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It is not easy to believe
that the name of Alison Cockburn would have become a household word in
Scotland had her only claim to fame rested upon the song with which it is
always associated. “Flowers of the Forest” is surely not worthy of the
excessive praise that has been lavished upon it by most of the compilers
of Scottish song-books. Its success supplies but another instance of how
little need there is for a song to possess unusual literary merit in order
to become popular. The original words – for the ballad is of very ancient
date – have been lost long ago, but the simple air to which they were
wedded, after being handed down from generation to generation, has
inspired several writers to compose appropriate lyrics. Mrs. Cockburn’s
attempt is perhaps the most successful, but it would not be hard to pick
holes in her poem. The very obvious flaws in its scansion and rhyme are
sufficiently apparent.
THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST
I hae seen the smiling o’
fortune beguiling;
I hae felt all its favours, and found its decay:
Sweet was its blessing, kind its caressing:
But now ‘tis fled – fled far, far away.
I hae seen the forest,
adorned the foremost,
With flowers of the fairest, most pleasant and gay,
Sae bonnie was their blooming; their scent the air perfuming;
But now they are wither’d and a’ wede away.
I hae seen the morning with
gold the hills adorning,
And loud tempest storming before the mid-day.
I hae seen Tweed’s siller streams, glittering in the sunny beams,
Grow drumly and dark as they row’d on their way.
O fickle fortune! Why this
cruel sporting?
Oh, why still torment us, poor sons of a day!
Nae mair your smiles can cheer me, nae mair your frowns can fear me;
For the Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
Walter Scott and Robert
Burns unite in praising this poem to the skies, so it is perhaps rather
presumptuous to find fault with it. “A fine set of verses,” Scott calls it
in one of his letters. But then Sir Walter was prejudiced in its favour by
being personally acquainted with the author. He was forced, indeed, to
admit that Mrs. Cockburn’s with and conversational talents made a stronger
impression upon her contemporaries than her writings were ever likely to
produce upon her descendants.
Burns, too, was a not
altogether impartial critic. “‘Flowers of the Forest’ is charming as a
poem,” he wrote, in 1793, to Thomson, when the latter had asked his advice
as to the projected publication of a series of songs to suit a collection
of the best Scottish airs. “The three stanzas beginning –
“’I hae seen the smiling of
fortune beguiling’
Are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalise the
author of them, who is an old lady of my acquaintance.” (Once more we note
the velvet glove of the friend lightening the touch of the critic’s iron
hand.) “What a charming apostrophe,” he adds, “is
“’O fickle fortune! Why this cruel
sporting?
Why, why torment us – poor sons of a day!’”
A charming apostrophe perhaps; but the rhyming of
“fortune and “sporting” is distinctly less charming. Burns, however, could
not well avoid feeling a kindly interest in this poem without exposing
himself to a charge of gross ingratitude. He had known it from the days of
his youth. He entertained, in fact, a sort of semi-paternal interest in
it; for he himself had once made use of it as the foundation of a juvenile
set of verses. It was therefore natural that he should keep a warm corner
in his heart for a song which he had plagiarised at the early age of
seventeen when he wrote:-
“I dream’d I lay where
flowers were springing
Gaily in the sunny beam;
List’ning to the wild birds singing,
By a falling, crystal stream;
Straight the sky grew black and daring;
Thro’ the woods the whirlwinds rave;
Trees with aged arms are warring,
O’er the swelling, drumlie wave.
Such was my life’s
deceitful morning,
Such the pleasure I enjoy’d;
But lang or noon, loud tempests storming,
A’ my flowery bliss destroy’d.
Tho’ fickle fortune has deceived me,
She promis’d fair, and perform’d but ill;
Of monie a joy and hope bereav’d me,
I bear a heart shall support me still.”
A comparison of those
verses with those of Mrs. Cockburn, which had appeared, eleven years
earlier, in a paper called The Lark, shows that not only did Burns
steal the idea of his poem from “Flowers of the Forest,” but that many of
the actual words were taken bodily from the text of that song. The most
that can be said for this offspring of his youthful pen is that it was
quite as good, and as much deserving of immortality, as the source of its
inspiration. After all, the same thing is true of songs as of verses, of
which Dr. Johnson very truly said that it was easy enough to write them;
the difficulty was to know when you had written a good one!
