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A CORRESPONDENCE in the
'Scotsman,' roused by Professor Blackie's poem called "Canaries and Creeds,"
indicates the troubled waters of theological controversy in Scotland during
that year and those following. The epoch had its loud pretensions to
infallibility, its response in the acclaim of the ignorant, its inquisitors,
its traitors, its martyrs, its outcome of the triumph of a wider revelation
for which its martyrs suffered, and for which they now are crowned.
Occupied with his College
duties and with lectures at Galashiels, Linlithgow, and Govan, he was able
to grant Mrs Blackie a very unwonted leave of absence in London, where a new
but already greatly valued friend had claimed her presence. This was Miss
Pipe of Laleham, who became acquainted with AknaCraig in the summer of 1876,
and whose school in Clapham Park had for many years heralded and achieved
the larger, stronger, and more radical education for girls, now become a
common- place of our time.
During his wife's absence
many letters on the subject of his book on Gaelic reached him, and on her
return he went north to Inverness for a couple of days on Celtic Chair
business. On this subject Mr Froude wrote to him early in February :-
If you are to preserve
your native wild Flora, your Gaelic saxifrages and mountain roses, you
must preserve them yourselves, as the Welsh do. You yourself are acting
well and wisely in protesting against so interesting a relic of other
times being allowed to die. But Gaelic, I suppose, can only be really
kept alive like one of ourselves-by continuing to live. As long as songs
and hymns are composed in Gaelic which have a hold upon the people, so
long the language will subsist, and not, I suppose, longer.
Mr Froude was in Edinburgh
again and again during the earlier months of 1877, as the Coin- mission of
Inquiry held its first sittings there, and the correspondents met oftener
than once.
Another letter on the subject
of his book came from Government House, Ottawa :-
How can I sufficiently
thank you for having remembered me in my exile [wrote Lord Dufferin],
and for sending me your charming volume, which, although it has only
been three days in the house, I have almost run through? I was extremely
interested in the philological part, and some of the ballads are very
fine. I must also thank you in the name of all play-lovers for your
defence of the Theatre. I do believe that if the salt of the earth were
not to set their faces so against it, their countenance would do much,
at all events, to keep a certain number of London theatres in the right
path. On my way to British Columbia I got through the 'Odyssey,' and am
now deep in Thucyclides for the third or fourth time. One never tires of
either, but I confess I have the bad taste to prefer the 'Odyssey' to
the 'Iliad.'
The morning budget of letters
deserves a passing word. The Professor's classification into "Bothers,
Blethers, Beggars, and Business" hardly covered its variety. A post-card
from Robert Browning in learned discussion of older and later Greek; a
lengthy appeal from a pious Jesuit to listen to the burden of scholastic
argument and forswear the levities of independent judgment; an inquiry from
some obscure sectarian in America as to the sacramental character of
feet-washing; three or four requests for a lecture, an article, a
photograph, an autograph; some pages of unsolicited advice from an anonymous
correspondent; a roll of illegible Mk from an aspiring playwright; a song
dedicated to himself; a cheque for the Celtic Chair; an outburst of
affection from a Highlander beyond the seas; and half-a-dozen demands for
money, these form a sample of a morning's delivery to his address. He
enjoyed opening and reading his letters, and he enjoyed answering the
greater part of them. Only anonymous and impertinent effusions were put in
the fire; the others were answered as favourably as possible. He wrote
rapidly, far from legibly, but always briefly and with point; and he took
his correspondence as part of the day's work, to be discharged at once if
possible, and with as much consideration for the writers as their attitude
permitted.
The breakfast hour was ail
interesting time often a merry one, as envelope after envelope gave up its
contents grave and gay, which he communicated to all present with
appreciation or wise laughter. Perhaps the letters most valued were those
from students, present and past, at home and abroad. He kept nearly all of
these, and rejoiced over them when they breathed gratitude and affection for
the teacher and friend whom they addressed. How often his charity went forth
to those who entreated it, is known only to the friends who witnessed it in
constant exercise. Articles written for magazines, the editions of 'Self-
Culture,' and other literary work, brought in an annual sum of money which
he regarded as pocket-money. It was spent almost entirely in unrecorded
gifts to the needy. The writer remembers a winter during which £120 was so
acquired and so distributed, and not one of these gifts was blazoned iii a
subscription-list or trumpeted to the giver's credit. His name appeared in
many a printed list ; but the daily help to poor students, to poor literary
men, to widows and to orphans, belonged not to the advertisement columns,
hut to the altar of Him who seeth in secret.
A suggestion made by
Professor Hodgson that Wales might prove enthusiastic about the Celtic Chair
led to his lecturing at Cardiff and Swansea early in May 1877; but he
prefaced his labours with a little tour in the country of Burns and a visit
to Whithorn. The walk in Ayrshire refreshed his mind with a glimpse of the
shrines sacred to the poet, who was the text, chosen for his lectures. From
Girvan he drove along the sea-shore to Stranraer, where he spent a night,
and went on next day to Whithorn, the earliest mission-station in Scotland,
where St Ninian preached two centuries before St. Columba's advent.
