TENNANT, WILLIAM, LL.D.,
Professor of Oriental Languages in St. Mary’s College, St. Andrews.—This
most accomplished linguist and excellent poet was born in Anstruther, a
royal burgh on the south-eastern coast of Fife, once a town and seaport of
great commercial importance in the history of Scotland, but which has now
dwindled, in the course of mercantile changes, into a place of little note.
He was, however, the fellow-townsman and contemporary of Dr. Chalmers. He
was born in the year 1784. His father, who was a small merchant in
Anstruther, appears to have been a man in straitened circumstances, while in
early infancy the future poet and professor, without any original
malformation, lost the use of both his feet, and was obliged for life to
move upon crutches. Thus desperate from the beginning was his chance of
attaining to excellence and distinction. But within that puny frame was
lodged a spirit that could wrestle down such obstacles, and grow stronger
from the conflict.
In those days it was the
custom in Scotland, that whosoever was thought not fit to be anything else,
was judged good enough to be a teacher, and destined accordingly; and thus
it too often happened that our parochial seminaries were Bethesda pools,
surrounded by the lame, the halt, and paralytic, waiting for the friendly
hand of patronage to lift them into office when a vacancy occurred. It was
not wonderful, therefore, that the poor lame boy was educated with the view
of permanently occupying a schoolmaster’s chair, instead of poussing
his fortune by a life of travel and adventure. He was accordingly sent
betimes to the schools of his native town, and after he had learned all that
they could teach him, he was transferred in 1799 to the university of St.
Andrews, with the view of finishing his education. One so fitted to be a
linguist by nature, could not fail to make a rapid progress under the
prelections of such instructors as Dr. Hunter and Dr. Hill. After having
spent two years at the United College, St. Andrews, in the study of the
classics, the state of pecuniary affairs at home did not permit him to enjoy
the usual curriculum, and he was hastily recalled to Anstruther. In the
meantime, however, by the study of two languages, he had acquired the key
that could unlock them all, be his circumstances what they might; and of
this facility he soon showed himself a ready occupant. Independently of the
higher Latin and Greek writers, so seldom mastered at our universities, but
with which he became as conversant as with the authors of his own tongue, he
ventured upon the study of Hebrew, with no other teachers than a dictionary
and grammar, and made such proficiency, that in half a year and three days
he read through the whole of the Hebrew Bible. While thus employed in the
study of languages at Anstruther, and laying the foundation of his
future renown and success, the claims of business called him away to Glasgow
in 1803-4, where he was employed as clerk to his brother, a corn-factor in
that city; and on the removal of the business to his native town a year
after, he continued in the same capacity in Anstruther. While thus exalted
upon the high tripod of a counting-house, or haggling with borrel
discontented farmers upon the price of aits and barley—an admirable
specimen of the "pursuit of knowledge under difficulties"—he was making, by
his unaided efforts, and in his moments of leisure, such acquirements as the
halls of Oxford or Cambridge would have been proud to have enshrined.
Language after language yielded before his onset, whether dead or living,
whether barbarous or refined, whether eastern, western, northern, or
southern. One startling proof of this desperate indomitable perseverance, as
well as peculiar aptitude in acquiring a tongue, was, that in a very few
weeks after studying the Gaelic, reckoned the most impracticable of all
living languages, he was able to read the whole of the Highland New
Testament with ease and fluency.
While William Tennant was
thus laudably occupied, a more than ordinary portion of the cares of life
interposed to annoy him. The business of a corn-factor, in which his brother
was engaged in Anstruther, was unsuccessful, and became involved in such
pecuniary responsibilities, that the principal found it advisable to make a
hasty retreat, leaving poor William, his substitute, to answer in his stead.
This the latter did, not only by enduring incarceration, as if he had been
the real debtor, but a large amount of obloquy to boot, from those who went
in search of the assets of the business, but could not find them. After the
innocent scape-goat had sustained his unmerited share of reproach and
imprisonment, he was set free, upon which he retired to his father’s humble
dwelling. He was soon to emerge into the world in a new character. To his
remarkable powers of application and abstraction, by which he was enabled to
acquire so many languages, he added the higher qualities of taste and
imagination, so that the study of poetry and the occupation of verse-making
had been alternated with his graver pursuits. He now set himself in earnest
to attempt authorship as a poet, and the result was "Anster Fair," not only
the first, but the best of all the productions he has given to the world.
