Chapter I: Humorous

The humorous booklet undoubtedly occupied foremost place in public favour. It frequently depicted a phase of life which was familiar to readers, and dealt with men whose acquaintance they had made in the flesh. The stories that were recounted may have been broad—coarse, sometimes, as the paper on which they were printed—but they were always true to actual life as the commonalty saw it. “John Cheap, the Chapman,” was to be found at every fair and in every hamlet, and “Leper the Tailor” was a visitor at every farm-town. What is more reasonable, then, than that books which dealt with these worthies should be bought rapidly and read with delight? In addition to their enjoying first place in popularity, the humorous chapbooks are unique in that we know something of some of their authors. Much of our vulgar literature, like a great deal of our ballad minstrelsy, is the work of innominate writers. Certain songs have been traced to particular poets, sermons invariably appeared with their authors’ names, but the great bulk of general chapbook literature was published anonymously. And, with the exception of the most characteristic of the humorous booklets, the authorship has continued in obscurity.

Dougal Graham, the Skellat Bellman of Glasgow, is the chief of chapbook writers, and he must always occupy a prominent place in any history of our vulgar literature. He was born at Raploch (a hamlet that nestles at the foot of the rock on which Stirling Castle stands), in or about the year 1724, and we are told that he was

“The wittiest fellow in his time,
Either for prose or making rhyme.”

In view of his subsequent career, there was something appropriate in the place of his birth. He was born within sight of the Jousting Flats, where the ancient fraternity of chapmen of the counties of Stirling and Clackmannan were wont for centuries to engage in sports: he was born under the shadow of the Palace of the Stuart Kings, and this may have given him that interest in the “Auld Hoose” which impelled him to follow Prince Charlie through victory and defeat to Culloden, and to write his _History of the Rebellion_; and he was almost a native of Stirling, one of the towns which were subsequently to become centres of chapbook enterprise. Little or nothing is known of Graham’s early life. It is believed that he was for some time engaged in farm-service at Campsie, and that at an early period he relinquished that employment, for which, from his deformity, he must have been unsuited, and turned pedlar. He was pursuing this calling when Prince Charlie raised his standard in the West Highlands. Meeting the Pretender’s army in the neighbourhood of Stirling, he joined it—in the capacity of sutler or camp-follower, it is surmised—and was with it in all its subsequent marchings. He himself tells us, in the preface to his _History of the Rebellion_, that he was “an eye-witness to most of the movements of the armies, from the rebels first crossing the Ford of Frew to their final defeat at Culloden.” Then Dougal’s faith failed him. “Life,” he says, in his own rugged phraseology,

“was preciouser to him
Than all the Princes in Christendom;”

and, cutting himself apart from Jacobite and Royalist, he returned to his native Stirlingshire. From this time onwards, for more than thirty years, he was the moving spirit in the production and sale of Scottish chapbook literature.[15]

One of the earliest and best of Graham’s books is _The Whole Proceedings of Jockey and Maggy_, which is believed to have been published in 1755.[16] It is written with considerable dramatic power, and gives a striking and faithful representation of rustic life and manners in the eighteenth century. We are introduced to Jockey and Maggy at a fair in a neighbouring town, and, accompanying them on the way home, learn something of how a country wooing is effected. They agree to accept each other for “better or worse,” and thereafter communicate the fact to their mothers, who immediately set about preparing for the wedding. The main feature in a marriage of that time was the feast, and the author gives us a delightful glimpse of what comprised it.

“The wooing being over,” he writes, “and the day being set,
Jockey’s mither killed the black boul horn’d yeal Ewe, that
lost her lamb the last year, three hens an’ a gule-fitted cock
to prevent the ripples, five peck o’ maut maskit in the meikle
kirn, a pint o’ trykle to mak’ it thicker an’ sweeter an’
maumier for the mouth; 5 pints o’ whisky, wherein was garlic
and spice, for the raisin’ o’ the wind an’ the clearing o’
their water.”

Then follows a description of the bridal procession.

