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IT was early in November 1866
that, presiding at a meeting of the Working Alen's Club, at its Institute in
the High Street of Edinburgh, Professor Blackie launched forth into an
invective against the Reform Bill, which at that time was in process of
incubation, and, charging somewhat unadvisedly down the vistas of "manhood
suffrage" and "the ballot," flung a challenge in the ftces of their
champions. This was reported in the 'Scotsman' of November 12 as follows:-
If you will appoint a
night for a lecture, and set Blackie on the one side, and Bright, or
Beales, or Jones, or M'Laren, or the honourable member, the late Lord
Advocate, for whom I have a great respect, on the other side,—then with
Aristotle in one pocket and Plato in the other, and a great deal of
Scotch rummlegumption in the front battery, I think they will find me a
sharp customer.
There is little doubt that
the gauntlet was a mere rhetorical flourish, and that he expected no knight
of reform to pick it up. He did not account himself a politician, and was
seldom acquainted with the pros and cons of party questions. His opinions on
these were evolved in the manner which he indicated himself—from classic
precedent and his own consciousness. But reckless rhetoric in print is apt
to rouse a Nemesis. The Scottish National Reform League played the part of
the goddess, and inspired Mr Ernest Jones, then known as an able advocate of
Manhood Suffrage, to respond to the challenge. The Professor, astounded to
find himself the representative of a party, backed by the optimi, at
whom he was as wont to fling his spear as at their political opponents,
wriggled restlessly at first; but the ranks both of supporters and of foes
closed round him, and he buckled on his armour in face of the inevitable. Mr
Ernest Jones accepted all the terms of the original challenge, genially
asking to be enlightened as to the fighting value of "rummlegumption." The
Reform League instructed the secretary of the Working Men's Club to make the
necessary arrangements, and it was finally settled to engage the Music Hall
in George Street for the evenings of the 3d and 4th January 1867, when
Democracy should on the first night he handled by the challenger, and on the
second be supported by Mr Jones on precisely the same terms of ancient
precedent as those used in the attack. Of course this gave an advantage to
the first speaker, who could carefully prepare and execute his indictment,
while the defence was perforce almost extempore; but Professor Blackie
forwarded a copy of his address some days beforehand to Mr Jones, who proved
to be a man of fine classical attainments, and to whom the subject in its
modern application was fully familiar. At the festival of the "Blackie
Brotherhood" Mr Alexander Nicolson sang a prophetic song of the bloodless
encounter :-
"And so, when each has talked
his span,
And thinks that he has floored his man,
The fight will close where it began,
And so will end the story.
Then here's to Blackie, and long live lie
To fight against Democratic;
And may we all be there to see,
And shout in the hour of his glory!
Chorus—Hey, John Bright, are
ye talking yet,
And is your tongue awagging yet?
Here's our Blackie will mak mincemeat
Of you and your gang of reformers."
The hall was crowded with an
audience eager for the fray. The knights combatant received an enthusiastic
welcome, and each applauded the other's address with chivalrous enthusiasm.
On the first evening Mr Dun, President of the Working Men's Club, and on the
second Mr Duncan M'Laren, occupied the chair.
The Professor sought to
establish the inevitable failure of The republican system from the examples
of Greece, Rome, Venice, and France,—for the Second Empire was at that date
dominant, over the betrayed Republic of the last country,—and he pointed to
the corruption existing in the political atmosphere of New York iii support
of his contention. His lecture lasted nearly three hours, and was heard with
close attention, marked by vivacious cheering and hissing on the part of the
audience. He bore the counter-demonstration with perfect good-humour,
retorting at times on his opponents with the gibe that his wisest remarks
were best hissed. On the next. evening Mr Jones proved easily enough that at
all events Greece and Venice reached their culmination under republican
rule. The lances clashed briskly, but neither was shivered,—"the fight did
close where it began."
The Professor's lecture was
printed and widely circulated, and it won him a kudos amongst Conservatives
which rather disconcerted him; for he was a born franc-tireur, and had a
blushing consciousness of views upon land, upon the crofter question, and on
other delicate matters about to see the light, which would divert the
graciousness now radiating towards him.