A pious desire to spend
the Sunday in that sacred region led me thither on a Saturday; and the
heavens, cold but bright, were favourable. This is a most bleak, bare,
and grey old place, on the extreme south nose of Scotland; but to any
one who can drag in the past to interpret and to decorate the present,
it possesses no common charm, and I spent two happy nights there. Beside
the parish church, where I attended forenoon service, the four walls of
the old church still stand, overgrown with ivy, and showing on one side
an old Saxon door. About two and a half miles farther to the S.E., close
by the sea-shore, is the shell of another old church, but less ornate in
its style, both belonging to the period when "kings and queens and
warriors bold came to crook their proud knees and keep their vows and
lavish their gold for the dear grace to kiss St Ninian's hones." The
pomp of Whithorn in those times, contrasted with the grey, grave, and
bleak aspect of the same site on a Presbyterian Sunday, haunted my
imagination and produced a sonnet.
From Portpatrick to Chester
to visit Dean Howson, thence to Rhyl to make the acquaintance of Professor
Rhys, and thence to Cardiff, where—his lecture well over—he was introduced
to the docks and mighty industries of the place, occupied a week, and on May
6 he reached Swansea. On his way thither he halted
among the bare hills at
Dowlais, amid armies of black chimneys spouting voluminous smoke from
long, serried ranks of sleepless furnaces, where streams of liquid iron
are flowing, like rills feeding a pandemonian Phlegethon. I was led
through the fiery scenes of that stupendous city of Vulcan.
On leaving Swansea he went to
London, and stayed with Dr George Wyld in Great Cumberland Place. He was at
once drawn into the customary vortex, but endured it for not more than a
fortnight. His chief concern was to get a pub- usher for a book whose
composition had filled the hours left at leisure after the issue of 'The Lan
guage and Literature of the Scottish Highlands'. This was 'The Wise Men of
Greece '—a series of dramatic dialogues intended to place before the reader
the older philosophers, each at a crucial moment, when the fundamental dogma
of his teaching is brought into high relief. The dramatic fragments,
although polished in his more recent leisure, were the outcome of years of
hard study, and some of them were partially constructed before he shaped and
linked them together in intelligent sequence. At first he meant to present
only the continuous thought of pre-Socratic minds, but he could not bring
himself to exclude Socrates and Plato from his exposition.
He showed the MS. to Mr
Macmillan, who undertook its publication; and he dedicated the book to Mr
Torn Taylor, as an indication of his esteem for the man, the writer, and the
critic. Breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, with " all sorts and conditions of
men," kept him in constant movement, and he managed as well to see "Rip Van
Winkle," with Jeflrson in the title róle, finding the play " extremely
moral." He breakfasted twice with the Duke of Sutherland, and recognised his
real goodness and greatness, which circumstances somewhat misrepresented,
and perhaps somewhat confounded. On May 19 he fled to Cambridge, where he
spent some days at St Peter's College Lodge—longer than he proposed, being
overtaken by a sharp attack of illness as penalty for the hurry-scurry in
town. He was well nursed, and in his convalescence read Ruskin's 'Fors
Clavigera.' What brilliant unreasonableness! what rare gems amid showers of
saw-dust! Every virtue of a good writer except Sense and Self-control."
He returned to Edinburgh in
broken weather, and the voyage to Oban was undertaken in a storm.
The Free Church Assembly was
busy with dubious work, beginning its persecution of Dr Robertson Smith, and
he had to trust to correspondents for a full account of the pitiful scene.
That the eventual result of stupidity, cowardice, shuffling, and rancour
should prove to be increase of honour to Dr Robertson Smith, and of
enlightenment to all students of the Bible, was not apparent then, and men
could hardly look forward to a time when the paltry persecutors of that day
would accept, without a twinge of remorse, the larger knowledge of their
victim, and attitudinise as progressive.
Why did Luther fling,
chanted the Professor,
His ban against the Pope and
his misdeeds,
If private judgment must be caged in creeds,
Each free word gagged, and clipt each upward wing,
And you, with churchly ban and pulpit drum,
Strike Bible readers blind and prophets dumb!
The proofs of' The Wise Men'
began to arrive towards the end of June, and he submitted them to Professor
Campbell Shairp for criticism. Professor Shairp wrote that poems on Greek
heroes were not of absorbing interest, but that he must admit the claim of
the philosophers to universality, and that he had particularly enjoyed the
revelation of Trinitarian orthodoxy on part of Pythagoras!
Miss Isabella Bird was
staying with her sister at Tobermory, and the Altnacraig party paid them a
visit one long June day. The crofter's cottage which Miss Henrietta Bird had
converted into a lady's bower inspired the Professor with the best of all
his rhymed tributes to a woman. "The Lay of the Little Lady" deserves to
live, as well for the daintiness of its versification as for the truth of
its portraiture. It was translated into Gaelic by a Highland friend, and is
a folk-song in the island of Mull, where her beneficent. presence was known
and loved for many years :-
On the deep sea's brim,
In beauty quite excelling,
White and tight and trim,
Stands my lady's dwelling.
Stainless is the door,
With shiny polish glowing;
A little plot before,
With pinks and sweet-peas growing.
. . . . .
Where a widow weeps,
She with her is weeping
Where a sorrow sleeps,
She cloth watch watch it sleeping
Where the sky is bright,
With one sole taint of sadness,
Let her heave in sight
And all is turned to gladness.
Later in the month Miss
Isabella Bird was staying at. Altnacraig, occupied with plans for her
adventurous tour in the Japanese Islands, which she carried out in 1878, and
which gave to the Western world its most readable book on that interesting
country while the light of other days still lingered on its customs and
social life, and before it had fully assimilated the long result of slow
centuries in the West, and passed through the extraordinary revolution which
a handful of years and impassioned energy have effected.
