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Being not propped by ancestry
(whose grace
Chalks successors their way), neither allied
To eminent assistants, but spider-like,
Out of his self-drawing web, he gives us note
The force of his own merit, makes his way;
A gift that Heaven gives for him.
Shakespeare.
In the Canongate of Jedburgh,
where it slopes down to the river and the old bridge, there is a plain
substantial house,1 which is frequently pointed out to visitors. In a
westward room of this, his father’s house, a little child drew the first
breath of a life of eighty-six years on the 11th of December 1781, a little
after mid-day. David Brewster was the third child and second son of James
Brewster, rector of the Grammar School of Jedburgh, a man of sterling worth,
and accounted as one of the best classical scholars and teachers of his day.
After completing his course at the University of Aberdeen, Mr. Brewster
“gained a doctorship in the Grammar School of Dundee, merely by superior
merit, in a comparative trial of half-a-dozen candidates.” In 1771 he was
chosen by a large majority to be master of Jedburgh school. It had been
founded and endowed by Bishop Turnbull, the founder of Glasgow University,
and its endowment bestowed the title of rector on the schoolmaster, as is
still the case in a few other Scotch towns. It was, however, also the parish
school, and had long been one of high repute, several remarkable men having
received their education there,—amongst others, at the time of the
Reformation, John Rutherfurd, Principal of St. Salvator’s College, St.
Andrews; in the following century, Samuel Rutherfurd, the Covenanter, who
was born at Nisbet, four miles from Jedburgh; and in more recent times,
Thomson, the poet of the Seasons, who was born at Ednam, but whose father,
when he was only two years old, was translated to Southdean on the Jed. Mr.
Brewster, in whose hands the school suffered no loss of good fame, was
considered a stern disciplinarian, and the common saying was, that he “ was
the best Latin scholar, and the quickest temper in Scotland yet the sterner
mood did not always prevail. On one occasion, William Somerville and a
companion had been ordered to retire to the library, an adjoining apartment,
for purposes of serious punishment. It was, however, a fine “hunting
morning”—the fox-hounds were passing—the temptation was irresistible—they
scrambled out of the window, and enjoyed a day’s sport instead of a
flogging. The rector’s countenance the next day was regarded with fear and
trembling—yet he was in a good humour, and had apparently forgotten the
empty room and the open window. He had the exceedingly unpopular fault in a
schoolmaster, of occasionally forgetting the customary dispensation of
holidays, being absorbed in his own love of study. On one occasion the
shortening days and the ripe yellow harvest telling a tale of the passing
away of the proper holiday time, the rector was surprised by a sheaf of ripe
ears waving on his desk, placed there by a young Armstrong and a Lindsay.
The rector proved “quick in the uptak’," the hint was understood, and the
holidays at once proclaimed. He possessed with all his sternness, much
attractiveness of person and manner—more, it was always said, than was
inherited by any of his family. David, however, resembled his father in
expression and contour, and, though without his regular features, was an
exceedingly beautiful child.
Mr. Brewster resigned his charge on account of age and infirmities in 1803—a
resignation which was received with great regret, a retiring salary being
voted to him by the heritors as a marked tribute of respect. He died very
suddenly in 1815, when upwards of eighty, in the beautiful manse of Craig,
the home of his eldest son, much beloved and regretted by those who, in the
contemplation of his holy life, patient blindness, and most gentle
Christianity, had long forgotten the severities of his home and school
training. He rests in “sure and certain hope” in the picturesque and rocky
churchyard of St. Skeoch in Forfarshire. An amusing instance of the respect
in which Mr. Brewster was held in Jedburgh is still told. An old "man bought
a frying-pan at the sale of the household effects, which took place in 1806,
when the family left Jedburgh, which frying-pan became henceforth a sacred
relic in his eyes. All attempts to purchase it were indignantly negatived,
and he treasured it in memory of “Sir Daavid’s fayther,” till his death, in
extreme old age, a few months after that of the subject of this Memoir.
David was only nine years old when his mother died, but ever spoke of her
with that tender deference which great men peculiarly feel for their
mothers. Margaret Key was the daughter of “James Key, Junior,” and “ Grisel
Scott,” who were married in Dundee about 1745. The Keys and the Scotts, who
intermarried during several generations, were burgesses and shipmasters of
Dundee. One son of this marriage was Dr. Patrick Key, a favourite uncle of
David’s, who practised as a medical man in Forfar, with much ability and
repute in his profession, the arduous duties of which exhausted his
constitution, and he died at a comparatively early age, much mourned by the
Brewsters. Margaret was the only daughter, and married Mr. Brewster of
Jedburgh in 1775.