In April 1867 he spoke oil
same subject in Manchester, and Mr Ernest Jones paid him the compliment of
attending oil platform, although the meeting was held under the auspices of
a Conservative Association. Sad to tell, this courteous and able opponent
died not long after.
In the preceding November,
Professor Blackie had delivered two lectures on to the members of the
Philosophical Institution, and he was invited to give these in London oil
platform of the Royal Institution in May 1867. From Manchester he went to
town to fulfil this engagement, and took up his quarters with Mr and Mrs
Archer, as he had done two years before. But in the meantime his programme
had been enlarged by all lecture on classical pronunciation in our
Universities, with the title "Music of Speech in the Greek and Latin
Languages." His listeners on the subject of Platonic Philosophy numbered
amongst them the Duke of Argyll, Dr Hodgson, and Dr George Macdonald; but
how ever brilliantly salted, he found the audience unsympathetic. He was
confronted " with rows of parchment faces incapable alike of fun or
fervour," and he compared their chilling reserve with the lively response to
be got from rows of genial Scots in an Edinburgh hail. The evening lecture
was delivered on May 3.
With a galaxy of
well-dressed ladies in front, I determined to dash into them just as if
I had been in my own classroom, and achieved a great success. Gladstone
was there, sitting right opposite me, and it was a pleasure to see the
severe lines of his face relax into wreathed smiles and expand into
diffusive laughter at the manner in which I handled the Oxonians.
The Professor had much to say
on a question which had engaged his interest nearly forty years before, and
to bear on which he brought stores of scholarship, reason, and enthusiasm.
He was conscious, too, of the indifference in England to the conclusions of
a Scottish scholar, even the few accordant voices at Oxford and Cambridge
being then apathetic as to practical reform ; and this consciousness lent a
touch of defiance to his appeal for a common -sense pronunciation. The
lecture was printed and disseminated.
When unburdened of these
prelections, he gave himself up to social enjoyment dashed with research. On
both counts he paid a visit to Harrow, his host there being Mr Farrar, now
the Dean of Canterbury; but his hope of class- inspection was checked by the
headmaster's non possurnus. He found the "Harrow Dons a very mild and
polished and refined sort of people, and not at all formidable to a Scotch
Professor."
After his return to
Kensington
he dressed in
white-choker, pomp, and walked up to the Duke of Argyll's house, where
we dined at eight o'clock. The party was small and agreeable: John
Bright, Dr M'Cosh, and Lord and Lady Amberley were the most interesting
constituents. It is impossible to see Bright without liking him. There
was ece1lent conversation after dinner about the prospects of the
negroes, the female vote, Gladstone, Spurgeon, and what not. But of all,
nothing pleased me so much as Lady Amberley, a piece of nature and grace
combined.
The Theodore Martins
introduced him to Mr Robert Browning, and he described his first call as
follows :-
From Lord Strangford I
shot across to Browning the poet. He received me with the greatest
frankness, having known me of old from the Æschylean correspondence I
had with his wife. He showed me her Greek books all written over with
commentary. He is an active, soldier- like, direct man, a contrast to
the meditative ponderosity of Tennyson. The person and attitude in each
case is a perfect index to the movement of the poetry. He has a tame owl
with black staring eyes, which jumps about the 'room, and amused me very
much. He told me all about his new poem, on which he has been working
for years.
A short visit to Oxford
divided his term in London, and there he added to his acquaintances the late
Dr Appleton, Fellow of St John's, and afterwards editor of the 'Academy.'
We retired to his rooms
after dinner, when I had an opportunity of hearing how ingeniously these
gentlemen can justify the Athanasian Creed and other dogmatic
pedantries.
