'That is always the case with those that Mrs Macshake has obliged,' returned Mr Douglas: 'she does many liberal things, but in so ungracious a manner that people are never sure whether they are obliged or insulted by her. But the way in which she receives kindness is still worse. Could anything equal her impertinence about my roebuck?-Faith, I've a good mind never to enter her door again !' Mary could scarcely preserve her gravity at her uncle's indignation, which seemed so disproportioned to the cause. But, to turn the current of his ideas, she remarked that he had certainly been at pains to select two admirable specimens of her countrywomen for her. 'I don't think I shall soon forget either Mrs Gawffaw or Mrs Macshake,' said she, laughing. 'I hope you won't carry away the impression that these two lusus naturæ are specimens of Scotchwomen?' said her uncle. 'The former, indeed, is rather a sort of weed that infests every soil; the latter, to be sure, is an indigenous plant. I question if she would have arrived at such perfection in a more cultivated field or genial clime. She was born at a time when Scotland was very different from what it is now. Female education was little attended to, even in families of the highest rank; consequently the ladies of those days possess a raciness in their manners and ideas that we should vainly seek for in this age of cultivation and refinement.' A Memoir is prefixed to the 1881 edition of Miss Ferrier's novels; and a Life, with Correspondence, was edited by her grand-nephew in 1899. There was an American illustrated edition of the novels in 1893-94, which was reprinted in London; and another edition is by R. Brimley Johnson (6 vols. 1894). Allan Cunningham (1784-1842), born at Blackwood, near Thornhill in Dumfriesshire, was the son of the gardener on the estate of Blackwood, who in 1787 became factor or land-steward to Miller of Dalswinton, Burns's landlord at Ellisland; and in his father's cottage Allan in his sixth year heard Burns read Tam o'Shanter. An elder brother was a country mason and builder, and Allan was apprenticed to him in 1795; but in 1810, at the invitation of Cromek, on whom he had palmed off some of his own songs for old ones, he removed to London. Robert Hartley Cromek (1770-1812) was a speculative English engraver and picture publisher, who visited Scotland in 1808 and 1809 to collect the materials he published in his Reliques of Burns and Select Scottish Songs, Ancient and Modern. Cunningham furnished almost the whole of what Cromek issued, without any proper account of their provenance, as Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song. The literary mason got the present of a book from Cromek and a promise of something further on, but had now to support himself and his wife mainly by writing. He produced both prose and verse; he reported for the newspapers; and in 1814, through Cromek's introduction, he became superintendent of works to Chantrey the sculptor, in whose studio he continued till the year before his own death. Some of his lyrics in Cromek's collection are warlike and Jacobite, some amatory, some are devotional, and some are on Covenanting themes; but all of them illustrate Scottish country life and manners. As songs, they are not pitched in a key to be popular; but these pseudo-antique strains have a curious natural grace and tenderness, a certain Doric simplicity and fervour. In Chantrey's studio 'honest Allan' spent his days, serving also as secretary, while in the evenings he produced a large mass of literary work. In 1822 he published Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, a dramatic poem, founded on Border story and superstition, and also two volumes of Traditional Tales. Three novels on like themes followed, even more diffuse and improbable-Paul Jones (1826), Sir Michael Scott (1828), and Lord Roldan (1836). In 1833 appeared a 'rustic epic' in twelve parts, The Maid of Elvar. He edited a collection of Scottish Songs in four volumes, and an edition of Burns in eight, with a Life (1834). To Murray's Family Library he contributed Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (6 vols. 1829-33; new ed. 1879), which proved on the whole the most important of his books. His last work-completed just two days before his death-was a Life of Sir David Wilkie, in three volumes. 'A wet sheet and a flowing sea,' from the Traditional Tales, an admirable sea-song by an utter landsman, is not merely a remarkable tour de force, but is perhaps Allan's highest triumph in verse. His prose style was universally admired for its force and freedom: Southey said he was the best stylist next to Hume born north of the Tweed. There is a Life of him by David Hogg (1875). The Young Maxwell. Ae stride or twa took the silly auld carle, Will ye show the way to me?' He drew the reins o' his bonny gray steed, Of the comeliest scarlet was his weir coat, He has thrown aff his plaid, the silly auld carle, I loved as the light o' my ee! 'There's ae sad stroke for my dear auld father! There's twa for my brethren three ! An' there's ane to thy heart for my ae sister, Hame, Hame, Hame. Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be, Oh, hame, hame, hame, to my ain countrie! When the flower is i' the bud, and the leaf is on the tree, The green leaf o' loyalty's beginning for to fa', But I'll water 't wi' the blude of usurping tyrannie, Oh, there's naught frae ruin my country can save, The great are now gane, a' wha ventured to save, 'I'll shine on ye yet in yer ain countrie.' Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be, Hame, hame, hame, to my ain countrie! Fragment. Gane were but the winter-cauld, Cauld's the snaw at my head, And cauld at my feet, And the finger o' death 's at my een, Closing them to sleep. Let nane tell my father, Or my mither sae dear; I'll meet them baith in heaven A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea. A wind that follows fast, 'O for a soft and gentle wind!' But give to me the snoring breeze, And white waves heaving high, my boys, There's tempest in yon horned moon, The wind is piping loud, my boys, My Nanie O. Red rows the Nith 'tween bank and brae, Though heaven and earth should mix in storm, My Nanie O, my Nanie O; My kind and winsome Nanie O, I cannot get ae glimpse of grace, The world's in love with Nanie O; I guess what heaven is by her eyes, My Nanie O, my Nanie O; The flower o' Nithsdale's Nanie O ; Tell not, thou star at gray daylight, Nane ken o' me and Nanie O; The stars and moon may tell 't aboon, They winna wrang my Nanie O! The first four lines of the third stanza are from Allan Ramsay's Nanie O. The Poet's Bridal-day Song. In maiden bloom and matron wit- As when, beneath Arbigland tree, We stayed and wooed, and thought the moon Set on the sea an hour too soon; Or lingered 'mid the falling dew, When looks were fond and words were few. Though I see smiling at thy feet Five sons and ae fair daughter sweet; Oh, when more thought we gave of old At times there come, as come there ought, Allan Cunningham's sons were an exceptional instance of hereditary talent in one family: (1) Joseph Davey CUNNINGHAM (18121851), captain of Engineers in the Indian ariny, wrote a History of the Sikhs (1849; 2nd ed. 1853); (2) Major-General Sir ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM (1814-93), appointed Archæological Surveyor-General of India in 1870, Companion of the Star of India in 1871, wrote The Bhilsa Topes or Buddhist Monuments of Central India (1854), Arian Architecture (1846), Ladak, Physical, Statistical, and Historical (1854), The Ancient Geography of India (1871), &c.; (3) PETER Cunningham (1816–69), clerk in the Audit Office 1834-60, wrote a Life of Nell Gwynn (1852), Handbook of London (1849), besides editing Walpole's Letters, Drummond of Hawthornden, Goldsmith, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, &c.; (4) FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM (1820-75), lieutenant-colonel in the Indian army, edited Marlowe, Massinger, and Ben Jonson. Thomas Mounsey Cunningham (17761834) was the senior of his brother Allan (see the preceding article), and was a copious author in prose and verse, though with an undistinguished name, long before the author of the Lives of British Painters was known. He attended Dumfries Academy, became a wheelwright near Cambridge, and was ultimately chief clerk to Rennie, the civil engineer. His first poem was The Harst Kirn (1797); he wrote also satires such as The Cambridgeshire Garland and The Unco Grave. David Vedder, a native of Burness, Orkney (1790-1854), obtained some reputation by a volume of Orcadian Sketches, published in 1842; and his Scottish songs and Norse ballads were popular in the north. Dr Chalmers was fond of quoting to his students a piece on 'The Temple of Nature.' Sir Thomas Dick Lauder (1784-1848) wrote two novels of Scottish life and history, Lochandhu (1825; new ed. 1891) and The Wolfe of Badenoch (1827), of which the latter, with the turbulent son of Robert II. for its hero, is still popular, and often reprinted. In 1830 he wrote a vivid Account of the Great Floods in Morayshire in 1829. The son of a Haddingtonshire baronet, he had in 1808 married the heiress of Relugas in Moray, and was then living in the neighbourhood. In the story of the flood he showed, according to Dr John Brown, 'his descriptive power, his humour, his sympathy for suffering, his sense of the picturesque.' Sir Thomas also published a series of Highland Rambles, with a sequel, Legendary Tales of the Highlands. He wrote on natural history, and edited Gilpin's Forest Scenery and Sir Uvedale Price's Essays on the Picturesque; and he was commissioned to write a memorial of Queen Victoria's visit to Scotland in 1842. One of his best works was a descriptive account of Scottish Rivers for Tait's Magazine, left incomplete at his death and edited by Dr John Brown in 1874. William Thom, the 'Inverurie Poet' (17991848), wrote some sweet and pathetic verses. He worked as a handloom-weaver at Aberdeen and Inverurie, and traversed the country as a pedlar, accompanied by his wife and children. This unsettled life induced careless and dissipated habits. His first poem that attracted notice, The Blind Boy's Pranks, appeared in the Aberdeen Herald. In 1844 he published a volume of Rhymes and Recollections of a Hand-loom Weaver. He visited London, and was warmly received; but returning to Scotland, he died at Dundee in great penury. The Mitherless Bairn. mould Aneath his cauld brow siccan dreams hover there, such kindly Oh! speak na him harshly-he trembles the while, William Nicholson, the 'Galloway Poet' (1782-1849), was the son of a carrier, and was born near Borgue in Kirkcudbright. He became a pedlar in boyhood, but not before he was master of all the available chapbooks, ballads, and lore of the country-side. He also composed and recited songs, published a volume of verse-tales and poems in 1814 (2nd ed. in 1828; 3rd ed. 1878, with Memoir), and was ultimately a professional piper at fairs and weddings, and occasionally a cattledrover. Unluckily tippling kept him unsettled and unprosperous, even after he became an advocate of universal redemption. Some