IN an old-world town like St. Andrews the stately, old-
world Moral Philosophy Professor must have seemed wonderfully in his place.
There are men who, good- looking in youth, become 'ordinary- looking' in
later years, but Ferrier's looks were not of such a kind. To the last—of
course he was not an old man when he died —he preserved the same
distinguished appearance that we are told marked him out from amongst his
fellows while still a youth. The tall figure, clad in old-fashioned,
well-cut coat and white duck trousers, the close-shaven face, and merry
twinkle about the eye signifying a sense of humour which removed him far
from anything which we associate with the name of pedant; the dignity, when
dignity was required, and yet the sympathy always ready to be extended to
the student, however far he was from taking up the point, if he were only
trying his best to comprehend—all this made up to those who knew him, the
man, the scholar, and the high-bred gentleman, which, in no ordinary or
conventional sense, Professor Ferrier was. It is the personality which, when
years have passed and individual traits have been forgotten, it is so
difficult to reproduce. The personal attraction, the atmosphere of culture
and chivalry, which was always felt to hang about the Professor, has not
been forgotten by those who can recall him in the old St. Andrews days; but
who can reproduce this charm, or do more than state its existence as a fact?
Perhaps this sort only comes to those whose life is mainly intellectual—who
have not much, comparatively speaking, to suffer from the rough and tumble
to which the 'practical' man is subjected in the course of his career.
Sometimes it is said that those who preach high maxims of philosophy and
conduct belie their doctrines in their outward lives; but on the whole, when
we review their careers, this would wonderfully seldom seem to be the case.
From Socrates' time onwards we have had philosophers who have taught virtue
and practised it simultaneously, and in no case has this combination been
better exemplified in recent days than in that of James Frederick Ferrier,
and one who unsuccessfully contested his chair upon his death, Thomas Hill
Green, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. It seems as though it may
after all be good to speculate on the deep things of the earth as well as to
do the deeds of righteousness.
If the saying is true, that the happiest man is lie who
is without a history, then Ferrier has every claim to be enrolled in the
ranks of those who have attained their end. For happiness was an end to
Ferrier: he had no idea of practising virtue in the abstract, and finding a
sufficiency in this. He believed, however, that the happiness to be sought
for was the happiness of realising our highest aims, and the aim he put
before him he very largely succeeded in attaining. His life was what most
people would consider monotonous enough: few events outside the ordinary
occurrences of family and University life broke in upon its tranquil course.
Unlike the custom of some of his colleagues, summer and winter alike were
passed by Ferrier in the quaint old sea-bound town. He lived there largely
for his work and books. Not that he disliked society; he took the deepest
interest even in his dinner-parties, and whether as a host or as a guest,
was equally delightful as a companion or as a talker. But in his books he
found his real life; he would take them down to table, and bed he seldom
reached till midnight was passed by two hours at least. One who knew and
cared for him, the attractive wife of one of his colleagues, who spent ten
sessions at St. Andrews before distinguishing the Humanity Chair in
Edinburgh, tells how the West Park house had something about its atmosphere
that marked it out as unique—something which was due in great measure to the
cultured father, but also to the bright and witty mother and the three
beautiful young daughters, who together formed a household by itself, and
one which made the grey old town a different place to those who lived in it.
