed a
Principal Clerk of Session. In this office he had Sir Walter Scott as a
colleague, and he was also so fortunate as to enjoy the friendship of
Henry Mackenzie, author of the admirable _Man of Feeling_, of Dr Blair,
and last, not least, of Burns. Thus, from her earliest years onward, his
young daughter must have been accustomed to see and to hear of the
literary lights of the Scotland of that day.
After their marriage, Mr and Mrs Ferrier occupied a flat in Lady Stair's
Close in the Old Town. Their large family was made up of six sons and
four daughters. When Susan was fifteen she lost her mother, and soon
afterwards she was taken by her father to visit at Inverary Castle, the
seat of his patron the Duke. Here a new world was opened to the plainly
brought up Edinburgh girl. Here for the first time she saw fashion and
the 'high life,' and here--either on this or some subsequent
occasion--she formed several acquaintances which were destined to
influence her career. Under John, fifth Duke of Argyll, society at the
Castle had at that period a somewhat literary and artistic tone. Among
its visitors was the accomplished Lady Charlotte Campbell--afterwards
Lady Charlotte Bury--a name which, if unknown to the present generation,
was once of some repute in the world of letters. Lady Charlotte was the
Duke's younger daughter, and had inherited much of the beauty of her
mother, the celebrated Elizabeth Gunning. She was just seven years older
than Susan Ferrier, was distinguished by a passion for the
_belles-lettres_, and was accustomed to do the honours of Scotland to
the literary celebrities of the time. During the year of Miss Ferrier's
first visit to the Castle, she published anonymously a first literary
venture, which bore the conventional title of 'Poems upon Several
Occasions,' by 'A Lady.'
It may readily be guessed that this fascinating and high-born
personage--distinguished as she was by the honours and the romance of
authorship--produced her due impression on the imagination of the young
visitor. Susan's literary instincts must certainly have been quickened
by the intimacy--for a friendship which lasted till death sprung up
between herself and Lady Charlotte. But, if she was a gainer in one
direction from the acquaintance, I am inclined to believe that she was a
loser in another. Years after, when she herself became an authoress,
her earliest work was disfigured by direct and unsparing portraiture of
living persons among her acquaintance. Now no doubt this kind of writing
may be productive of extreme mirth to persons qualified to read between
the lines, and it must be acknowledged that Miss Ferrier's talent has
made the mirth outlast its immediate occasion. Still, judged as art,
this kind of thing is neither great nor gracious, and to her credit be
it said that the authoress of _Marriage_ lived to see that this was so,
and to amend her style accordingly. It may be noted, however, that the
works attributed to her friend Lady Charlotte include conspicuous
instances of a similar error in taste. Amid the vicissitudes of many
years, her ladyship lived to produce a number of works of fiction, of
the contents of which such titles as _Flirtation_, _The Journal of the
Heart_, _A Marriage in High Life_, may afford some indication. But the
single work with which in the present day her name is associated--and if
she never acknowledged the authorship, it must be remembered that she
resisted all provocations to deny it--is the notorious Diary in which a
lady-in-waiting of Caroline of Brunswick has chronicled the follies and
indiscretions of that unhappy princess, and the unpleasantnesses of
daily life in her Court. Bearing this in mind, one can scarcely regard
the brilliant Lady Charlotte as the best of friends for a young woman,
her inferior in years and station, though greatly her superior in
talent.
Among other visitors met by Susan at Inverary, two may be particularised
as having afterwards contributed by their oddities to enliven the pages
of her first book. These were the eccentric Mrs Seymour Damer, the
amateur sculptor and friend of Horace Walpole, and Lady Ferrers, widow
of the peer who was hanged for the murder of his steward. With a Miss
Clavering, a grand-daughter of the Duke, who was a child of eight at the
time of her first visit to the Castle, she struck up an eager
friendship. An animated correspondence was started between them, some of
the letters in which have been preserved. These are for the most part
undated, but have reference to a work of fiction which the young ladies
proposed to undertake in partnership, and it is thus that the germ of
_Marriage_ is first brought to light.