It was about the end of June
that Professor Blackie sent an eloquent letter to the 'Scotsman' on the
whole subject of the wrong done to the Highlands by the land and game laws,
and by the depopulation consequent upon their exercise. The subject with
which he had assailed the public ear for so long was at length reaching that
organ, and was eventually to reach the public conscience. Letters from
grateful Highlanders at home and in exile poured in upon him.
Early in July he started for
a week's lecturing tour in the North, making his appearance on the Inverness
platform as "Saxon Chief" of its Celtic society. He returned to join Dean
Howson at Loch Baa, where the weather was wretched, and where he stayed only
two days, taking the Dean with him to Altnacraig. A short stay with Dr and
Mrs Kennedy, who were summering at Aberfeldy, occupied the last days of
August, and September was made especially interesting by a visit to Taymouth
towards time heart of the month. These seem to have numbered his wanderings
for the season, which was occupied else with correcting proofs, with the
study of Atheism expressed in articles for 'Good Words,' and with some
modern psalms for the same journal.
20th September was made
memorable by the warm sympathy which he found there for all his Highland
enthusiasms. Lady Breadalbane was as faithful a lover of Gaelic as he. was
himself, caring infinitely for her Highland home and her Highland people,
and she entered into his hopes for the preservation of their language with
an equal interest. The Professor lost his luggage on the road to Ta mouth,
and as it could not be recovered the first night, he had to descend to
dinner arrayed in "toggerv belonging to the Earl" ! But such incidents never
tried his composure, and although a stately company, some thirty in number
and including Prince Leopold, sat down to table, he thoroughly enjoyed the
talk and the tableaux virants afterwards, in which Lady Breadalbane took
part as Joan of Are and as Queen Guinevere. It is worth travelling a
thousand miles to see the Countess alone, so full of vitality, and nature,
and dignity, and grace."
His closing weeks at
Altnacraig were disquieted by rumours of the approaching railway, which two
years later was in full possession of Oban, and which, strengthened by some
secondary considerations, ultimately chased Professor and Mrs Blackie away
from their home on the "sublime heights."
'The Wise Men of Greece' came
out early in His visit to Taymouth from the 17th to the November, and
letters from Professor Schliemann, Dean Stanley, and Mr Gladstone, who
"joined the chorus of acclaim," indicate a percentage of his kindly critics.
Dean Stanley's note gives us a clue to a plan maturing in the Professor's
mind to cast the slough of toils, literary, academical, and peripatetic, in
the new year, and betake himself to the healing waters of the Nile for a
period of oblivion and renewal. Before his plans could be carried out he
paid a flying visit to London, to arrange with Mr Tsbister for the
publication of his 'Natural History of Atheism,' which was issued towards
the close of 1877, and was reprinted in New York a year later by Messrs
Scribner, Armstrong, & Co. His books had now considerable vogue in America,
and the same firm had printed his 'Four Phases of Morals,' 'Self- Culture,'
and the 'Songs of Religion and of Life.' The Highlanders alone in the States
formed an admiring public for the works of the beloved "Apostle of the
Celts," and their influence, as well as the exceptional worth of
'Self-Culture,' made him a revered and popular author amongst Americans. He
was again and again asked to lecture across the Atlantic, but his hands were
always too full on its hither shore to permit him to go; and perhaps his
want of personal acquaintance with Americans led him to fear the stress and
strain of such a tour, where he had almost everything to learn, and where he
foresaw that his reckless rhetoric might lead him into many pitfalls.
The labour connected with the
Celtic Chair had begun to tell a little on his health and a good deal on his
endurance, and he had brought the fund to so unexpected a stage of success
that he had ample excuse for a respite from a kind of toil which was never
congenial to him, although so vigorously and victoriously conducted. He got
leave of absence from the University for his trip to Egypt towards the end
of January, his friend Dr Donaldson taking the work of the Greek class
during its term. Mrs Blackie, still in failing health, longed for a spring
in Italy, and Mrs D. O. Hill, the friend of many years, decided on joining
her, while Miss Alice Lewis, Mrs Blackie's niece, went with them as guide
and interpreter in a land which had been her home for many years.
Before the start letters
poured in anent the 'Natural History of Atheism.' Mr Froude was again in
Edinburgh, busy with "the final revise of the Report" issued by the Inquiry
Commission, and interested to find that one of his 'Short Studies' had been
translated into Greek. "We regard Greek," he wrote on January 3, 1878, "as a
sacred tongue in which only the very best of everything has a right to be
expressed. I feel myself converted at once into a classic.
Introductions came pouring in
from various quarters. The Duke of Sutherland sent several to friends in
Cairo. "How you will enjoy yourself," he wrote, and meet Scotchmen when you
least expect it!" A young Greek in his class gave him letters to his
relatives in Alexandria.
The party left Edinburgh on
January 28, spent two nights in London, and reached Paris on the 30th,
leaving the same evening for Marseilles, where the Professor took steamer to
Alexandria, and the ladies rested before pursuing their way to Rome. His
long journey predisposed the voyager for his berth, and he slept fourteen
hours at a stretch. The transit lasted from February 1 to 6, a day longer
than usual, for the wind blustered and the steamer roiled. Its tedium was
relieved by a few hours at Naples, the only respite from storm. So welcome
was Alexandria that he stayed there several days, receiving hospitality from
Dr Yule, and from the pleasant Greek family to whom be had been recommended.