“The friends and good neighbours went a’ wi’ John to the
kirk, where Maggy chanced to meet him, and was married by the
minister. The twa companies joined the gither and cam hame
in a croud; at every change-house they chanced to pass by,
Providence stopt their proceedings with full stoups, bottles
and glasses, drinking their healths, ‘wishing them much joy,
ten girls and a boy.’ Jockey, seeing so many wishing well to
his health, coupt up what he got to augment his health, and
gar him live lang, which afterwards coupt him up and proved
detrimental to the same.

“So hame cam they to the dinner, where his mither presented
to them a piping-het haggis, made o’ the creish o’ the black
boul horn’d Ewe, boil’d in the meikle bag, mixt with bear-meal,
onions, spice and mint.”

The heavy dinner, with the drink he had consumed on the way home, proved too much for the bridegroom, who had to be assisted to bed. Then the respective qualities of the young spouses were discussed by their parents; they disagreed, words came to blows, and the marriage feast ended in a regular Donnybrook.

“His friends and her friends being in a mixt multitude, some
took his part, some took her’s; and there did a battle begin
in the clap of a hand, being a very fierce tumult, which ended
in blood; they struck so hard with stones, sticks, beetles,
and barrow-trams; pigs, pots, stoups and trunchers were flying
like bombs and granadoes. The crook bouls and tangs were all
employed as weapons of war, till doon cam the bed, with a great
mou of peats! So this disturbet their bedding.

“The hamsheughs were very great, until auld uncle Rabby came in
to redd them; and a sturdy auld fallow he was. He stood stively
with a stiff rumple, and by strength of his arms rave them
sindry, flinging the tane east and the tither west, until they
stood a’ round about like as many breathless forfoughten cocks,
and no ane durst steer anither for him; Jockey’s mither was
driven o’er a kist, and brogit a’ her hips on a round heckle;
up she gat, and rinning to fell Maggy’s mither wi’ the ladle,
swearing she was the mither o’ a’ the mischief that happened,
Uncle Rabby ran in between them, he having a lang nose, like a
trumpet, she recklessly came o’er his lobster neb a drive wi’
the ladle till the blood sprang oot, an’ ran down his auld grey
beard and hang like snuffy bubbles at it. O! then he gaed wood,
and looked as waefu’ like as he had been a tod-lowrie come frae
worrying the lambs, wi’ his bloody mouth. Wi’ that he gets an
auld flail, and rives awa’ the supple, then drives them a’ to
the back o’ the door, but yet nane wan oot; then wi’ chirten
an’ chappen down comes the clayhallen and the hen bawk, wi’
Rab Reid the fiddler, who had crept up aside the hens for the
preservation of his fiddle.”

As a description of the humours of rustic life, _Jockey and Maggy’s Courtship_ is difficult to excel. Scenes such as those depicted were not uncommon, and they belong to a time when the whole machinery of ecclesiastical law was brought into motion to impart decency and order to “blithesome bridals.” But even strait-laced Scotland would not be Kirk-ridden, and the eighteenth century Scot enjoyed life to the full, and sinned, sometimes to his heart’s content, in spite of scowling Holy Willies and stools of repentance. The remainder of _Jockey and Maggy’s Courtship_ deals with some of the sins of Jockey’s youth and their consequences. He had loved one of his mother’s maids not wisely but too well, and this coming to the ears of the Kirk-Session he is summoned to answer for his misdeeds. But he proves intractable, and aided and abetted by his mother, who delivers herself of a denunciatory harangue against the repentance stool, he refuses to come under the censure of the Church. We get an interesting glimpse of what Church discipline really was, and of the material with which the elders of the Kirk had to deal. In his mother, Jockey had a stout defender and voluble advocate, but death put an end to her pleading, and he was left to fight his battle alone. Then he yielded to the order of the Kirk, and submitted to public correction.

