We have seen that men of
letters were in the vanguard of the peaceful Scottish army which had been
let loose on England. They had good reasons for joining the southward trek,
for there was nothing but starvation for them in their own country. Allan
Ramsay's really worth-while poems did not bring in sufficient cash to enable
him to give up wig-making. Robert Ferguson, the Edinburgh copying clerk who
broke the hard ground which Robert Burns cultivated, lived under conditions
of extreme poverty and died in a madhouse at the early age of twenty-four.
The erudite Thomas Ruddiman was paid five pounds a year—in oatmeal!—as a
teacher at Laurencekirk, but when he moved on to Edinburgh to become
assistant in the Advocate's Library his annual income jumped to eight
pounds. Robert and Andrew Foulis, the finest printers in Europe, had had to
close up their Glasgow shop for lack of business. Many other instances of
the hopeless conditions which men connected with the world of letters had to
face in the Scotland of that day could be cited. [The conditions are not
much better to-day. The modern Scot has no interest in modern literature,
and Scottish writers of distinction are obliged to see support in England.
The Scottish way of supporting them is to claim them—after they are dead!]
Strved in such a lean field, the ambitious ones packed up their belongings
and headed for London. The majority of them were penniless when they crossed
the Border, and some had to learn the English language, but in spite of
these handicaps they played a prominent part in fashioning England's
literature.
There were some weak spots in
the structure which they reared. Mallet had weakened the foundations, and
the debris of his unscrupulous work had not been cleared away when another
wrecker came down from Scotland to vindicate the Englishman's assertion that
the Scots were a pack of impudent impostors. This was William Lauder, a
bad-tempered, assertive customer who stumped around on a wooden leg. Unable
to secure a position as a teacher in the metropolis, this scholarly
charlatan drifted into Grub Street and became a pamphleteer. He was in his
proper place. Not much was heard of him until he published Latin originals
of Milton's Paradise Lost.
Here was a sensation indeed.
Milton's masterpiece a plagiarism ! The pamphlet electrified the literary
circles of London. Its ponderous Latin verses seemed to prove, beyond all
doubt, that Milton had been a sanctimonious old humbug after all, and Doctor
Samuel Johnson, who had a fatal weakness for getting himself involved with
Scots scribblers of dubious character, [Johnson's quarrel with James
McPherson over the latter's spurious collection of Gaelic poems is famous.]
was so impressed by the significance of the exposure, that he wrote a
preface for Lauder's work, commending the courage and perspicacity of the
pamphleteer. It was the lesson that taught the lexicographer never to speak
kindly of Scotsmen again. Lauder's impudent fraud was discovered by another
scholarly Scot, and the charlatan stumped angrily into oblivion. Happily for
the honest Scots who were working out their destinies in London, no more
Lauders of literature appeared to undermine them.
At this period Scots elbowed
their way into the majority of London's newspaper offices, where they worked
hard and wrote themselves into oblivion. A few, however, rose above the dead
level of mediocrity, and of those pioneers and builders who left their marks
on English life, Alexander Chalmers deserves special mention, for his record
as a producer of literary goods was enough to make a modern writer turn
pale. Chalmers was born in Aberdeen in 1759, where his father was a printer,
and headed for London in 1777. For some years he lived precariously as a
freelance, but his ability had not passed unnoticed, for the day came when
he was able to inform his sceptical friends in Aberdeen that he was editor
of the Public Ledger and the London Packet.
Editors were supposed to be
tremendously busy fellows in those days, arriving at their offices at eight
o'clock of a morning and penning pungent leaders till the shadows of night
fell over London. Chalmers, however, must have been a fast worker or a good
manager, for here is the record of his spare-time achievement :
1793—Wrote a history of
England—two volumes.
1797—Wrote a glossary to Shakespeare.
1798—Wrote a book about the Isle of Wight. Edited Barclay's Universal
English Dictionary.
1803—Edited forty-five volumes devoted to British essayists. Edited a new
edition of Shakespeare, in nine volumes.
