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The foregoing chapters have
been written in vain if the reader, personally unacquainted with Professor
Blackie, has not by this time realised what manner of man he was. But there
are aspects of his public life and conversation, to which justice can only
be done by giving them the necessary emphasis with a multitude of small
touches. An attempt to vivify his portrait in this way may therefore be made
in a chapter set apart for the purpose.
Blackie at home and Blackie
abroad differed considerably. He was a compound of two individualities both
wholesome and good, but not the same in manifestation. At home he was
gentle, considerate, methodical, serious; only at table relaxing into
discursive talk and occasional explosiveness. His domestic pleasantries were
tranquil, and took the form of genial banter and of equally genial irony. To
the latter kind belonged the continued narration of the married life and
adventures of Mr Bob Melliss. He was a mythical schoolfellow, gifted and
amiable. In an evil hour, allured by her rank and pretensions, lie had
married the Lady Letitia Lambert. This stately personage belonged to the
school of "white-satin-shoe philosophers." Her dainty nerves endured no
breath from the plebeian world, but required an environment of patrician and
ceremonious elegance. The easy-going Bob had to surrender every friend and
every habit of his bachelor days, and became a model husband for this lofty
and sensitive dame. He forgot the very meaning of liberty, ate and drank as
her stern glance directed, spoke and kept silence at her command. He was not
unhappy,—far from it,—but lie was a slave, a well-dressed appendage to the
Lady Letitia's train. This sorry spectacle was constantly held up for
compassion. No wife ever honoured her husband's freedom of action more than
did Mrs Blackie, but even she at times begged for small concessions to
conventionality, which he granted willingly, but which became inevitably the
theme of some new episode in the fabled disfranchisement of Bob Melliss. We
knew what was coming when he shook his head and muttered, "Poor Bob Melliss."
Another home freak was the
production at dinner of a four-lined stanza addressed to "Mrs Oke." Its
genesis was always reputed to be as follows: "A very curious thing happened
to-day, my dear: as I came round the corner, a young man, who seemed to be
hanging about the Crescent, rushed up to me in a state of great agitation
and thrust a piece of paper into my hand. I asked him what lie meant, but
lie was gone before I could finish." And then he read the lines:
Is Okum with youI Oh that
stately dame,
Who walks the earth in such majestic frame;
Whose glance, like Juno's, casts on all its spell,
And who in soups and puddings doth excel!
That is one variant of the
daily compliment. The agitated young man sometimes thrust a handful of
papers upon him, in which case all guests were duly commemorated.
As Professor, as lecturer,
and as diner-out, he displayed characteristics which laid him open to the
charge of eccentricity. These were the excess of naturalness, of bonhomie,
of time laughter-loving, jocund, piquant, quick-witted humanity which
contact with others excited into ebullition.
In the class-room these
humours were often provoked by kindred qualities in the students, and many
stories are afloat—taking to themselves a certain Protean contour—of their
manifestation. The most celebrated of these may he told in the words of
Surgeon-Major Grant Macpherson, a student at the time and eyewitness :-
On a pillar of the colonnade
outside his lecture-room he had pasted up one day a notice to say that he
would be "unable to meet his classes" that afternoon. It was not long before
the c had been scratched out. Shortly afterwards, singing as usual, the
Professor came across the quadrangle from the Senate-room, and promptly
scored out the l also. Then with characteristic gesture, tossing his white
hair and Scotch plaid over his shoulder, he walked jauntily away, trolling
his favourite song, "Green grow the rashes, O!"
This story first appeared in
the 'Strand Magazine,' and Mr Harry How received about a dozen letters
afterwards, the writer of each claiming to be the man who scratched out the
c.
Sharp tussles occurred from
time to time between the Professor and some dour Scot who disliked being
made conspicuous, but the most sensitive relaxed in the end, under the spell
of his sunny masterfullness. A new name in the class gave rise to a
sometimes puzzled monologue on its derivation. A certain John Crawford was
subjected to an inquisition on the subject of his name, which, yielding
little, all the Crawfords in the class—about half-a-dozen----had to stand
up, and were bidden produce an essay on the name by the next day. The new
student was wag enough to compose the following:-
In bygone and distant
days bridges were as scarce as names, so the aboriginal tribes of our
country, when under the necessity of crossing rivers and streams, had to
mind their feet and keep a look-out for the depths and shallows of the
water. But my ancestors soared above such effeminate considerations, and
forded the water as the crow flew over it. Therefore, Crawford.
This alert audacity delighted
the Professor. Students called Bell would be told that no doubt they were so
named from the ancestral beauty of the family founder, a joke cheered to the
echo when the immediate Bell chanced to be plain. We are told by an old
student that Professor Blackie would walk into his class-room, lift up his
hands, and offer the Lord's Prayer in Greek. Then he would speak his mind in
English on some notable event, exacting from the students a repetition or
free rendering of the matter in Greek. This would be analysed and corrected
and committed to memory. The exercise accumulated a repertory of flexible
words and phrases for those who made use of it. Then the reading commenced.