Had Mrs. Cockburn done
nothing beyond writing “Flowers of the Forest” her name would have been
forgotten years ago. Had this ballad been written by a less noteworthy
woman, it would not long have survived the date of its birth. But Mrs.
Cockburn made her mark upon the social history of her day by other and far
more effectual means than as a mere writer of songs. She was for many
years one of the best known and best loved characters in Edinburgh
society. Her house was the rendezvous of all the interesting persons who
inhabited or visited the Scottish capital. Her parties were characterised
by an absence of formality, which did not detract form their charm; he
hospitality was of that simple kind which insures the comfort of guests
without laying them under too deep and obligation. The distinguished
company she kept made up for an occasional scarcity of food, and she
herself was fond of saying that her little repasts, at which such men as
David Hume and Lord Monboddo were often to be met, resembled those of
Stella:-
“A supper like her mighty
self,
Four nothings on four plates of delf.”
People were not then so
particular on the subject of cooking as they are nowadays, and Edinburgh
society flocked to Mrs. Cockburn’s door in search of the rich mental fare
that she supplied, which her friends infinitely preferred to the material
food of many of her wealthier neighbours. In those days, as Lockhart tells
us, people “did not deal in six weeks’ invitations and formal dinners; but
they formed, at a few hours notice, little snug supper-parties, which,
without costing any comparative expense, afforded opportunities a
thousandfold for all manner of friendly communication between the sexes.”
[Peter’s Letters to his Kinfolk, vol. i. p.107] David Hume, the
historian, arriving at Mrs. Cockburn’s house one evening when most of the
supper dishes had been consumed, his hostess at once made Herculean
efforts to cater for his needs. He stopped her with a smile. “Trouble
yourself very little about what you have, or how it appears,” said he.
“You know I am no epicure, but only a glutton!” [Life of David Hume,
vol. ii. p.449.] And her other guests were equally easy to please.
They asked for nothing but the stimulating society of their hostess and
the witty conversation of her friends.
Alison Rutherford was the
daughter of Robert Rutherford of Fairnilee, and of his second wife, Alison
Ker of Shaw. She was born in 1713 at Fairnilee in Selkirkshire, that
Tweedside country which Scott has immortalised in “Marmion.” Her childhood
was not marked by any event of particular interest. One of the most vivid
of her youthful recollections was of the old blind gardener at Fairnilee,
to whom she paid a visit regularly every Saturday in order to clip his
long white beard, a task which gave the child a satisfactory feeling of
self-importance. Another early reminiscence to which she loved to look
back was a summons from the minister of Galashiels, [The Rev. H.
Davidson, author of Letters to Christian Friends, &c.] who begged her
to come and see him when he lay dying. Alison at once mounted her pony and
rode over from Fairnilee at six o’clock in the morning. She found the old
gentleman in bed, wearing a Holland nightcap, and lying between sheets as
white as his bushy hair. He embraced the girl and thanked her warmly for
coming, assuring her that she would never forget the loss of a few hours’
sleep, since it had enabled her to see the last of an old man who was
“going home.” The minister was about to give her that meticulous
description of his various ailments which it is the pardonable weakness of
chronic invalids to inflict upon their friends, when he checked himself,
declaring that it was a shame to complain of a bad road which led to such
a happy home. “And there,” he added, pointing to an open Bible which lay
on a table by his side, “there is my passport. Let me beg, my young
friend, you will study it. You are not yet a Christian,” he continued –
(“He spoke true,” said Alison afterwards) – “but you have an enquiring
mind, and cannot fail to be one.” With that and his blessing the old man
dismissed her. Never, she subsequently affirmed, did she feel so happy as
on that morning when she rode home from the deathbed which she had
brightened for a few moments by the sunshine of her presence. [Letters and
Memoirs of Mrs. Alison Rutherford or Cockburn, edited by T.