1805—Wrote a Life of Robert Burns. Wrote a Life of Doctor Beattie.
1806—Edited ten volumes of Fielding's Works. Edited twelve volumes of Samuel
Johnson's Works. Edited fourteen volumes of Warton's Essays.
1807—Edited twelve volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
1808—Edited forty-five volumes of Walker's Classics.
1809—Edited eight volumes of Bolingbroke's Works.
1810—Wrote a history of the colleges, halls, and public buildings attached
to the University of Oxford. 1811—Revised six volumes of Bishop Hind's
edition of Addison's Works. Revised eight volumes of Pope's Works. Wrote
three volumes of his own Essays.
One would be justified in
thinking that such a solid accomplishment would have satisfied the editor of
the Public Ledger, but it was only a preliminary canter for this Aberdonian,
for in 1812 he began to write The General Biographical Dictionary. The very
thought of such a compendium is enough to numb a writer and send him to
bed—or to the nearest tavern! But the industrious Chalmers compiled
thirty-two volumes of his dreary but useful catalogue of the activities of
human ants. The work contained nine thousand biographical articles, and of
that number the author, with Scottish meticulousness, pointed out, 3934 were
entirely his own compositions, 2176 were rewritten by him, and the rest
revised and corrected by his indefatigable quill. This remarkable machine
must have been built of stout materials, for it continued to run until 1834.
Aberdonians had a good deal
to do with the London newspapers of the eighteenth century. James Perry, who
was born in the city of granite and apocryphal jokes, proceeded to London in
1777, and got a job at a guinea a week writing for the London Evening Post.
A few years later we begin to hear of him as the proprietor of the Morning
Chronicle. How he managed it, on a guinea a week, is one of the perennial
mysteries that attend the careers of a certain type of self-made Scot, at
home and abroad. It is probably just as well, all things considered, that
the upward climb is veiled.
Howbeit, James Perry made a
success of the Morning Chronicle. One of the first men he engaged was John
Black, who had walked from Berwickshire to the English metropolis with the
proverbial three halfpennies in his pocket. [John Campbell, born at Cupar-Fife
on 15th September, 1779, was another protege of Perry's, working on the
Morning Chronicle as a theatrical critic. By wire-pulling and assiduous
solicitation he got into politics and became, in turn, Solicitor-General,
Attorney-General, and Lord Chancellor. His Lives of the Lord Chancellors is
a masterpiece of dullness.] Black's mind was not as empty as his pockets. He
had learned six languages, and with that educational equipment soon became
editor of the Morning Chronicle. During his long occupancy of the editorial
chair he surrounded himself with Scots, but among these earnest plodders was
a young Englishman who, in the opinion of Black, had "conseederable abeelity".
The young reporter's name was Charles Dickens, and he proved, later on, that
he had considerable ability.
George Smith, the son of a
Morayshire farmer, was the founder of the Pall Mall Gazette. Fired with
patriotic motives, he endeavoured to make the publication mirror the best
thought of England, and with that commendable object in view surrounded
himself with brilliant writers. Alas! Smith made the discovery that London
was not yet ready for a Press that took the serene and lofty view, and he
sank a fortune in his austere organ of progress. Still, the Pall Mall
Gazette helped to fashion the larger enterprise of England, and George Smith
was never heard to regret having spent so much hard cash to voice his ideas
of practical patriotism.
These men were fairly
representative of the capable and industrious Scots who entered the
journalistic field in London, and who continued to exert an increasing
influence in the business and editorial management of the newspapers and
magazines of the metropolis. It would be difficult, to-day, to find a London
publication that does not carry its quota of Scots. [Among the Scots who
occupy dominant positions in the field of journalism in London to-day may be
mentioned Mr. W. Lints Smith, manager of The Times; Mr. Walter Grierson,
joint managing-director of George Newnes, Ltd., the well-known periodical
and magazine publishers; Mr. William Will, general manager of the important
publications controlled by Allied Newspapers Limited; Dr. J. M. Bulloch,
formerly editor of the Graphic and now literary critic of Allied Newspapers
Limited; Ian Colvin, chief leader-writer of the Morning Post; Mr. D. S.