Its chances of fame were at first extremely precarious, for it appeared in
1811 in a humble unpretending form, and from the obscure press of an
Anstruther publisher. It was thus accessible to few except the peasants and
shopkeepers of Fife, who had no fitting relish for such poetical caviare;
so that, after languishing a year unnoticed it might have passed into
oblivion, but for one of those simple accidents that sometimes arrest a work
of merit in full transit, and restore it to its proper place. Lord
Woodhouselee, the accomplished scholar and critic, having seen the little
volume, perused it—and to read it, was to admire and appreciate. Anxious to
know who the author was—for the poem was published anonymously—and to make
his merits known to the world, he applied to Mr. Cockburn, the Anstruther
publisher, for information, in the following letter:—
"SIR,—I have lately
read, with a very high degree of pleasure, a small poetical performance,
which, I observe, bears your name as publisher on the title-page. The author
of ‘Anster Fair’ cannot long remain concealed. It contains, in my opinion,
unequivocal marks of strong original genius, a vein of humour of an uncommon
cast, united with a talent for natural description of the most vivid and
characteristic species, and, above all, a true feeling of the
sublime—forming altogether one of the most pleasing and singular
combinations of the different powers of poetry that I have ever met with.
Unless the author has very strong reasons for concealing his name, I must
own that I should be much gratified by being informed of it. "ALEX.
FRASER TYTLER."
After this, "Anster Fair"
began to be read in circles where it could be best appreciated, and a
criticism in the "Edinburgh Review," from the discriminating pen of Jeffrey,
in 1814, established the character of the poem as one of the most talented
and remarkable productions of its kind that had yet appeared. Its merits are
thus summed up by the lynx-eyed, accomplished critic: "The great charm of
this singular composition consists, no doubt, in the profusion of images and
groups which it thrusts upon the fancy, and the crowd, and hurry, and
animation with which they are all jostled and driven along; but this, though
a very rare merit in any modern production, is entitled perhaps to less
distinction than the perpetual sallies and outbreakings of a rich and
poetical imagination, by which the homely themes on which the author is
professedly employed, are constantly ennobled or contrasted, and in which
the ardour of a mind evidently fitted for higher tasks is somewhat
capriciously expended. It is this frequent kindling of the diviner
spirit—this tendency to rise above the trivial subjects among which he has
chosen to disport himself, and this power of connecting grand or beautiful
conceptions with the representation of vulgar objects or ludicrous
occurrences—that first recommended this poem to our notice, and still seem
to us to entitle it to more general notoriety. The author is occupied, no
doubt, in general with low matters, and bent upon homely mirth, but his
genius soars up every now and then in spite of him; and ‘his delights ‘—to
use a quaint expression of Shakspeare—:
-----‘his delights
Are dolphin-like, and show their backs above
The element they move in.’"
Thus far the critic. The
groundwork which the poet selected for this diversified and gorgeous
superstructure, was as unpromising as it well could be, for it was the dirty
and unpicturesque Loan of Anster; the sports were sack-racing, ass-racing,
and a yelling competition of bagpipes; and the chief personages of the tale
were Maggie Lauder, a nymph of less than doubtful reputation in the songs
and legends of Fife, and Rob the Ranter, a swaggering, deboshed bagpiper, of
no better character. All this, however, was amplified into a tale of
interest, as well as purified and aggrandized by redeeming touches; so that,
while Maggie under his hands became a chaste bride, and Rob the pink of
rural yeomanry, Puck, almost as kingly as Oberon himself, and his tiny dame,
scarcely less fair than Titania, take a part in the revels. And the
exuberant wit that sparkles, effervesces, and bubbles o’er the brim—the
mirth and fun, that grow fast and furious as the dancing nimble-footed
stanzas proceed—for all this, too, we can find a sufficient cause, not only
in the temperament of the poet, but the peculiar circumstances under which
the poem was produced. For Tennant himself, although a cripple, so that he
could not move except upon crutches, was requited for the loss by a buoyancy
of spirit, that bore him more lightly through the ills of life than most
men. In addition to this, also, it must be remembered that he had been
impoverished, imprisoned, and villified; and that "Anster Fair" was the
natural rebound of a happy cheerful spirit, that sought and found within
itself a bright and merry world of its own, in which it could revel to the
full, undisturbed by debts, duns, writs, empty pockets, and sour malignant
gossipred. What were John Doe and Richard Roe compared with Rob the Ranter
and his bright-haired Maggie, or with Puck and his little Mab fresh from
their imprisonment of mustard-pot and pepper-box? These were circumstances
that made him write in such a rattling mirthful strain as he never
afterwards reached, when every aid of an honoured and prosperous condition
stood obedient beside his learned chair.