From the argument he fled at
last, leaving on his host the impression that he was affronted at the turn
which it had taken. A letter followed him to London, in which Dr Appleton
explained :-
I was afraid that you
thought we were trying to en- tangle you in an Oxford word-juggle; and
that, like the lion, you thought it best to burst the cords at once and
be gone. So far as my opinion goes, the subjects upon which we were
talking were far too important to allow of being treated in a
sophistical way. At the same time, I am not a Ritualist, nor a Romaniser,
nor an extreme Anglican. I am, like you, a Protestant ; but it appears
to me that Protestantism, as a point of view, is unintelligible unless
we regard the consolidation of doctrine and discipline under the
auspices of Rome as its necessary and therefore Providential antecedent.
This to Professor Blackie!
The Rector of Lincoln College
and Professor Max Muller furnished fresh and sympathetic talk, and after
four days' hearty hospitality from the much-abused Oxford Dons, he returned
to town. A visit to Norwich exhausted his southern programme, and at the end
of May he joined his wife at Altnacraig. Here a letter reached him from Dr
George Finlay, from which some sentences are worth quoting :-
I have found, as I
advanced in reading the 'Iliad,' that your metre gained on me, and I am
now a convert to your measure. You have more carats of pure Homeric gold
than your predecessor Pope, but you have used red copper to work your
metal, and by using silver as the alloy he makes a good show, and can
put in more of the inferior material and look genuine. Your work is a
great one, and exhausts the inquiry of Homer, in Homer.
The summer passed in hearty
enjoyment of his Highland retreat, which already was become a place of
pilgrimage for friendly pedestrians. He dislodged Greek and University
reform from their accustomed niches, and refreshed his mind with the study
of Gaelic and with the interest which his rambles in all directions
stimulated in the names of places. The pleasant element of boy life was
added now to the household, for he and Mrs Blackie had adopted Alexander
Blackie, the son of his step-brother Gregory, whom in Gottingen days he had
dubbed "the Pope."
The ample kith and kin of
Wylds and Blackies contributed troops of guests all summer, and from the
kith and kin of election came choice spirits, one by one, to season the
table-talk with variety. But when the heats of August gave place to the
mellow September weather, the impulse to movement stirred in him, and he
started by steamer for Ballachulish. He had unwisely chosen a of boots on
grounds of comfort., without due inspection of their soles. They lasted
while he walked up Glencoe to King's House. Here he stayed over Sunday, and
Monday being bright and clear, he determined to climb the Buchaillmore.
Local opinion was against the adventure, and the landlord refused to supply
him with a guide. The Ben was in the hands of the Sassenach deer-stalkers,
and an interdict was upon it. But the Professor, if he feared God, certainly
regarded not man, so, with the wonted stick in hand and a parting intimation
to the gamekeeper that his name was John Stuart Blackie, and that he would
answer in the Court of Session for his doings, he started for the top and
won a cloudless view. Next day he climbed the Devil's Staircase to
Kinloch-Leven, calling by the way on Campbell of Monzie, who entertained him
with true Highland hospitality, and upon whose green home amongst the moors
he was delivered of a sonnet.
Arrived at Fort William, he
called upon the Fiscal, who, along with a hearty welcome and some glasses of
excellent port, gave him the information that he had received instructions
to have him prosecuted for climbing Buchailimore. Professor Tyndall was at
Fort William, on his way to Oban, and joined him in a hearty laugh at the
baffled deer-stalkers, whose attack expired in this letter. From Fort
William he crossed the moor to Corpach, and after a night's rest started on
a long tramp of twenty-three miles, broken at Glengarry for a talk with its
chief, and at last reached Kinloch-Aylort, to discover at the little inn
that one of his boots was falling to pieces, that the rain had begun, and
that he was ten miles away from the nearest cobbler. No optimism could mend
mend that boot nor overlook its yawning gaps; and when the sturdy handmaiden
informed him that the coals were done and the peats soaking wet, and that he
could not have a fire, he gave way to a brief despair. Here he was storm-
stayed for two days, without fire and without books, and driven to the verge
of his philosophy; but after a couple of tumblers of hot toddy, it proved
equal to the emergency. Wrapped in his plaid, he walked to and fro to keep
himself warm, wrote cheerful doggerel on the situation, and finally bought a
thick woollen sock to draw over his dissolving boot, and so bind its
fragments together.