Meldrum, literary critic of the Morning Post; Mr. James Bone, London editor
of the Manchester Guardian; Sir Alexander Mackintosh, parliamentary
correspondent of Liverpool Daily Post and British Weekly; Mr. James Milne,
formerly literary editor of the Daily Chronicle, and now literary
correspondent of the Daily Telegraph; Howard Alexander Gray, leader-writer
on the Observer; Mr. Peter B. M. Roberts, London correspondent of the
Scotsman; Mr. Ivor J. C. Brown, of the Observer; Mr. Bruce Lockhart, of the
Evening Standard; Mr. Robert Bell, until recently assistant-editor of the
Observer; Mr. Dunbar, managing-editor of the Herald and other Odhams papers;
and Lord Beaverbrook, proprietor of the Daily Express.] Indeed, they add so
much to the congestion of Fleet Street that they have been cursed bitterly
for entering that journalistic Golgotha. In his urbane book, The Unspeakable
Scot, Mr. Crosland has this to say about the Scottish journalist in London:
He is punctual, dogged,
unoriginal and a born galley-slave. You can knock an awful lot of work out
of him, and no matter how little you pay him, he may be depended upon to
sustain "the dignity of the office" in the matter of clothes, external
habits of life, and a dog-like devotion to the hand that feeds him and the
foot that kicks him. In short, he is a capital routine man, and if you have
a journal which you wish to maintain on the ancient lines of stodge and
flatfootedness, the Scotchman does you admirably. But it is impossible to
get away from the fact that the vogue of the stolid, arid, stereotyped,
sleepy sort of journalism which satisfied the last generation is rapidly
going to pieces. The contemporary world wants and will have what it chooses
to call the "live" journalist, and the Scotchman who is a live journalist to
the extent of evolving anything bright or subtle or suggestive or original
has yet to be found. At the present moment, he is managing to keep himself
alive by imitation. As a plagiarist of ideas, necessity has made him a
master. He knows that the reign of dullness is coming to an end, and that
the auld-wife journalism in whose benevolent presence he has prosed and
prosed for so many years, is even now in her dotage and cannot last much
longer. So that he has taken thought and determined to aim higher. What man
has done, a Scot can do. It is not given him to be witty and brilliant and
unhackneyed on a little oatmeal. But, thank Heaven! he can always play
sedulous ape, and sedulous ape it shall be.
We have an uneasy feeling,
based on a good deal of experience with Scottish editors, that there is
something in what Mr. Crosland says. Too many Scots are inclined to follow
the old ruts when, after years of patient and hopeful labour, they gain
editorial authority. Seldom do they raise their noses from the well-worn
track of tradition. Their caution is most admirable; but one result of it is
that the country, especially north of the Tweed, supports an astonishingly
large number of journals that are as unchanging as moss-grown tombstones,
and which, like moss-grown tombstones, become more and more difficult to
read as the years pass.
On the other hand, Mr.
Crosland could have levelled his criticism against Englishmen, or
Norwegians, with equal point. Editors who combine wisdom with originality
and hair-trigger progressiveness are very rare birds. In twenty years of
journalistic experience we can think of only one man who possessed the
requisite gifts—and he was a devious, malicious, and coarse-grained bully
who was never happier than when destroying reputations. Scots, therefore,
need not feel cast down because their countrymen are not so prominent as
they might be in the new journalism, which floods the country with feverish
print and false alarms, in order that Baron Self made may pose as a Power
looming over a Cringing Government.
Great as was the influence
exerted by Scotsmen during the pioneering period of journalism in England,
it appears almost insignificant by comparison with the astonishing record of
Scottish publishers who left their native country to open up shop in London.
They had had a pretty thin time of it in Glasgow and Edinburgh; but, almost
without exception, they had entered the publishing business because they
liked books, they had served their terms of apprenticeship in an exacting
school, and they had sound business heads on their shoulders.