Ferrier, as we have seen, had many distinguished
colleagues in the University. Besides Professor Sellar, who held the Chair
of Greek, there was the Principal of St. Mary's (Principal Tulloch),
Professor Shairp, then Professor of Latin, and later on the Principal; the
Logic Professor, Veitch, Sir David Brewster, Principal of the United
Colleges, and others. But the society was unconventional in the extreme. The
salaries were not large: including fees, the ordinance of the Scottish
Universities Commission appointing the salaries of Professors in 186r,
estimates the salary of the professorship of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews
at £444, 18s., and the Principal only received about Jjioo more. But there
were not those social customs and conventions to maintain that succeed in
making life on a small income irksome in a larger city. All were practically
on the same level in the University circle, and St. Andrews was not invaded
by so large an army of golfing visitors then as now, though the game of
course was played with equal keenness and enthusiasm. Professor Ferrier took
no part in this or other physical amusement: possibly it had been better for
him had he left his books and study at times to do so. The friend spoken of
above tells, however, of the merry parties who walked home after dining out,
the laughing protests which she made against the Professor's rash statement
(in allusion to his theory of percej5fion-mecum) that she was 'unredeemed
nonsense' without him; the way in which, when an idea struck him, he would
walk to her house with his daughter, regardless of the lateness of the hour,
and throw pebbles at the lighted bedroom windows to gain admittance— and of
course a hospitable supper; how she, knowing that a tablemaid was wanted in
the Ferrier establishment, dressed up as such and interviewed the mistress,
who found her highly satisfactory but curiously resembling her friend Mrs.
Sellar; and how when this was told her husband, he exclaimed, 'Why, of
course it's she dressed up; let us pursue her,' which was done with good
effect! All these tales, and many others like them, show what the homely,
sociable, and yet cultured life was like—a life such as we in this country
seldom have experience of: perhaps that of a German University town may most
resemble it. In spite of being in many ways a recluse, Ferrier was ever a
favourite with his students, just because he treated them, not with
familiarity indeed, but as gentlemen like himself. Other Professors were
cheered when they appeared in public, but the loudest cheers were always
given to Ferrier.
Mrs. Ferrier's brilliant personality many can remember
who knew her during her widowhood in Edinburgh. She had inherited many of
her father, 'Christopher North's' physical and mental gifts, shown in looks
and wit. A friend of old days writes: 'She was a queen in St. Andrews, at
once admired for her wit, her eloquence, her personal charms, and dreaded
for her free speech, her powers of ridicule, and her withering mimicry.
Faithful, however, to her friends, she was beloved by them, and they will
lament her now as one of the warmest-hearted and most highly-gifted of her
sex.' Mrs. Ferrier never wrote for publication,—she is said to have scorned
the idea,—but those who knew her never can forget the flow of eloquence, the
wit and satire mingled, the humorous touches and the keen sense of fun that
characterised her talk; for she was one of an era of brilliant talkers that
would seem to have passed away. Mrs. Ferrier's capacity for giving
appropriate nicknames was well known: Jowett, afterwards Master of Balliol,
she christened the 'little downy owl.' Her husband's philosophy she
graphically described by saying that 'it made you feel as if you were
sitting up on a cloud with nothing on, a lucifer match in your hand, but
nothing to strike it on,'—a description appealing vividly to many who have
tried to master it!
In many ways she seemed a link with the past of bright
memories in Scotland, when these links were very nearly severed. Five
children in all were born to her; of her sons one, now dead, inherited many
of his father's gifts. Her elder daughter, Lady Grant, the wife of Sir
Alexander Grant, Principal of the Edinburgh University and a distinguished
classical scholar, likewise succeeded to much of her mother's grace and
charm as well as of her father's accomplishments. Under the initials 'O. J.'
she was in the habit of contributing delightful humorous sketches to
Blackwood's Magazine—the magazine which her father and her grandfather had
so often contributed to in their day; but her life was not a long one: she
died in 1895, eleven years after her husband, and while many possibilities
seemed still before her.
