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Through days of sorrow and of
mirth,
Through days of death and days of hirth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it stood,
As if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,—
“For ever—never I Never—for ever!”
Longfellow.
About this time it occurred
to several gentlemen in Edinburgh that “there was both room and need for a
Review of the highest class, the organ of no party, political or
ecclesiastical, and which, instead of ignoring or affecting to disown
Christianity, was imbued with its spirit.” The North British Review was
therefore started in 1844, under the editorship of the Rev. Dr. Welsh. The
double coincidence of this event taking place the year after the Disruption,
and the Free Church principles of most of its editors, led to the erroneous
impression in some quarters that it was the organ of the Free Church. It has
never been a sectarian work however; contributors of all denominations were
welcome, if their principles were good and their literary talent undeniable.
The success of the undertaking was remarkable -from the very first this
quarterly took the high place in literature which it has ever since
sustained. It has always been under most careful editorial superintendence
of a high order—Dr. Welsh, Lord Barcaple, Dr. Hanna, Professor Praser, Dr.
Duns, Professor Blaikie, and Mr. Douglas, having successively managed it—and
the interest and variety of its articles have been in proportion to the
singular variety and eminence of its contributors. The establishment of this
congenial periodical was quite an era in his literary life, and led to his
separation from the Edinburgh Review, to which he had long been a
contributor, and for which he had written twenty-eight articles. The Rev.
James Taylor, D.D., writes that “Professor Napier was deeply hurt and
offended when he learned that his old ally had promised his support to the
new, and, as he considered it, rival periodical, and remonstrated with him
on the subject both by letter and in a personal interview. Sir David,
however, was displeased with the attacks which the Edinburgh Review had made
on the evangelical doctrines to which he was strongly attached, and informed
the editor that he had resolved to give his assistance to the new Review,
because he could rely on its defending these doctrines if they should be
assailed. A day or two afterwards he related to me this conversation, and
said he was sure that Professor Napier would never again ask him to
contribute to the Edinburgh Review,— a great loss to him, he added, as his
contributions to that periodical were very highly remunerated.” He threw
himself into the North British interests with cordial energy; for upwards of
twenty years he contributed an article to almost every quarterly number, and
he delighted in beating up for recruits for this service among his most
eminently intellectual friends. Professor Fraser writes: “I have many
letters received from him during the time of our literary connection, when I
was editor of the North British Review in 1850 and the seven following
years. In that relation I always found him in the highest degree kind,
cordial, and considerate. The freshness of his nature was shown in his
extraordinary readiness to sympathise with the life and movement of the age.
He was among the most remarkable in a band of contributors which then
included the ablest men of the time in Great Britain, not only for the
brilliancy and vivacity of his writings, but for the punctual regularity
with which they were delivered. He contributed an article to each number
during the time I was editor, and in each instance, after we had agreed
together about the subject, the manuscript made its appearance on the
appointed day with punctual regularity, and its successive instalments were
placed by him in the editor’s hands with mechanical precision. Some of the
articles were the subject of interesting correspondence between us ; and I
recollect in particular the ardour with which he addressed himself to the
thoughtful and very suggestive essay on the Plurality of Worlds, which I had
asked him to review, in an article since expanded into his More Worlds than
One.” Professor Blaikie, who edited the Review from 1860 to 1863, writes:
“Sir David Brewster was ever remarkable for the carefulness of his work, the
punctuality with which it was delivered—never behind time, never needing to
write to the editor for more time or more space : a model contributor,
indeed, in every way, and so full of well-put and attractive information. He
was of great use in giving introductions to eminent men, his name being a
guarantee that the channel in which they were asked to write would not be
unworthy of them.” The secret of the successful execution of this literary
work was, that he spared no pains which could possibly perfect an article.