Prior to the time that these
men gained a footing in London, the lot of the author was indeed a pitiful
one, setting him to
Unpack his heart with words,
and fall a-cursing,
Like a very drab, a scullion!
He was the prey of
unscrupulous and ignorant men who called themselves publishers, but who
should have been buccaneers of the Caribbean. It seems almost trite to hark
back to the fact that Milton received only five pounds from Samuel Simmons,
the English publisher, for the manuscript of Paradise Lost. This was at the
middle of the seventeenth century. After Simmons came an exploiter, who bore
the ominous name of Jacob Tonson, who, without using weapons, acquired
Dryden's Troilus and Cressida for twenty pounds. Dean Swift received a few
pounds for Gulliver's Travels, but that was the only manuscript he ever
received a penny for. His other manuscripts were gifts—unwillingly given, we
may believe—to his rapacious publishers and posterity. Pope's bitter
denunciations of the publishing craft are well known. So are those of Byron.
The murderous relationship
that existed between author and publisher in those days is reflected by
Dryden's pungent description of the mountebank who launched his books:
With leering looks,
bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair,
And frowsy pores, that taint the ambient air!
The ambient air was freed of
its taint when Scotsmen established publishing houses in London; indeed, the
improvements which they brought about in the business of putting books on
the market form a remarkable chapter in the history of English literature.
It was as if the loosely conducted and reviled profession had been
transformed by the touch of a magic wand.
The allied arts of printing
and publishing had not developed to any great extent in Scotland at this
time; but restricted as they were from a commercial standpoint, they were by
no means lacking in quality and progressiveness. Allan Ramsay, half a
century previously, had established the first circulating library in
Edinburgh. William Ged's invention of stereotype printing had been utilized.
Sir Robert Strange, a native of the Orkney Islands, had introduced line
engraving to London in 1747 and had become one of England's most artistic
and successful engravers. Thomas Nelson, another Scot, had invented the
rotary stereo press. The beautiful types used by the Foulis Brothers,
already mentioned, were the talk of the publishing world all over Europe. In
addition to their skill as craftsmen, the Scottish printers and publishers
of this period were men of pronounced character and keen business acumen.
[It is worth noting that in the following century five of Glasgow's Lord
Provosts were drafted from the publishing trades.] With such a sound
background, those of them who opened establishments in London brought to the
business of making and selling books sound business ethics and an artistic
appreciation of the efforts of writers.
Two of the most outstanding
men among them were Andrew Millar and William Strachan (the same man who, as
noted in a previous chapter, changed his name to Strahan). Millar was
publisher for Hume, Thompson, Fielding, and Robertson, and he launched Dr.
Samuel Johnson's great Dictionary. Strahan placed Gibbon's monumental
Decline and Fall before the London public in 1776, in partnership with
Cadell, and in doing so made a bargain with the great historian that was in
curious contrast to modern contracts for book publication. Gibbon took
two-thirds of the profits, leaving the smaller fraction to the publisher.
Modern book-publishing contracts—largely as a result of the ability and
eagerness of successful ironmongers, prize-fighters, professional golfers,
politicians, and misunderstood women to write revealing autobiographies—are
invariably worded so that the obscure author remains hopeful and threadbare
till death stills his fevered hand. In the case of Gibbon and Strahan, the
opposite was the case, for on the third edition of the Rise and Fall the
author collected the tidy sum of £326 13s. 4d., while the publisher had to
be content with £163 6s. 8d. Gibbon was a genius in more ways than one!
Strahan, in addition to
putting Gibbon's masterpiece on the market, had the honour of launching Adam
Smith, and saw the beginning of the transformation that was brought about in
England's economic life by The Wealth of Nations. He was, by instinct and
training, a sound business man, but he displayed the daring and generosity
that are characteristic of big-minded money-makers. When he offered Tennyson
four thousand pounds for the right to publish the poet's books, it was an
indication of the great improvement that had been brought about in the world
of books by Strahan and other Scots. It is scarcely necessary, in view of
the sums of money which passed between them and authors, to point out that
they had replaced the old mendacious system of literary patrons by clean-cut
business methods, thereby wiping out the odium that had for so long been
associated with authorship in London.