Craig-Brown, p.173. (D. Douglas, Edin.,)]
Before Alison Rutherford
had reached the age of seventeen, a young man of her own age, who was
eventually destined to suffer a premature and tragic death, had fallen
deeply in love with her. This was John Aikman, son of William Aikman, the
artist friend of Pope, who painted Lady Grisell Baillie and John, Duke of
Argyll, and whose portrait of Duncan Forbes still hangs in our National
Portrait Gallery. “John Aikman’s affection, kindness, and sympathy for me
surpassed the love of women,” wrote Mrs. Cockburn to a friend, more than
forty years later; and she seems always to have kept one little corner of
her heart, “empty and hush’d and safe apart,” sacred to his memory. For
some reason or other – perhaps owing to the state of the young man’s
health; perhaps because she did not return his love – Alison was prevented
from wedding this youthful admirer. And in 1731 we find her marrying
Patrick Cockburn, a young lawyer, who had been called to the Scottish bar
a few years before, and was the son of old Lord Ormiston. [Adam
Cockburn, Lord-Justice-Clerk, afterwards appointed a Lord of Session with
the title of Lord Ormiston.] Within a month of her marriage with
Cockburn, her friend John Aikman died, his death being promptly followed
by that of his father, who only survived him a few days. [The following
epitaph is inscribed on the tombstone of this unfortunate pair in the
Greyfriars’ Churchyard:-
“Of virtue, as by
nature, close allied,
The painter’s genius, but without the pride;
With unambitious wit afraid to shine,
Honour’s dear light, and friendship’s warmth divine;
The son, fair rising, knew too short a date,
But oh! much more severe the father’s fate;
He saw him torn unkindly from his side,
Felt all a father’s anguish, wept and died.”]
Alison Cockburn’s married
life was as happy as she or anybody else could possibly have desired. In
her youth, as she states in her Memoirs, she had had several “matrimonial,
as well as dancing lovers.” But from the moment when she gave her heart as
well as her hand to Patrick Cockburn, she never glanced aside or had cause
to regret the step which was to bring her two-and-twenty years of wedded
bliss.
For the first four years of
their married life the Cockburns lived with Alison’s father-in-law, the
old Lord Justice-Clerk. “The good old man’s affection for me,” wrote Mrs.
Cockburn in after years, “Was infinitely more pleasing than all the
adulation I ever met with, and I still remember it with pleasure.” [Her
Memoirs, p.4.] That the charms of this amiable relative did not
impress everybody to the same favourable extent may be gathered from the
fact that he was popularly known as “The Curse of Scotland,” a sobriquet
which he earned by his ruthless zeal in harrying and oppressing those
unfortunate people who took part in the rebellion of 1715.
It is curious to think that
the whole income of the Patrick Cockburns when they married was only £150
a year – a modest competence in these luxurious days – upon which they
managed to live comfortably without ever incurring a single debt. We
moderns who, occupying a social position similar to theirs, think twice
before we marry upon £1000 a year, may look back with something akin to
envy at days when it was still possible to keep up appearances upon less
than a quarter of that sum. But then we should probably turn up our noses
in disgust at the style of living which more than satisfied our ancestors.
Mrs. Cockburn’s little parties would be voted “slow,” unless they included
a concert given by operatic “stars,” or a dramatic performance by
exponents of the latest music-hall sensation. We must all have our box at
the opera, where we can sleep peacefully through the second act of
Lohengrin. We must own a motor-car, in which we can escape from our
friends, or pay surprise visits to other friends who cannot escape from
us. We are not “gluttons” like Hume, but it is to be feared that we are
all “epicures” nowadays. (This, however, is an unpardonable digression.)
