|
NO account of
Scotland's influence on the world in the general advance of
civilization would be complete without some notice of her literature
and her authorship. It is here, perhaps, that her educational and
elevating influence comes most distinctly into view and is most
generally appreciated. It is by her public press, not less than by
her sacred pulpit, that Scotland has spread her opinions before the
reading world and become to a large extent a leader of its thought
and a teacher of its youth. By her books, her public presses, her
world-admired authors, Scotland's influence has gone largely into
the education not only of the British nation, but of the whole
English-speaking race. It is at least one of the potential factors
in the problem of the education and the right direction of this now
most prominent and influential of all civilized races.
At this point,
however, our survey widens into a field almost illimitable. Who is
competent to bring into one brief sketch the literary, scientific,
political, educational and religious authorship of the last two
centuries of Scottish history ? In nothing has this small country
been more preeminently distinguished than in that brilliant galaxy
of authorship which stretches its starry belt across the whole
literary firmament. In every department of literature, science, art,
invention, philosophy, her writers have risen to the first rank and
sent their influence to the ends of the earth. Her text-books of
philosophy, theology, political, legal and medical science,
education and reform, have found their way into the schools of all
EngIish-speaking Christendom; while the great periodical magazines
and reviews have helped to form the opinions, to shape the thinking
and to direct the practical administration of all nations. Scotland
has thus become for generations past a "city set on a hill whose
light could not be hid."
That tremendous
energy of character which through all the early ages spent itself in
vasting wars and carnage, as soon as the sword was sheathed at the
Union of 1707, took the direction of peaceful invention, of useful
industry, of practical discovery, of scientific research, of
philosophical inquiry, of poetic inspiration, of historical romance,
of educational reform, of political enfranchisement, of religious
discussion, of elegant letters, absorbing and developing the
best-cultivated intellect of the country. And now for a hundred and
seventy years this highly cultivated and thoroughly-disciplined
intellectual and moral force—equal, probably, in native ability to
any that ever existed in any land—has been expending all its
resources in productions and achievements that not unfrequently
evince the highest triumphs of genius. Military glory has been
exchanged for the civic arm and the laurel-wreath, and Scotland's
pen has become mightier than the sword.
Thus modern Scotland,
in place of a home of warriors, has grown to be the abode of an
industrious, thriving, wealthy and happy people sending their
well-trained and God-fearing sons and daughters into all the
colonies of the British crown and into all new countries around the
globe, there to make independent and happy homes for themselves.
Scotland herself is filled with such homes, from the palatial
residences of noble and gentry down to the humblest dwellings of her
Christian yeomanry. It was of such Christian homes, where her
humblest cottagers ply their daily toil and eat their frugal meal,
that the greatest of her national bards sang:
"From scenes like
these Old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad;
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
An honest man's the noblest work of God."
One crowning glory of
Scotland—that which gives her moral power at home and educational
influence all around the globe—is her Christian literature and her
illustrious authorship. Her literature is for the most part baptized
with the spirit of the gospel and consecrated at the altar of
Christ. No literature of any land has been purer, more elevating,
more inspiring in all its aims and influences, for none has ever
been more fully pervaded with the very life and character of
Christianity. The deep inspiration that conies from the Bible, alike
pervading pulpit and press, is the true source of that influence
which has made Scotland so potential in the education and
civilization of recent times.
Hugh Miller somewhere
remarks that England has reached a higher rank of authorship than
Scotland ever attained—that Scotland has produced no Shakespeare, no
Milton, no Bacon, no Sir Isaac Newton, no John Locke. Is not this an
overstretch of candor against his own country in the honest
Scotsman? With as much truth it may be said that England has
produced no Burns, no Walter Scott, no James Watt, no Sir William
Hamilton, no Mary Somerville. It is difficult and unfair to offset
the children of genius against one another. Each has his own high
and divine vocation; each is supreme in his own line of excellence.