Awful gusts of wind from
the S.W.; terrible splashes of rain on the window; and a sea not fitted
to be crossed; so I must wend along the hard rocks of the coast in the
face of the buffeting blast. But a man has no right to complain of evils
into which he has deliberately plunged himself - evils, besides, that
are amply compensated by all the pleasures of novelty and variety which
a new country and new people supply.
From Arisaig he returned to
Oban, by Moidart and Ardnamurchan, -"very pretty places in stormy weather."
Lectures on the "Names of
Places" followed in autumn, and he paid a flying visit to London late in
November, to speak at the Festival gathering of the Scottish Corporation.
He began the year 1868 with a
reprint of his pamphlet on Educational Reform. It was sent to his friends in
Parliament, at the Universities, and in the Public Schools. The
correspondence which it entailed and the composition of students' songs seem
to have been his chief extra-collegiate interests during the spring of that
year. When the session ended, Mrs Blackie went to Altnacraig, leaving him in
Edinburgh busy with an article for the 'North British Review,' on the
Baroness Bunsen's biography of her husband. This article was a memoir in
itself, and expressed the profound admiration which he felt for the wise
friend of his student days in Rome, the only man who had been able directly
to influence his character and conduct. When its proofs were corrected he
followed his wife to Altnacraig, and resumed the study of Gaelic. But
towards the end of June his restless feet led him hither and thither, -first
to Mull, to find headquarters with Dr Cumming beside Loch Baa, and to
explore thence all accessible bens and glens. He left the Parva Domus bent
on a tour iii the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and after visits to friends
in Inverness and Tam, he achieved his purpose. He met with hearty
hospitality, meditated at Stennis with the inevitable sonnets for outcome,
weathered storms, noted the teeming sea-bird colonies on the northern
cliffs, twanged his lyre to the Old Man of Hoy, left his card on John o'
Groat, and returned to Oban about the end of August. Here he stayed all
September, working at the fascinating subject of place-names inspired by the
Orcadian itinerary, and corresponding with Mr Isaac Taylor, the chief
authority in such research.
When October came to a close
he returned to Edinburgh, and the new session was inaugurated by a lecture
on Aristotle and his golden mean. He was meditating a rational method of
familiarising his class with Greek,—one which he had practised for Latin at
Aberdeen, and on which he had to some extent experimented already. His good
sense revolted now as ever against dull pedagogic systems, and demanded that
Greek should be treated as a human language, capable of expressing human
needs, moods, and conditions, and not confined to the uses of literature and
science. A simple sentence of everyday greeting or news was turned into what
Greek came handy to the class, was examined, corrected, and then committed
to memory, and served as a foundation for the next day's experiment. This
exercise preluded the morning's work, and has often been cited by his pupils
as its most helpful portion. He now designed to expand it into conversation,
and he busied himself during the winter in compiling a series of colloquies
for this purpose. Besides this, he was occupied with the study of Aristotle,
whose scheme of morals he compared with that of Socrates, and ultimately
with that of Christ. The gospel of Utilitarianism was then vociferous, and
confronted the antique gospels at almost every turn. Its quota of value had
not yet been distilled from the mass, and for a time its pretensions were
hostile to all that the spiritual enforced beyond the moral code. It is the
limitation of human reformers that their insight and foresight are so
engrossed with the positive conditions of life and circumstance that the
power which shapes and reshapes escapes their ken, and their elaborate
systems, embodying all that they are gifted to recognise, fall short
altogether a generation later. Truths remain to be garnered by the wise, but
the framework proves to be mere husk and envelope, and falls off before the
Eternal Spirit, whose fan is in His hand.
It was natural that Professor
Blackie, whose faith in that Eternal Spirit was the strongest motive power
in all that he thought and concluded, should be repelled by the pressure of
Utilitarianism on the current thought and conclusion of the time, and we
find him at first showing an instinctive aversion to its dogmas. Forced by
the insistence of the new apostles to face these dogmas, he gave them a
certain amount of study, which seems to belong to the years 1869 and 1870.