Perhaps we might try to picture to ourselves the life
in which Ferrier played so prominent a part in the only real University town
of which Scotland can boast. For it is in St. Andrews that the traditional
distinctions between the College and the University are maintained, that
there is the solemn stillness which befits an ancient seat of learning, that
every step brings one in view of some monument of ages that are past and
gone, and that we are reminded not only of the learning of our ancestors, of
their piety and devotion to the College they built and endowed, but of the
secular history of our country as well. In this, at least, the little
University of the North has an advantage over her rich and powerful rivals,
inasmuch as there is hardly any important event which has taken place in
Scottish history but has left its mark upon the place. No wonder the love of
her students to the Alma Mater is proverbial. In Scotland we have little
left to tell us of the medieaval church and life, so completely has the
Reformation done its work, and so thoroughly was the land cleared of its
'popish images'; and hence we value what little there remains to us all the
more. And the University of St. Andrews, the oldest of our seats of
learning, has come down to us from medieval days. It was founded by a
Catholic bishop in 1411, about a century after the dedication of the
Cathedral, now, of course, a ruin. But it is to the good Bishop Kennedy who
established the College of St. Salvator, one of the two United Colleges of
later times, that we ascribe most honour in reference to the old foundation.
Not only did he build the College on the site which was afterwards occupied
by the classrooms in which Ferrier and his colleagues taught, but he
likewise endowed them with vestments and rich jewels, including amongst
their numbers a beautifully chased silver mace which may still be seen. Of
the old College buildings there is but the chapel and janitor's house now
existing; within the chapel, which is modernised and used for Presbyterian
service, is the ancient founder's tomb. The quadrangle, after the
Reformation, fell into disrepair, and the present buildings are
comparatively of recent date. The next College founded—that of St.
Leonard—which became early imbued with Reformation principles, was, in the
eighteenth century, when its finances had become low, incorporated with St.
Salvator's, and when conjoined they were in Ferrier's time, as now, known as
the 'United College.' Besides the United College there was a third and last
College, called St. Mary's. Though founded by the last of the Catholic
bishops before the Reformation, it was subsequently presided over by the
anti-prelatists Andrew Melville and Samuel Rutherford. St. Mary's has always
been devoted to the study of theology.
But the history of her colleges is not all that has to
be told of the ancient city. Association it has with nearly all who have had
to do with the making of our history— the good Queen Margaret, Beaton, and,
above all, Queen Mary and her great opponent Knox. The ruined Castle has
many tales to tell could stones and trees have tongues—stories of bloodshed,
of battle, of the long siege when Knox was forced to yield to France and be
carried to the galleys. After the murder of Archbishop Sharp, and the
revolution of 1688, the town once so prosperous dwindled away, and decayed
into an unimportant seaport. There is curiously little attractive about its
situation in many regards. It is out of the way, difficult of access once
upon a time, and even now not on a main line of rail, too near the great
cities, and yet at the same time too far off. The coast is dangerous for
fishermen, and there is no harbour that can be called such. No wonder, it
seems, that the town became neglected and insanitary, that Dr. Johnson
speaks of 'the silence and solitude of inactive indigence and gloomy
depopulation,' and left it with 'mournful images.' But if St. Andrews had
its drawbacks, it had still more its compensations. It had its links—the
long stretch of sandhills spread far along the coast, and bringing crowds of
visitors to the town every summer as it comes round; and for the pursuit of
learning the remoteness of position has some advantages. Even at its worst
the University showed signs of its recuperative powers. Early in the century
Chalmers was assistant to the Professor of Mathematics, and then occupied
the Chair of Moral Philosophy (that chair to which Ferrier was afterwards
appointed), and drew crowds of students round him. Then came a time of
innovation. If in 1821 St. Andrews was badly paved, ill-lighted, and
ruinous, an era of reform set in. New classrooms were built, the once
neglected library was added to and rearranged, and the town was put to
rights through an energetic provost, Major, afterwards Sir Hugh, Lyon
Playfair. He made 'crooked places straight' in more senses than one, swept
away the 'middens' that polluted the air, saw to the lighting and paving of
the streets, and generally brought about the improvements which we expect to
find in a modern town. 'On being placed in the civic chair, he had found the
streets unpaved, uneven, overgrown with weeds, and dirty; the ruins of the
time-honoured Cathedral and Castle used as a quarry for greedy and
sacrilegious builders, and the University buildings falling into disrepair;
and he had resolved to change all this. With persistency almost unexampled,
he had employed all the arts of persuasion and compulsion upon those who had
the power to remedy these abuses. He had dunned, he had coaxed, he had
bantered, he had bargained, he had borrowed, he had begged; and he had been
successful. In 1851 the streets were paved and clean, the fine old ruins
were declared sacred, and the dilapidated parts of the University buildings
had been replaced by a new edifice. And he—the Major, as he was called—a
little man, white-haired, shaggy-eyebrowed, blue-eyed, red- faced, with his
hat cocked on the side of his head, and a stout cane in his hand, walked
about in triumph, the uncrowned king of the place.'