Not contented with the book itself, which he had to review, and his own
previous knowledge of the subject, he collected fresh information before
beginning to write, from every source ; he was always specially anxious to
obtain particulars of the life and career of the author, so that most of his
articles possess a biographical value apart from the intrinsic interest of
the subject. The variety is indeed most curious, as is best seen from the
four thick volumes which I have before me, in which are collected all these
contributions. Dr. J. H. Gladstone, Ph.D., F.R.S., gave the following
graphic description of some of these in his obituary notice before the Royal
Society of London:—“The first number of the North British commences with an
article by him, on Flourens’s Eloge Historique de Cuvier; .and further on in
the same part he discusses the Lettres Provinciates and other writings of
Blaise Pascal. In the second number he describes the Earl of Rosse’s great
reflecting telescope ; and shortly we find him engaged with such serious
works as Humboldt’s Cosmos or Murchison’s Siluria; the rival claimants for
the honour of having discovered Neptune divide his attention with Macaulay’s
History of England, or the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. With
Layard he takes his readers-to Nineveh, with Lyell he visits North America,
and with Richardson he searches the Polar Seas. The Exhibition of 1851, the
Peace Congress, and the British Association, come in turn under his
descriptive notice ; or, turning from large assemblies to individual
philosophers, he sketches Arago, Young, or Dalton. In one number we have
‘The Weather and its Prognostics,’ and ‘The Microscope and its Revelations
elsewhere he describes the Atlantic Telegraph, whilst in a single article he
groups together ‘The Life-boat, the Lightning-conductor, and the
Lighthouse.’ He reviews in turn Mary Somerville’s Physical Geography, and
Keith Johnston’s Physical Atlas; the History of Photography engages him at
one time, and at another Weld’s History of our Society. Under the guidance
of Sir Henry Holland he investigates the curious mental phenomena of
mesmerism and electrobiology, and under that of George Wilson he inquires
into colour-blindness. He criticises Goethe’s scientific works, expounds De
la Rive’s Treatise on Electricity, and Arago’s on Comets; or, turning from
these severer studies, he allows Humboldt to exhibit the ‘Aspects of Nature’
in different lands to the multifarious readers of the Review.”
His review of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is one of the
most remarkable, and I have heard that it was bound up with the book itself
as an antidote, and thus sold in America.
It was one of my father’s greatest literary pleasures to peruse carefully
each number of the Review as it came out. For many years he had sent to him
regularly, by the editors, a list of the authors of the different essays,
delighting to copy and enclose it to friends at a distance, who he knew were
readers of the work.
An incident connected with the North British Review caused my father so much
interest, pride, and pleasure, that I cannot forbear mentioning it. The St.
Andrews students had been left very much to their own devices for a good
many years, and a state of things had set in which did not accord with the
views of a new Principal of reforming tendencies. I believe that the
breaches of discipline were not of serious importance, but quite sufficient
to bring the University and its authority into some disrepute. Disorderly
bands of red-gowned students patrolling the streets, too lengthened “gaudeamuses,”
unnecessary appeals to door-bells and knockers in the midst of the night,
apparitions of tall bearded guisards1 into quiet families, and such like,
were the principal offences, and with characteristic activity the
perpetrators were brought before the Senatus, rebuked, and punished, so that
a very different state of things soon came about, and St. Andrews students
became as orderly as most of their class. A good many years afterwards my
father read an article in the North British, so fresh, so full of vigour and
interest, that he at once wrote to Professor Fraser inquiring the name of
the author. His delight was extreme—indeed, I scarcely remember his ever
showing more complete satisfaction—when he found that it was written by one
of his old students of that somewhat stormy period, of whom he had never
since heard. He at once wrote him a letter of congratulation on that happy
beginning of a now long successful authorship, for the writer of the article
was the Rev. John Tulloch, then minister of Kettins, but afterwards
Principal of the Divinity College at St. Andrews, and author of The Leaders
of the Reformation, English Puritanism, etc. The friendship between the
young man and the old was ever after most cordial, especially during the
years when they were contemporary Principals in the same University.
Sir David’s interest in all his students was very great, and he was popular
and accessible among them, having them at breakfast and tea as often as his
busy mornings and experimenting evenings would allow of the interruption.
This accessibility to young men, even though not his own students, was very
marked. A friend writes: “My personal recollections of Sir David are all of
the most pleasant kind, and I gratefully remember his kindness to me as a
student; he was ever ready to see me, and not only converse about my
studies, but to tell me of his, showing me the nature of his discoveries,
and performing some of his experiments. A more gentle and accommodating
spirit to the young never glowed in a human bosom.”