England to this day has no Hugh Miller; Scotland never had but one,
and may never have another. John Knox and Thomas Chalmers, Robert
Burns and Walter Scott, Mary Somerville and Hugh Miller, David
Livingstone and Alexander Duff, belong to that class of characters
which we describe as sui generis. They cannot well be compared with
others, but each is in his own order unique and supreme. As we go to
England to find the highest Shakespeare and the sublimest Milton the
race has produced, we go to Scotland to see the noblest Burns and
the greatest Scott. Incomparable Robert Burns, as distinguished in
song as Bruce was in battle; the child of poverty, the child of
genius, the child of nature; the poet of humanity, the man of
feeling, the interpreter of the common people, the artist of the
soul; loved, honored, idolized, by all Scotsmen, at home and abroad,
as no poet was ever loved before; his memory as fresh and green
to-day in the hearts of his countrymen as it was three-quarters of a
century ago; notwithstanding all his faults and foibles a true
representative of the national heart and character, and therefore
entitled to wear, as he does wear, the laureate-crown of Scotland!
No name in literature
perhaps has won a more profound and cordial homage for the genius of
the man, and at the same time a deeper sympathy for the errors and
misfortunes that so beset and darkened his pathway. How truly he
struck all the deepest and tenderest chords of feeling in his
matchless songs! And how have the hearts of all civilized men who
read his mother-tongue responded in loving admiration to those songs
ever since he, the unfriended ploughman, first struck his inspiring
lyre! As truly of him as of Byron might his countryman Pollok have
said:
"He touched his harp,
and nations heard entranced."
Since the close of
this unhappy life there is scarcely an English or American writer of
any prominence in literature who has not paid a loving tribute to
the memory of Burns. His unadorned and simple verse has been an
inspiration of beauty and of love to the young poets of all the
generations that have followed. The humble dwelling in Ayreshire
where he first saw the light and the substantial monument that
overlooks the Doon have been a sort of shrine where the travelers of
all lands have come to attest their homage for his genius and their
appreciation of the noble sentiments of truth and goodness that
adorned his verse. It was in fitting recognition of the genius which
had conferred such honor upon Scotland that his countrymen long
after his death erected on one of the hills of their ancient capital
a stately and imposing monument to Burns. In after-years another
prominent site of the city was crowned in like manner with the
magnificent monument of Scott. Edinburgh wears them both proudly
among her crown jewels. Poets, orators, divines and statesmen in all
civilized lands have found the name of Burns a fruitful theme, and
vied with one another in throwing a chaplet of honor on his brow. In
recent times his distinguished countrymen Thomas Carlyle and
Principal Shairp have written, each with clear discrimination, and
yet with eminently just appreciation, loving monographs on his life
and character. Nothing, perhaps, in all Mr. Carlyle's numerous
writings is more admirable than this sketch of the peasant-poet.
What achievements in
verse beyond those so early won might he not •have reached had he
but escaped those evil influences which at last overmastered his
splendid powers and brought him to a premature grave ere he had
passed the meridian of life! But even as it is he sang so sweetly,
so truly, so gloriously, as to embalm his name for ever in the
hearts of his countrymen and make that name a familiar household
word in every habitation of the English-speaking race. That name is
to-day one of the honored and enduring names of all literature. That
name, despite the foibles of the poet, is a potential influence for
humanity, for freedom, for universal brotherhood and good-will among
men and nations, for right and justice, honesty and truth. It is a
talisman to charm the world and make old Scotia's power felt
wherever the foot of man has trod.
