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BANNATYNE, GEORGE, takes
his title to a place in this work from a source of fame participated by no
other individual within the range of Scottish biography; it is to this
person that we are indebted for the preservation of nearly all the
productions of the Scottish poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. Though the services he has thus rendered to his country were in
some measure the result of accident, yet it is also evident that, if he
had not been a person of eminent literary taste, and also partly a poet
himself, we should never have had to celebrate him as a collector of
poetry. The compound claim which he has thus established to our notice,
and the curious antique picture which is presented to our eye by even the
little that is known regarding his character and pursuits, will, it is
hoped, amply justify his admission into this gallery of eminent Scotsmen.
George Bannatyne was born
in an elevated rank of society. His father, James Bannatyne, of the
Kirktown of Newtyle, in the county of Forfar, was a writer in Edinburgh at
a time when that profession must have been one of some distinction and
rarity; and he was probably the person alluded to by Robert Semple, in
"The Defens of Grissell Sandylands:" –
"For men of law I wait
not quhair to luke:
James Bannatyne was anis a man of skill."
It also appears that James
Bannatyne held the office of TABULAR to the Lords of Session, in which
office his eldest son (afterwards a Lord of Council and Session) was
conjoined with him as successor, by royal precept dated May 2, 1583. James
Bannatyne is further ascertained to have been connected with the very
ancient and respectable family of Bannatyne, or Bannatyne of Camys, (now
Kames) in the island of Bute. He was the father, by his wife Katherine
Tailliefer, of twenty-three children, nine of whom, who survived at the
time of his death, in 1583, were "weill and sufficiently provydit be
him, under God."
George Bannatyne, the
seventh child of his parents, was born on the 22nd day of
February, 1545, and was bred up to trade. [In a memoir of George Bannatyne,
by Sir Walter Scott, prefixed to a collection of memorabilia regarding
him, which has been printed for the Bannatyne Club, it is supposed that he
was not early engaged in business. But this supposition seems only to rest
on an uncertain inference from a passage in George Bannatyne’s "Memoriall
Bulk," where it is mentioned that Katharine Talliefer, at her death
in 1570, left behind her eleven children, of whom eight were as yet "unput
to proffeit." On a careful inspection of the family notices in this
"memorial bulk," it appears as likely that George himself was
one of those already "put to proffeit" as otherwise, more
especially considering that he was then twenty-five years of age.] It is,
however, quite uncertain at what time he began to be engaged in business
on his own account, or whether he spent his youth in business or not.
Judging, however, as the world is apt to judge, we should suppose, from
his taste for poetry, and his having been a writer of verses himself, that
he was at least no zealous applicant to any commercial pursuit. Two poems
of his, written before the age of twenty-three, are full of ardent though
conceited affection towards some fair mistress, whom he describes in the
most extravagantly complimentary terms. It is also to be supposed that, at
this age, even though obliged to seek some amusement during a time of
necessary seclusion, he could not have found the means to collect, or the
taste to execute, such a mass of poetry as that which bears his name, if
he had not previously been almost entirely abandoned to this particular
pursuit. At the same time, there is some reason to suppose that he was not
altogether an idle young man, given up to vain fancies, from the two first
lines of his valedictory address at the end of his collection:
"Heir endis this Bulk
written in tyme of pest,
Quhen we fra labor was
compel’d to rest."
Of the transaction on which
the whole fame of George Bannatyne rests, we give the following
interesting account from the Memoir just quoted:—
"It is seldom that the
toils of the amanuensis are in themselves interesting or that, even while
enjoying the advantages of the poor scribe’s labour, we are disposed to
allow him the merit of more than mere mechanical drudgery. But in the
compilation of George Bannatyne’s manuscript, there are particulars
which rivet our attention on the writer, and raise him from a humble
copyist into a national benefactor.
"Bannatyne’s
Manuscript is in a folio form, containing upwards of eight hundred pages,
very neatly and closely written, and designed, as has been supposed, to be
sent to the press. The labour of compiling so rich a collection was
undertaken by the author during the time of pestilence, in the year 1568,
when the dread of infection compelled men to forsake their usual
employments, which could not be conducted without admitting the ordinary
promiscuous intercourse between man and his kindred men.