All that was noblest in human interest and finest in the larger scholarship
was noted with learned commentary and quotations; but he resented losing
time over small grammatical pedantries, and over minute accuracies in the
rendering of obscure passages. When a difficulty had to be faced, he would
pause and go over the passage himself, and would either conquer it or decide
that it might be skipped, as the notes respecting it were too verbose.
He leant for help on the few
best students, when the others were impenetrably stupid. One of his best
men, some time in the seventies, was an Irishman called Geoghegan, a word
which the Professor decided should be pronounced Gawan. This gentleman came
constantly to the assistance of the duller sort, but resented the liberty
taken with his name, which he pronounced Gaiçian. One day when called upon
to read, he kept silence. "Gawan," repeated the Professor without response.
"Gaigan, you dour deevil, will you read?" he cried, and Geoghegan leapt to
his feet with alacrity. On another occasion Geoghegan decided that he was
asked to do too much, and answered that he was "unprepared." The Professor
gazed at him reproachfully and said, "O, Geoghegan, I never expected this of
you."
A student reading with the
book in his left hand was called to order and bidden hold it in the other.
He coloured and continued to read as before. The Professor was annoyed, and
reprimanded him sharply. The class hissed at this, and the student held up
the stump which was all that remained of his right arm. Then Mackie stepped
down from his desk, and taking the young fellow in his arms, begged his
pardon with tears in his eyes, and turning to the rest, he said, "I am glad
that I have gentlemen to teach," and went back to his desk in an outburst of
applause. The men loved him, and if the more riotous spirits took advantage
of his sympathetic boyishness, and sometimes turned order into rout, even
the most ungovernable amongst them acknowledged at heart his patience and
tolerance and indomitable pluck and manliness.
Once in winter, when a crowd
of students filled the quadrangle and were indulging in a free fight with
snowballs, he passed through them with the swinging stride peculiar to him.
A snowball struck him as he mounted the steps; he turned at once, flung
aside his plaid, and doffed his wide awake. "Fire away!" he cried, but the
snowballs fell from the hands of the shamefast lads.
It is true that the talk in
class hours was apt to diverge from Greek during the last years of his
College duties. His mind, running on Gaelic, on the Celtic Chair, on the
crofters, on Goethe, on John Knox, on time Apostle Paul, would suddenly
revolt at the overtrodden track of grammatical precision, and rush for a
space with reinvigorating eagerness down some tempting vista. We are told
that a student whose head reminded him of Byron was the occasion of an
eloquent lecture on the genius, misfortunes, temptations, and mistakes of
that great poet; while a mere hint would cause to bubble up and sparkle
forth a whole volume of wisdom out of his own experience, and out of the
resources which he had stored from Goethe, Aristotle, and St Paul.
But he was really saturated
with Greek thought, and fully familiar with Greek stand- points and the
Greek spirit. He knew Hellas as well as he knew Scotland, and his aim was to
inspire his students with enthusiasm for all that was great in Hellenism,
and to imbue their minds with the lessons of its histories, its
philosophies, its literature, its examples,—with all that made for
reverence, for endurance, for culture, for self-control in its drama and
national life,— with what, in short, was worthy of their inheritance from
Greek humanity. For he was essentially practical, and taught men how to
live. It was from Germany that he had learnt his method. He was a German
Professor, in closest touch with the students, as the material from which
men were to be matured, and it was to their future worth as men that he
mainly looked. He felt himself in this whole-hearted way responsible for the
impulse which young minds might at a touch receive, and it can be affirmed
that never in his most extravagant moments, when in a manner let loose on
the stream of random thought and utterance, did he lose sight of the great
seriousness of life, and of its dependence upon God.
He identified himself with
the students iii a thousand ways, calling on those whom sickness kept from
the class; saving some from ruin by his wise interference; supplementing the
work of many by instruction at home; assisting the poorer with books given
or lent; watching the development of the more hopeful with solicitude
understanding all except the irredeemably shallow; patiently bearing
foolishness, boisterousness, even horseplay, as one who knew that boys must
learn to be men through experience of the futility of ignorance and
presumption.