Who stands next among
her canonized bards? Unquestionably, Walter Scott. His, however, is
a double diadem. To the laurel-crown of poesy is added the
amaranthine chaplet of historical romance, and the later outshines
the earlier glory. Genius is the most wonderful endowment of man. It
is hard to say what genius cannot do. It is not often given to human
genius to achieve the highest excellence in two departments of
literature so distinct as those of poetic numbers and prose fiction,
yet Walter Scott, apparently at a bound and without an effort, won
them both. As the new and romantic bard of the North he sang his Lay
of the Last Minstrel, his Lacy of the Lake and Marmion in strains so
sweet and joyous, and anon so martial and heroic, so true to nature
and to Scotland, that the world heard entranced. And then, when he
stood on these poetic heights, he purposed in his heart to take
another step. As the author of Waverly----the "Great Unknown" —he
poured forth in rapid succession that brilliant series of historical
romances and life-fictions which for power of delineation,
fascinating interest and universal popularity find scarcely a
parallel in the annals of literature. All Scotland hailed him as the
great enchanter; all the world recognized him as standing single and
supreme in a department of literature which his own genius may be
said to have created, and in which to this day he stands without an
equal amongst his successors and imitators. Ile made a new era for
Scotland. He opened Scotland to all the world as it had never been
opened before. He threw a new charm over Scottish history and over
Scottish scenery. The world read and admired; to this day it has not
ceased to read and admire. Travelers from all lands rushed in to
gaze upon the scenes of grandeur and beauty depicted on his pages.
In literary history no man, perhaps, has ever done so much by his
pen for a country as Scott did for Scotland—so much to exalt the
national character and make it known to all the world. It has been
well said that Scotland is now Scott's-land. And Abbotsford is the
culminating glory of it all. 'Tis a fine tribute to the character of
Walter Scott which is given by Alexander Smith: "Never was an author
so popular as Scott, and never was popularity worn so lightly and
gracefully. In his own heart he did not value it highly, and he
cared more for his plantations at Abbotsford than for his poems and
his novels. He was loved by everybody. George IV. on his visit to
the northern kingdom declared that Scott was the man he most wished
to see. He was a great, simple, sincere, warm-hearted man. The mass
of his greatness takes away from our sense of its height. He is the
light in which Scotland is now seen. He has proclaimed all over the
world Scottish story, Scottish humor, Scottish feeling and Scottish
virtue."
There can be no doubt
that the literature of Scotland took a new departure with the
writings of this gifted man. In him the North Briton became a very
cosmopolitan whose teeming productions commanded the admiration of
the world. The "author of Waverley" belonged not alone to Scotland,
but to literature—to all lands, all classes, all generations, of
men. When the veil of mystery that had so long concealed his
identity was at length lifted, the noble character of the man was as
conspicuous as the consummate genius of the author.
No writer of modern
times has done more to revive and to keep alive the spirit of past
ages than Sir Walter Scott. In this respect he has been the
benefactor of the world. He has thrown over history a light of
romance in which the young and the aged of each generation since his
time have continued to read it with new interest. This he has done
by both his poetry and his historical novels, in all of which,
unlike many of his successors, he invariably adhered to the most
exalted standard of virtue and wrote no line which the moralist
could wish to blot.
Able critics like
Professor Shairp have pointed out the striking resemblance between
his longer romantic poems, such as the Lay, Lady of the Lake and
Marmion, and the heroic poems of Homer. In these national ballads of
Scott there is not a little of the life and fire as well as of the
descriptive energy of the highest epic poetry, and the true Homeric
spirit of the Iliad is breathed forth in all his battle-scenes, such
as that of "Flodden Field," in the last canto of Marinion, or that
of "Bannockburn" in the Lord of the Isles, or even that of "Fitzjames
and Roderick D'hu," in the Lady of 1/he Lake. Leaving out of view
the supernatural machinery of the old pagan mythology which Homer
delighted to introduce, these spirited pieces of Sir Walter would
not suffer in comparison with the descriptions of the very prince of
poets.