Mrs. Cockburn had an only
son to whom both she and her husband were much attached, and when the boy
was old enough to be sent to school, his parents moved to Edinburgh so as
to be near him. It was in September 1745, during their residence in the
capital, that “Bonnie Prince Charlie” made his triumphal entry into
Edinburgh, on his way to a week’s lodging at Holyrood, an occasion upon
which Mrs. Cockburn distinguished herself and very nearly got into serious
trouble by allowing her sense of humour to outrun her discretion. The
Cockburns of Ormiston were Whigs and Presbyterians, and strongly
disapproved of the Pretender and his claims. This disapproval was voiced
by Mrs. Cockburn in a set of verses parodying Prince Charlie’s
proclamation, and beginning:-
“Have you any laws to mend,
Or have you any grievance?
I’m a hero at my trade,
And truly a most leal prince.
Would you have war, would you have peace?
Would you be free from taxes?
Come chapping to my father’s door,
You need not doubt of access.” [Songstresses of Scotland, vol. i. p80.]
The author of this parody
had watched the prince’s state procession from her window with much secret
amusement. She had listened with a smile while the heralds proclaimed King
James the Eighth of Scotland and Third of Great Britain. When the
cavalcades of Highland chieftains, of lovely ladies distributing Stuart
favours to the crowd, of hardy veterans bristling with claymores, had
passed, she drove out of the city to make a call at Ravelston, where lived
her relatives the Keiths. Their political views, as she well knew, were
antagonistic to those of her husband, and, doubtless with the object of
chaffing her Jacobite relations, she carried her newly-written verses with
her to Ravelston. On her return to Edinburgh, the Keith carriage in which
she was driving was suddenly stopped at the City Gate by an officious
captain of the Highland Guard, who declared that he had orders to search
every incoming vehicle for hidden Whig papers. The position was an awkward
one for Mrs. Cockburn. If the satirical verses were found upon her person
it would be very difficult to prove their harmless character to a zealous
Jacobite captain of the guard, who was unlikely to see the humour of any
joke at the expense of his prince. Fortunately the danger was averted by
the curiosity of a subordinate officer. Just as things were looking grave,
this man happened to catch sight of the friendly Ravelston arms on the
panel of the coach, pointed them out to his superior, and the carriage was
at once allowed to pass unsearched upon its way. It is to be hoped that
the bad quarter-of-an-hour which Alison Cockburn suffered at the City Gate
was compensated for by the many subsequent hours of pleasure she gave her
friends by her amusing descriptions of the adventure. The incident may not
have cured her of writing political squibs, but it must certainly have
taught her the folly of carrying them about on her person at times of
popular excitement.
Somewhere about this time
Patrick Cockburn was appointed commissioner – or, as we should call it
nowadays, agent – to James, 6th Duke of Hamilton who never
seems to have treated him with the consideration he deserved. The ducal
affairs were in a bad state, and it was hoped that the new commissioner
would be able to place them upon a sounder financial footing. The duke
owed his agent a debt of gratitude for having dissuaded him from joining
the rebels in 1745, and was consequently more of less disposed to listen
to the good counsel of so sage an adviser. In accordance, therefore, with
Cockburn’s advice, he promised to go abroad and remain away for five years
in order that in his absence his expenses might be restricted and his
affairs satisfactorily arranged. This promise was destined to be broken
almost immediately. Within eighteen months of his going abroad, the Duke
of Hamilton found prolonged exile from England unbearable. He thereupon
wrote a letter of profound apology to his commissioner, explaining his
inability to keep his pledge, and begging to be provided with sufficient
credit to enable him to return. This done, he hastened home, and became
engaged to the beautiful Miss Gunning, whom he married in a great hurry,
and with that useful article, a curtain-ring, which has done duty on more
than one similar occasion. One of the first things the duke did upon his
return was to dismiss his agent, and turn the Cockburns out of the house
they were then occupying. [The Dukes of Hamilton seem all to have been
somewhat impetuous and eccentric young man. It was a descendant of this
duke’s, Archibald, ninth of his line, who advertised for a hermit as an
ornament for his park, stipulating that the holy man should only shave
once a year. Archibald also had a fancy for peculiar pets, and once when a
friend who was paying an afternoon call happened to ask if it were true
that he kept a tame tiger, he whistled, and the animal came out from
underneath the sofa. The friend immediately recollected a pressing
engagement with his dentist, and left the house without stopping to take
his hat.] Luckily for them, an old bachelor friend of Patrick’s, who
lived in the neighbourhood, came to their assistance, and offered them a
temporary asylum in his own home.