As a set-off to his discomfort on the sea, and to the storm which raged at
Alexandria, he spent his first evening at Dr Yule's in a mood of resentful
patriotism, singing Scotch songs. It was an ill-omened arrival in the land
of the Pharaohs, and made an impression which he never overcame.
Instruction, he admitted, was to be had in Egypt, but not enjoyment. He was
too late for the Nile; heat, dust, and baleful winds followed unwonted rain,
and produced the lassitude and physical depression with which great heat
affected him. But he addressed himself to travel and to tomb and temple
inspection, after some study of Strabo in Alexandria. On February 10 he
reached Cairo, and was greeted there with rain and wind, which lasted
several days, and accompanied him oil 12th, when he went on board Cook's
steamer. By the 26th he was at Luxor, and found Mr Campbell of Islay there
before him, the sole lord of a roomy da1abeecth, in which he entertained the
Professor to dinner. Walking towards Thebes about sunset, he encountered a
big tortoise on its slow progress, and stopped to enjoy the sight. He
rejoined his fellow-travellers, exclaiming, "A well-to-do old gentleman out
for his evening walk." A few days at Luxor, where Dr Appleton was staying,
and proved to be the best and kindest of guides, was his most enjoyable
experience in Egypt. On the way to Phllqe the heat was oppressive. "Once for
all," he wrote, "the East does not suit me either physically or morally—only
I am glad to have seen it."
He effervesced in sonnets,
which relieved his lively sense of wrong, and rehearsed the everlasting
plagues of Egypt. Guides, donkey-boys, Arabs, heat, dust, insects, and the
general tendency to take him in tow and shackle his movements inured to
freedom, form the burden of twenty-three effusions, happily forgotten. Abu
Simbel compensated for some of the plagues, and the power and repose of the
great Rameses' face partially restored his equanimity, but he rejoiced when
the downward voyage began and the explorations ceased. Temples and tombs
palled upon him, and there were no ladies on board to mitigate their dull
reiteration. However, he found his fellow-travellers genial enough for were
males, and came to terms with one of them, who, taking the Nile on his
homeward journey from India, was the possessor of a pith helmet, which he
exchanged for the Professor's wideawake. This structure was cool and
striking, and pleased its new owner on both grounds. He liked distinctive
dress, and when he returned to Cairo, purchased an Eastern shawl of many
colours, which he wore wound round his waist like an Albanian klepht. A
crimson sash was a favourite adornment at home, dating ever since a friend
had embroidered one for a bygone birthday, and Oban was used to its presence
in his summer equipment. But his appearance in Cairo must have been more
impressive.
He stayed there sixteen days,
giving up his intended tour in Palestine, and consoling himself with the
Boulak Museum. The heat daunted him and sapped his enterprise. On March 29,
however, he summoned up courage for the Pyramid of Khufu, and scorned all
assistance from Arab guides in the ascent. When he reached the top he
conceived a great contempt for the "arithmetical sublimity" of the
structure, which seemed to him to border on the ridiculous. He was unable to
admire the post-mortem glory of the Pharaohs, being always inclined to
appreciate the past from his own standard of worth in the present. Two other
Scotchmen were with him, and the three aired their nationality by singing
"Scots wha hae" at the top, asserting that Robbie Burns was a bigger man
with a grander fame than Khufu or Kephren. He wrote notes to Sir Alexander
Grant, arid to his wife and aunt, in fulfilment of farewell promises. That
to Mrs Blackie runs:-
Top of the Great Pyramid,
29th March, 11.30 A. M.
Here is a greeting for you from the peak from which sixty centuries look
down. Cherish the sacred memory of Cheops.—Your faithful Pro.
Coming down was not so
independent a process as going up: he was glad of the help of his three
Arabs, whose company he had so resented, and he felt shaky and dislocated
when the business was fairly over.
His introductions procured
him plenty of pleasant society, as well as an invitation from the Khedive to
a ball at Abdeen Palace, held on April 4. Mr Vivian supplied the needful
garments from his own wardrobe, and the Professor went under his wing. But
he was neither edified nor diverted, and was with some difficulty restrained
from giving the Khedive a bit of his mind on extravagance.
On April 11 he wrote:
This is my penultimate
day in the land of mummies, crocodiles, and drifting sands,—rags, ruins,
beggary, and simooms. I go off to-morrow for Alexandria, whence we sail
on Saturday, going round by the Levant,—to reach Palermo, I understand,
on the 29th.
This voyage refreshed and
restored him. Dr Appleton was with him, and the steamer touched at Beyrout,
Jaffa, and Smyrna, giving him opportunities for a run to Tarsus and a sight
of Ephesus.
On board this most
excellent ship I have plenty of fresh air, plenty of leisure, good
company, and a constant succession of fine panoramic views of a coast
not inferior in various beauty to the lovely sail from Oban to Gairloch,
and much superior, of course, in historic incident. When at Mersina, a
harbour in Cilicia, where we shipped incalculable bales of cotton, I
took the opportunity of running up to Tarsus, which lies about fifteen
miles to the N.E. of the town. The drive lay across the flat plain of
Cilicia, very fertile but very treeless, till we came to a bouncing
stream and rich gardens of orange and fig trees, with rows of poplars
standing up against the sky. The town is small, but has a fair inn, a
good proportion of shops, and an aspect of business; but the only
remains of antiquity is an old arch the Western Gate, I presume, of the
city, under which St Paul no doubt often walked, thinking unutterable
things, when a boy.