In the spring of 1845, in the company of the Rev. Dr. Taylor, my father paid
one of his frequent visits to London, and we still find the habit carried on
of frequent communication to his wife of all that he thought could interest
her, although the extreme bustle of his London life renders his letters,
written almost daily, difficult to make extracts from. The following are
interesting :—
“London, 1845.
“My dearest Juliet,—We have gained our cause on the question of Tests,1 by
the Government allowing Mr. Rutherford to bring in his bill, as you will see
in the Times. Sir Robert Peel, attended by Sir James Graham, the Lord
Advocate, and Sir George Clerk, received the deputation in his own house
yesterday at twelve o’clock; and though Sir J. Graham had the night before
told Mr. Rutherford that the Government was to oppose the bringing in of his
bill, yet the arguments and facts of the deputation, many of which I stated,
from sitting next to Sir Robert, together with the eloquent and powerful
speech of Mr. Rutherford in the House last night, prevailed, and the repeal
of the Tests is now certain. From the House I went to the great meeting of
the Protestant Delegates in Exeter Hall, where I found Guthrie on his legs
electrifying a small audience of about 6000 persons ! He was followed by
Baptist Noel, a most elegant and interesting-looking man, whose eloquence,
chaste yet powerful, kept up the impression produced by Mr. Guthrie. We
attended this morning a great public breakfast in the London Tavern, on the
subject of the Maynooth Grant, which I think we shall yet defeat.”
“London, May 1, 1845.
“I have just time to give you my Wellingtoniana, which are rather
interesting. . . . After a nice dinner-party at Lord Rosse’s yesterday,
during and after which I had to fight the anti-Maynooth battle, as well as
that of the Free Church, I hurried to the Archbishop of York’s without
joining the ladies. I found the Great Duke seated beside Miss Georgina
Harcourt on a double couch. As her object was to let me have some
conversation with him, she soon summoned me to the empty side of the couch,
and during nearly an hour I had the most unreserved conversation with the
Duke and her. He speaks with a certain degree of difficulty, as if there had
been a paralytic affection; but not very perceptibly so. He amused us with
his account of an American who wrote to him that he had come all the way
from the United States to see him; he did not, however, send him his
address, for he said that if he showed himself in this way to one person he
must do it to everybody, and this was impossible, unless he could be in more
places than one at the same time. As Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire, the
British Association had asked him to be President at Southampton in 1846.
Having seen his reply, I mentioned how much the Council regretted it, which
led him to give us an account of the way in which all his time was employed
throughout the year. From February till August he was obliged to attend the
House of Lords, and never accepted an invitation on the days when the House
sat. He often went home at twelve and one o’clock, and never got any dinner
at all. His servant always asked him if he would have it, but at such late
hours he preferred going to bed. From August till November he is obliged to
live at the Cinque Ports, and, besides his military duties, he had
occasionally to attend upon Her Majesty. For that reason he could not
undertake the duties of President. We urged that attendance for one day
would be sufficient, and that Lord Francis Egerton had done this at
Manchester. This he could not do, as he would not undertake any duty without
doing it completely.
“We then talked of Wheatstone and the electro-magnetic telegraph, and the
conduct of the French in trying to introduce Wheatstone’s inventions as a
French system of telegraphs. He told me how the Duke of Buccleuch had, at
the birth of Prince Alfred, got to Windsor before all the other ministers,
from the accident of his servant having seen the telegraph at work. We
talked much of Lord Posse’s telescope, the size of which he knew well; and
upon telling him that the transit of Mercury was to take place to-morrow,
and that a party was going to Sir James South’s to see it, he said he would
go, as he knew Sir James. We then talked of the new method of extinguishing
fires by the sudden production of a great quantity of carbonic acid from
charcoal, and of the Exhibition, which he had not seen, not having been able
to go to the Royal Academy dinner. I mentioned the finest pictures, viz.,
Mr. F. Grant’s picture of a Miss Singleton, and Sir W. Allan’s Nelson
boarding the San Nicolas, which he was to go and see some morning very
early, to avoid the crowd.”
“London, May 9, 1845.