'I do not recollect,' says Miss Ferrier, writing in high spirits; 'I do
not recollect ever to have seen the sudden transition of a high-bred
English beauty, who thinks she can sacrifice all for love, to an
uncomfortable solitary highland dwelling among tall red-haired sisters
and grim-faced aunts. Don't you think this would make a good opening of
the piece? Suppose each of us try our hands on it.' And, later on, after
submitting a portion of her work, she writes again:--'I am boiling to
hear from you, but I've taken a remorse of conscience about Lady
Maclaughlan and her friends: if I was ever to be detected, or even
suspected, I would have nothing for it but to drown myself. I mean,
therefore, to let her alone till I hear from you, as I think we might
compound some other kind of character for her that might do as well and
not be so dangerous. As to the misses, if ever it was to be published
they must be altered or I must fly my native land.'
In this passage, even after allowing for girlish facetiousness of
expression, Susan Ferrier appears in the character of an accomplished
'quiz,' sailing dangerously close to the wind. Of course her
correspondent is delighted with the specimen of work submitted to her,
and will not hear of anything being altered. What school-girl would? She
essays to allay her friend's fear of discovery, and offers to take the
responsibility of the personalities upon herself. In a subsequent
letter, dated December 1810, she describes reading the manuscript to
Lady Charlotte during a drive. Her ladyship laughed as she had never
been seen to laugh before, and pronounced the fragment 'without the
least exception the cleverest thing that ever was written'--a verdict
which after more detailed examination she endorsed in writing, declaring
it to be '_capital_, with a dash under it.' Not otherwise do the
thoughtless and light-hearted egg each other on to mischief.
But Miss Ferrier was by this time eight-and-twenty years of age. Her
native strong good sense asserted itself, and for a long time she
resolutely declined to publish her work. (I ought ere this to have
explained that the intended collaboration with Miss Clavering had fallen
through, the sole passage contributed by the younger lady being the
brief and not particularly interesting _History of Mrs Douglas_). In
course of time, however, the merits of the book became known to persons
having more authority to judge them than Lady Charlotte Bury or her
niece. Mr Blackwood, the publisher, read the manuscript, and strongly
urged the authoress to prepare it for publication; whilst no less a
personage than Sir Walter Scott, in the conclusion to his _Tales of My
Landlord_--then seemingly in proof--referred flatteringly to a 'very
lively work entitled _Marriage_,' and singled out its author for mention
among writers of fiction capable of gathering in the rich harvest
afforded by Scottish character. At length, in 1818--after undergoing
several changes in the interval--the book was given to the world. It was
published anonymously, and the authoress, speaking at a later date,
professes to have believed that her name 'never would be guessed at, or
the work heard of beyond a very limited sphere.' But from such obscurity
the gallery of portraits which it contained must alone have sufficed to
save it. For, in addition to the two ladies already mentioned--whose
oddities appear to have contributed jointly to the inimitable figure of
Lady Maclaughlan--the three spinster aunts were drawn from certain
Misses Edmonstone, whilst Mrs Fox represented Mary, Lady Clerk, a
well-known Edinburgh character of the time. It must not, however, be
supposed that the vogue of the book depended upon adventitious
circumstances alone; for _Marriage_ soon became popular far beyond the
limits of any local set. In London it was attributed to the pen of Sir
Walter Scott, and it is even stated to have been very successful in a
French translation.
Its success at home can surprise no one, for never before had the
idiosyncrasies of Scottish society been so vigorously pourtrayed. As has
already been seen, the means adopted for showing them off are
ingeniously contrived. At the commencement of the story we are
introduced to the beautiful but shallow and artificial Juliana, the Earl
of Courtland's only daughter--a young lady who has been trained solely
with a view to social success and the formation of a brilliant alliance,
the more solid parts of education having in her case been systematically
neglected. She is betrothed to the elderly Duke of L----, but at the
last moment throws him over and elopes to Scotland. The companion of her
flight is Douglas, a handsome young officer in the army, the child of
Scotch parents, but brought up in England by a wealthy adoptive father.