“Upon Sunday thereafter, John comes with Uncle Rabby’s auld
wide coat, a muckle grey-tailed wig, and a big bonnet that
covered his face, so that he seemed more like an old Pilgrim
than a young fornicator; mounts the creepy[17] wi’ a stiff,
stiff back, as he had been a man of sixty. Every one looked at
him, thinking he was some old stranger that knew not the stool
of repentance by another seat, so that he passed the first
day unknown but to very few; yet on the second it came to be
known, and the whole parish, with many more, came to see him,
which caused such a confusion that he was absolved and got his
children baptized the next day.”

Love, Courtship, and Marriage are the themes most frequently dealt with in Graham’s chapbooks. They were subjects at which a great deal of fun might be poked, and in which everybody was more or less interested. Books treating of them were assured a ready sale.

_The Coalman’s Courtship to the Creelwife’s Daughter_ is one which deserves to be mentioned alongside _Jockey and Maggy’s Courtship_. Sawny, a young coalman, is, like his friend Jockey, desirous of securing a wife, but, not being informed in the art of courtship, he applies to his mother for counsel and advice. That worthy dame—contrary to the general belief that mothers never wish their sons to marry—enters heartily into the project, and lays all her advice and experience at Sawny’s disposal.

She advises him

“to go in wi’ braw good manners, and something manfu’; to put
on a Sunday’s face and sigh as he were a saint; to sit down
beside her as he were a Mess John; to keek aye till her, now
and then, with a stolen look, and haud his mouth as mim and
grave as a May paddock.”

She also enjoins him “to crack weel o’ their wealth and hide their poverty.”

Sawny was a “blate wooer.” Having considered the matter, he thought it would be judicious to approach his sweetheart by means of her mother. After selling his coals one day, he attires himself in his best and proceeds in quest of Katie’s mother. They meet, and, over a gill and a “het pint,” old Be-go promises her daughter to Sawny. Having obtained the mother’s consent, he, a few days later, sets out on a visit to his intended bride, to ascertain whether she is agreeable to his proposal. An amusing dialogue ensues.

_Sawny._—“Now, Katty, do you ken what am come about?”

_Kate._—“Oh yes, my mither telt me; but I’m no ready yet. I hae
twa gowns to spin and things to mak’.”

_Sawny._—“Tute, things to mak’! ye hae as mony things as ye’ll
need, woman; canna ye spin gowns in oor ain hoose wi’ me, as
weel as here wi’ an auld girning mither?”

_Kate._—“But, dear Saunders, ye maun gie a body time to think
on’t—’twad be ill-far’d to rush thegither just at the first.”

_Sawny._—“And do ye think I hae nothing a-do but come here
every ither day hoiting after you! it’ll no do; I maun be
either aff wi’ ye or on wi’ ye; either tell me or tak’ me, for
I ken o’ ither twa, an’ some o’ ye I will hae; for, as am a
sinner, my mither is gaun to be married, too, an’ she can get a
bit man o’ ony shape or trade.”

_Kate._—“’Deed then, Saunders, since ye’re in sic a haste, ye
maun e’en tak’ them that’s readiest, for am no ready yet.”

_Sawny._—“A, dear woman, when your mither and my mither’s
pleased, and am willing to venture on ye, what a sorrow ails
ye?”

_Kate._—“Na, na, I’ll think on’t twa or three days; it’s o’er
lang a term to see without a thought.”

_Sawny._—“Wode, I think ye’re a cumstrarie piece o’ stuff; it’s
true enough ye’re mither said of ye, that ye’re no for a poor
man.”

_Kate._—“And what mair said she o’ me?”

_Sawny._—“Wode, she said you could do naething but wash mugs
and scoure gentleman’s bonny things; but hissies that is bred
amang gentle houses minds me o’ my mither’s cat, but ye’re far
costlier to keep, for she wastes nayther saep nor water, but
spits in her lufe and washes ay at her face, and wheens o’ ye
can do naether thing;” and up he gets.

_Kate._—“O, Saunders, but ye be short; will ye no stay till my
mither come hame?”

_Sawny._—“I’ve staid lang aneugh for onything I’ll be the
better; and am nae sae short as your tottom o’ a taylor that I
could stap in my shoe.”