Of this same renovating provost, it is told that one
day he dropped in to see the Moral Philosophy Professor, who, however deeply
engaged with his books, was always ready to receive his visitors. 'Well,
Major, I have just completed the great work of my life. In this book I claim
to make philosophy intelligible to the meanest understanding.' Playfair at
once requested to hear some of it read aloud. Ferrier reluctantly started to
read in his slow, emphatic way, till the Major became fidgety; still he went
on, till Playfair started to his feet. 'I say, Ferrier, do you mean to say
this is intelligible to the meanest understanding?' 'Do you understand it,
'Major?' 'Yes, I think I do.' 'Then, Major, I'm satisfied.'
Of the social life, Mrs. Oliphant says in her Life of
Princiz5al 7'ulloth: 'The society, I believe, was more stationary than it
has been since, and more entirely disposed to make of St. Andrews the
pleasantest and brightest of abiding-places. Sir David Brewster was still
throned in St. Leonard's. Professor Ferrier, with his witty and brilliant
wife—he full of quiet humour, she of wildest wit, a mimic of alarming and
delightful power, with something of the countenance and much of the genius
of her father, the great "Christopher North" of Blackwood's Magazine—made
the brightest centre of social mirth and meetings. West Park, their pleasant
home, at the period which I record it, was ever open, ever sounding with gay
voices and merry laughter, with a boundless freedom of talk and comment, and
an endless stream of good company. Professor Ferrier himself was one of the
greatest metaphysicians of his time—the first certainly in Scotland; but
this was perhaps less upon the surface than a number of humorous ways which
were the delight of his friends, many quaint abstractions proper to his
philosophic character, and a happy friendliness and gentleness along with
his wit, which gave his society a continual charm.' Professor Knight, who
now occupies Ferrier's place in the professoriate of St. Andrews, in his
Life of Professor Shairp, quotes from a paper of reminiscences by Professor
Sellar: 'The centre of all the intellectual and social life of the
University and of the town was Professor Ferrier. He inspired in the
students a feeling of affectionate devotion as well as admiration, such as I
have hardly ever known inspired by any teacher; and to many of them his mere
presence and bearing in the classroom was a large element in a liberal
education. By all his colleagues he was esteemed as a man of most sterling
honour, a staunch friend, and a most humorous and delightful companion.
There certainly never was a household known to either
of us in which the spirit of racy and original humour and fun was so
exuberant and spontaneous in every member of it, as that of which the
Professor and his wife—the most gifted and brilliant, and most like her
father of the three gifted daughters of "Christopher North "—were the heads.
Our evenings there generally ended in the Professor's study, where he was
always ready to discuss, either from a serious or humorous point of view
(not without congenial accompaniment), the various points of his system till
the morning was well advanced.'
Ferrier's daughter writes of the house at West Park: It
was an old-fashioned, rough cast or "harled" house standing on the road in
Market Street, but approached through a small green gate and a short avenue
of trees--trees that were engraven on the heart and memory from childhood.