These matters are mentioned
at this point merely as an indication of the bent taken by his thoughts
during those winters. Of immediate moment was his correspondence early in
1869 on the pronunciation of Greek. This was extended to the Public Schools
as well as to the Universities, and letters from eminent French and German
scholars scholars reached him in support of his views. To some of his
correspondents he had mentioned his proposed 'Dialogues in Greek and
English,' and he received hearty encouragement from the most widely informed
amongst them. A few sentences may be quoted from Mr Matthew Arnold's letter
on this point:-
I entirely go along with
your views as to the use of conversation in teaching Greek and Latin.
When I was in Germany I heard the work of the highest class of a
gymnasium frequently conducted in Latin; neither our masters nor our
pupils would have been capable of the performance, which was most
creditable. When I came to hear other lessons expressly given to
extemporaneous Latin, I listened with unmixed satisfaction and approval,
and have felt ever since how much we should gain by having something of
the kind. What you say of the necessity of speaking a thing, and not
only reading it, is most true, and directly applies here. I observe that
boys at Harrow have incipient exercises in Latin sentences, catch
constructions and expressions, and so on. I am convinced that these
exercises, which are felt to be very mediaeval and oppressive, would be
quite lighted up by being made conversational. The object in view, that
of teaching certain constructions, might be perfectly attained with the
additional advantages of animating and interesting the boys, widening
their vocabulary by giving them readiness in the use of it. I entirely
wish you success, and remain always, dear Professor Blackie, very truly,
yours, MATTHW ARNOLD.
From Dr Temple, then
headmaster of Rugby, came a more guarded approval, admitting, however, "that
conversation is a powerful instrument in teaching any language"; but several
of the masters of Eton and Harrow expressed their cordial agreement with the
addition of colloquial to clerical exercise.
In response to an invitation
from the College of Preceptors, he went up to London in April to deliver a
lecture upon the whole subject of the teaching of Greek and Latin, and this
was printed in pamphlet form and spread abroad. He took advantage of the
opportunity to revisit Harrow, and to visit Eton and Bradfield. This time he
was admitted to all the classes at Harrow, and through the good offices of
his genial host, Mr Oscar Browning, he gained an entrance to the classes at
Eton. At Bradfield he was the guest of the headmaster, who sympathised with
his reforms, and endeavoured to put them in practice. An attempt to interest
the "kilted clergy" in his methods fell rather flat, these preoccupied
personages excusing themselves with one consent. But correspondence brought
to his knowledge the movement at Cambridge in favour of a rational
pronunciation of Latin—a movement led by Professor Munro, and supported by
the younger generation of scholars. A bright sojourn in London, his rushings
hither and thither made easy by the Underground Railway, which he pronounced
to be "the crowning luxury of the age," followed. his visitation of the
schools.
His warm interest in the
Highlands of Scotland had secured him the privilege of honorary membership
of the Highland Society of London, and on May 4 he dined with their
brotherhood at St James's Hall on strictly Caledonian fare, the piece de
résistance a full-blown haggis, and the conviviality assisted by Highland
whisky and Highland snuff. A surprise visit to his friends at Sudbrooke Park
followed the round of festivities in town, and on May 21 he went to Oxford
to visit Professor Thorold Rogers. His host was a subject of interesting
study.
Grandly and imperiously a
Radical, with not a bit of toleration for anything connected with family
or Church aristocracy. He flings his denunciations about so sharply that
the clerical element everywhere naturally bristles into hostility
against him. He is in Oxford, not of Oxford.
From Oxford he went to visit
the 1)obells near Gloucester, and thence to Wales to pay some visits in
Caermarthenshire. Here Welsh hospitality and the opportunity of learning
something of the language delayed him at Dolaucothy a fortnight beyond the
time which he had planned, and he wrote humorous apologies to his Penelope
at Altnacraig to beg indulgence for her Ulysses, held in bondage to a kind
Welsh Calypso who taught his stammering tongue to master her vocables. A
short stay with the head of the Theological College at Lampeter brought this
Welsh excursion to an end without further invasion of the Celtic
Principality, but he carried away with him a warm recollection of the hosts
and hostesses who had stayed his feet on its threshold.
