JAMIESON, REV.
JOHN, D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A.—The debt of gratitude which Scotland owes to
this laborious and successful antiquary of her language, it would not be
easy to estimate. At a time when the words of her ancient literature
were, indeed, about to be lost—when they had made to themselves wings,
and were about to fly away for ever—he arrested and fixed them in a
copious dictionary, where they promise to remain as long as our modern
English endures. Our Scottish tongue may become a disused, or even a
dead, but never an unintelligible language; and the antiquaries of
future ages, who explore the early literature of Scotland, will bless
the labours of Jamieson, whose dictionary will form the chief guide of
their inquiries.
This excellent national
philologist was born in Glasgow, in March, 1759. His
father, the Rev. Mr. Jamieson, was one of the early ministers of the
Secession, and presided over the Antiburgher congregation of Duke
Street, Glasgow. As John was also designed for the ministry, he was
sent, in early life, to the university of his native city, where his
philological capacities obtained for him respectable notice as an apt
and diligent scholar in Latin and Greek. But this was by no means the
field in which he was ultimately destined to excel; and his bent was
already indicated, in his love of ancient ruined towers, and
black-letter books. His vocation evidently was not to master a dead, but
to revive a dying language; by far the more glorious achievement of the
two. After the usual course of logic, ethics, and physics, he became a
student in theology, and his proficiency excited the highest
expectations of future success as minister. At the close of his
theological course, he was taken on trials as licentiate by the General
Associate Presbytery of Glasgow, and licensed as preacher in 1780. Two
congregations were soon desirous to have him for their minister; the one
in Dundee, and the other in Forfar. In this question of contending
claims, it was for the Associate Synod to decide; and, in consequence of
their preference to the call from Forfar, Mr. Jamieson was ordained to
the pastoral charge in that town by the Secession Presbytery of Perth,
in 1781.
At the early age of
twenty-two Mr. Jamieson thus entered upon the sacred office of a
minister. It was at that time one of peculiar difficulty among the
Secession body; for the ferment produced in this country by the French
Revolution, and the political suspicions which it diffused through the
whole community, caused all who did not belong to the Established Church
to be considered as disloyal, or at least discontented subjects. Mr.
Jamieson, of course, was regarded, at his entrance into Forfar, as one
who might become a teacher of sedition, as well as a preacher of the
gospel of peace. But he had not been long there when his conduct
disarmed the suspicious, and procured him general confidence and esteem;
while his able clerical labours were rewarded with a full congregation
and permanent usefulness. He thus made trial of his ministry for sixteen
years, during which period he married the daughter of a neighbouring
proprietor, who gladdened the course of his lone life, and died only a
year before his own decease. It was in Forfar also that he commenced his
life of authorship, and his first production was of a kind the least to
be expected from a plodding, word-sifting antiquary—it was a poem! It
was published in 1789, and entitled, the "Sorrows of Slavery, a Poem,
containing a Faithful Statement of Facts respecting the Slave-trade." We
suspect that, though most of our readers may have read the splendid
lyrics of Cowper and Montgomery on the same subject, they have not
chanced to light upon this production of Jamieson. He made another
attempt of the same nature in 1798, when he published "Eternity, a Poem,
addressed to Freethinkers and Philosophical Christians." But during the
interval between these two attempts, his pen had been employed in more
hopeful efforts. These were, in "Alarm to Britain; or, an Inquiry into
the Causes of the Rapid Progress of Infidelity," which he published in
1795, and a "Vindication of the Doctrine of Scripture, and of the
Primitive Faith concerning the Divinity of Christ, in reply to Dr.
Priestley’s "History of Early Opinions," which appeared in the same
year. The last was a work of great scholarship and research, as well as
cogent argument; and in these departments, at least, he showed himself a
full match for his formidable antagonist. Another work, which he
published during his ministry in Forfar, was of a different bearing, as
may be learned from its title, which was, "Sermons on the Heart."
By these labours Jamieson
won for himself an honourable name in literature, that was especially
grateful to the religious community to which he belonged, and they
testified their feeling in a way that was not only creditable to him,
but to themselves A call was sent to him in 1796, from the congregation
in Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, whose pastor, the Rev. Mr. Banks, had
left them for America. The Synod at the time judged his transfer from
Forfar to Edinburgh inexpedient, and decided accordingly; but the
Nicolson Street congregation thought otherwise, and renewed their call,
and were successful, so that he was inducted as their minister in June,
1797. Jamieson’s clerical duties were thus multiplied by a new and more
extensive field of labour; but he did not remit those literary exertions
which had thus far been crowned with success. In 1799 he published his
"Remarks on Rowland Hill’s Journal." In 1802 appeared his work, in two
volumes octavo, entitled the "Use of Sacred History;" and in
1806, the "Important Trial in the Court of Conscience." His next work,
and by far his most important, was the Etymological Dictionary of the
Scottish Language." The Herculean attempt which he proposed to himself
in this work, and which he has so successfully accomplished, was the
following:—
1. To illustrate the
words in their different significations, by examples from ancient and
modern writers.
2. To show their affinity
to those of other languages, and especially the northern.
3. To explain many terms
which, though now obsolete in England, were formerly common to both
countries.
4. To elucidate national
rites, customs, and institutions, in their analogy to those of other
nations.