I have written five
letters to the Scotsman' descriptive of our voyage, which you will see
in due season.
Palermo was reached on April
30, and he spent the first four days of May in Sicily, seeing Girgenti,
Syracuse, Taorrnilla and Messina. At Girgenti he was mobbed by a crowd of
youths, who, from
a quite laudable
curiosity, made researches into the character of a strange-looking,
white-haired old gentle- man, walking on his own legs, with a
many-coloured Turkish sash about his loins, and having his head topped
with one of Watson & Co.'s Bombay ventilator-caps, of a conical shape,
very much like the head - gear of those formidable gentlemen time
Prussian soldiers.
Out of the mob two or three
bright young students rallied to his assistance, and served as his guide to
the lions of the ancient Agrigentum.
Mrs Blackie was at Naples,
and on May 5 he joined her there, and the quartette moved north to Rome,
Florence, and Venice. There a great trouble overtook them. Miss Lewis fell
ill of typhoid fever, and they were detained for a month during the hot
weeks of June and early July. Mrs Blackie's health was severely strained by
anxiety and nursing, and when eventually they were allowed to travel, two
invalids instead of one had to endure the fatigue of long railway journeys
and night halts. They were compelled to shorten the stages to seven hours
daily, and their route lay through the Dolomites and by the Brenner Pass to
Innsprück, thence to Munich and Bonn. At Bonn the Professor's patience had
to be stayed with sonnets. It was thus he waited:-
Another, and another, and
another
Day on the toilsome road that drags us home.
O for one quiet careless hour beside
My own Scotch hearth, or 'mid my green grass dells,
With breezy pine-trees waving, and the pride
Of purple heather, foxglove, and bluebells!
Grant me this, God, and teach my soul to cease
From thoughts that travel far, and ways that find no peace.
His soul proved unteachable.
These constant records of travel, tedious to many a reader, are inseparable
from the story of his life. Movement was an essential part of his vitality,
an imperious need. Like Ulysses, he "would not rest from travel," and he
found it "dull to pause, to make an end." In that he resembled, too, the
restless Erasmus, as in so much else of the more erudite Dutchman's
character and nimbleness. It is impossible to expunge the notes of his
constant itineraries from his biography, as with them would go the very
impulses of what he was to his world, and on that ground the writer must
crave indulgence for the endless rehearsal of his Journeys.
By the last day of July they
were at Altnacraig, Mrs Blackie's health undermined and her nervous system
shattered. He walked about for an hour in the cool of the eve before
entering the house, drinking in the peace of his Highland seclusion.
The affairs of the Celtic
Chair Fund now engaged his attention. Mr Beith had transacted them during
his absence, and they were highly prosperous. It was necessary to draw up a
statement for the Committee, and the books showed that a sum of £11,725 had
been collected. It was decided to continue the investment of this money, to
make it up to £12,000 by April 1879, and to leave that sum intact for two
years until it sufficed for an endowment of over £500 a-year. The money was
invested on landed security. The Professor did not stint his labours until
the result aimed at was secured.
Two summer months passed
quickly away, a visit to Loch Baa alone breaking their welcome repose.
I like talking to you
better than writing, so get into the boat and come here [wrote the Duke
of Sutherland from Dunrobin in September]; we will talk about men and
lasses being better than sheep.
But he resisted the tempting
summons.
In October he had to return
alone to Edinburgh, Mrs Blackie going to Wemnyss Bay for change. The College
session opened a week earlier than usual. He stayed with his brother-
in-law, Major Wyld, in Inverleith Row.
We are getting on very
swimmingly here: in the even- inc, we take a rattle at backgammon, and
the Major enlarges on his Indian campaigns in an amusing and edifying
style. My Celtic Chair Report comes out to- morrow. The classes open on
Tuesday. I have written out part of a lecture on "The Study of Modern
Languages" for the 'Scotsman.'
This letter is dated October
23. One written two days earlier speaks of a pleasant luncheon- party, where
he met Miss Ferrier, daughter of the metaphysician.
With her I entered into
various serious conversations about Episcopalian and other Churches. She
said she could stand St no longer; its monotony and mechanical routine
and general ditch-water dulness were too intolerable. She is healthy,
cheerful, and very lovable ; so I hope you will take her under your wing
some summer, as you always know how to cherish good sped- inens of your
own sex.
Mrs Blackie returned in time
for the opening session, and his winter's work began. It included a run to
London at the end of November to preside at a Celtic gathering there, but he
was back in three days. He spent an evening at Westminster Deanery, and gave
Dean Stanley his "Nile Litany," a tirade against the plagues of Egypt,
composed at Luxor. Invoking Ha, Osiris, Anubis, and other local powers, he
entreats protection against crocodiles, sand, dust, and flies, against
baksheesh, antico - vendors, donkey-boys, and "all the haggling crew that
buzz and fuss with much ado," and he makes a vow to all
The gods in Ramses' stately
ball
At Karnak on the Nile-stream,
. . . . .
Never more with sweaty toil
To frighten frog or crocodile
Up the yellow Nile-stream
. . . . .