Strahan had taken too much
pleasure out of the business of publishing books, and had done too much for
authors, to leave a fortune when he died in 1785. [Strahan established the
Argosy magazine, also the Contemporary Review, and sank a good deal of money
in his efforts to develop them.]
"There will be no books of
importance now printed in London," exclaimed Hume, when he heard that the
publisher had passed away. That, of course, was too gloomy a forecast, but
it stands in the history of British publishing as an indication of the
status of William Strahan.
Strahan, and his less
spectacular but equally capable partner, were succeeded by other Scotsmen,
who carried on the traditions they had established. The names of these Scots
come thick and fast as we stroll down Paternoster Row. Thomas Cadell, for
instance, succeeded Millar, with whom he had served his apprenticeship. The
founder of the great house of Hutchinson and Company, Sir George Thompson
Hutchinson, was a Scot, and had served his apprenticeship with Strahan.
Archibald Constable, with a fine record in Edinburgh behind him, opened up
shop in the metropolis towards the end of the century, and the firm is still
there, with an enviable record of achievement to its credit. Of the founder
of this fine old house, Sir Walter Scott remarked: "Never did there exist so
intelligent and so liberal an establishment."
George Smith, the Morayshire
farmer's son whom we have already met, with his partner, Elder— another
Scot!—published the poems of Robert Browning and John Ruskin, and the novels
of Charlotte Bronte and Charles Makepeace Thackeray. They also put the
Cornhill Magazine on its feet, opening its pages to talent, which added
permanent lustre to English literature. Thomas Hardy had already written
Desperate Remedies, Under the Greenwood Tree, and A Pair of Blue Eyes,
without impinging upon the consciousness of a rather dull public; but Smith
and Elder saw something in the mild man from Wessex and stuck to him. They
commissioned him to write Far from the Madding Crowd for the Cornhill
Magazine, and before the last instalment of that lovely tale appeared,
Gabriel Oak and his dear Bathsheba Everdene had been for ever enshrined in
the hearts of Englishmen, and a great new novelist was basking modestly in
the sunshine of a long-deferred success. What an achievement for a
publisher!
A spacious era of English
literature had arrived, and, guided and supported by Scottish publishers,
great stars arose and moved majestically across the literary firmament. Sir
Walter Scott, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Charles Reade, Charlotte Bronte,
and Charles Kingsley were a part of this glorious constellation!
Their publishers were worthy
of them. John Murray, who spoke with a broad Scottish accent, earned the
title of "Prince of Publishers". He was succeeded by Adam Black, another
Scot who had worked up from the bottom after a stern apprenticeship in his
native country. Black was a genius. In 1827 he acquired the copyright of the
Encyclopedia Britannica from Constable, got Dr. James Browne— another Scot,
of course!—to edit the new edition, and proceeded to make a fortune. [There
is a good deal of truth in the saying that no dictionary or encyclopaedia
has ever been compiled without the assistance of Scots. The Encyclopedia
Britannica had its origin in Scotland, the first edition being published in
1771 by the Edinburgh firm of Bell and MacFarquhar. William Smellie was the
patient editor who compiled the information crammed into its pages. Sir
James A. H. Murray, a Scot, was editor of the Oxford English dictionary.]
Black also bought the copyright of Sir Walter Scott's novels in 1851, paying
£31,000 for it. Another wise investment, in spite of the large amount of
money involved. This shrewd and daring old book-lover was one of the first
men to recognize the genius of Macaulay—and it wasn't because the historian
was more than half Scotch! Apart from the profession which he adorned, the
sterling worth of Adam Black was shown in another revealing light, when he
politely but firmly declined the proffered honour of a knighthood, on the
pawky grounds "that my wife had no desire to be called 'My Lady', and it
would foster vanity in my children!"