He was present whenever it
was possible at their gatherings,— often the only Professor there, —and his
arrival was the occasion of acclamation. He dedicated books to them,—'Musa
Bursehicosa' and 'Messis Vit'; he supported their magazine, and constantly
contributed song, sonnet, or paper to its pages. He secured the cooperation
of Sir Herbert Oakeley in the arrangement of Scottish songs to be sung at
their concerts; he helped forward the production of a 'Book of Student
Songs' for the Scottish Universities, and wrote its introduction. He was one
with them, as he had found the professors at Göttingen and Berlin to be; and
this beautiful relation outlasted his retirement and characterised him to
the end. His reward was great, for the students loved him. No torchlight
procession was complete that did not wind up at Blackie's door; and when he
appeared at lecture or theatre, he was received as a king might be amongst
them, going to his cab at the close between two ranks of cheering youths.
Countless letters testify to
the affection of individuals amongst them, to gratitude for salvation, for
inspiration, for rnaterial help. They cannot be quoted,—they would add
volumes to this work. But some from those who, students first and friends
afterwards, were acquainted with him both in public and in private, throw
sufficient light upon his value as a teacher to be indispensable to this
attempt at computation.
I was his assistant
[writes the Rev. George Paulin] some thirty-five years back, and spent
one or two evenings a-week at his house, examining the class exercises
and partaking of tea, and my recollections of these delightful evenings
are very vivid.
He was the pleasantest of
men to work with [writes Dr James Steele of Florence], as his
class-assistants will bear me out in testifying; he spared them all the
trouble lie could in that most irksome part of the duties they shared
with him—that of correcting and appraising the class exercises and
examination papers. Far on into the night, with weary brain and aching
eyes, we have gone through the monotonous grind together, and all the
while Ills cheery jest and indomitable vivacity would keep us in heart
and head to the end. Then would come in the supper-tray, over which lie
would troll out at intervals a couplet from Homer.
A letter from Professor
Cowan, Aberdeen University, is full of point with regard to his professorial
work in the sessions 1859 to 1862:-
The Professor was both
popular among and respected by his students—the few exceptions being
those whose sense of humour was defective, or who confounded the
efficiency of a professor with that of a schoolmaster. Blackie didn't
profess to drill boys, but to guide the studies of young men, and to
inspire them with a love of the Greek language and literature. Students
who did not care for Greek, and wouldn't work, managed, I dare- say, to
"get through" his classes without much affliction. Students who did like
Greek received both stimulus and direction in a high degree; and for not
a few who, like myself, entered his junior class without much love of
the subject, his brightness awakened interest and his enthusiasm became
an inspiration. A notable feature of his junior class was what some of
us called his "leading article." He commenced proceedings by "delivering
his soul" in English upon some topic of the day—academic, civic,
national, social, or religious—and thereafter called lip a couple of
students to turn the deliverance with his help into Greek. It was an
excellent Greek exercise, but it was more; it gave us lads fresh ideas
and stimulated our own thought about what was going on in the world. In
his class-work he was accustomed rather to read a good deal than to
examine passages microscopically, although when a disputed point of
importance emerged, he went into the matter thoroughly. When translating
Homer, he liked to draw attention to the bard's simple piety. A Greek
Professor in his prelections cannot avoid occasionally coming across
passages suggestive of things not "of good report." Blackie, whose
modesty was genuine, not prudish, hastened over such passages
paraphrastically. I shall never forget his words to me after my return
from a summer session in Germany. Before he asked me about lectures or
anything academical, he said, quite quietly, but seriously and, as I
felt, searchingly, "I hope you learned no bad habits when you were
away." I have a dim recollection of Blackie's breakfasts. Like most
other professorial breakfasts, they were probably a little heavy. No man
is himself socially on a cold winter's morning at nine o'clock. But the
Blackie suppers, to which I think he invited only those who took some
position in the classes, were socially joyous and intellectually
stimulating. Toasts, speeches, and songs were the order of the night,
and what bulked least was the drinking; not, of course, through any
artificial restriction, but simply because the flow of soul detracted
from the flow of negus. Any student who introduced into his speech a
graceful classical allusion to "Juno" (Mrs Blackie) met with special
appreciation.
Endorsing what Professor
Cowan says of his "genuine modesty," some sentences may be quoted from a
letter written to Dr Walter C. Smith by Blackie's oldest living friend, Sir
Theodore Martin, on March 9, 1895:-
Since 1835 Blackie and I
have been friends. I knew him in his early days in Edinburgh as I
believe nobody knew him. Though there was a difference of eight years
between us, he was to me like an elder brother, and his heart was as
open to me as if I had been a woman. It was impossible not to love
him—not only for his fiery energy and determination to work out for good
whatever power God had given him, but for the truly original purity of
his nature. He was in truth the most purely- minded young man I ever met
-ail Israelite without guile,—and I have no doubt many of the best
impulses of my nature are due to his influence upon me in those far-away
days. Though we met in later rears but rarely, the affection then
cemented between us never relaxed, widely though we often differed in
our views on social and political questions.