He returned to Edinburgh by
Liverpool, and found there a budget of letters from schoolmasters throughout
the kingdom full of thanks for his lecture on the "Teaching of Languages."
Along with these was one from Mr John Marshall, to whom he had awarded a
travelling scholarship for one year, a prize which he gave to the best
student in his Greek class. Mr Marshall wrote from Göttingen, where he was
busied with the summer term much as the Professor had been forty years
earlier. To the gain harvested in his Wanderjahre was due the form of
this prize, and he encouraged all those of his students able to afford such
all "extra" to seek the enlarging and qualifying uses of foreign travel.
By the middle of June he
reached Altnacraig, and for about two months settled to its tranquillity and
to the enjoyment of its shifting circle of guests. In his turret-study he
devoted the mornings to Socrates and Aristotle, and to the company of the
Seven Sages of Greece. The afternoons were spent upon the upland moors with
the jocund Muse, who furnished him with rhyme and reason for his Students'
Songs: at four o'clock he returned to the heather-cushioned cliff, where on
sunny days the home-circle was trysted for tea. Visitors, native to the soil
or pausing on the wing northwards, found their way to the chosen spot, and
many a gleeful surprise welcomed his return from the moors, with his hands
full of grass-of-Parnassus in July and of white heather in August. He knew
the haunts of the white heather, and although liberal with his spoils, he
would not betray their hiding- place. Amongst the guests might be found the
Catholic Bishop of Argyle and The Isles, now Archbishop of Edinburgh—Dr
Walter C. Smith, Dr MacGregor, Sir Noel Paton, Dr Robertson Smith,—men of
all Christian creeds, but all of one Christian charity. Sometimes the little
party took boat and crossed to the Lady's Rock or to Heather Island for tea,
and the kettle was set on an improvised fire helped by dry kindling- wood
from the house, and while it delayed to boil he read aloud some legend of
the place, or some lay of St Columba, or perhaps some rattling lines of
frolic or defiance which Musa Burschicosa had lilted on the moor.
It was about this time that
Mr Kingdon Clifford came to Oban, one of a reading-pairty from Oxford, "a
pale, thin, sinewy youngster," who learned to haunt Altnacraig. He was as
nimble as the Professor, and understood many mysteries unknown to the older
man, amongst them rope-dancing and unnumbered card-tricks. The readers no
doubt read all day, for they rambled at night; and one memorable evening
they left their impedimenta in the porch, hats, shoes, stockings, coats, and
vests, - their money and watches loose in the pockets,—and disappeared on
the moorland. The discovery of this deposit alarmed the Altnacraig
household, which sat up till midnight without sign of their return. But in
the morning the vestments had vanished, and they had tidings of the footsore
wanderers, who had too rashly ventured over heather, bog, and rock with feet
unshod, and had crawled back at the rate of a mile an hour
About the middle of August
the blue hills of Mull drew the Professor across to Tusculumn beside Loch
Baa. Here he spent a few days with Dr Cumming, and was taught to play
bagatelle by Lord Cohn Campbell. A lecture at Tobermory divided his visit
into two parts, and the latter half was given to a geological study of Loch
Baa and its shores. This absence from Oban led to his missing ex-President
Jefferson Davis, who was the occasion of some pleasant parties given by Mr
Hutcheson on board the excursion steamers.
When he returned from Mull it
was to find the proofs of 'Musa Burschicosa' at Altnacraig, and September
was devoted to their correcting. The little book was published in October,
and it was dedicated to the students of Edinburgh University, to whom he
described the songs as the of spring of a pure spirit of enjoyment of life."
It is interesting to find
appreciative letters from Mr Gladstone, Lord President Inglis, Sir Douglas
Maclagan, himself a songster in the same bright vein, and Lord Neaves, noted
for his lays of good- fellowship. Of the collection, the "Song of Good
Greeks" and the "Song of Geology" were most liked. The latter had been
submitted to Professors Tyndall and Ramsay for correction, and both had
delighted in its vivacity. Professor Ramsay had taken much pains with its
scientific terminology, and the stanzas represent the order of development
known to geologists a generation ago. The poet himself looked upon this as
one of his best efforts in rhyme.