T. Fisher Unwin inherited his
literary leanings from his Scottish mother. It was Unwin who developed
Joseph Conrad. By this time Blackwoods, of Edinburgh, had opened up in
London, where they put before the English public the works of Charles Reade,
Trollope, and George Eliot. It was largely as a result of the encouragement
of Blackwoods that George Eliot continued to write her great social novels.
The great house of MacMillans
was founded by Daniel MacMillan, who learned his trade in Ayrshire, and who
opened up in a modest way in London just one hundred years ago. Among the
first of the long list of literary celebrities launched by this great
publishing house were Tennyson and Charles Kingsley.
We have come down to the
present day, for all these Scottish publishing houses prospered, and, like a
famous beverage, are still going strong in the land of their adoption. They
are still the pillars of the publishing business of London, and while, among
and around them, many fine English houses flourish, London without its
Scottish publishers would be a bare field indeed for the British author.
It will have been noticed
that, with the exception of Sir Walter Scott, no names of Scottish novelists
are linked with the success of the Scottish publishers who broke so much new
ground in London in the last century. At that time, it is necessary to
repeat, Scotland's genius took a practical form, and with the notable
exceptions of Scott and Smollett, who did not have to worry over the problem
of earning their daily bread, there were no novelists in Scotland. Instead,
the country was flooded with the heavy literature of polemics, the treatises
bearing such grave titles as: The Institutes of Moral Philosophy, The Theory
of Knowing and Being, Thoughts on Man's Condition, The Delusive and
Persecuting Spirit of Popery, and Exercitationes de Verbo Dei, et
Dissertatio de Versionibus, which perhaps reflected the philosophical bent
of the best Scottish minds, but did not cut much ice as literature.
One curious fact emerges from
this frozen period in Scottish literature, however—the fact that Scots had
glorified the sea-power of England in song and story. Thompson and Campbell
wrote the songs; Smollett wrote the stories. To our old friend from
Dumbartonshire belongs the distinction of writing the first novels that
depicted the hard life of the British sea-dog, and while they belong to a
day that has gone by, they have never been surpassed as literature of the
sea.
Smollett was familiar with
the men who manned England's fighting ships in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, and had a first-hand knowledge of the disgraceful
conditions imposed upon them by boodling politicians and ignorant naval
officers, for he went to Cartagena with the fleet as a surgeon's mate. Out
of that voyage of vengeance, and his sympathy for the grossly abused tar,
came The Adventures of Roderick Random, the first novel of the sea to appear
in these islands, which introduced John Bull to Tom Bowling, "as good a
seaman as ever cracked biscuit"; Daniel Whipcord, the ship-chandler; Captain
Oakum, Jack Rattlin, Captain Cormorant, and a whole crew of other original
and salty characters. Roderick Random was followed by The Adventures of
Peregrine Pickle, the pages of which resounded with the gusty gossip of
Commodore Hawser Trunnion, who "swore woundily", and described his promotion
in these broad maritime terms:
I did not rise in the service
by parliamentary interest, or a handsome wife. I was not hoisted over the
bellies of better men, nor strutted athwart the quarter-deck in a laced
doublet, and thingumbobs at the wrists. Damn my limbs! I have been a
hard-working man, and served all offices on board from cook's shifter to the
command of a vessel!
The third novel of the sea
which Smollett wrote was The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, and it proved
to be his last, for he died soon after it appeared, at the comparatively
early age of fifty-one.
Smollett was a first-class
delineator of the characters of sailors, and apart from the fact that he was
the first successful writer of stories that dealt with the British Navy, his
name deserves to be honoured for the sound literary quality of his work. He
set the course for Marryat, Glascock, and other less distinguished novelists
of the sea who followed him; and even to-day it is difficult to name a
writer who caught so faithfully, and portrayed so entertainingly the lives
of men who go down to the sea in ships. [The author of the famous old
classic of the sea, Tom Cringle's Log, was Michael Scott, who was born in
Glasgow in 1789.]