Within a year or two of his
leaving the Duke of Hamilton’s service, Patrick Cockburn developed a
serious illness, and moved with his family to Musselburgh in search of
health. Here the best physicians were consulted, among them Sir Walter
Scott’s grandfather, Dr. Rutherford, and an eminent surgeon, popularly
known as “Kind old Sandy Wood,” famous as being the first man to carry an
umbrella in the streets of Edinburgh.
In spite of the treatment
prescribed by these able doctors, Patrick Cockburn grew rapidly worse, and
finally died in 1753, offering up with his last breath a prayer to heaven
to preserve “the dearest and best of wives.” She, poor soul, was
heart-broken at the loss she had sustained, and for the next year lived in
retirement at the house of her brother-in-law, Sir John Inglis of Cramond.
She refused, however, to wear mourning – thereby no doubt shocking the
feelings of her more conventional relatives – declaring that such a sorrow
as hers was too sacred to be paraded with crape and all the usual
paraphernalia of domestic woe.
Mrs. Cockburn subsequently
moved to Edinburgh, and settled in a house in Blair’s Close, Castle Hill,
which had once been the residence of the first Duke of Gordon, whose
coronet was still to be seen emblazoned above the doorway. From this house
she subsequently moved to another in Crichton Street, where for fifteen
years she and her sister Katherine (Mrs. Swinton) and the latter’s son,
who had both joined her in the meantime, lived happily together.
Of Mrs. Cockburn’s
friendship with David Hume we have already heard. The numerous letters
that passed between them at this time show that they were on affectionate
terms which permitted either to indulge in much good-natured chaff at the
other’s expense. “Idol of Gaul,” she wrote to her famous friend, when he
was in France, in 1764, “I worship thee not… I remember that, in spite of
vain philosophy, of dark doubts, of toilsome learning, God had stamped his
image of benignity so strong upon thy heart that not all the labours of
thy head could efface it. Idol of a foolish people, be not puffed up!”
[Life of David Hume, by J.H. Burton, vol. ii. p.231.] One of “these
foolish people,” however, she seems to have held in the profoundest
regard. Rousseau, that sublime egoist, who was now at the very zenith of
his literary fame, made a deep impression upon Mrs. Cockburn’s sensitive
heart. She delighted in his masterly but paradoxical condemnations of the
ethics of civilisation. Like Hazlitt, another of the Frenchman’s admirers,
she too perhaps shed tears “as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinal
gums” over the Nouvelle Héloise. “Lord bless you,” she wrote to
Hume in 1766, “bring Rousseau here. Sweet old man, he shall sit beneath an
oak and hear the Druids’ song… O bring him with you; the English are not
worthy of him; I will have him! I cannot speak to him, but I know his
heart, and am certain I could please it.” “This is a high pitch of
vanity,” she adds, “but I am sure of it; and it’s the only coquetry I’m
mad about. Were Voltaire to call at my door, I would say, I will not see
him. Bring my dear old Rousseau; I am sure he is like my John Aikman.”
[Letters of Eminent Persons to David Hume, edited by J.H. Burton,
p.125. (1849.)] Mrs. Cockburn can have had but little knowledge of the
domestic life of her hero or she would never have compared him to that
early love whose memory was always so dear to her. The publication of
Rousseau’s Confessions some twelve years before her death may
perhaps have altered her opinion of the philosopher, but in her letters to
Hume she can find no praise too strong for this her idol. “In every
article I am him,” she writes on another occasion, “except peevishness,
which, God willing, men oppressing, and time serving, may bring about. A
feeling heart is apt to sour; a cool philosopher who has no guide but
reason, no aim but truth, no passions, no follies, but love of fame (a
breath blown over his tomb), cannot possibly grow peevish. They only live
for their sort of eternity; which we people of fancy, of warmth and
imagination, who never will cease from ideas of enjoyment, cannot indulge
in; we grow impatient, we do not meet with that perfection we are born
with the ideas of, and we grow peevish for want of them; we forget we are
in the nursery, and long for the dining-room.” [Ibid., pp.123-4.]