of his songs are tuneful and tender: his Brownie of Blednoch, in celebration of a kindly local sprite, is his most successful piece, and is known to readers of Dr John Brown's Hora Subseciva. The Brownie of Blednoch. Wi' a dreary, dreary hum. His face did glow like the glow o' the west, I trow the bauldest stood aback, Wi' a gape an' a glower 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 fright As they stared at this wild and unyirthly wight; His matted head on his breast did rest, A lang blue beard wan'ered down like a vest; But the glare o' his ee hath nae bard exprest, Nor the skimes o' Aiken-drum. To look at Aiken-drum. gray ears swooned thong rushes Roun' his hairy form there was naething seen But a philabeg o' the rashes green, knocked An' his knotted knees played aye knoit between together 'I lived in a lan' where we saw nae sky, 'I'll shiel a' your sheep i' the mornin' sune, If ye 'll keep puir Aiken-drum. I'se tame 't,' quoth Aiken-drum. 'To wear the tod frae the flock on the fell, fold thresh lull waterfall churn fox shirt dish of 'I'se seek nae guids, gear, bond, nor mark ; wealth Quoth the wylie auld wife: 'The thing speaks weel; elvish-swoon devil But the wenches skirled: 'He's no be here! Roun' a' that side what wark was dune By the streamer's gleam or the glance o' the moon But a new-made wife, fu' o' rippish freaks, Let the learned decide when they convene, Awa', ye wrangling sceptic tribe, Wi' your pros an' your cons wad ye decide Though the Brownie o' Blednoch' lang be gane, Tell the feats o' Aiken-drum. neat weep child E'en now, light loons that gibe an' sneer An' guidly folks hae gotten a fright, When the moon was set an' the stars gied nae light, At the roaring linn, in the howe o' the night, Wi' sughs like Aiken-drum. William Laidlaw (1780-1845) was son of the Ettrick Shepherd's master at Blackhouse, and is well known to all who have read Lockhart's Life of Scott. He was Scott's companion in some of his early wanderings, his friend and land-steward in advanced years, his amanuensis in the composition of some of his novels, and he was one of the few who watched over his last sad moments. After Scott's death Laidlaw became factor on an estate in Ross-shire, where he died. One song of his is exceptionally well known: Lucy's Flittin'. 'Twas when the wan leaf frae the birk-tree was fa'in, She cam there afore the bloom cam on the pea; As down the burn-side she gaed slow wi' her flittin', She heard the craw sayin 't, high on the tree sittin', Then what gars me wish ony better to be? sad intended gave I fear I hae tint my puir heart a' thegither, She thocht the dear place she wad never mair see. Lies cauld in her grave, and will never return!] The last four lines were, somewhat superfluously, added by Hogg to 'complete the story.' William Tennant (1785-1848) published in 1812 a singular mock-heroic poem, Anster Fairwritten in an ottava rima almost the same as that used in 1817 by Hookham Frere, and afterwards made so popular by Byron in his Beppo and Don Juan. The subject was the marriage of Maggie Lauder, a rude, rustic heroine of Scottish song; but the author exalted Maggie to higher dignity, and wrote rather for the admirers of that conventional poetry, half serious and sentimental, half ludicrous and satirical, which was cultivated by Pulci, Berni, and many other Italians. Classic imagery was lavished on familiar subjects; supernatural machinery was (as in the Rape of the Lock) blended with the ordinary details of domestic life, and with lively and fanciful description. Exuberance of animal spirits lifted the author over perilous obstacles, and his wit and fancy were rarely at fault. Such a sprightly volume, in a style then unhackneyed, was sure of success; Anster Fair sold rapidly, and has since been often republished. The author, William Tennant, a native of Anstruther, or Anster, in Fife, was a cripple from birth, and, whilst clerk to a corn-dealer, studied Eastern and Western tongues and ancient and modern literature. His attainments were rewarded in 1813 with an appointment as parish schoolmaster at Lasswade, at a salary of £40 per annum-a reward not unlike that conferred on Mr Abraham Adams in Joseph Andrews, who, being a scholar and man of virtue, was 'provided with a handsome income of £23 a year, which, however, he could not make a great figure with, because he lived in a dear country, and was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.' Tennant was afterwards (1835) appointed teacher of classics in an academy at Dollar, and finally (1835) professor of Oriental languages in St Mary's College, St Andrews. But the Orientalist produced still a couple of tragedies on the story of Cardinal Beaton (1823) and on John Baliol (1825); and two poems, The Thane of Fife and Papistry Stormed; or Dinging Down of the Cathedral. It was said of Sir David Wilkie that he took most of the figures in his pictures from living persons in his native county of Fife; it is obvious that Tennant's poems are in like manner grounded on Fife men and things, racy of the soil, and indeed their eminently local colour has probably told against their wider popularity. Anster Fair, the most diversified and richly humorous of them all, is the author's only real success, and is a distinctly animated, witty, and entertaining poem. Summer Morning. I wish I had a cottage snug and neat The bright-gowned Morning tripping up her side: And when the low Sun's glory-buskined feet Walk on the blue wave of the Ægean tide, Oh, I would kneel me down, and worship there The God who garnished out a world so bright and fair! |