"In this dreadful
period, when hundreds, finding themselves surrounded by danger and death,
renounced all care save that of selfish precaution for their own safety,
and all thoughts save apprehensions of infection, George Bannatyne had the
courageous energy to form and execute the plan of saving the literature of
a whole nation; and, undisturbed by the universal mourning for the dead,
and general fears of the living, to devote himself to the task of
collecting and recording the triumphs of human genius;—thus, amid the
wreck of all that was mortal, employing himself in preserving the lays by
which immortality is at once given to others, and obtained for the writer
himself. His task, he informs us, had its difficulties; for he complains
that he had, even in his time, to contend with the disadvantage of copies
old, maimed, and mutilated, and which long before our day must, but for
this faithful transcriber, have perished entirely. The very labour of
procuring the originals of the works which he transcribed, must have been
attended with much trouble and some risk, at a time when all the usual
intercourse of life was suspended, and when we can conceive that even so
simple a circumstance as the borrowing and lending a book of ballads, was
accompanied with some doubt and apprehension, and that probably the
suspected volume was subjected to fumigation, and the precautions used in
quarantine. [With deference to Sir Walter, we would suggest that the
suspicion under which books are always held at a time of pestilence, as a
means of conveying the infection, gives great reason to suppose George
Bannatyne had preciously collected his original manuscripts, and only took
this opportunity of transcribing them. The writing of eight hundred folio
pages in the careful and intricate style of calligraphy then practiced,
appears a sufficient task in itself for three months, without supposing
that any part of the time was spent in collecting manuscripts. And hence
we see the greater reason for supposing that a large part of the attention
of George Bannatyne before his twenty-third year was devoted to Scottish
poetry.]
* * * *
"In the reign of James
IV. and V., the fine arts, as they awakened in other countries, made some
progress in Scotland a1so. Architecture and music were encouraged by both
of those accomplished sovereigns; and poetry above all, seems to have been
highly valued at the Scottish court. The King of Scotland, who, in point
of power, seems to have been little more than the first baron of his
kingdom, held a free and merry court, in which poetry and satire seem to
have had unlimited range, even where their shafts glanced on royalty
itself. The consequence of this general encouragement was the production
of much poetry of various kinds, and concerning various persons, which the
narrow exertions of the Scottish press could not convey to the public, or
which, if printed at all, existed only in limited editions, which soon
sunk to the rarity of manuscripts. There was therefore an ample mine out
of which Bannatyne made his compilation, with the intention, doubtless, of
putting the Lays of the Makers out of the reach of oblivion, by subjecting
the collection to the press. But the bloody wars of Queen Mary’s time
[The accomplished writer should rather have said, the minority of James
VI., whose reign had commenced before the manuscript was written.] made
that no period for literary adventure; and the tendency of the subsequent
age to polemical discussion, discouraged lighter and gayer studies. There
is, therefore, little doubt, that had Bannatyne lived later than he did,
or had he been a man of less taste in selecting his materials, great
proportion of the poetry contained in his volume must have been lost to
posterity; and, if the stock of northern literature had been diminished
only by the loss of such of Dunbar’s pieces as Bannatyne’s Manuscript
contains, the damage to posterity would have been infinite,"
The pestilence which caused
Bannatyne to go into retirement, commenced at Edinburgh upon the 8th of
September, 1568, being introduced by a merchant of the name of Dalgleish.
We have, however, no evidence to prove that Bannatyne resided at this time
in the capital. We know, from his own information, that he wrote his
manuscript during the subsequent months of October, November, and
December; which might almost seem to imply that he had lived in some other
town, to which the pestilence only extended at the end of the month in
which it appeared in Edinburgh. Leaving this in uncertainty, it is not
perhaps too much to suppose that he might have adopted this means of
spending his time of seclusion, from the fictitious example held out by
Boccacio, who represents the tales of his Decameron as having been told
for mutual amusement, by a company of persons who had retired to the
country to escape the plague. A person so eminently acquainted with the
poetry of his own country, might well be familiar with the kindred work of
that illustrious Italian.
The few remaining facts of
George Bannatyne’s life, which have been gathered up by the industry of
Sir Walter Scott, may be briefly related. In 1572, he was provided with a
tenement in the town of Leith, by a gift from his father. This would seem
to imply that he was henceforward, at least, engaged in business, and
resided either in Edinburgh or at its neighbouring port. It was not,
however, till the 27th of October, 1587, that, being then in his
forty-third year, he was admitted in due and competent form to the
privileges of a merchant and guild-brother of the city of Edinburgh.
"We have no means of knowing what branch of traffic George Bannatyne
chiefly exercised; it is probable that, as usual in a Scottish burgh, his
commerce was general and miscellaneous. We have reason to know that it was
successful, as we find him in a few years possessed of a considerable
capital, the time being considered, which he employed to advantage in
various money-lending transactions. It must not be forgot that the penal
laws of the Catholic period pronounced all direct taking of interest upon
money, to be usurious and illegal. These denunciations did not decrease
the desire of the wealthy to derive some profit from their capital, or
diminish the necessity of the embarrassed land-holder who wished to borrow
money. The mutual interest of the parties suggested various evasions of
the law, of which, the most common was, that the capitalist advanced to
his debtor the sum wanted, as the price of a corresponding annuity,
payable out of the lands and tenements of the debtor, which annuity was
rendered redeemable upon the said debtor repaying the sum advanced. The
moneyed man of those days, therefore, imitated the conduct imputed to the
Jewish patriarch by Shylock. They did not take
-- interest – not as you
would say
Directly interest,
but they retained payment of an annuity as
long as the debtor retained the use of their capital, which came to much
the same thing. A species of transaction was contrived, as affording a
convenient mode of securing the lender’s money. Our researches have
discovered that George Bannatyne had sufficient funds to enter into
various transactions of this kind, in the capacity of lender; and, as we
have no reason to suppose that he profited unfairly by the necessities of
the other party, he cannot be blamed for having recourse to the ordinary
expedients, to avoid the penalty of an absurd law, and accomplish a fair
transaction, dictated by mutual expediency."