“We had a very singular scene at Sir James South’s yesterday, where eight or
ten telescopes were erected on his beautiful lawn at Camden Hill, to view
the transit of Mercury over the sun’s disc. The day was not good, but at
four o’clock the clouds so far cleared away as to enable almost every person
in the large party of fifty or sixty people to see the planet, like a round
black patch, pass over the sun’s face. The Duke of Wellington did not come,
as he intended, being prevented by the dampness of the day, as he told Miss
Harcourt, who was there.”
Although undated, the following letter was written about this period :—
“My dearest Maria,—Upon coming here from the House of Commons (where we have
just lost our University Test Bill by a majority of fifteen in a very full
house), I have found your letter and its enclosures. We would not, have lost
it had it not been from the supineness of the Free Church and the citizens
of Edinburgh, who sent up no deputation, and even no individual to enlighten
and collect friendly and liberal members.
“Believing that the debate was to come on in the evening of today
(Wednesday), I would have been able to do nothing in the matter, and not
even to be present at the debate, had I not accidentally met with Sir Edward
Colebrooke, who told me that the debate was to begin at twelve. I therefore
hurried to the late Lord Advocate, Mr. Moncreiff, to put him up to several
facts. I got one petition unkenneled from its place in the House, to which
Mr. Ireland had improperly addressed it to Mr. Ellice, so that it was read
before the debate, i conversed with a number of friendly M.P.s in the
Members’ Gallery, Mr. Dennison, Mr. Philip Pusey, etc. etc., and prevailed
upon them to stay to the vote.
“Don’t be alarmed when I tell you that I was taken prisoner in the House by
the Serjeant-at-Arms, Lord W. Russell, and released by order of the Speaker
! A division was announced, and strangers ordered to withdraw. I obeyed,
went out of the House, but stood in a corner of the stair, in place of going
to the lobby, not knowing the ricrht thing to do. When the division was over
I was taken prisoner, being found among the members. The Serjeant-at-Arms
was puzzled, but having got authority to release me, he called out through a
little window in the door that his prisoner was released, and I emerged, to
the amusement and amazement of a number of members whom I knew, waiting
outside for admission.—I am, my dearest Maria, your affectionate father, D.
Brewster.
“Athenaeum Club,
Wednesday, 5 o’clock”
For two years, James, his eldest son, had been at home on furlough from his
duties in the Bengal Civil Service, and on the 18th of February 1845 his
marriage took place—an event which brought into the family a peculiarly
gentle and lovely daughter, for whom my father ever felt the tenderest
affection. During the remainder of their time in this country, before
returning to India, the newly married couple resided at Barham Cottage,
within a drive of St. Leonard’s, which, with a large and pleasant circle of
new connections, added much to his social enjoyments. St. Andrews itself
contained much excellent and intelligent society, in which, as well as in
that of a well-populated country neighbourhood, he found that pleasant
social relaxation which he always needed from study. His scientific
lectures, though delivered in the College, were thrown open and made most
attractive,—a task for which he was peculiarly qualified, —to crowded
audiences of strangers and casual visitors, as well as friends,
acquaintances, and students. About this time Dr. Merle d’Aubigne, the
eminent historian of the Reformation, paid a visit to St. Leonard’s College,
which was long remembered with the greatest interest. Many foreigners
brought letters of introduction, one of the most interesting of whom was M.
Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot; there were also Count Krasinski, Prince Adam
de Sapi6ha, and several younger branches of the Genevese families whose
acquaintance Brewster had made in 1814.
In the spring of 1846 he went with his wife and daughter to Rothesay for the
mild climate and shelter from east winds—enjoying keenly, as was his custom,
the new route, the lovely sea and island views, and pleasant new
acquaintances, and returning homewards in time for the General Assembly of
May, which was marked by the laying of the foundation-stone of the Free
Church College, a ceremony which he attended with much interest. The
breakfast party connected with this event, and a long friendly visit just
afterwards, were the last occasions on which Brewster and Chalmers met on
earth. One year after, in 1847, the former took part in that mournful but
noble procession which bore Dr. Chalmers to his rest in the new Grange
Cemetery,
“Where thronging multitudes beside thee tread,
And severed creeds are meeting round thy bed.”