Chagrined at being repulsed where no repulse was dreamt of, and having fired off this parting shot at his rival, the “tottom of a taylor,” Sawny made his way home feeling, like many a slighted lover before and since, that he might now take melancholy farewell of the earth, the moon, and the stars.

“‘O death, death!’ he exclaimed, ‘I thought the jade wad a
jumped at me; no comfort or happiness mair for poor me. O,
mither, gae mak’ my kist and bake my burial bread, for I’ll die
this night or soon the morn.’”

But a broken heart is only fatal on rare occasions. With the dawn came Katie’s mother, anxious to smooth matters, and effect the union so much desired by Sawny, and perhaps not altogether unwished by the independent sweetheart of yesterday.

“In comes auld Be-go, his good mither,” says the author, “who
had left her daughter in tears for the slighting of Sawny, and
hauls him and his mither away to get a dinner of dead fish,
where a’ was agreed upon, and the wedding to be upon Wednesday;
no bridal folks but the mithers and themselves twa.”

Thus the matter that was first discussed over “a gill and a het pint,” was concluded on the strength of “a dinner of dead fish,” and all that remained to do was the tying of the nuptial knot. The coalman and the creelwife belonged to a class not in very close touch with the Church—they were representative of the “lapsed masses” in a time before that phrase was coined—and they did not, therefore, trouble themselves about marriage in the orthodox fashion. A “Cheap Priest” was requisitioned. He tied the Gordian knot as securely as the Moderator of the General Assembly could have done, and as perfunctorily as the High Priest of Gretna Green would have done if an enraged parent had been knocking at the door for admission with the butt-end of a well-primed pistol. The slipshod manner was not altogether lost on the creelwife.

The priest,[18] says Graham, gave them “twa-three words and
twa-three lines, took their penny and a good drink, wished
them joy, and gaed his wa’s. ‘Now,’ said auld Be-go, ‘if that
be your minister, he’s but a drunken ——; mony a ane drinks
up a’, but he leaves naething; he’s got that penny for deevil
a haet; ye micht hae cracked lufes on’t, tane ane anither’s
word, a kiss and a hoddle at a hillock side, and be as well
if no better; I hae seen some honest men say mair o’er their
brose nor what he said a’ thegither; but an ye’re pleased, am
pleased; a bout in the bed ends a’ and makes firm wark, sae
here’s to you and joy to the bargain—it’s ended now, weel I
wat!’”

The _History of the Haverel Wives_, another of Graham’s chapbooks, differs widely from those already mentioned, but is not the least important of his works. Many editions have been issued. One, printed at Stirling by William Macnie, bears the following elaborate title:—

“_The History of the Haverel Wives; or, The Folly of Witless
Women Displayed._ Written by Humphrey Clinker, the Clashing
Wives’ Clerk. Being a Comical Conference between Maggy and
Janet, his Two Old Aunts. With Janet’s advice to Maggy
concerning marriage, with the manner in which she courted her
husband, which began by taking him by the twa lugs and kissing
him. To which is added, An Oration on the Virtues of the Old
Women and the Pride of the Young. Dictated by Janet Clinker,
and written by Humphrey Clinker, the Clashing Wives’ Clerk.”

This dual production—the _History_ was sometimes published apart from the _Oration_—is freer from indecencies than certain others of Graham’s compositions. In it the author indulges his satire against “clashing wives.” A prefatory note reads:—

“It is a certain old saying, That where women are conven’d
in crowds, there can be but little silence; and some have
acknowledged that it was a great bondage for them to hold their
peace in the church; and where there is much talk by ignorant
speakers, it is diverting for persons of understanding to hear
them. Therefore, we have furnished the public with a small
collection of old wives’ noted sayings and wonders, which they
relate happened in their own time, also what has been told them
by their forefathers.”

With this preface, we are introduced to Maggy and Janet busily “cracking” “at their rocks.” The first subject they discuss is Maggy’s age, and this leads to an interesting description of Scottish life and custom in pre-Reformation times.