At the beginning of the new
session he was ailing, and had to be contented for a few weeks with his
normal work. But the new year 1870 found him championing the cause of the
lady students in the Edinburgh University, and protesting both in speech and
letter against the shabby conduct of their opponents. He was busy, too,
inviting fresh fellowship into the Blackie Brotherhood, of which, at the
January celebration, Sir Alexander Grant and Mr Brodie the sculptor were
made members.
The winter wore to an end,
busy and convivial, as Edinburgh winters were then,—his studies on Socrates,
Aristotle, and the Utilitarians taking shape iii his mind, while his summer
impressions were being matured into convictions on the crofter question, on
the value of the Gaelic language, and on subjects bound up with these, which
were destined to bear practical fruit in due time.
By the end of April he was on
the wing for London, halting at Manchester to greet an ardent reformer of
classical pronunciation. He delivered four lectures on Socrates, Aristotle,
Christianity, and Utilitarianism at afternoon meetings of the Royal
Institution, as well as an evening lecture on "Mythology," in which he
opposed the extravagance of the new school, whose leaders referred every
polytheistic, heroic, or nursery myth to the episodes in the sun's diurnal
course. Many pleasant social events made his prolonged stay in town
memorable, and he referred to it in after years as the most interesting of
all his visits to London.
He breakfasted twice with Mr
Gladstone, made the acquaintance of Mr John Morley, Sir John Bowring, Mr J.
A. Froude, and Mr Tom Taylor, and revisited the friends of earlier years,
amongst them Carlyle, Dr Hodgson, and the Kinglakes. His headquarters were
first with his brother-in-law, Mr Edward Wyld, at Holland Park, and then
with Mr and Mrs Archer in Phillimore Gardens, but he paid flying visits to
his relatives at Stepney and elsewhere. At Mr Gladstone's he met Dr Hawkins,
the head of Oriel, who came to hear his lecture on Mythology.
Happily [he wrote] there
was nothing against Oxford in the lecture, only a dash at Max Muller, of
whom I spoke with the utmost respect and love.
He described a Sunday's
adventures early in May
I went to hear Jowett in
the forenoon at a Broad Church in Marylebone. The sermon was from Acts
x. 34 and 35, a regular Broad Church text, as broad as the world, and by
the learned preacher made to include the Vedic Hymns, Zoroaster, Buddha,
Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, what not—very instructive. At the door of
the church we shook hands with Jovett, "Ecce Homo," Talmud Deutsch, and
other notabilities. Thereafter I lunched quietly with Mrs Gregory in her
wee house at 21 Green Street, and at 3 pm. went with her to a conference
of spiritualists, where, as a matter of course, the Pro, spoke —not on
spirits, however, or ghosts, but on Agrarian Laws and the Division of
Property! In the evening I went to hear Baboo Chunder Sen, who chose
pretty much the same text, and enlarged in the fashionable style on
Toleration, Charity, and no opinions in particular. He speaks fluently
enough, but has little variety either in matter or manner, and will
never be a great orator. I was introduced to him after sermon, and gave
him a friendly invitation to Altnacraig.
On May 17 he took railway to
Richmond, and
marched full speed up
Richmond Hill, and when I got to the top saw the broad fields of
infinite foliage spread out to the west, the silver Thames at my feet,
and the royal trees of the Park on my left hand. I then entered through
the open gate of Pembroke Lodge. You guess now that my object was to
look on Lady Amberley's blithe face. They were out in the grounds; so I
took a ramble, and in case of losing my game went along whistling "Cam'
ye by Atholl?" which discovered the bird, and out they all came, Lady
Russell, Lady Amberley, and her lord. I had a pleasant walk with them,
and then a cup of tea within doors. Instead of passing the gay season
here, they are going to Rodborough, near Stroud, to work," as she
said—that is, to pursue their studies. I made full utterance to them on
important subjects, and felt quite happy in their company. The weather
is now splendid, the most glorious poetry of nature and of art-combined:
such is London when you know how to use it, and take things quietly and
piously.