Mrs. Cockburn need not have been under any such apprehension as regards
her own character, for she never grew peevish or impatient. Sorrow only
served to increase her tolerance, and with advancing years she became more
and more kindly and broad-minded.
In this pleasant, easy
fashion Mrs. Cockburn kept up a voluminous correspondence with a number of
friends, many of whom she christened with various appropriate nicknames
and bantered unmercifully. One of these was “Bobbie” Chalmers, whom she
always addressed as “Brownie,” an Edinburgh solicitor whose combination of
simplicity and conceit caused his friends a great deal of amusement. When
Chalmers paid his first visit to London, an acquaintance who chanced to
meet him at a ball took the opportunity of chalking on his back a notice
which ran: “I’m little Bobbie Chalmers from Edinburgh!” The result of this
practical joke was that every wag who read the inscription hastened to
greet the bearer of it with a cordial “Halloa, Bobbie Chalmers, how are
you?” and inquired anxiously for the latest news from Edinburgh. Chalmers
was much impressed with the affability of London folk, and not a little
puffed up to think that the reputation that had already preceded him was
sufficient to insure so hearty a welcome at the hands of complete
strangers.
Another of Mrs. Cockburn’s
correspondents was Miss Henrietta Cumming, a strange, romantic, hysterical
creature, for a long time governess to the Balcarres family, and, like
many governesses, very jealous of her position and careful of her sacred
dignity. Lady Anne Lindsay describes her as being “so perfectly fantastic,
unlike to others, and wild, that when Nature made her, she broke the
mould.” [Lives of the Lindsays, vol. ii. p.312] But Mrs. Cockburn
was apparently very fond of this curious woman, and obtained much
amusement from her various eccentricities of character and conduct. She
was also devoted to the whole Lindsay family. Lady Balcarres, indeed,
looked upon her, as Lady Anne tells us, as a second mother. “She was ten
years her senior, but her mind was so gay, enthusiastic, and ardent, her
visions were for ever decked with such powers of fancy, and such infinite
goodness of heart, her manners to young people so conciliatory, and her
tenets so mild, though plentifully Utopian, that she was an invaluable
friend between the mother and the daughters.” [Lives of the Lindsays,
ii. p.312.]
Mrs. Cockburn’s peaceful
life in Edinburgh was fated ere long to be rudely interrupted by a series
of tragedies. Her sister Katherine, who in early life had been almost a
mother to Alison, became seriously ill, and died in 1770. In the same year
Mrs. Cockburn’s nephew fixed upon her house as a suitable spot in which to
attempt suicide. But the chief sorrow of her life was the sudden death of
the son whom she worshipped, for whose sake she had made endless
sacrifices, and whose happiness, now that her husband was dead, had become
the chief object of her existence. He had entered the army as a cornet in
the 11th Regiment of Dragoons, but, owing to an illness which
temporarily deprived him of the use of his limbs, resigned his commission
and came to live with his mother in Edinburgh. Here he fell in love with a
girl named Anne Pringle, whose father had married Mrs. Cockburn’s niece.
Unfortunately for the two lovers, the girl’s father was utterly opposed to
the match, and she herself, like a dutiful daughter, declined to marry
without his consent. Mrs. Cockburn did all she could to smooth matters
over, and very nearly succeeded in doing so. In fact, a date was
eventually fixed for the wedding, and everything promised well for the
happiness of the engaged couple. On the very morning of the ceremony,
however, Anne suddenly arrived at Mrs. Cockburn’s house, dressed in black
from head to foot – she evidently possessed a strong dramatic sense – and
after a lengthy private interview with her lover, summarily broke off the
engagement. The unfortunate young man’s feelings were so harrowed by this
incident that he at once took to his bed and never again quitted it alive.