“‘Indeed, Janet,’ replies Maggy, in answer to the question of
how old she may be, ‘that’s what naebody kens, for my father
and mother had sae mony o’ us they ne’er counted how auld ane
o’ us was; they minded ay wha o’ us was born first, and wha was
neist ane anither, and that was a’ that e’er we socht to ken
aboot it; but I ha’e mind o’ the mirk Munanday.’[19]

“‘Hout, tout, woman, the mirk Munanday,’ exclaims Janet, ‘I
mind since there was na Munandays at a’, and Sabbath days
was nae come in fashion; there was a day they ca’d Sunday
came ance i’ the ouk for it; we ken’d ay when it came, for
my father cow’d ay his beard when the bell rang, and then
everybody ran to the kirk that had onything to do, gin it were
to buy saut or shune, for the chapman chiels set up a’ their
creims at the kirk door, and the lasses wad a gotten keeking
glasses, red snoods, needles, prins, elshinirons, gimblets,
brown bread, and black saep, forby sweety wives’ things, and
rattles for restless little anes; the men wad a bought pints
o’ ale and gotten a whang o’ gude cheese to chew i’ the time
o’ drinking o’t. Ay, ay, there was braw markets on Sunday i’
the time o’ paepery; we had nae ministers then but priests,
mess Johns, black friars and white friars, monks, abbots,
and bishops; they had nae wives, yet the best o’ them wad a
spoken baudy language, and kissed the lasses; fickle, sykin
bodies they were, unco ill to please; they wad baith curs’d
folk and bless’d them just as we paid them; indeed, they were
unco greedy o’ the penny, and pray’d ay to the dead fouk, and
gard the living pay them for’t; and although they had play’d
the loon wi’ a poor hizey, she durst na speak o’t for her very
life, for they could gie ony body o’er to the de’il when they
liket. They didna gar fouk learn to read, and pray like our new
ministers, but thump on your breast, strake your fingers o’er
aboon your nose, tell your beads, and rin bare-fit thro’ amang
hard stanes and cauld snaw.”

Dougal was never a friend of the Roman hierarchy. In his metrical _History of the Rebellion_ he apostrophises the children of the Pope in lines beginning—

“You Papists are a cursed race,”

and the _History of the Haverel Wives_ testifies that he was equally unfriendly in prose. The description of a Scottish Sunday before the Reformation is historically true, and proves that the prolific pedlar was not ignorant of the social life of an earlier day. Maggy, after listening to the harangue of her friend, and learning that the priests were possessed of all power over men and death and devils, asks pertinently enough—

“What’s come o’ them a’ now? I’m sure the like o’ thae fouks
that had sae meikle power needed neither dee nor yet be sick:
they wad live a’ their days.”

The answering of this question affords Janet another opportunity of indulging her antipathy to “Paepery,” and gives her a chance to air her views on Episcopacy. This part of the chapbook is interesting as preserving a fair reflection of the minds of the common people on the subject of Prelacy. Lonely graves on the moorlands of the west, and memories of the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, could still move men to tears; the terrible sufferings of the Covenant days were things but of yesterday, and—rightly or wrongly—Bloody Claverhouse and his Dragoons, and relentless Archbishop Sharp, were still emissaries of the devil and typical representatives of Scottish Episcopacy. In these days a good true-blue Presbyterian can sit down to breakfast and make a hearty meal in spite of the fact that his newspaper tells him the Churches are “praying for union;” but at the time when the chapbook was written, things were very different. Every Presbyterian held the same opinion as the Skellat Bellman of Glasgow, and only refrained from expressing it because, unlike Dougal Graham, he was seldom “unco glib at the pen.”