Nevermore to stir the stones
For mummy rags or blackened bones
At Memphis or Abydus
. . . . .
Far from Scotia's darling
seat,
Nevermore with weary feet
To dust it up the Nile-stream
All this, good Osiris,
I swear it by the Nile-stream!"
The Dean wrote on Dec. 2
MOST WICKED BUT MOST DEAR
PROFFESOR,—I have read with much laughter and keenly awakened
recollections of the Nile your daring Litany, which, however, as it is
but a "bit of paper," I should, had I obeyed your maxim of Saturday
night, have thrown into the fire, as interfering, like every other
litera scripta, with the spontaneous and extempore development of my
free prophetic power. Alas! when I think of the anxiety of our dear and
most valued Archbishop at Edinburgh, I can hardly write with a light
heart.
The opening year, 1879,
brought him a gift of memories made precious by death, the Duchess of Argyll
and his Nile comrade 1)r Appleton passing away in its early weeks. Dr
Appleton had returned to London the previous summer apparently well, but the
first autumnal damps sent him back to Luxor, and there on February 1 he was
buried.
The Professor was casting
about for an occupant to the Celtic Chair, and consulting all and sundry
upon the qualifications essential. It was difficult to decide whether time
new Professor should be a great Celtic philologer of any nationality, or
mainly a student of Gaelic, Welsh, and Erse, and of Highland race.
He was in correspondence,
too, with the late Dr Birch of the British Museum, who sent him a
hieroglyphic rendering of his name, "Chief of the Bards Blackie," in return
for the the litany.
At the "Blackie Brotherhood"
banquet held on December 27, his return from Egypt was sung in jocund rhyme
by Sheriff Nicolson, the bard of that festive body :-
Many were his lively jinks
In the country of the Sphinx
Natives he astonished there,
Copt and Moslem he gar'd stare;
Quick of Arabs he got rid,
Climbing Cheops' Pyramid,
And when on the top he sprung,
'Scots wha hae' with birr he sung.
To the land of Bruce and Burns
Very welcome he returns.
Tell the news in brugh and glen,
Blackie he is come again!
Now with spirits full of glee
Mackie in his place we see;
Scotland when he was away
Seemed more empty than to-day
Let the times be e'er so sad,
Let the world go o'er so mad,
Pious thanks and cheerful mood
Well become this Brotherhood
Sing then, ye unworldly men,
Blackie he is come again
Tell the news in brugh and glen,
Blackie he is come again!
Mrs Blackie's health gave
cause for anxiety all winter, and she shrank from the flitting to AltnaCraig.
As spring drew near, it was decided that she should go first to Dunblane
Hydropathic, and then to Moulin, near Pitlochry, to a little cottage there,
and so escape the long summer of housekeeping and hospitality.
This left the Professor free
to carry out a project left over from the year before. He had missed Rome
then, and wished to make good the defect, and to study there some aspects of
the agrarian question iii Italy. His mind was much exercised with the lapse
into malarial sterility of large tracts of what in ancient days was fruitful
farm and garden land. Dr Steele, an old student settled in the Via Condotti,
invited him to begin these studies as his guest, and promised hiiii much of
immediate interest in the world of archeology and politics.
He started for London on
April 21, 1879, "free at last from business, bothers, and blethers." In the
train he studied "the mysteries of wages, rent, profit, &c., about three
times as much as I could have done in the extremely accessible place called
the study in 24 Hill Street."
A peep into the House of
Commons and calls on various publishers and editors completed his doings in
town, and he left on the 25th for Paris, and thence on the 27th for Turin.
Here he stayed long enough to see the city and its memorials of the
liberation of Italy, and to climb its neighbouring heights. He was at Genoa
by the 30th, and at Pisa next day. There, the hotel company being scant and
uninspiring, he devoted his after-dinner solitude to the composition of
three sonnets on "The Virgin Mary," "Garibaldi," and "Columbus," trailing
some clouds of reminiscence from Turin and Genoa.
On May 3 he reached Rome and
his hosts in the Via Condotti. By this time lie had cast his winter coat,
and lie fluttered into the capital in a suit of light tweed, and a white
wideawake of the soft - crowned, wide-brimmed variety, which he preferred.
His first impulse, after breakfast next day, was to go to St Peter's. He had
not seen the great Cathedral for half a century, but felt familiar with its
precincts—as who does not, having once measured its cheerful floor?
He began his reading at once
with a book just written by Signor Minghetti, whose acquaintance he had the
good fortune to make. The book was a stiff treatise on 'Public Economy,' but
he tackled it manfully, not without a sense, of strangeness in the Italian
terminology. The weather was broken, storm followed storm. "C'è il dernonio
chi porta la mnoglia in carozza!" ("It's the devil taking his wife a
drive!") said the cook.
On May 10 he called on
Minghetti,
with whom I had some
interesting talk on the state of public affairs in home, and on the
economical condition of the Aqro Romano, which I have been studying
zealously here for a week. At first I was quite in the dark, but now
begin to see clearly that it is the large properties, along with the
devastation of centuries and the curse of a hieratico-aristocratic
government, that are chiefly to blame for the damnable offence of
turning this paradise of busy men into a favourite hunting-ground of the
Plague.