The honeymoon is scarce over when the young people find themselves, not
only partially disabused of their illusions, but in actual pecuniary
straits. Juliana's elopement has hopelessly alienated the Earl; whilst
Douglas, absent from his regiment without leave, is superseded in the
_Gazette_. In these circumstances the only course open to them is to
take up their quarters with the bridegroom's father, at his castle of
Glenfern in the Highlands. Their proposal to do so is most cordially
received, and now the irony of circumstance begins to declare itself.
Lady Juliana has repeatedly protested that with the man of her choice
she could be happy in a desert. But then her idea of a desert, as she
avows when 'tis too late, is a beautiful place full of roses and
myrtles, which, though very retired, would not be absolutely out of the
world; where one could occasionally see one's friends and give
_dejeuners_ and _fetes champetres_. A very different kind of place is
Glenfern Castle. After a long journey in a drizzling rain through dreary
scenery, their destination is reached, and Juliana makes her _entree_,
attended by her footman and lady's-maid, surrounded by her lap-dogs,
squirrel, and mackaw, and encumbered by all the paraphernalia of an
artificial elegance. Never was there a meeting between more opposed
extremes.
'At the entrance of the strangers, a flock of females rushed forward
to meet them. Douglas good-humouredly submitted to be hugged by
three long-chinned spinsters whom he recognised as his aunts, and
warmly saluted five awkward purple girls he guessed to be his
sisters: while Lady Juliana stood the image of despair, and,
scarcely conscious, admitted in silence the civilities of her new
relations.'
The three elderly spinsters are the Laird's sisters--Miss Jacky, who is
esteemed the most sensible woman as well as the greatest orator in the
parish, Miss Grizzy the platitudinous, and Miss Nicky, who is not
wanting in sense either; and these representatives of a bygone social
order are the most celebrated characters in the book.
Appalled by the sight of the surroundings amid which her life is to be
spent, and distressed by the insolence of a pampered lady's-maid who
instantly throws up her place, Juliana presently succumbs to hysterics.
'Douglas now attempted to account for the behaviour of his noble
spouse by ascribing it to the fatigue she had lately undergone,
joined to distress of mind at her father's unrelenting severity
towards her.
'"O the amiable creature!" interrupted the unsuspecting spinsters,
almost stifling her with their caresses as they spoke. "Welcome, a
thousand times welcome, to Glenfern Castle!" said Miss Jacky.
"Nothing shall be wanting, dearest Lady Juliana, to compensate for a
parent's rigour, and make you happy and comfortable. Consider this
as your future home. My sisters and myself will be as mothers to
you: and see these charming young creatures," dragging forward two
tall frightened girls, with sandy hair and great purple arms; "thank
Providence for having blest you with such sisters!"
'"Don't speak too much, Jacky, to our dear niece at present," said
Miss Grizzy; "I think one of Lady Maclaughlan's composing draughts
would be the best thing for her--there can be no doubt about that."
'"Composing draughts at this time of day!" cried Miss Nicky; "I
should think a little good broth a much wiser thing. There are some
excellent family broth making below, and I'll desire Tibby to bring
a few."
'"Will you take a little soup, love?" asked Douglas. His lady
assented; and Miss Nicky vanished, but quickly re-entered, followed
by Tibby, carrying a huge bowl of coarse Scotch broth, swimming with
leeks, greens, and grease. Lady Juliana attempted to taste it, but
her delicate palate revolted at the homely fare; and she gave up
the attempt, in spite of Miss Nicky's earnest entreaties to take a
few more of these excellent family broth.
'"I should think," said Henry, as he vainly attempted to stir it
round, "that a little wine would be more to the purpose than this
stuff."
'The aunts looked at each other; and, withdrawing to a corner, a
whispering consultation took place, in which "Lady Maclaughlan's
opinion, birch, balm, currant, heating, cooling, running risks," &c.
&c. transpired. At length the question was carried; and some
tolerable sherry, and a piece of very substantial _short-bread_,
were produced.
'It was now voted by Miss Jacky, and carried _nem. con._, that her
ladyship ought to take a little repose till the hour of dinner.'