The most of the priests, says Janet, are “dead and rotten, and
the rest o’ them gade awa to Italy, where the auld Pape their
faither, the deil, the witches, brownies, and fairies dwal;[20]
and than we gat anither sort o’ gospel fouks they ca’d
curits—fine sort o’ dainty honest fouks they war, but geyan
greedy.... They bid to hae tithes o’ everything that grew; mony
a time my faither wisht they wad tak tithes o’ his hemp too, if
it were to hang themsels. They were ay warst whare a puir man
or wife died, though they left weans fatherless and mitherless:
a deed they wad a sent their bellman, and wi’ his lang prelatic
fingers he wad a harled the upper pair o’ blankets aff o’ the
poor things’ bed for some rent that they gard fouks pay for
dying, a sae did they een, and yet they keepit a hantle o’ braw
haly days and days o’ meikle meat—Fastren’s-e’en and Yule days,
when we got our wames fou o’ fat brose, and suppit Yule sowens
till our sarks had been like to rive; and, after that, eaten
toasted cheese and white puddings well spiced. O! braw times
for the guts! Well, I wat, onybody might live then that had
onything to live on.”

In this strain, Janet “haivers” on to the end of the chapter, in answer to Maggy’s questions. She discusses the devil and his wife (is there any other record of Satan having added matrimony to his sins?); blackamoors and what they are made of; and that fruitful subject of discussion in all ages—the minister. Janet points out, in a woman’s unerring way, the many faults of the minister, his wife, and “twa gigglet, gilliegaukies o’ dochters;” and tells how _she_ would preach if she had the chance of “wagging her pow in the pu’pit.” Then she proceeds to give her younger sister some advice concerning marriage; and the chapbook—in some of its editions—concludes with her “Oration on the Virtues of the Old Women and the Pride of the Young.” In a humorous fashion she expatiates on her sex, pointing out their many vices, and wherein they have fallen from the high estate they enjoyed when she, “Janet, was a Janet.” She regrets that they will not speak their mother tongue, and will not even swear in it, “but must have southern oaths.” Having said her say, she imparts some advice to her readers as to waling a good husband or a perfect wife.

“If a puir man want a perfect wife, let him wale a weel-blooded
hissie, wi’ braid shouders and thick about the haunches, that
has been lang servant in ae house, tho’ twice or thrice awa’
and ay fied back; that’s weel liket by the bairns and the
bairns’ mither; that’s naeway cankard to the cats nor kicks
the colley-dogs amang her feet; that wad let a’ brute beasts
live, but rats, mice, lice, flaes, neits, and bugs, that
bites the wee bairns in their cradles; that carefully combs
the young things’ heads, washes their faces and claps their
cheeks, snites the snotter frae their nose as they were a’ her
ain—that’s the lass that will mak’ a good wife; for them that
dauts the young bairns will ay be kind to auld folk an they had
them.

“And ony hale-hearted, halsome lassie that wants to halter a
good husband, never tak’ a widow’s ae son, for a’ the wifely
gates in the world will be in him, for want of a father to
teach him manly actions; neither tak’ a sour-looking sumf wi’
a muckle mouth and a wide guts, who will eat like a horse and
soss like a sow, suffer none to sup but himsel’, eat your meat
and the bairns’ baith; when hungry angry, when fu’ of pride,
ten sacks will not haud his sauce, tho’ a pea-shap wad haud his
siller. But go, tak’ your chance, and, if cheated, chamer not
on me, for fashionable fouk flee to fashionable things, for
lust is brutish blind and fond love is blear-ey’d.”

The three works of Dougal Graham, with which we have dealt, and from which we have given extracts illustrative of their style and the subjects of which they treat, are, in certain respects, different from the other productions attributed to the Skellat Bellman’s pen. They show that their author was possessed of an inventive faculty, and that he could create characters and make them play their parts in the development of a plot. The plot was never intricate, but the sketches had a dramatic construction which is wanting in his other chapbooks. Such histories, for example, as those which relate the _Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan_, or the _Comical Transactions of Lothian Tom_, are merely a number of stories gathered from many sources, and thrown together with a certain amount of local colour. _John Falkirk the Merry Piper_, _Paddy from Cork_, and _Simple John_—like George Buchanan and Lothian Tom—are called into service merely to enable Graham to weave his anecdotes, wise and otherwise, and his witticisms, new and old, into a composite whole. It would seem, indeed, as though the Skellat Bellman, like authors of a later date, had found it impossible to keep up a continuous output of original matter, and had descended to mere hackwork or pot-boiling. To say this is not to say that there is nothing of interest in these collections of facetious anecdotes and droll misfortunes. Like his other sketches, they are valuable for the light they shed on Scottish life and custom in a by-gone time.