The Rev. Dr Farquharson of
Selkirk writes:-
The Professor held a deep
place in the affections of his old students, and many of us felt that we
owed him much. I entered his class in Aberdeen—a very young student—in
session 1846-47. That is only one year short of half a century ago; but
while the words and teaching of most of the Professors of that day are
but confused sounds to me now, I vividly remember his sayings and
manner, and living forceful personality. The intellectual impulse I
received from him I regard as one of the most precious portions of my
education. I shall ever cherish with gratitude and affection the memory
of those early days; and youthful feelings of attachment grew into deep
admiration and respect as for a true-souled man, when in maturer years I
was brought in contact with him.
A still older friend, Dr
Forbes White, supplies an interesting testimony to his work at Aberdeen :-
My first introduction to
Professor Blackie took place in the session of 1843-44, at Marischal
College, Aberdeen. We entered college in those days at an early age, and
were surprised and delighted by the exuberance of spirit of our new
Professor. Except on the recognised clays of prize-giving and on the eve
of holidays, good order was maintained, though by the influence of love
rather than of fear. Jokes came not unfrequently, and witty, wise
sayings; yet excellent work was done, though on lines new to us. Looking
at a drawing of the Apollo Belvidere or the Discobolus on the walls, he
would describe it and its history in free, flowing Latin, and gradually
encourage us to stand up in the class and declaim, first more or less
oil his own lines, and afterwards by giving us another statue to be
described in our own words, correcting errors at the close. With what
pleasure we heard him in the afternoon hour translating book after book
of the 'Aneid,' with philological and historical explanations and
references to Milton, Goethe, and Dante All this, along with the regular
class-work, formed a part of his written weekly examination by a method
which I believe he was the first to introduce. Thirty questions were
dictated verbally, one after the other. A couple of minutes was allowed
for the student to write the short reply to each question on a folio
sheet. The papers were then exchanged among the students; the Professor
gave the correct replies, the number of errors was added up, and the
order of merit announced before the close of the meeting. All this
showed a systematised method of work with which Blackie is not usually
credited. Again, with what unerring skill he discovered the student who
was translating honestly, and distinguished him from one relying on a
crib; and with what pleasure he detected any vein of poetry in the style
of another. Indolence and carelessness he passed by with a word or two
more stinging than a severe reproof. Encouragement and the gift of his
friendship were the secrets of his power among us. To be invited to his
house on the Saturday evenings for private reading in some less known
Latin author was the best reward of all. On these occasions he treated
us as if we were his sons or younger brothers. After work came the light
supper and the feast of intellectual good things—first-fruits of those
evenings which in later times he was to make famous in the Hellenic
Societies of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Thus he got to know the tastes and
pursuits of different students, and became their wise adviser—pouring
out stores from his Italian travel, his studentship at German
Universities, and his intercourse with great and good men—a living
centre of quickening influence."
Mr Burness, a friend of
thirty years standing, and a well-known member of the Edinburgh Hellenic
Society, sends a spirited contribution, which may fitly conclude these
personal reminiscences:-
I have a vivid
recollection of the day on which I became acquainted with Professor
Blackie. It was a day memorable in the life of every boy—that on which
he exchanges the boyish jacket for the manly coat. Like many other
country boys, I had left the provincial school with small Latin and less
Greek, and come to attend the University. There was then no entrance
examination, but each boy went separately into the Professor's private
room and was asked to read a verse or two of St ,John's Gospel in Greek.
The result was generally such as to satisfy the good-natured Professor,
and it was so in my case. But when the lad happened to come from the
wilds of some Highland parish, and was hopelessly at sea, he was sent to
a tutorial class for a month or two, after which lie was allowed to
warstie through. I little dreamt that that short interview was to be the
beginning of a lifelong friendship, and that after long years I should
mourn for the dead Professor as for one of my dearest friends.
There were then three
Greek classes. The first was composed chiefly of boys, but with a
sprinkling of men older even than any in the senior classes. These were
either altogether self-taught or had been kept back by difficulties of
various kinds. The junior was certainly the class in which the Professor
was seen to most advantage, and in which the salient features of his
character were most conspicuous. He good-naturedly ridiculed his being
called on to teach such a class. It was, he said, like employing a 500
horse-power engine to pick up a pin. But then, he added, it was the
system he complained of, not the boys. "Oh no, my heart yearns over the
boys" but the remainder was lost in a deafening thorubos, and the
Professor's eyes were seen to be moist. The fact is, he revelled in his
junior class. It was the safety-valve for all his latent fun and animal
spirits. Some of the sentences he gave us to turn into Greek still
remain in my memory:-
"Now I know for certain
that the British spring-time has arrived; for the wind cuts me like a
knife, and time frost hangs in icicles from my beard."
Some believe in ten
Homers, I am one. Nature is not so prodigal of her great poets."