His mother was now left
alone in the world. She was still, however, the centre of an ever-widening
circle of sympathetic friends, only too anxious to mitigate her grief, who
delighted in her society. After a time, when the first poignancy of her
sorrow had worn off, she gradually began to entertain again in a quiet,
simple way, and was to be met once more at small parties given in the
houses of intimates, where her strong sense of humour, which adversity
could not destroy, added greatly to the general enjoyment of her
fellow-guests.
Sir Walter Scott declares
that Mrs. Cockburn maintained in the society of Edinburgh the rank which
French women of talent usually held in that of Paris. Her little parlour
used to assemble a very distinguished and accomplished circle of eminent
men, and resounded with the conversation of the choicest wits of the day.
Laughter was no stranger in her house. One evening, a relative of hers who
had slightly exceeded his share of the wine provided by his hostess,
locked the door of the room where the hats and coats of the other guests
had been left, and went away with the key. When the time came for the
party to break up, it was found impossible to gain entrance into this
cloakroom, and the guests had to go round to neighbouring houses and
borrow suitable attire in which to walk home. The ludicrous effect
produced by David Hume’s appearance, in a hat which was much too small for
him and boots several sizes too large, was the cause of much hilarity
among his fellow-guests, and perhaps made them feel less intolerant of the
practical joker and his doubtful humour. [Life of David Hume, vol. ii.
p.449. (Hume, by the way, seems to have possessed a peculiar talent for
placing himself in ridiculous situations. He used often to tell the story
of his falling into a swamp at the back of Edinburgh Castle, and imploring
an old Scottish woman who was passing to help him out. “Are na ye Hume the
Atheist?” she inquired. “Well, well, no matter,” said the philosopher;
“Christian charity commands you to do good to every one.” “Christian
charity here, or Christian charity there,” replied the old woman, “I’ll do
naething for ye till ye turn Christian yersel’. Ye maun repeat the Lord’s
Prayer and the Creed, or faith I’ll let ye grovel there as I found ye!”
Hume, the sceptic, who was by this time up to his armpits in the marsh,
readily rehearsed the required formulae, and so saved his life.]
Mrs. Cockburn was always
very proud of her hair which, like that of Lady Grisell Baillie, was of a
rich auburn colour, and never turned grey. She declined to wear a cap such
as other old ladies wore, but instead tied a lace hood over her head and
under her chin. Her features somewhat resembled those of Queen Elizabeth.
This likeness she heightened by wearing sleeves puffed out in the
Elizabethan fashion, which was uncommon then, became popular some years
ago, has since grown unfashionable, but will very likely regain its place
in the affections of the dressmaker before another decade has elapsed.
During the course of a long
life she came across many of the most distinguished men of the day, and
could count Lord Monboddo and Adam Ferguson among her friends. A letter
she wrote to the Rev. Robert Douglas, minister of Galashiels, who was Sir
Walter Scott’s friend and sold the first acres of Abbotsford to its future
owner, is famous as containing one of the earliest descriptions of the
great novelist. It is facetiously dated “!5th Nov., 1777,
Saturday night 15 of the gloomy month in which people of England Hang and
drown themselves,” and contains the following notice of the lad who was
afterwards to make such a name for himself in the world of letters:-
“I last night sup’d in Mr.
Walter Scot’s. He has the most extraordinary genius of a boy I ever saw.
He was reading a poem to his mother when I went in. I made him read on. It
was a description of a shipwreck. His passion rose with the storm: he
lifted his eyes and hands. ‘There’s the mast gone,’ says he, ‘I had better
read you somewhat more amusing.’”
The young author, who was
not yet six years old, then chatted freely and intelligently with Mrs.
Cockburn, gave her his opinion on Milton, and observed how strange it was
that Adam, just new into the world, should know everything. “He reads like
a Garrick,” said the amazed old lady. “You will allow this an uncommon
exotick.” [Lockhart’s Life of Scott, p.126. (1853)]
Lockhart attributes to Mrs.