In Professor Shairp's
fine little volume on the Aspects of Poetry, in speaking of Scott's
influence on the world, and especially of his wonderful power to
delight the heart of childhood and youth almost beyond any other
writer, the author gives us the following very suggestive remarks:
"Moralists before now have asked, `What has Scott done by all his
singing about battles and knights and chivalry but merely amuse his
fellow-men? Has he in any way really elevated and improved them?' It
might be enough to answer this question by saying that of all
writers, in verse or prose, he has done most to make us understand
history, to let in light and sympathy upon a wide range of ages
which had become dumb and meaningless to men, and which but for him
might have continued so still. There must be something high or noble
in that which can so take unsophisticated hearts. In his later days
Scott is reported to have asked Laidlaw what he thought the moral
influence of his writings had been. 'Laidlaw well replied that his
works were the delight of the young, and that to have so reached
their hearts was surely a good work to have done.' Scott was
affected almost to tears, as well he might be. Again, not the young
only, but the old, those who have kept themselves most childlike,
who have carried the boy's heart farthest with them into life,—they
have loved Scott's poetry even to the end. Something of this, no
doubt, may be attributed to the pleasure of reverting in age to the
things that have delighted our boyhood. But would the best and
purest men have cared to do this if the things which delighted their
boyhood had not been worthy? It is the great virtue of Scott's
poetry, and of his novels also, that, quite forgetting self, they
describe man and outward nature broadly, truly, genially as they
are. All contemporary poetry—indeed, all contemporary
literature—goes to work in the exactly opposite direction, shaping
men and things after patterns self-originated from within,
describing and probing human feelings and motives with an analysis
so searching that all manly impulse withers before it and
single-hearted straightforwardness becomes a thing impossible.
Against this whole tendency of modern poetry and fiction, so
weakening, so morbidly self-conscious, so unhealthily introspective,
what more effective antidote than the bracing atmosphere of Homer
and Shakespeare and Scott?"
This able and
accomplished writer closes his justly-appreciative criticism upon
his gifted countryman with the following passage, which may be
commended not only to Scotsmen, but to all admirers of the character
and genius of Scott throughout the world: "To have awakened and kept
alive in an artificial and too money-loving age that character of
mind which we call romantic,' which by transformation can become
something so much beyond itself, is, even from the severest moral
point of view, no mean merit. To higher than this few poets can lay
claim. But let the critics praise him, or let them blame. It matters
not: his reputation will not wane, but will grow with time.
Therefore we do well to make much of Walter Scott. He is the only
Homer who has been vouchsafed to Scotland—I might almost say, to
modern Europe. He came at the latest hour when it was possible for a
great epic minstrel to be born, and the altered condition of the
world will not admit of another."
We can scarcely agree
with so sweeping a vaticination. There are yet more things in heaven
and earth than are known to our philosophy or sung by any
minstrelsy. The writer forgets that there is a great Western world,
with its teeming millions and its rising civilizations and its
unfathomed capacities, that as yet has had but little history, still
less philosophy, and is only collecting the materials for its epics.
The possibilities of the future on this side of the Atlantic are
still large.
After Burns and
Scott, there is a brilliant array of poets and literary writers
whose names are household words with all who speak the English
tongue--Snnollett and Falconer; MacPherson, Boswell and Beattie;
Thomson, sweet singer of the Seasons; Campbell, author of the
Pleasures of Hope; Graham, the bard of the Sabbath; Mackenzie, the
Scottish Addison, author of the Man of Feeling; Professor Wilson, of
the Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life; Robert Pollok, of the
Course of Time; James Montgomery, the sweet psalmist of the Church;
Motherwell and Aytoun: Jane Porter, Joanna Baillie, Allan Ramsay,
George Macdonald, John Lockhart, Lord Jeffrey and the great
reviewers.
Nor has the Muse of
History withheld her wreath from Scottish brows. The historical
writers of Scotland, in the fullness of their research and in the
splendor of their diction, hold a rank not excelled by any of the
great historians of modern times. High on the rolls of fame stand
the great names of George Buchanan, William Robertson, David Hume,
Sir Archibald Alison, Thomas Carlyle and Sir James Mackintosh, the
latter to his brilliant genius as a profound philosophical historian
adding the still more brilliant reputation of the jurist, the
statesman and the orator. As an advocate at the bar and as a debater
in the British Parliament, like his countrymen and predecessors on
the same field, Lord Erskine and Chief-Justice Mansfield, he won his
way to the foremost rank of greatness in an age of great men. This
distinguished trio—Erskine, Mansfield and Mackintosh.—may be taken
as the representatives of a class of North Britons who, finding
Edinburgh too small for their genius, have pressed their way to the
metropolis of the empire, and from the high seats of power in
Parliament, on the bench and in the Cabinet have made their names
and their influence felt as far as Britain's power is felt. In
eloquence, learning and statesmanship there are no greater names
than those of the Scotch trio—Erskine, Mansfield and Mackintosh.