Two chapbooks, attributed to Graham, differ in construction from the anecdotal compilations such as _The Exploits of George Buchanan_, or the dramatic sketches of the nature of _Jockey and Maggy’s Courtship_. These are _John Cheap the Chapman_, and _Leper the Taylor_. The former is understood to be autobiographical in part. “John Cheap” is an interesting fellow, and in his company—though often-times it is more agreeable than polite—we can wander over a large stretch of lowland Scotland and learn something of the life he lived. He got his

“name of John Cheap the chapman, by his selling twenty needles
for a penny, and twa leather laces for a farthing. He swore no
oaths but one, Let me never sin; and he used no imprecations
but, Let me never cheat nor be cheated, but rather cheat than
be cheated.”

Many a man in a higher walk of life than that in which John Cheap moved, could plead guilty to harbouring the same wish.

In this sketch, the author paints with a broad brush. The trials of a pedlar’s life are duly set forth. One quotation will suffice for illustration.

“I prevailed,” says John Cheap, “to get staying in a great
farmer’s house, about two miles from Haddington; they were
all at supper when I went in; I was ordered to sit down
behind their backs. The goodwife then took a dish, went
round the servants, and collected a sowp out of every cog,
which was sufficient to have served three men. The goodwife
ordered me to be laid in the barn all night for my bed, but
the bully-fac’d goodman swore he had too much stuff in it to
venture me there; the guidwife said I should not ly within the
house, for I would be o’er near the lasses’ bed; then the lads
swore I should not go with them, for I was a forjesket little
fellow, and (wha kens whether I was honest or not) he may fill
his wallet wi’ our cloaths and gang his wa’ or daylight. At
last I was conducted out to the swine’s stye, to sleep with an
old sow and seven pigs, and there I lay for two nights.”

To the pictures of early Church life, which are found in the _History of the Haverel Wives_, may be added one from _Leper the Taylor_. It belongs to a later age, and while the others dealt with the Church in the days of Popery and Episcopacy, this gives us a glimpse of matters as they existed under Presbytery. It illustrates ecclesiastical life in Glasgow at the time when Dougal Graham held the position of Skellat Bellman. The Kirk-Session, acting in conjunction with the Town Council, appointed certain officers, known as “civileers,” whose duty was to see that everybody attended Church at both diets of worship on Sabbath.[21] These functionaries pounced upon Leper on one occasion, and the following extract narrates the sequel:—

“Leper was in use to give his lads their Sunday’s supper, which
obliged him to stay from the kirk in the afternoon, he having
neither wife nor servant maid; so on Sunday afternoon, as he
was at home cooking his pot, John Muckle-cheeks and James
Puff-and-Blaw, two Civileers, having more zeal than knowledge,
came upon him and said, What’s the matter, Sir, you go not to
the kirk? Leper replied, I am reading my book, and cooking my
pot, which I think is the work of necessity. Then says the one
to the other, Don’t answer the graceless fellow, we’ll make
him appear before his betters; so they took the kail-pot, and
puts a staff through the bowls, and bears it to the Clerk’s
chamber. Leper, who was never at a loss for invention, goes
to the Principal of the College, his house, no body being at
home but a lass roasting a leg of mutton; Leper says, My dear,
will you go and bring a pint of ale, and I’ll turn the spit
till you come back; the lass was no sooner gone than he runs
away with the leg of mutton, which served his lads and him
for his supper. When the Principal came home, he was neither
to bin nor ha’d, he was so angry; so on Monday he goes and
makes complaint to the Lord Provost, who sends two officers for
Leper, who came immediately. My Lord asked him, How he dared to
take away the Principal’s mutton? Leper replied, How came your
Civileers to take away my kail-pot? I am sure there is less sin
in making a pot-full of kail than roasting a leg of mutton:
Law-makers should not be law-breakers, so I demand justice on
the Civileers. The Provost asked him what justice he would
have? Says he, Make them carry the pot back again; as for the
Principal, a leg of mutton won’t make him and me fall out. So
they were forced to carry the pot back again, and Leper caused
the boys to huzza after them to their disgrace.”