As for the mechanical
structure of the poem, this too was happily suited to the subject, being as
completely out of the beaten track as the tale itself. The following is his
own account of it in his original preface: "The poem is written in stanzas
of octave rhyme, or the ottava rima of the Italians, a measure said
to be invented by Boccaccio, and after him employed by Tasso and Ariosto.
From these writers it was transferred into English poetry by Fairfax, in his
translation of "Jerusalem Delivered," but since his days has been by our
poets, perhaps, too little cultivated. The stanza of Fairfax is here shut
with the ‘Alexandrine’ of Spenser, that its close may be more full and
sounding." It was not the least of Tennant’s poetical achievements, that he
restored this long-neglected stanza into full use in English poetry. It was
adopted by Lord Byron in his "Beppo" and "Don Juan," and has since been
followed by a whole host of imitators, both in the serious and comic strain.
As it was not by poetry,
however, that William Tennant meant to live, he set himself in earnest to
the humble and laborious, but less precarious occupation of a schoolmaster,
for which he had been originally designed. In 1813, he was so fortunate as
to be appointed teacher of a school in the parish of Denino, a district
situated between Anstruther and St. Andrews, and about five miles from the
last-named seat of learning. And it speaks not a little for his contented
spirit and moderate wishes, that he accepted a situation yielding only £40 a
year, at a time when his poetical reputation had obtained a fair start in
the race, while his acquirements as a linguist could scarcely have been
matched in Scotland. But for the present he was fully content with a quiet
little cottage, and access to the stores of St. Andrews’ college library;
and here, without any other teacher than books, he made himself master of
the Syriac, Persian, and Arabic languages. From his limited means he also
published a second edition of "Anster Fair," much superior in typography and
external appearance to the humble little volume that had first issued from
the press of Anstruther. After labouring three years at Denino, where he had
little literary society of any kind, except that of Hugh Cleghorn, Esq., of
Stravithie, and the minister of the parish, Tennant was promoted to the more
lucrative situation of schoolmaster of Lasswade, chiefly through the kind
offices of Mr. George Thomson, the friend and correspondent of Burns.
Besides the superior means which he now possessed of pursuing his beloved
studies, his nearness to the capital and his growing reputation brought him
into full intercourse with the distinguished literary society with which
Edinburgh at this time abounded, so that, both as linguist and poet, his
social spirit found ample gratification. At Lasswade he continued to perform
the duties of a parish schoolmaster, when a further rise in office awaited
him. The newly established and richly endowed institution of Dollar was in
want of a teacher of the classical and Oriental languages, and as Tennant’s
reputation was now deservedly high, not only for his scholarship, but—what
was of far greater importance—his power of making others good scholars as
well as himself, he was appointed to this profitable and important charge,
in January, 1819. Even yet, however, he had not attained a promotion that
was fully adequate to his merits, for in the highest charge which profound
and varied scholarship could reach, he would have been found the best fitted
to occupy it. The opportunity seemed to occur in 1831, when the chair of
Oriental languages in St. Mary’s College, St. Andrews, became vacant, and
Tennant offered himself as candidate for the professorship, and had almost
succeeded, his claims and those of his rival, Dr. Scott, minister of
Corstorphine, having been for some time doubtfully deliberated by the crown
authorities. The latter, however, was preferred, and Tennant continued three
years longer at Dollar, when, by the death of Dr. Scott, he was, on the
strength of his former competition, appointed to the professorship.
In this way the author of "Anster
Fair," by a series of steps, ascended from the lowest to one of the highest
grades of Scottish academical distinction. But while he was thus struggling
onward as a teacher, and at every stage adding to his philological
acquirements, he did not lose sight of that poetical character through which
he had first risen into notice. Some years, therefore, after his Anstruther
production, he produced a new poem, entitled "Papistry Storm’d, or the
Dingin’ doun o’ the Cathedral." The subject, as may be guessed, was the
demolition of the cathedral of St. Andrews, the metropolitan church of
Scotland at the commencement of the Reformation; and in the style of the
narrative he endeavoured to imitate the quaint and vigorous manner of Sir
David Lyndesay. But it was not easy for a poet of the 19th century to
imitate one who impersonated the very fashion and spirit of the 16th; and,
therefore, it is no wonder that the attempt was a failure. Had there been a
"No Popery" cry, or had the poem been published in the present day, the
subject, independently of the intrinsic merits of the work, might have
forced it into wide though temporary popularity; but as it was, the age had
not yet got reconciled to the demolition of the stately strongholds of
Antichrist, and, therefore, his "Dingin’ doun o’ the Cathedral," was as
complete a downfall as the eversion it tried to commemorate.