In 1847 Brewster was made a Chevalier of the Order of Merit by the King of
Prussia, whose acquaintance he had before made at Tay-mouth Castle. In the
same year he took his daughter and two friends, the Misses Lyon, to the
seventeenth meeting of the British Association, which met for the second
time at Oxford, under the presidency of Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Bart., then
the representative in Parliament of the University—a peculiarly interesting
locality for such a meeting, which was moreover a very brilliant and
valuable one in all its component parts. The twin discoverers of Neptune,
Mr. Adams and M. Leverrier, were present; as usual Brewster had entered
keenly into the scientific controversy which agitated French and English
minds as to the priority of this important discovery, so important as to
extend the Solar system one thousand millions of miles beyond its former
known limits. The injustice that had been done to the young English
astronomer was only beginning to be repaired at the Oxford meeting, where it
was pleasant to see the two distinguished and independent discoverers
meeting on equal and amicable terms. The United College of St. Andrews
offered Mr. Adams their vacant chair of Natural Philosophy, a compliment
which had never before been paid to any one but Dr. Chalmers, in the case of
the Moral Philosophy Chair in the same College.
In Brewster’s Life of Newton, the following passage occurs:—“The honour of
having made this discovery belongs equally to Adams and Leverrier. It is the
greatest intellectual achievement in the annals of astronomy, and the
noblest triumph of the Newtonian Philosophy. To detect a planet by the eye,
or to track it to its place by the mind, are acts as incommensurable as
those of muscular and intellectual power. Recumbent on his easy-chair, the
practical astronomer has but to look through the cleft in his revolving
cupola, in order to trace the pilgrim star in its course; or by the
application of magnifying power, to expand its tiny disc, and thus transfer
it from among its sidereal companions to the planetary domains. The physical
astronomer, on the contrary, has no such auxiliaries: he calculates at noon,
when the stars disappear under a meridian sun : he computes at midnight,
when clouds and darkness shroud the heavens ; and from within that cerebral
dome, which has no opening heavenward, and no instrument but the Eye of
Reason, he sees in the disturbing agencies of an unseen planet, upon a
planet by him equally unseen, the existence of the disturbing agent, and
from the nature and amount of its action he computes its magnitude and
indicates its place. If man has ever been permitted to see otherwise than by
the eye, it is when the clairvoyance of reason, piercing through screens of
epidermis and walls of bone, grasps, amid the abstractions of number and of
quantity, those sublime realities which have eluded the keenest touch and
evaded the sharpest eye.”
From Oxford we went to Hartwell House, the fine old ancestral residence of
Dr. Lee, which had been the abode of Charles x. and his family during their
stay in England, after the memorable “three days” of July 1830. In this
beautiful and scientific mansion were assembled a large party of the British
Association, lions both home and foreign, and one of the many interests of
this visit, peculiarly valued by my father, was the nightly observation of
the heavens made in the noble transit-room of Hartwell.
In 1848-49 I find the following interesting notes of contemporary persons
and events in home letters during his annual visits to London. The first
letter refers to a period when M. Guizot, the eminent French statesman,
after the Revolution of 1848, had made many inquiries about St. Andrews as a
place of residence for himself and his family. A lengthened sojourn in this
country was not however found necessary for the distinguished exile, and
this plan was abandoned.
“London, 1848.
“Sir Harry Verney had called upon me and requested me to go at three o’clock
to a public breakfast to the friends of St. John’s Schools, leaving a card
of admission for two. This most interesting establishment is supported by
the zeal, and, to a considerable extent, by the wealth, of Mr. Arthur
Kinnaird, Lord K.’s brother, a man of true piety. After visiting the
Exhibition, Dr. A. and I went to the breakfast, or rather luncheon. Lord
Ashley was in the chair, and Mr. Baptist Noel, beside whom I sat (and with
whom I had some delightful conversation), and the Rev. James Hamilton, were
among the speakers. The subject for conversation was that of providing
amusements for the lower classes, and, as ill luck would have it, Mr. Arthur
Kinnaird asked me to state my opinions, which compelled me to say something,
and in the course of conversation I was obliged several times to say a few
words, which I did better than I thought possible. I was then introduced by
Lord Ashley to Mme. Chabot, Mile. Guizot, and her brother, a boy of about
thirteen or fifteen years of age, who attended Adolphe Monod’s church in
Paris. Mme. Chabot is a pious woman, who has impressed her own character
upon the young Guizots, and I should not wonder if, occasionally at least,
they should come to our church. Mme. Chabot told me that they (M. Guizot and
his family) go to St. Andrews early in August, and requested me to call upon
M. Guizot at 21 Pelham Crescent, Brompton, which I mean to do to-day, and to
give him all the information he may require about our city.