His kindness to the young
fellows was beyond description. How often he warned us all against
overwork and the night-lamp, reminding us that we were only growing
lads. Many of the students were strangers in Edinburgh, and, friendless
but for him, led lives lonely enough. He invited them in relays to
breakfast at his house in Castle Street, where lie and his accomplished
wife dispensed a genial hospitality. If any student were ill, he missed
him at once, and went to his lodgings to inquire for him. In a thousand
ways he endeared himself to them all, and this was the secret of his
success. There may be a difference of opinion as to his powers as a
teacher, but he certainly kindled the enthusiasm for Greek culture which
led his students to teach themselves.
At the end of the session
the Professor delivered to his class a valedictory address in rhyme. The
only couplet I now remember, and of which the Professor delighted to be
reminded, is—
"But if you wish for Greek
to feed the soul, that fiery particle,
Then come to Blackie's shop and get—the only genuine article."
This was followed by the
presentation of the prizes, the winners being described in verse, always
highly humorous, if also somewhat personal. On these occasions lie
generally had some friends with him on the platform. Once, when in the
middle of a poetical description of a tall red-headed rustic, he turned
suddenly to Dr Guthrie and said, "Do you see him? Yonder he is, like a
beacon, on the back form."
Dr Gardiner, in speaking of
his qualifications as a teacher of Greek, mentions the fascination exercised
oil mind by the study of Comparative Philology, in which " lie contrived to
awaken an interest by apt illustration. Competitors for the Philological
Prize have been known to read the whole range of English books on the
subject; and some afterwards devoted themselves to Sanscrit or Celtic, or
with the aid of the Greek Travelling Scholarship, which was always said to
be the gift of Blackie himself, they pursued the study of Greek Philology at
a German university."
Enough has been said said on
this subject, and it is time to turn to the public Educational work which he
associated intimately with his position as Professor both in Aberdeen and
Edinburgh. It has been told already, but a brief retrospect seems to be
essential to this chapter, which is summarising and complementary. Such a
retrospect he drew up himself towards the end of August 1894, and placed it
in the writer's hands as his own estimate of the services which lie had been
enabled to do for Education. It runs as follows:-
1. Signed the Confession
of Faith at my admission to the Latin Chair in Aberdeen under public
protest and declaration; and the subsequent law case gave the prelusive
note to the Repeal of the test in the case of Professors, which took
place some years afterwards by Lord Moncreiff's Bill.
2. Gave breadth and catholicity to the Bursary examination in Marischal
College by adding other subjects to the Latin version previously the
sole test for bursaries in Aberdeen.
3. Gave a human and social character to the Latin scholarship by
instituting social meetings and readings in Latin and Greek
independently of regular class-work.
4. Was among the first to extend the influence of professorial teaching
by taking an active part in popular lectures outside the University.
5. In Edinburgh protested strongly against the degradation of Scottish
University teaching by the elementary standard in the Greek Class; was
therefore thoroughly in favour of the Entrance Examination afterwards
introduced; and in pamphlets and lectures all through the country,
endeavoured to bring the people back to the standard of second-class
Education, as set forth in the First Book of Discipline, c. 7.
6. Protested, both practically and by special work—and paper read before
the Royal Society of Edinburgh—against the unnatural division between
ancient and modern Greek, and the unscientific and insular habit of
pronouncing the beautiful Greek language by the laws which regulate
English intonation and accentuation.
7. Continued in Edinburgh regular social meetings unconnected with class
- work, under the name of the Hellenic Society, for the purpose of
giving a human significance and an intellectual fruit to the study of
Greek in Scotland.
8. Indulged largely in popular lectures both in England and Scotland,
with the double idea of spreading the seeds of fructifying thought among
intelligent persons of all classes, and of stirring up the people to
important questions of Educational Reform, which it was in vain to
expect from the prejudiced class of professional teachers.
9. Protested strongly against the rigid routine of the Seven Classes in
Arts as a qualification for the M.A. degree; and was warmly in favour of
the optional principle of personal predilection within certain limits—a
principle which, I understand, has been adopted and put into working
order by the ordinances of the University Commission now sitting.
10. Have always denounced the cram system in examination, and advocated
such a style of testing as will bring out the amount of thought and
intelligence acting in the mind of the examinee, not mere learned
results, which he has appropriated from without. JOHN S. BLACKIE.
Whatever he undertook he (lid
with all his might. The quality of his work cannot be judged from narrow
standpoints, whether of pedantry or of sect. Its worth was ethical rather
than erudite, human rather than dogmatic. He was seer and a teacher after
the ancient mould, not prig of either academic or ecclesiastic denomination.
A strict Calvinist Celt admitted him into the company of the faithful in
graphic terms" "Blackie's neyther orthodOx, haiterodox, nor ony ither dox;
he's juist himsel' !"