After the middle of the
eighteenth century the ranks of the Scottish pamphleteers and propagandists
began to thin rapidly, and writers of genuine merit began to emerge from the
mists of the north. It would be idle to attempt to prove that modern
Scottish literature has influenced England to any great extent. In the main
it has been disfigured by the political inhibitions of the Scot.
Parliamentary Union left Scotland with a pronounced inferiority complex, and
no country, labouring under such a psychological handicap, has ever produced
a large and urbane literature. To produce great literary works a country
must be free of the shadow of a dominating power. What books have come out
of Newfoundland? That island is Great Britain's oldest colony.
The United States, next door,
has flooded the world with her virile and varied literature. To produce
great literature, a country's soul must be emancipated, and something
grievous happened to Scotland's soul when she relinquished her independence
in 1707 for the cash consideration of £360,000. That dark fact has clouded
the country's mind with the passing of the years, and it is not difficult to
trace its increasing influence on the minds of modern Scottish writers.
Thus, as we recede from the period when giants like Scott and Burns
laboured, we encounter, with increasing frequency, the school of inhibition,
with its pretty romances of the Jacobite period, its new study of Mary Queen
of Scots, its sickly sentimental portrayals of kailyard types, its bitter
flings at the country, and, in recent years, its rising anthem in praise of
scenery.
Still, here and there real
genius rose above the mists, and out of Scotland came books that won, and
retained down the years, the very highest places in England's prolific
honour-roll of literature. We think it will be admitted that the greatest
historical novels read by Englishmen came from the magic pen of Sir Walter
Scott. James Boswell, of Auchinleck, gave England The Life of Doctor Samuel
Johnson, by universal acknowledgment the greatest biography in the English
language. In the field of the tragic drama, George Douglas Brown wrote that
black and awful masterpiece, The House with the Green Shutters, the equal of
which, as sheer art, is not easily found in English literature of any
period. Robert Louis Stevenson gave Englishmen Treasure Island and
Kidnapped, classics of adventure which never grow old and which, because of
their faultless art, have easily withstood the successive challenges of a
long list of able writers in the same field.
Writing for younger minds,
and for once discarding the silliness that disfigures so much of his work,
Sir James Barrie brought London to his feet with Peter Pan, a classic of
fanciful adventure which stands alone. In the more sober literature of
political economy, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations became the chart that
guided England out of the unproductive shallows of protected commerce into
the mighty world-circling deeps of free trade that made her the greatest
trading nation the world has ever seen. In the field of poetry, one is
confronted by a formidable array of great English classicists, but the
master of them all was Lord Byron, and his genius, which had a profound
influence on the literature of Europe, had its origin in the soil of
Scotland. [George Gordon Noel Byron (1788-1824), has been so persistently
catalogued as an English poet that it seems necessary to point out that he
inherited his incandescent genius from his fitful, passionate, and artistic
mother, Catherine Gordon, heiress of Gight, in Aberdeenshire.] In the realm
of philosophy, what British writer has exerted a greater influence than
Carlyle?
Asked why he gave Scottish
parts in his plays to English actors and actresses, Sir James Barrie replied
—need we add, whimsically: "It isn't Scotch to act!" The pawky remark would
have been nearer the truth if the words "in Scotland" had been added, for
until recent years there was no development of the theatrical art in
Scotland, as a result of the narrow view of the theatre held by the clergy.
On 24th April, 1595, the Kirk-Session of Glasgow directed the town's drummer
to forbid "all persons from going to Ruglen to see vain plays on Sundays",
and "The Temple of Beelzebub" remained in disrepute for two centuries. True,
"The Tragedy of Douglas", written by the Reverend John Home, of
Athelstaneford, Midlothian, was performed in the theatre in the Canongate on
14th December, 1756—Thomas Carlyle was in the audience!—but even that heavy
tragedy was considered to be a menace to the morals of the people.