“Lord Ashley mentioned in the course of his speech, that .he was that
evening to open a reading-room in Westminster, for the civilisation of the
ragged and thieving adults of that frightful locality. I was anxious to be
present, and was appointed to meet him at the House of Commons at half-past
six. Dr. A. and I went there, and were joined by the Marquis of Blandford,
Lord Casilereagh, and others. We walked to the place of meeting, and first
visited the Ragged School, taught by Mr. Aitchison, from Glasgow, quite a
superior man. The city missionary of the district is a Mr. Walker, the son
of a grocer (as he told me), at Earlston, near Melrose, a most devoted man,
and a man of great physical energy. The meeting for opening the
reading-room, and a room for teaching adults, was crowded to overflowing,
all the rogues of the place being either inside or at the doors and windows.
Lord Castlereagh and Lord Kinnaird moved two of the resolutions, and Lord
Ashley spoke repeatedly. The behaviour of the people was admirable. The
meeting went off in the most gratifying manner. It was delightful to see two
young nobles who are to be, the one the Duke of Marlborough and the other
the Marquis of Londonderry, giving their time and their money for the
amelioration of the condition of the poor. I felt self-reproach ed in
considering how little we do in the same field of duty in our locality.
After the meeting was over, and we had secured our silk handkerchiefs in our
inner pockets, we went to the House of Commons, where Lord Ashley got us
seats in the Speaker’s Gallery to hear the discussion of the Sugar question,
which was very uninteresting. Mr. Baptist Noel and I had much conversation
about Free Church matters ; he also expressed an anxious desire that
something should be done in St. Andrews to turn M. Guizot’s mind to serious
religion. He knows him well, and feels a great interest in his happiness.
His misfortunes may, of themselves, turn his thoughts and affections
heavenwards.
“P.S.—I met Dr. Somerville on the street the day of my arrival here, looking
as young as when I. saw him last. He and Mrs. Somerville were to set out
next day for Kelso to visit his sister, Mrs. General Elliott.”
The following short extract contains an interesting allusion to his early
days:—
“Rossie Priory, Jan. 1849.
“Mr. Graham, the Established clergyman of Abernyte, dined here yesterday. He
has a great passion for optics, and has made some very fine and large
telescopes with his own hands. Although the day confined everybody to the
house, I took a walk of two miles to pay him a visit, which was a very
agreeable one. He has a nice clever wife, but no children, and his manse is
one of the most charming residences I have seen. It was a great treat to me
to find a young man carrying on all my early pursuits, and who had derived
his practical knowledge from my own writings.”
In 1849 he received a mark of distinction which he highly valued, being
chosen one of the eight Foreign Associates of that French Institute which
had done him honour so early in his career. He succeeded Berzelius, the
celebrated Swedish chemist. Of this honour, the greatest scientific one
which France can bestow on foreign sages, and which, alike under republic
and under monarchy, has been exercised with judgment and discretion, Baron
Cuvier remarked that it was one “ for which all the philosophers of Europe
compete, and of which the list, beginning with the names of Newton,
Leibnitz, and Peter the Great, has at no period degenerated from its
original lustre.’
In the first month of 1850, the second dark cloud of his life overshadowed
my father, not bursting like a sudden thunderstorm, as on the first
occasion, but creeping slowly on during years of delicate health and
prostration of strength, which, although without disease, was so great, that
at almost the first touch of an epidemic the enfeebled constitution
succumbed, and, after a week’s illness more serious than usual, the wife of
his youth passed away on the 27th of January, in a quiet humble hope through
that way of simple salvation which her sorrowing husband had not yet entered
with his heart, though he understood it with his intellect. She was laid to
rest beside her long-loved and long-mourned “Charlie,” beneath the shade of
the Abbey ruins of Melrose, and within the sound of the rippling river which
had caused her greatest bereavement. |