Bannatyne, about the same time that he
became a burgess of Edinburgh, appears to have married his spouse, Isobel
Mawchan (apparently identical with the modern name Maughan), who was the
relict of Bailie William Nisbett, and must have been about forty years of
age at the time of her second nuptials, supposing 1586 to be the date of
that event, which is only probable from the succeeding year having
produced her first child by Bannatyne. This child was a daughter, by name
Janet, or Jonet; she was born on the 3rd of May, 1587. A son,
James, born on the 6th of September, 1589, and who died young,
completes the sum of Bannatyne’s family. The father of Bannatyne died in
the year 1583, and was succeeded in his estate of Newtyle, by his eldest
living son, Thomas, who became one of the Lords of Session by that
designation, an appointment which forms an additional voucher for the
general respectability of the family. George Bannatyne was, on the 27th
of August, 1603, deprived of his affectionate helpmate, Isobel Mawchan, at
the age of fifty-seven. She had lived, according to her husband’s "Memoriall,"
"a godly, honourable, and virtuous life; was a wise, honest, and true
matron, and departed in the Lord, in a peaceful and godly manner."
George Bannatyne himself deceased previous
to the year 1608, leaving only one child, Janet, who had, in 1603, been
married to George Foulis of Woodhall and Ravelstone, second son of James
Foulis of Colingtoun. His valuable collection of Scottish poetry was
preserved in his daughter’s family till 1712, when his great-grandson,
William Foulis of Woodhall, bestowed it upon the Honourable William
Carmichael of Skirling, advocate, brother to the Earl of Hyndford, a
gentleman who appears to have had an eminent taste for such monuments of
antiquity. While in the possession of Mr Carmichael, it was borrowed by
Allan Ramsay, who selected from its pages the materials of his popular
collection, styled, "Evergreen." Lord Hailes, in 1770, published
a second and more correct selection from the Bannatyne Manuscript; and the
venerable tome was, in 1772, by the liberality of John, third Earl of
Hyndford, deposited in the Advocate’s Library at Edinburgh, where it
still remains.
We have already alluded to George Bannatyne
as a poet; and it remains to be shown in what degree he was entitled to
that designation. To tell the truth, his verses display little, in thought
or imagery, that could be expected to interest the present generation;
neither was he perhaps a versifier of great repute, even in his own time.
He seems to have belonged to a class very numerous in private life, who
are eminently capable of enjoying poetry, and possess, to appearance, all
the sensibilities which are necessary to its production; but, wanting the
active or creative power, rarely yield to the temptation of writing verse,
without a signal defeat. Such persons, of whom George Bannatyne was
certainly one, may be said to have negative, but not positive poetry. As
it seems but fair, however, that he who has done so much to bring the
poetry of others before the world, should not have his own altogether
confined to the solitude of manuscript, or the unobvious print of his own
bibliographical society, we subjoin a specimen from one of the very few
pieces which have come down to our own time. The verses which follow are
the quaint, but characteristic conclusions of a sonnet to his mistress’
eyebrow. It is ludicrous to observe theology pressed by the venerable
rhymester into the service of love.
"No thing of rycht I
ask, my Lady fair,
Bot of fre will and mercy me to saif;
Your will is your awin, as reason wald it ware.
Thairfoir of grace, and nocht of rycht
I craif
Of you mercy, as ye wald mercy haif
Off God our Lord, quhois mercyis infeneit
Gois befoire all his workis, we may
persalf,
To thame quhois handis with mercy ar repleit.
Now to conclude with wordis
compendious;
Wald God my tong wald to my will
respond,
And eik my speech was so facundious,
That I was full of rethore termys jocund!
Than suld my lufe at moir length be exponed,
Than my cunnying can to you heir declair;
For this my style inornetly compond,
Eschange my pen your earls to truble
mair.
Go to my deir with hummill
reverence,
Thou bony bill, both rude and imperfeyte;
Go, nocht will forgit flattery to her presence,
As it is falset the custome use and ryte;
Cause me nocht BAN that evir I the indyte.
NA TYNE my travel, turning all in vane;
Bot with ane faithfull hairt, in word
and wryte,
Declair my mind and bring me joy agane.
My name quha list to knaw,
let him tak tent
Vnto this littill verse nixt presedent."
It only remains to be mentioned that the
name of George Bannatyne has been appropriately adopted by a company of
Scottish literary antiquaries, interested, like him, in the preservation
of such curious memorials of the taste of past ages, as well as such
monuments of history, as might otherwise run the hazard of total
perdition.
Memorials of George Bannatyne (pdf)
The Bannatyne Manuscript in 4 volumes (pdf)
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4 |