How could dramatists thrive
in such an atmosphere? They could pander to the local appetite with plays
that invariably introduced a young meenister with a slow but sure manner,
and a sharp-tongued heroine with a heart o' gold, or they could pack up and
go to—London. Those who had genuine ability took the latter course, and by
the time they had won fame they were regarded as being Sassenachs. Is it any
wonder that a man with such a vast knowledge of the London theatre as Mr.
Charles B. Cochran should have written to us while this book was on the
stocks, with this barren recollection of Scottish theatrical figures: "It's
an extraordinary thing, but
I can't recall any famous Scotsmen other than
Harry Lauder and Norman McKinnell, [Norman McKinnell was born in Maxwelltown,
Kirkcudbrightshire, on 10th February, 1870. He appeared first at
Clacton-on-Sea in 1894, then became associated with H. Beerbohm Tree,
appearing at Her Majesty's in "King John", "Julius Caesar", "The Vanity of
Youth", and other plays.] who have shone in the theatre. There must be a
number."
There are a number. Sir George Alexander, for
instance. This great actor and producer was always regarded as being an
Englishman, but he was the son of a Scottish manufacturer who had moved
across the Border in the great trek that followed the Union of Parliaments.
Alexander went to London, took up acting, and won moderate fame when, in
1881, he appeared at the Lyceum with the great Irving. Ten years later he
became manager of the St. James's Theatre, and there he produced Oscar
Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan" and "The Importance of Being Earnest",
Pinero's "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray", "The Princess and the Butterfly", "His
House in Order", and "The Thunderbolt", Anthony Hope's "Prisoner of Zenda"
and "Rupert of Hentzau", and Stephen Phillip's "Paolo and Francesca". The
list of these famous plays of the last century will impress upon the minds
of people familiar with the theatre the melancholy fact that plays of equal
merit are seldom produced in London to-day—even with the help of Broadway.
Sir George Alexander played the leading role in each of them with great
distinction; indeed, his record in the dual capacity of producer and leading
man is one that has not been surpassed in the history of the English stage.
Another great Scottish actor-manager who
appeared on the same stage with Sir George Alexander was Alexander Matheson
Lang, the son of an Inverness minister. Lang's reputation as an actor became
international. He produced "The Merchant of Venice", "Othello", and "The
Wandering Jew", and, like Sir George Alexander, took the leading role in
each of his productions. Playing Benedick to the Beatrice of Ellen Terry, he
attained a fame comparable to that of Garrick.
The majority of English theatregoers believe
that Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, the distinguished London actor and
theatrical producer, is a product of their country, and indeed he has the
air of a man who has never remained away from London any longer than was
absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, he is the son of an Aberdeen journalist.
The list of Scottish men and women who have
attained distinction in the theatrical world of England could be lengthened,
[One of the first Scottish actors to attain great fame in London was Charles
Murray (1754-1821), whose father, Sir John Murray, was secretary to Bonnie
Prince Charlie. Viola, Nell, and Fay Compton are descendants of Charles
Murray. Other famous actresses of England owe much to their Scottish
ancestry. Ellen Terry's mother was Scotch. Sophie Stewart is as Scottish as
Harris Tweed. Sybil Thorndike's grandmother was a talented Scotswoman. The
famous Grace Huntley (1860-1896) belonged to Southwick, Scotland, and lies
in a lonely little kirkyard close to the author's] but the triumvirate
mentioned are a convincing proof of the fact that if Scotland has not given
as many actors to the London stage as England, she has demonstrated that she
can produce the very cream of the profession.
A survey of the dramatic arts of England
would not be complete without a reference to those ultramodern
developments—the cinema and radio. Both arts have been developed in London:
the cinema to a point where it has quite definitely surpassed, in point of
artistic quality, the best efforts of Hollywood; the radio entertainment to
a point of perfection where it has become the pride of this country and the
envy of others. In saying so we are almost overcome with embarrassment, for
it is necessary to add that the cinema industry of Great Britain has been
built up, from its very foundations, by Mr. John Maxwell, of Glasgow, and
that the directing genius of the British Broadcasting Corporation is Sir
John Reith, of Aberdeen!