The constant racket became
fatiguing towards the end of May, and he went to Cambridge for a few days,
an honoured guest at Trinity, where he met, under Mr Clark's auspices, all
that was noteworthy in the University and the town. The reformation in Latin
pronunciation effected by Professor Munro was of much moment to him, and he
listened with delight to an oration by the Public Orator, voiced as he had
advocated for forty years. Except this, Mrs Augusta Webster made most
impression upon him, her aims and attainments in Greek exciting his
interest: the acquaintance ripened to a pleasant correspondence and the gift
of his 'Homer' to the poetess.
A visit to Bedford for the
sake of John Bunyan, and a few days' quiet in Hampshire with relatives,
restored him to his normal activity, and early in June he went to
Marlborough College to visit Dr Bradley, and then to Gloucestershire to pay
Mr and Mrs Dobell the visit which they had negotiated the summer before. It
seems to have been a very pleasant one, and included an excursion of the
trio to Rodborough to visit the Amberleys. Little inclined as was Professor
Blackie to spend time on works of fiction, he found himself inspired during
this visit to read 'Lothair,' which had just come out—rather for the sake of
its author, into whose marvellously compacted character he hoped in some
measure to penetrate, than for the sake of the story. But the book
fascinated him, and he went steadily through its three volumes. He commented
in a letter, dated June 15, as follows :-
I have finished 'Lothair,'
and am most gratified with it, and greatly surprised too; for my
prepossession was strong against the author. It is a wise and a true and
a noble book. It is not only a picture of London life in high circles,
but something far better; it is a wise solution of the most vexed
religious and philosophical questions of the day. The theology is
particularly good—perhaps I think so because it is substantially my own.
In this work Disraeli has nobly vindicated the divine right of the
Semitic element in the history of human culture without doing injustice
to other elements. Hellenism and Hebraism here play their just parts.
Later in the year he made
this opinion public in a letter addressed to the editor of the ' Scotsman,'
and printed in its issue of November 1. This came under Disraeli's notice,
and he expressed himself as highly gratified by so discerning an
interpretation of the spirit of 'Lothair.' The letter was republished in
Messrs Longrnan's "Notes on Books."
He was back at Altnacraig by
June 22, and busied himself once more with the study of Gaelic, taking up
'Ossian' in the original, and corresponding with Highland ministers and
school-masters about its translation. An occupation of lighter character was
the composition of his 'Lays of the Highlands and Islands.' Some of his best
poetical work is in this volume, which was not published till 1872, although
most of its sonnets, songs, and lays were in existence already. The Orcadian
excursion had supplied some of them; his visits to Mull had suggested nine
of the best; Ben Cruachan, the Buchaillmore, King's House, Glencoe, Taynuilt,
and Oban had each its rhymed recognition. These lay unsorted as yet, and
when August came and the "spirit in his feet" grew restive, he took steamer
to Iona, and settled at the Columba Inn for ten days, to penetrate into
every nook amongst its harrows and every sand- strewn crescent on its
shores. The Duke of Argyll's book on the holy island of Columba had just
been published, and formed, with Adamnan's Life of the saint, his guide to
all its shrines. He was much refreshed by this complete abandonment to the
solitude and associations of Iona, and wrote the poems called "The Voyage"
and "The Death of Columba" while under their spell. A Sunday ramble—after
the hallowed sacramental service, held in the open air upon the spot where
Jesus was first preached to Hebridean islanders— led him to the north side
of Iona, and he climbed Dun Ee, whose wonderful outlook, which reaches to
the cones of Cuchullin in Skye, inspired one of his noblest sonnets, ending—
Here rather follow me, and
take thy stand
By the grey cairn that crowns the lone Dun Ee,
And let thy breezy worship be the grand
Old Bens and old grey knolls that compass thee,
The sky-blue waters and the snow-white sand,
And the quaint isles far-sown upon the sea. |