The next poetical attempt of
Tennant was a poem of the epic character, which he published in 1822, under
the title of the "Thane of Fife," having for its theme the invasion of the
east coast of Fife by the Danes in the 9th century, when Constantine, the
Scottish king, was slain, and the enemy obtained a footing on the coast of
Fifeshire, to the great advantage of our fishing villages, and the provision
of skate, haddocks, and oysters for the tables of the present generation.
But who of our living race could otherwise care for Hungar and his
hard-knuckled belligerent Scandinavians, although the poet brought in Odin,
the sire of gods and men, and Niord, the god of the winds, to back them?
Therefore, although the poem was a very good poem as far as the rules of
epic poetry went—even better by half than Sir Richard Blackmore’s
"Arthur"—and although the correctness of the Runic mythology was such that
an ancient Scald would have translated it into a rune without alteration,
the "Thane of Fife" was such an utter failure, that it met with less
acceptance than its predecessor. Luckily, only the first part of the poem,
consisting of six cantos, was published; the rest, like the story of "Cambuscan
Bold," or of "The Wondrous Horse of Brass," remained unsung.
Only a year after the "Thane"(in
1823), Tennant published his "Cardinal Beaton, a Tragedy, in five acts."
This dramatic poem few have read, and of that few not half of the number
would greatly care to remember it. The subject itself is a noble one, and
the character of the cardinal, that "less than a king, yet greater," was
amply fitted to develope the very highest of poetic talent. But, unluckily,
the poet, instead of exhibiting this bold bad man with the lofty regal and
intellectual qualities which he undoubtedly possessed, has stuck to the
sordid and sensual vices with which Beaton was chargeable, and has thus
converted him into a mere vulgar incubus. In fact, he has made him talk, not
in the elevated language of one to whom high designs, by which Europe itself
was to be shaken, were familiar, but rather after the fashion of the vulgar
sensualist, who, in the phrase of Knox, "was busie at his compts with
Mistris Marion Ogilbie." This was not a picture suited to the improved
tastes of the day, and therefore the public would none of "Cardinal Beaton."
Undeterred by the failure of
this attempt in dramatic poetry, Tennant, in 1825, published "John Baliol,"
and only added another unit to his failures. His adoption of the "toom
tabard" as his hero, seemed to intimate that his own wits were run out, and
the poem therefore thred as its namesake had done—it was deposed and sent
into oblivion. The public now wondered, and well it might, that the rich
promise given in "Anster Fair" had been so poorly redeemed. What had become
of that ungovernable wit that had burst its bounds, and overflowed in such
profusion? A single stanza of Rob the Ranter was worth fifty Baliols and
Beatons to boot. Fortunately for Tennant’s character as a poet, his
retirement from the stage was calm and graceful. His last work, which he
published in 1845, entitled "Hebrew Dramas, founded on Incidents in Bible
History," and consisting of three dramatic compositions, illustrative of
characters and events mentioned in the earlier part of the Old Testament,
are free of the extravagance and bad taste of his former productions, while
they abound in passages of poetical dignity and gracefulness. It will easily
be surmised, however, from the foregoing statements, that Tennant would have
ranked higher as a poet, had he abandoned poetry altogether after his first
fortunate hit. It would seem as if he had either poured out all his poetical
genius in this one happy attempt, or dried it up in those verbal studies
that occupied him wholly to the last.
As a prose writer, Tennant,
like other great masters of languages, never attained any high distinction.
It would be too much, indeed, to expect from a man who has acquired a dozen
or a score of tongues, that he should possess the same power over the world
of thought. Accordingly, although he was a contributor to the "Edinburgh
Literary Journal," his articles, which chiefly consisted of a correspondence
with the Ettrick Shepherd about a new metrical version of the Psalms, do not
exhibit any peculiar excellence. His prose, indeed, is as stiff and
artificial as if it were a translation, leaving the reader to suspect that
he could have written it every whit as well in Syriac or Hindostanee. It
seemed, indeed, as if, in the study of so many languages, he had partly
forgot his own.
By a system of rigid economy,
which his early condition had probably taught him, Tennant became proprietor
of the pleasant villa of Devongrove, near Dollar, where he usually spent the
summer months at the close of each college session; and there his library
was his world, and its books his chief companions. There, also, his peaceful
life passed away, on the 15th of October, 1848, in consequence of a cold of
two years’ standing, by which his constitution was exhausted.
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