They are the full-grown compeers and equals of Chatham, Fox and
Burke, and on this high ground of eloquence Scotland stands side by
side with England.
Of the writers just
named, some might almost be called the oracles of literary opinion,
so great was the reputation they gained at home and so wide their
celebrity abroad through their varied productions. Such was the case
with the learned and at that time popular historians Hume, Robertson
and Alison, read all over England and America. So was it with the
eloquent and brilliant Sir James Mackintosh, always the advocate of
popular rights. Equally popular and fascinating in their day were
the writings of John Wilson ("Christopher North") and the critics of
the Edinburgh Review and Blackwood's Magazine, and a host of young
writers, some of Scotch and some of English birth, like Lord
Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, Sydney Smith, Thomas de Quincey, Thomas
Macaulay, John Lockhart and Mackintosh, who either in person
gathered around Edinburgh as their literary metropolis or through
the pages of the great Reviews held periodical communication with
the reading public of the world.
In this connection
one distinguished name deserves a more distinct notice as filling a
large space in the world's thought during much of the present
century. It is that of Thomas Carlyle, a Scotchman by birth and
education, who spent the larger portion of his protracted life at
Chelsea, near London, where by his numerous writings he achieved the
widest literary renown as a profound and original thinker. He lived
in a circle of men of letters of the highest order, where his
brilliant genius was fully appreciated, and probably no one of them
all during his whole career obtained a stronger hold upon the
world's attention. His first important work, the Sartor Resartus of
some fifty years ago, introduced him to the public as a remarkable
writer, and his succeeding volumes—Heroes and Hero- Worship, The
Life and Letters of Cromwell, The French Revolution, Frederick the
Great, Miscellanies and Latter Day Pamphlets—but served to confirm
the public estimate of his great ability. His writings have been
read around the globe. They have been a power among all civilized
men of our times, and it may be questioned whether any single writer
of the century has exerted a wider and deeper influence over the
minds of men, especially of young men. Some of these writings have
become a part of the permanent literature of the age, and, though
there has come a reaction against his influence as an oracle of
opinion, they will no doubt long continue to be read with interest.
Carlyle wrote no
poems; he rather held the verse-makers in contempt, as he did so
many other classes. Still, his writings have some of the noblest
elements of poetry. He has been styled a great prose- -poet, though
he is far from being a fine prose-writer. He sets all the laws of
good English at defiance and sacrifices every element of grace and
beauty on the altar of giant strength. In vigor and impassioned
fervor no one ever went beyond him. His countryman Professor Shairp,
in an admirable critique on his genius, says: "Carlyle's book on the
French Revolution has been called the great modern epic; and so it
is—an epic as true and germane to this age as Homer's was to his."
As to religious opinion, it is difficult to say what Mr. Carlyle
held—if, indeed, he held anything firmly. One of his contemporaries
not unaptly describes him as "a Puritan who had lost his religion."
He would appear, however, never to have given up the two fundamental
beliefs in God and immortality. Unquestionably, his writings
inculcate throughout a stern and high morality as set forth in the
Christian Scriptures. Professor Shairp says: "Though the
superstructure of Puritanism had disappeared, the original
superstructure remained: the stern, stoical Calvinism of his nature
was the foundation on which all his views were built. His religious
faith, if we may venture to trace it, would seem to be the result of
three things----his own strong, stern nature, his early Calvinistic
training, and these two transformed by the after-influx of German
transcendentalism tempered by Goethism." |