Cockburn the authorship of those “lines to Mr. Walter Scott – on reading
his poem of ‘Guiscard and Matilda,’” written when the future novelist was
only fourteen years old, which show that the writer possessed the true
prophetic instinct:-
“Go on, dear youth, the
glorious path pursue
Which bounteous nature
kindly smoothed for you;
Go, bid the seeds her hand
hath sown arise;
By timely culture, to their
native skies;
Go, and employ the poet’s
heavenly art,
Not merely to delight, but
mend the heart.
Than other poets happier
mayst thou prove,
More blest in friendship,
fortunate in love,
Whilst fame, who longs to
make true merit known,
Impatient waits, to claim
thee as her own.”
Robert Burns was another of
the men, afterwards destined to become famous, whom Mrs. Cockburn met
during the last years of her life. “The town is at present agog with the
ploughman poet,” she wrote, in 1786, “who receives adulation with native
dignity and is the very figure of his profession – coarse and strong – but
has a most enthusastick heart of LOVE. He has seen dutchess Gordon
and all the gay world. His favrite for looks and manners is Bess Burnet –
no bad judge indeed.” [The lady in question was Lord Monboddo’s lovely
daughter, of whom Burns wrote:-
“Fair Burnet strikes the
adoring eye,
Heaven’s beauties on my
fancy shine;
I see the Sire of Love
on high,
And own his work
divine.”]
Of Robert burn’s own work
Mrs. Cockburn admired “The Cottar’s Saturday Night” the most. She
predicted that its author would most certainly be spoilt by the worship of
the fashionable world, though she was forced to admit that his manners
were simple enough and that he had hitherto apparently succeeded in
keeping perfectly sober in society.
This was certainly a most
interesting period in the social and literary history of Scotland, when so
many young eagles were testing their flying powers. Edinburgh had always
been the centre of literary thought. Sir Walter Scott has declared that
the vieille cour of the northern capital was more like that of
Paris than that of St. James’s. There was an absence of formality and
ostentation about the social gatherings of Edinburgh in which they
resembled the little French parties where “wit and brilliant conversation
superseded all occasion for display.”
The ideas of entertaining
one’s friends were different then from what they are today. There was more
genuine hospitality and less make-believe. Guests stayed at country houses
for weeks on end, instead of arriving by the last train on Saturday night
and leaving by the first on Monday morning as they do now. Poor relations
quartered themselves indefinitely upon their kindred, after a fashion that
is only followed to-day by the mothers-in-law of screaming farce. Indeed,
it was not always easy for a good-natured hostess to get rid of her guests
when they showed signs of outstaying their welcome. One old Scottish lady,
noted for her extreme hospitality, was much imposed upon by unscrupulous
friends who paid her interminable visits. At length, when she had
determined that the moment had arrived to accelerate their departure, she
would come downstairs in the morning and remark with a smile, “Mak’ a gude
breakfast, Mr………., while yer aboot it; ye dinna ken whaur ye’ll get your
dinner!” Even the most thick-skinned guest could scarcely fail to take
such a broad hint as this, and hurried away to pack his portmanteau.
Society was, of course, much smaller then. Its gates were not necessarily
open to the man with the largest banking account. Nor yet was it so select
– to use the word in its modern sense – as to preclude the admission of
anyone whose pedigree was not as long as that of a prize bulldog.
Intellect and humour were two safe passports to this land of pleasant
literary friendships and frank social intercourse. Both of these Mrs.
Cockburn possessed to an unusual extent, and was consequently sure of a
warm welcome wherever she went.
In this society women – and especially elderly women – were
most conspicuous. Foremost among these was Alison Cockburn. “Even at an
age advanced beyond the usual bounds of humanity,” wrote Sir Walter Scott,
“she retained a play of imagination and an activity of intellect, which
must have been attractive and delightful in youth, but are almost
preternatural at her period of life. Her active benevolence keeping pace
with her genius rendered her equally an object of love and admiration.”
[Lives of the Lindsays, vol. ii. p.317.] So it was that Mrs.
Cockburn found herself, at the age of eighty, the very centre of the most
interesting element in Edinburgh society, and that when she died two years
later she left a gap which it was not easy to fill, and a reputation for
brilliancy of intellect and kindliness of disposition which has survived
until to-day. |