On the platform he exhibited
the same perfect independence. He had no confounding second thoughts about
his utterances; he never hedged nor retracted, nor guarded himself from
consequences. if people misunderstood his gay humours, they might do so. Re
was healthy to the core, untainted by latter-day fevers which affect the
mind with delirious audacity or chill it with apprehensive collapse. If
Goethe and Aristotle had taught him the value of mental equipoise, St Paul
and our Lord Jesus Christ taught him to work, to pray, to love, to
surrender. He wasted 110 days in dull self-communings, no energy in slothful
regrets.
Many stories are current of
his eccentricities as a lecturer. They are not exaggerated. His appearance
was the promise of a refreshing departure from the unwritten law of the
platform. With his manuscript on a table for occasional reference, because
he sometimes seemed to forget the very subject of his lecture, he marched to
and fro and uttered all that occurred to him. The stream had its source, no
doubt, in the opening, of his written address, but it took toll of whatever
came iii its way, and the man current was often overwhelmed by the
tributary. No man but Blackie would have been allowed so to defy the
conventionalities of public lecturing; but his manner was sincerely natural,
and what his audience wanted was the man himself, spontaneous, effusive, and
stimulating—not an hour's formal information on a given subject. "Mind
Blackie's sense and not his nonsense," lie would comment after a succession
of verbal fireworks; and even in these the sound sense was apparent. He was
not careful to respect the susceptibilities of his hearers—indeed he rather
enjoyed a thrust at local polemics, but it was too kindly to rouse any parry
but laughter. Once at Dundee he found the reading-desk adorned with a lovely
bouquet of flowers, and curtly commanded, "Take away that bauble."
In the learned Institutions
of London and Edinburgh he preserved a more precisian method and kept
carefully to his notes, but even there he relieved the tension with
outbursts pugnacious and whimsical.. Imagination falters when it seeks to
depict his appearances in Oxford, and the fine contempt with which the
use-and-wont bound dons must have turned aside his lance-thrust, straight
and to the point.
In the provinces he might
instruct, inveigh, or banter as he pleased. He was the despair of reporters,
on whose presence he was apt to comment with scant deference, and who
revenged themselves by reporting more of his nonsense than of his sense. Mr
Burness remembers his "presiding at a meeting in support of Miss Burton's
candidature for the School Board. He had made a very happy, vigorous speech,
and resumed his seat, when he suddenly started to his feet again and said,
'I have only to add that though my language is strong, my opinions are
moderate—take that down, you blackguards.'"
He would relieve the tediuni
of talking with a song, and would break off a serious disquisition on the
influence of Goethe, to ask his chairman why he wasn't married. When Madame
Annie Grey illustrated his lecture on "Scottish Song," he would kneel down
on the platform and kiss her hand as she finished her delightful rendering.
Once he introduced her to the audience as the Show," adding, "I am but the
showman." He horrified a meeting of teetotallers at which he presided by
beginning his speech as follows:-
I cannot understand why I
am asked to be here. I am not a teetotaller—far from it. If a man asks
me to dine with him and does not give me a good glass of wine, I say he
is neither a Christian nor a gentleman. Germans drink beer, Englishmen
\vine, ladies tea, and fools water.
It is true that he soothed
the fluttered dovecot by a strenuous appeal for temperance, but he was not
again invited to take the lead on its behalf. His very temperance led him to
revolt against total abstinence, and his value for the sacredness of a man's
word showed him the danger of urging a pledge on those who took it and broke
it without remorse.
Perhaps the most amusing
instance of his tendency to personality on the platform occurred at
Dunfermline. After the restoration of St Giles' Cathedral he was wont to
advocate a greater beauty both in the structure and the ceremonial of
Scottish churches. On this occasion he was lecturing on Scottish Song, and
alluded particularly to the revival of sacred singing and the introduction
of the organ into so many of the kirks. This innovation had roused the ire
of conservative Presbyterians, who were anxious to retain the stern
simplicity of the Reformation, and who looked upon such concessions as
Romanising. The minister of Townhill, near Dunfermline, Mr Jacob Primmer,
was their mouthpiece, and was deputed to stump the country in defence of
bare walls and a precentor. On him the Professor loosed the vials of his
invective. "I hear," he said, "you've got a man in this town called Jacob
Primmer, who says that worship can't be true unless it is ugly. Let him come
to me, and I'll prove liiiii an ass in five minutes." At the close up
stepped the Rev. Jacob Primmer and demanded to be proved an ass. The
Professor was taken aback for a moment, but recovered with copious
quotations from the Psalms, and wound up with a plea for dancing as a
religious rite. Mr Primmer took it in excellent part, and next day the two
were seen arm ill making a round of the sights of Dunfermline.