The history of this
national production of Jamieson is worthy of particular notice. When he
first engaged in a task to which his early studies and pursuits had been
so congenial, he had meant to produce nothing more than a work of small
dimensions—a mere vocabulary or glossary of the Scottish tongue; and in
the notes which he had prepared for the occasion, the names of his
authorities were merely mentioned, without further reference. It was
then suggested to him that the Dictionary would be more acceptable to
the public, as well as more satisfactory as a standard, if he quoted
those passages at full by which his definitions were confirmed. He acted
upon this advice, being fully persuaded of its correctness, and the
consequence was, that his drudgery was again to be undergone, and that,
too, with many heavy additions, so that he went over the whole ground
not only a second, but, in many cases, a third time. It was not
wonderful if, under such a process, the result was two goodly quarto
volumes, instead of a slim duodecimo. The new light, also, which broke
upon him in the course of his studies, was sufficient to inspire him
with tenfold ardour in the task. At the outset he had supposed, in
common with the prevalent opinion, that the Scottish language was, in
fact, no language at all, but a mere dialect of the Anglo-Saxon; and
that, as such, its fountain was at no greater distance than England, and
of no higher antiquity than the days of Hengist and Horsa. His
interviews, however, with a learned Icelander, suggested another and
more important theory: this was, that the primitive words of the
Scottish dialect were not Saxon, nor even Celtic, but Gothic. Were the
Lowlanders of Scotland, then, the descendants not merely of Anglo-Saxon
captives and refugees, but of a still more illustrious race—even of
those who conquered Rome herself; and opened the way to the regeneration
of Europe? Such, he concluded, must be the case; and the only
difficulty that remained was to prove it. This he endeavoured to
accomplish, by demonstrating that the Picts were not a Celtic but a
Gothic race; and that from them, and not the Welsh or the Saxon, we
derive these peculiarities of the Scottish tongue. This theory, which he
supported with a great amount of learning and probability, is published
in his "Dissertation on the Origin of the Scottish Language," prefixed
to the Dictionary. The Dictionary itself was published in 1808-1809, to
which a Supplement, in two other quarto volumes, was added in 1825. As
the first portion of the work was soon out of print, he published an
abridgment of it in 1818, in one volume octavo. All this was an immense
amount of labour for a single mind, and the literary world was
astonished at his long-continued, unshrinking perseverance, as well as
the successful termination that requited it. But still he never
considered it completed, and continued his additions and improvements to
the last; so that, at his death, two large volumes in manuscript had
accumulated, nearly ready for the press. And besides all this, his
antiquarian industry was employed upon other tasks of a kindred nature.
In 1811 he published "An Historical account of the Ancient Culdees of
Iona, and of their settlement in England, Scotland, and Ireland." In
1814 appeared his "Hermes Scythicus, or the Radical Affinities of the
Greek and Latin languages to the Gothic." In 1817 he contributed to the
Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions a paper "On the origin of
Cremation, or Burning of the Dead." In the year following he
unexpectedly appeared in a "Grammar of Rhetoric and Polite Literature."
He also edited two important national productions which, on account of
their obsolete language, were fast hastening into general forgetfulness.
These were, the "Wallace" of Blind Harry, and the "Bruce" of Barbour.
This list of Jamieson’s
publications, of a strictly scholastic nature, may startle some who
recollect that, all the while, he was minister of an Antiburgher
congregation; and that, too, in the heart of Edinburgh. How were his
clerical duties fulfilled, and his people satisfied! But while he was
delighting the literary world by his valuable productions, and winning
the foremost place in Scottish antiquarianism, he was not regardless of
theology as his proper sphere. In 1811 he published a sermon, entitled
"The Beneficent Woman;" in 1818, a sermon on "The Death of the Princess
Charlotte;" and in 1819, "Three Sermons concerning Brotherly Love." His
close attention to his pastoral duties had also endeared him to his
congregation, while they were proud of the high reputation of their
minister, which was thrown with a reflected lustre upon themselves. An
event also occurred in their religious body that highly gratified his
Christian feelings of brotherly affection and unity, as well as the
enlarged and liberal aspirations of his intellectual character. This was
the union of the Burgher and Antiburgher divisions of the Secession
Church, who, after having kept apart until there were no longer grounds
for separation, at length agreed to reunite, and be at one. This
consummation he had long earnestly sought; and besides using every
effort to procure it, he preached and published two sermons
recommendatory of the union, which was accomplished in 1820. Ten years
after this gratifying event, Dr. Jamieson, whose age had now passed the
three score years and ten, and had entered the last decade of the series
whose "strength is but labour and sorrow," resigned his charge of
Nicolson Street congregation, and withdrew into private life. And in his
old age he was soon alone, for his numerous family, of fourteen
children, had gone successively to the grave before him, many of them
when they had reached the season of manhood, and one of them, Robert
Jamieson, when he had become one of the most distinguished lawyers in
Scotland. Last of all his wife died, also, only a year before his own
death, and while his final illness was creeping upon him. But it was
then, when nothing more remained for him, that he felt the immeasurable
superiority of religion, and the comfort which it can impart, when even
literary fame, the purest of all earthly consolations, has no longer the
power to charm. He died at his house in George Street, Edinburgh, on the
12th of July, 1838, in the eightieth year of his age. |