An interesting episode is
recorded in his letter of May 13:—
At eleven o'clock
yesterday we drove to the palace of Cardinal Howard. The lord of the
manor was not there himself, being engaged with the other cardinals
holding a consistory for the purpose of creating a batch of new
cardinals and other ecclesiastical business. We had to wait in the hail
of audience, all hung with flaming cardinal's colour, for an hour at
least. Here I amused myself by being introduced or talking to
half-a--dozen people, besides half-a-dozen others who recognised me. The
room was not large, and so crowded with ring behind ring of worshipping
expectants that I had to stand on tiptoe to get a sight of the great
pervert when he came in. However, I happened to be in the part of the
room where the radius was nearest to him, and I got a distinct
impression of his physiognomy, strong in the upper region, but rather
weak below, I suppose from lack of teeth. But if my view of the personal
presentation was only by glirnpses,—for Newman sat all the while, being
too weak to stand,—I had the good luck to hear every word distinctly
which he spoke—in English with a clear mellow voice, and ill chaste
sequence of sentences in perfect harmony with the fine tone of the
sentiments. The substance was exactly what I expected. The doubts and
struggles, negatives and threatened anarchies, of modern Liberalism, had
thrown him back oil the visible unity of God's eternal truth presenting
itself to the Western world, and there he found peace and comfort to his
soul. It was a moral gain to have heard it from the lips of so good and
gracious a mail but a more illogical proceeding cannot well be imagined.
Two pieces of news reached
him from Edinburgh, both grievous and regretted—Dr Hodgson's retirement from
the Chair of Political Economy, and Professor Kelland's death. Of the latter
he wrote :-
I was not surprised to
hear of the final dismissal of dear old Kelland from his terrestrial
services. He was drooping all winter like a flower with a broken stalk,
and it is pleasant to remember with what a bright flash of humour and
Christian geniality he departed. I am now the Nestor. . . . I have
fallen in love with a mail a book called 'I miei Ricordi,' di Massimo
Azelio. It is full of wisdom and manhood and deep glances into the
private places of Italian life at the commencement of the present
century.
His visit to Dr Steele came
to an end about the middle of May, and he chose a lodging far away from the
haunts of Englishmen, in the topmost storey of No. 15 Piazza di Monte
Vecchio, where he could resume his own untrammelled ways—wandering,
studying, noting, selecting, and paying just such visits as pleased himself.
He took his morning coffee in the Piazza Navona; made friends with the
people— "delightfully simple-minded, friendly, and superlatively polite";
went for long walks on the Campagna and amongst the Alban hills; dined or
lunched with the Mingbettis or other Roman resident; and scrupulously
avoided John Bull abroad.
On May 19 he wrote :-
We are in the full
enjoyment of the most delightful summer weather, and I am in the full
swing of Roman visits, Roman excursions, and Roman studies, which, alas!
must end before they are more than conscious of their commencement. You
can picture me in my sublime garret, very serene amid considerable
disorder and small discomforts, with an array of books and pamphlets—all
Italian—covering the table and waiting to be put into shape by the
little busy brain of that wonderful little moth called man.
He records a most interesting
conversation with Madame Minghetti on the ]ow status of women in Italy—a
matter now slowly mending.
She has been twice
married, and after her experience of Neapolitan Marcheses and Princes,
who are the merest fribbles of humanity, and yet think it their highest
privilege and dominant duty to keep their wives under, so that they may
be always a little more ignorant than themselves, she was determined to
marry a man who would treat her seriously. Minghetti is the leading
thinker and speaker and writer of the Moderate party here, and is
destined at no distant period to become Prime Minister of Italy.
He spent his last Roman
Sunday afternoon at the Protestant cemetery, stopping at Goethe's osteria to
meditate; and on May 27 he left for Orvieto, where he spent two days,
forgathering with Mr Rathbone from Liverpool, and visiting in his company
the Etruscan tombs in the woods above the city.
He reached Florence on the
30th, and busied himself there with agrarian studies, visiting some of the
neighbouring farms, with Mr Macdougall for companion and informant. He was
so fortunate as to witness the festival of Lo Statuto on June 1, and enjoyed
its pomp and display. A run to the Lakes, where he met Mr and Mrs Mudie, and
shared their carriage from Luino to Lugano, ended his holiday in Italy; and
in spite of warning from his fellow-travellers, he crossed the Alps by the
Splugen Pass with post and sledge, and arrived at Coire on the afternoon of
June 8.
It was the most wonderful
drive that I ever made, and will leave a perfect Pantheon of pictures in
my mind. If I had yielded to timorous persuasions and returned by Turin
and the Mont Cenis Tunnel, I should have gone through life quite ashamed
of myself, like a dog with tail not gallantly swirled up, but shamefully
curled beneath its hurdies.
As "Apostle of the Celts" he
digressed to St Gallen in search of the famous manuscript in its library,
and this adventure is worth quoting:-
To be sure I could not
read the ol(I Irish characters, but I was the founder of the Celtic
Chair, and to be within two hours' journey of perhaps the oldest Celtic
manuscript in the world, and not stir a foot to see it, would have been
an unpardonable sin. The result was rather unfortunate. The moment I
arrived I sent my card to the Inspector of the Library, requesting
special permission to examine the MS. The Inspector was unwell, but with
politeness lie requested me to present myself before his bed, where he
lay and addressed me in very proper English. There were no difficulties.