Mrs. Brewster is said to have been a very accomplished woman for the time
she lived in; but some delicate broidered work, in which she especially
excelled, a small book of ms. religious extracts, and the knowledge of her
exceeding fragility, which carried her off soon after the birth of her
youngest child, at the age of thirty-seven, are all that remain to us of
her. A stone in the old Abbey churchyard records successive bereavements
thus:—“In memory of Margaret Key, the beloved wife of James Brewster, Rector
of the Grammar School of Jedburgh, who died on the 1st of September 1790,
and of Jane Gordon, their infant daughter, who died on the 30th of May 1790,
aged one year.” For some little time Mr. Brewster’s stepmother, of the same
age as himself, a woman of considerable beauty and much kindliness, was a
blessing to the motherless family, but she too was soon removed, and Grisel,
the only sister, three years older than David, from thenceforth filled a
mother’s place. She possessed much of the family talent, and was not slow in
discovering the genius of her second brother. Her appreciation of it, and
some natural overindulgence, contrasted unfavourably with the severity of
paternal rule. When David was but a little fellow he used to punish this
indulgent elder sister for any unwonted stretch of authority, by turning the
contents of her chest of drawers on the floor in confusion dire, knowing
that her ruling passion was love of order. Whatever the juvenile offences of
the somewhat spoiled child might be, they never occurred in connection with
learning. It is recorded that though David was never seen to pore over his
books like other schoolboys, yet by some mysterious prooess he always “ had
his lessons ” notwithstanding ; he kept a prominent place in his classes,
and was frequently applied to for assistance by his school-fellows. It was
in these days of childhood that a dilapidated pane of glass in an upper
window of his father’s house produced the inquiring thoughts which led him
afterwards to search into the mysteries of reflected light. David was,
however, no rara avis in the rector’s household. Intellect and learning were
the paternal inheritance shared by all the brothers. James and George
possessed excellent abilities, while Patrick, the youngest, was considered
to possess a higher portion of genius and intellect than his second brother.
But David had received that other and better gift than genius,—the power of
making use of whatever he possessed.
The Brewster family, though nurtured under the lowly roof of a Jeddart
schoolmaster, were not wanting in tales and legends of the past. The
step-grandmother, probably gifted with more kindliness than good sense,
used, we are told, “to relate by the hour tales of their ancestors" which
the youthful mistress of the house eagerly devoured, and related again to
her brothers in later life. Sometimes these mythical claims have greater
effect upon the imagination than those which are recognised and undeniable;
but nursery tales had no effect upon David Brewster, who was thoroughly “a
self-made man.” It would be wrong to say that he rejoiced in being so, for
the thought of it one way or another never seemed to enter into his mind. He
was entirely unconscious, ignorant, and indifferent as to all genealogical
failures or possessions—an ignorance and an indifference which he
communicated to many within his immediate influence. There have not been
wanting those in more recent times who have thought it ought to be known
that the nursery tales were not altogether mythical, and that had Brewster
dabbled in Heralds’ Offices and their occult lore, he might have proved that
he was descended from a branch of an old English family, whose name was
undoubtedly Saxon —the Brewsters of Wrentham in Suffolk, descendants of
different branches of which frequently claimed kindred with him.2 The only
hint of the kind which was not received with the greatest languor and
indifference was significant of his love of liberty and religious
toleration,—it was that which suggested his descent from William Elder
Brewster, the Puritan postmaster, printer, and publisher, who led the noble
band of English “Dissenters” in the “Mayflower” from England to America in
1610, whose interesting memoir was sent to him by some of the Brewster
family long settled in New England, where the Pilgrim Fathers sought and
found “Freedom to worship God.”
The Grammar School had been held in the Abbey for a considerable time, in
what was in consequence called the “Latin aisle,” but the present
school-house, in which David Brewster was educated, was built in 1779. The
old aisle was, however, still part of the playground of the boys, and
received the name of the “Howff,” an old Scotch word signifying a place of
relaxation, and also of refection, for the boys used to eat their mid-day
meals there, preparatory to more active diversions. Many were their exploits
in dangerous climbing amongst the ruined arches and up the lofty towers,
stepping across the rent or “ gap ” at a height of ninety feet. The choice
attraction was, boy-like, the mere danger, with also an eye to the nests of
owls, jackdaws, swifts, and such like, in all which exploits David and his
brother sought to excel. A more ghostly charm attached itself to one of the
vaults under the town steeple, however, in which was kept the gibbet. To
enter this vault in the dark night and touch the horrible object was
considered by the boys to be the height of human daring. David used to
record in after years the one time when he accomplished this feat, and fled
immediately after, feeling as if he were pursued by the spectres of all the
hanged men of Jedburgh. “Hangie,” as the boys dubbed the functionary who
came occasionally to fulfil the last penalty of the law (the last permanent
hangman was paid off in 1666), was also an object of intense fear and
attraction. David described the irresistible impulse which led him and his
companions to throw stones at the door of “Hangie’s” temporary abode, and
their horror when he used suddenly to emerge and give them chase.
The love and fear of the superstitious which had so long reigned in Jedburgh
came nearer home to David than even these localities. Behind his father’s
house was a little cottage, of which only the gable now remains. It was
shaded by a favourite apple-tree, and was the dwelling of the old nurse of
David’s childhood. She was still the repository of the Brewster children’s
hopes, joys, and sorrows, and the favourite employment of a winter evening
was to spend it with her. So many were the stories of ghosts and goblins
with which she garnished the evening’s entertainment, that it generally
ended in the poetical justice of the old woman having to leave her
easy-chair and her cosy fire, to convoy the frightened children across the
garden, with her protecting apron thrown over their heads. David’s
recollections of the rosy apple-tree of summer, and the fascinating “bogle”
stories of winter, were very vivid; but he also related how the usual
effects of such a training resulted in his suffering from superstitious
fears even up to the mature years of manhood. |