The garden at the back still remains. In our time it was a real
old-fashioned Scotch garden, well stocked with "berries," pears, and apples;
quaint grass walks ran through it, and a summer-house with stained- glass
windows stood in a corner. West Park was built on a site once occupied by
the Grey Friars, and I am not romancing when I say that bones and coins were
known to have been discovered in the garden even in our time. Our home was
socially a very amusing and happy one, though my father lived a good deal
apart from us, coming down from his dear old library occasionally in the
evenings to join the family circle.' This family circle was occasionally
supplemented by a French teacher or a German, and for one year by a certain
Mrs. Huggins, an old ex-actress who originally came to give a Shakespeare
reading in St. Andrews, and who fell into financial difficulties, and was
invited by the hospitable Mrs. Ferrier to make her home for a time at West
Park. The visit was not in all respects a success, Mrs. Huggins being
somewhat exacting in her requirements and difficult to satisfy. So little
part did its master take in household matters that it was only by accident,
after reading prayers one Sunday evening, that he noticed her presence. On
inquiring who the stranger was, Mrs. Ferrier replied, 'Oh, that is Mrs.
Huggins.' 'Then what is her avocation?' 'To read Shakespeare and draw your
window-curtains,' said the ever-ready Mrs. Ferrier! The children of the
house were brought up to love the stage and everyone pertaining to it, and
whenever a strolling company came to St. Andrews the Ferriers were the first
to attend their play. The same daughter writes that when children their
father used to thrill them with tales of Burke and Hare, the murderers and
resurrectionists whose doings brought about a reign of terror in Edinburgh
early in the century. As a boy, Ferrier used to walk out to his
grandfather's in Morningside—then a country suburb—in fear and trembling,
expecting every moment to meet Burke, the object of his terror. On one
occasion he believed that he had done so, and skulked behind a hedge and lay
down till the scourge of Edinburgh passed by. In 1828 he witnessed his
hanging in the Edinburgh prison. Professor Wilson, his father-in-law, it may
be recollected, spoke out his mind about the famous Dr. Knox in the Nodes as
well as in his classroom, and it was a well-known fact that his favourite
Newfoundland dog Brontė was poisoned by the students as an act of
retaliation.
Murder trials had always a fascination for Ferrier. On
one occasion he read aloud to his children De Quincey's essay, 'Murder as a
Fine Art,' which so terri6ed his youngest daughter that she could hardly
bring herself to leave her father's library for bed. Somewhat severe to his
sons, to his daughters Ferrier was specially kind and indulgent, helping
them with their German studies, reading Schiller's plays to them, and when
little children telling them old-world fairy tales. A present of Grimm's
Tales, brought by her father after a visit to London, was, she tells us, a
never-to-be-forgotten joy to the recipient.
The charm of the West Park house was spoken of by all
the numerous young men permitted to frequent its hospitable board. There was
a wonderful concoction known by the name of 'Bishop,' against whose
attraction one who suffered by its potency says that novices were warned,
more especially in view of a certain sunk fence in the immediate vicinity
which had afterwards to be avoided. The jokes that passed at these
entertainments, which were never dull, are past and gone,—their piquancy
would be gone even could they be reproduced,—but the impression left on the
minds of those who shared in them is ineffaceable, and is as vivid now as
forty years ago.
There was a custom, now almost extinct, of keeping
books of so-called 'Confessions,' in which the contributors had the rather
formidable task of filling up their likes or dislikes for the entertainment
of their owners. In Mrs. Sellar's album Ferrier made several interesting
'confessions '—whether we take them au grand serleux or only as playful
jests with a grain of truth behind. Here are some of the questions and their
answers.
These last two answers are very characteristic of
Ferrier's point of view in later days. He was above all reasonable—no
ascetic who could not understand the temptations of the world, but one who
enjoyed its pleasures, saw the humorous side of life, appreciated the
asthetic, and yet kept the dictates of reason ever before his mind. And his
ambition to reach the Truth.
'Differed from a host Of aims alike in character
and kind, Mostly in this—that in itself alone Shall its reward be,
not an alien end Blending therewith.'
Thus, like Paracelsus, he aspired. |