He has summed up his own
misdemeanors in lilies addressed to his wife, when she requested him to
cultivate a manner void of offence oil platform of the Philosophical
Institution. "Pious Resolutions, by a prospective Lecturer," he called the
verses
I sober truth and sense will
speak,
Sense from all nonsense free
With wisdom in a perfect way
Shall my two lectures be.
I will endure no sportive whim
Before my mind to play,
No pictured bubble born to burst,
But sober, grave, and grey!
I will not send a shallow jest
Light rattling through the hail
An idle and a foolish song
I will not sing at all !
I will not flourish my stout stick,
or in my plaid appear,
But sit like judges in the court,
Sage, solemn, and severe!
I will not touch with rude
offence
A thin-skinned man at all,
But softly shape the thornless thought
To please both great and small.
I will be polished in my phrase,
Judicial in my tone,
That all who hear well pleased shall say,
How wise is Blackie grown!
As a diner-out his alert
vivacity and repartee made him welcome. To sit beside Professor Blackie at a
public banquet was to he one of the most happily placed at the table,
although it involved some hard thumps on the back, and some effort to be
equal to the sudden appeals for the faith within. It also involved liability
to public embrace if the responses demanded were to the point and pleasing,
but it also ensured immunity from boredom. Called upon for a song, and
sometimes unrequested, the Professor would give "Jenny Geddes," "Woo'd and
married and a'," or "Get up and bar the door," with vigour. In earlier days
it was the "Battle of the Nile," or "Hermann the German," and then the voice
was sweet and resonant. Towards the end its volume failed, and had to be
supplemented with action suited to the verse.
In conversation he liked to
startle, and shone as a fighter. Calling on a lady, lie said abruptly, When
I walk along Princes Street, I go with a kingly air, my head erect, my chest
expanded, my hair flowing, my plaid flying, my stick swinging. Do you know
what makes me do that? Well, I'll tell you - just con-ceit."
Mr Seton relates that "at a
dinner-party given by the late Sir James Falshaw a verbal contest took place
between Blackie and Dr Hodgson, in which some excellent hits were made on
both sides—Blackie excited and explosive, while Hodgson was calm and self-
controlled. At last the Greek Professor put down his knife and fork with the
cry, 'Hodgson, I surrender!
Sometimes he would rise and
make a tour of the table to reach his antagonist and tackle him more
effectually. He took everything in good part, and expected the like
treatment from others.
But nowhere was he seen to
such advantage as at the meetings of the Hellenic Society, particularly when
these took place in his own house. Mr Burness in the following pages gives
us a glimpse into the social doings on these occasions :-
Professor Blackie was seen at
his very best at the meetings of the Hellenic Society. These were held
fortnightly during the winter months in the houses of members by rotation.
It is impossible to give any one who never saw him on these occasions any
idea of the versatility of his talent, the brilliance and readiness of his
wit, or the exuberance of his animal spirits. I was admitted in 1859, and
among the members at that time were Dr Lindsay Alexander, Dr John Brown,
Lord Neaves, Robert Herdman, Prof. Gairdner, Dr John Muir, Celt Nicolson,
Prof. Bayne, Dr Donaldson, and the Rev. Alexander Webster. We got through a
good deal of Greek, but the great feature of the meetings was the symposium
which followed. As the hour drew nigh, the Professor became conscious, as he
said, of  which,
ascending from the dining-room, gradually became perceptible in the
drawing-room, where the readings were held. When the tables were cleared the
Professor generally quoted in paraphrase the motto of the 'Noctes
Arnbrosiana'
"This is a distich by wise old
Phocylicles,
An ancient who wrote crabbed Greek in no silly days;
Meaning, ''Tis right for good wine-bibbing people
Not to let the jug pace round the board like a cripple,
But gaily to chat while discussing their tipple.'
An excellent rule of the hearty old cock 'tis
And a very fit motto to put to our Noctes."
Then fixing his eye on the
symposiarch, he rose to propose the health of that gentleman, first
commanding the removal of any epergne or ornament which obstructed his view.
This he did iii the historic phrase, "Remove that bauble!"
His speeches were simply
inimitable; but they were surpassed by his songs. I question whether
anything he has said or written will survive "Sam Sumph " or "Jenny Geddes."
The only other regular toast permitted was that of the Despoinct, unless
there happened to be a distinguished stranger present, when a similar
compliment was paid to him. If the unfortunate man happened to be from
Oxford o Cambridge, the honour done him was almost neutralised by the
torrent of abuse with which his University was at the same time assailed.
Alas! "Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of
merriment that were wont to set the table in a roar?" The remembrance of
Blackie and the Hellenic Society suggests the reminder to Ben Jonson of
"Those lyric feasts
Where men such clusters had
As made them nobly wild, not mad;
While yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."