Time old woman, his right hand in such matters, would go in with me and
unlock the sacred cases in which these precious relics of old Hibernian
learning and piety were preserved. We went: four cases were opened; but
I saw at a glance of each that they were all Latin or Greek or old
German—certainly nothing that had the slightest look of either a
Highlander or a Hibernian. Some mistake I Back to the recumbent old
gentleman, who explained that he had understood me to say that [ wished
to see certain old Latin MSS. written by Irish disciples of St Columba,
not MSS. in the old Gaelic language: there was only one such, an Irish
Glossary belonging to the Library, and it it had been lent out, on
special security given, to a student of Celtic in Milan Well, I had at
least done my duty, if not gratified my curiosity ; and this also was a
consolation, that in Milan, the capital city of the old Celtic Insubres,
where Gaelic was spoken several centuries before Latin was known in the
world, one individual did exist who occupied himself with the most
venerable study of his ancestors. Honour be to his name Might he not be
fished up and invited to be first Professor Of Celtic in the University
of Edinburgh? Well, another thing also I learned: the walls of the
cloister are hung with curious old pictures representing the life and
adventures and miraculous exploits of Gallus and Columbanus, both
Irishmen of the sixth or seventh century, who brought Gospel and
civilisation into these wild parts.
A glimpse of Constance and
one of Frankfort preluded a visit of three days to Professor Pauli in
Göttingen, one much enjoyed for its quiet, and for Dr Pauli's delightful
singing of student songs. Some allusions to fatigue and to old ailments
appear in these letters, and he was glad to get back to Edinburgh on June
18. Here he spent two days with Dr Walter C. Smith, writing on the 19th to
Mrs Blackie : " Be greeted, fatherland, home, and wife!" He joined her at
Moulin on the 20th, and settled down to the joys of the little Highland
retreat, to the refreshment of Ben Vrackie's. peak and rolling slopes, and
to the usual complement of letters and sonnets for the 'Scotsman,'
describing his doings abroad. He climbed Ben Vrackie one July day, and paid
his homage in the evening:
Thou art the queen and
sovereign of this land,
Which loves thy shelter and invites tin' breeze,
Whose nearer heights thy bluff old guardians stand,
Or climb with green attendance up thy knees.
I praise thy sharp peak neighboured with the stars,
Thy keen pure air of lung-distending rareness,
Thy hoar front battered with long windy wars,
And the wild charm of thy far-stretching bareness.
It is amusing that he was
invited about this time to contest the Inverness Burghs as a "Radical
Jacobite" He was at Inverness early in July, making his customary speech on
Highland matters at the annual banquet there; but he did not linger in the
North, being drawn back by the charm of the Perthshire hills, which held him
till the last week of August. Already the tie to AJtnacraig was loosened.
The railway was making havoc of Oban and its neighbourhood; peace was gone
from the road by the Sound of Kerrera. Miss Isabella Bird wrote to Mrs
Blackie: " I fear that Pro.'s delight in Perthshire sounds the death-knell
of Altnacraig."
Late in August he set out on
a round of visits to Tayrnouth, to Cluny, to Conan House, and to Skeabost in
Skye. While at the last place he went to a school-inspection for the
district of Snizort.
About 150 comely young
persons of both sexes—generally clean and well-dressed, although one or
two were rather ragged and dirty—screamed out with harsh voices some of
the well-known English and Scotch songs generally sung in Lowland
schools. Not being particularly edified with this exhibition, I asked
for a Gaelic song; but, as I expected, could get none: so little do the
red-tape gentlemen up-stairs know of the first principles of moral
education, one of which is to cultivate the heart by the agency of the
mother-tongue and of popular song—the growth of the soil. The spirit
immediately moved me to stand up and exhort the master and the scholars
to the cultivation of native song; and to nail down my exhortation, and
suit the action to the word, I took a pound-note out of my purse, and
wrapping a shilling in it, proclaimed a guinea prize for the best.
Gaelic song to be sung at next examination. Then, of course, three
cheers were given for the Pro. The great event was the appearance of the
Bambhairi, or poetess, who came forward and requested leave to sing a
Gaelic song of her own composition, which she did with a wonderfully
good voice, the subject of the poem being nothing less than a Pindaric
celebration of the great Apostle of the Celts, commonly called the Pro.:
this was received with oceans of applause, and the poetess concluded by
following the Pro.'s example and giving a prize for Gaelic singing,
afterwards exchanging sticks with the Pro., to what effect you will see
when I present my very unusual and original staff of travel which I
received from the Ban-bhaiil.
He went home by Oban, where
he stayed a few days with Mrs Otter, and by Kingussie, where he picked up
another stick, "strong, sturdy, and formidable, which will do to knock the
devil down if he should not behave well."
All his letters are full of
regret that his wife is not with him, and that she misses so much that is
good and beautiful.
In autumn the most
interesting event was Mr Gladstone's visit to Scotland, and Professor Mackie
was invited to meet him both at Tay mouth and Dalmeny. At the latter place
the old friends met, and differed about Homer and much else, and liked each
other none the worse. He wound up his wanderings for the year by presiding
at the Caledonian Association Festival at Manchester on St Andrew's Day,
where the deficit in the fund for the Celtic Chair was more than made
up—Bristol, "ten good Celts of Liverpool," Toronto, Hudson's Bay Factorymen,
Lord Hartington, and Sheriff Nicolson having helped to complete this
success. The fund exceeded £12,000, and his financial labours ended with
1879. |