The following is a specimen
of how the Professor's health was sometimes drunk at these jovial meetings
"To PROFESSOR BLACKIE.
"Blackie! thou art a Scotsman
to the core,—
No 'Oxford prig episcopizer,' fed
On cates and comfits and the rosy red
Of alien grape; but one who lovest more
Cauld kail from Aberdeen's grim granite shore,
Haggis and brose of Athole, kebbuck instead
Of gorgonzola; for thy dress a plaid
For lyre the pipes; for letters Celtic lore.
Thou hear'st not Beethoven;
and thy spirit loathes
The idiot song of West-End coteries.
'Oh for some lilt of love and lover's oaths
Sung by some Hebe of the Hebrides,
Or Oban auburn maid trampling the clothes
And standing in her tub, as erst Diogenes.'
In far corners of the world
his name was an inspiration to Scotchmen who had known him. The home papers
were ransacked for news of Blackie. An old student recorded in the pages of
'The Liberal' soon after his death :-
It was the writer's
fortune once, in the dense Australian bush, hundreds of miles distant
from the nearest civilisation, to come across a shingle-splitter who had
seen better days, but whom the drink demon had reduced from the status
of a scholar to that of a waif and a pariah. As we sat beside his
camp-fire watching our "billy" of tea boil, as soon as he knew I hailed
from Edinburgh he cried, "Man, how's old Blackie?" In the very bowels of
the earth once, when down some five hundred feet in the famous Prince
Imperial Gold Mine, on the Thames Field, New Zealand, a humble miner,
who nevertheless could write M.A. after his name, accosted me with the
query, "I say, mate, were you under good old Blackie in Edinburgh?" Go
where you pleased—and I have wandered over a good part of the world's
surface—there you would find men who not only had been students under
the grand old man, but who loved him and reverenced him even as sons a
father.
And men who had not come
directly in contact with him had caught the same contagion of love and
reverence from what they knew of his life and work. A friend travelling in
South Africa found hospitality at a farmhouse in a lonely spot, far from
neighbours and from news. She asked the farmer what requital she could make
on her return to Scotland. " Send me Blackie's last book," he said; "nothing
could be so welcome." He got it with the author's autograph and a verse of
his writing for inscription.
Mr Lees of Boleside,
Galashiels, coining back from New York some years ago, found in the
steerage, which he used to visit, an engineer who had made a little
competence in the West Indies, and was coming home to spend it in making his
old mother comfortable. Talking of Edinburgh one day this man asked him,
"Div ye ken Blackie?" and when Mr Lees explained that the Professor and he
were personal friends, the worthy engineer seized his arm and shook it in
his excitement : "Ye ken Blackie I ye ken Blackie Man, he's juist ma deity.
One summer day Mr Lees took
an old nurse—of ninety years "—a jaunt up Yarrow on the coach. Blackie was a
fellow-passenger, and talked away with friendly readiness to her, and when
he left she turned in great excitement to say, "Eh, he's graund I He's a'
folks say o' him."
Professor Blackie was no
politician so far as purty politics go. He was, as he said himself, not a
politician, but a student of politics—interested in public measures and
administration only so far as they enabled him to comprehend the principles
on which political conduct is based, and out of which social progress
proceeds." From the party point of view he felt himself "an altogether
exceptional creature in this corner of the world. As a. practical man and a
good citizen, I only take part in political movements when I see that I can
thoroughly understand the debatable ground, and can do some good by giving
my vote on the right side."
It is not surprising to find,
therefore, that his vote was given sometimes on one side and sometimes on
the other. He explains in the "Notes" that "in the main I have been a
Liberal, though I voted twice with the Tories, to the great astonishment of
partisan politicians. To my nature there is nothing more abhorrent than
party feeling; my delight is on all occasions to search out and to
acknowledge the good of my antagonist, and to give him my hearty applause
when I think he is right." Following this inclination, he once gave one of
his two votes in Edinburgh to a Liberal and the other to a Tory, because he
liked the men, and saw no reason why both parties should not be represented
in Parliament to correct each other! "None the less I was a good sound
Liberal: God made me so emphatically."
Only where great public
enthusiasm demanded reforms far higher than party motives, could he feel
himself at the source of their movement, and in sympathy with their
direction. All attempts to enrol him as a partisan were ineffectual, and he
retained for himself the liberty of speaking and voting as he pleased. He
attacked what seemed to him injustice and wrong-dealing in high places in
his own way.
The moment I saw my
adversary clearly defined before me, I marched at once into his camp
with drawn sword in hand, and gave him my card. This abrupt way of
asserting far-reaching principles, and it may be attacking time-hallowed
institutions, though it might not have been always prudent, as the world
loves the word, was, I am convinced, time way in which God meant me to
act.
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