Of the other humorous chapbooks attributed to Graham, no lengthy mention need be made. At most, as has been indicated, he was only editor of them; and they are, for the greater part, merely collections of _facetiæ_. Many of the stories were chestnuts even in Dougal’s time, and some of them are none the fresher for the fact that they have been fathered on every beadle and minister of distinction within the last decade. He had an eye for a good story, and one seldom lost anything in being retailed by him. If the George Buchanan of his pages is rather a buffoon than the first statesman of his age, it should be borne in mind that the Bellman wrote for a people who demanded mirth, and that the George Buchanan of history—if Graham had chosen to treat him seriously—would have cut a sorry figure in the company of Paddy from Cork and Lothian Tom, and would not have been so much appreciated as the ribald courtier of a ribald age.

Besides the Skellat Bellman of Glasgow, there were a number of others who contributed humour to Scottish chapbook literature. One of the most notable of these was William Cameron, who in certain respects was a fitting successor to Dougal Graham. He, like Graham, was born within sight of Stirling Castle; like him, too, he wandered over a large part of Scotland as a “flying stationer;” and, like him, he ultimately settled down in Glasgow and became one of the worthies of St. Mungo.[22] Cameron has a connection with Graham’s work in respect that he edited _Janet Clinker’s Oration_, and, giving it a new title, sent it forth on a fresh lease of life. His own words are:—

“I fell in with _Janet Clinker’s Oration on the Wit of the
Old Wives and the Pride of the Young Women_. This piece never
fails. I have turned it ‘heels over head’ many times; and, when
it would sell no longer, I gave it a fresh name, as well as a
new introduction, and sold it as freely as ever.... I changed
its title to _Grannie M’Nab’s Lecture on the Women_, and sold
it through the West of Scotland.”

Cameron was author of one or two chapbooks. He wrote _The Prophecies of ‘Hawkie’: a Cow_, which poked fun at a prophet who “prophesied in Fife and appeared in Glasgow, and converted numbers.” The book sold well, and secured for Cameron the name by which he was subsequently known—he was “Hawkie” to two generations of Glaswegians. Another of his productions is _The Gauger’s Journey to the Land of Darkness: what he discovered there and his journey back_. It narrates the story of an exciseman who, being found drunk and asleep by some colliers, was taken down a pit and laid in a corner. When he awoke, he fancied he was in another world.

_The Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith_, is a notable chapbook, and cannot be overlooked in this connection. It is—as many of the chapbooks were—a condensation of a larger work, and, in its extended form, is still widely esteemed. There is this difference between “Delta’s”[23] creation and all of those of Graham, that he is always respectable. Mansie, like many other mortals in chapbook literature, finds himself in strange places and the victim of unfortunate circumstances—such as his experience of “calf-love” and his adventures in the playhouse—but he never loses his self-respect or finds it necessary to be obscene to be emphatic. Doubtless these very characteristics led to his being less widely appreciated by the common people, but he has this much to his credit that when, in later times, a movement originated to suppress or supplant the coarse productions of the Skellat Bellman, it did not—because it could not—affect him.

There were a number of chapbooks in verse which deserve to be noticed under the present heading. One of the most popular of these was Alexander Wilson’s[24] humorous poem, _Watty and Meg; or, the Wife Reformed—Owre True a Tale_, which was first published in 1792, and considered worthy of the Ayrshire Bard. Another was, _The Comical Story of Thrummy Cap and the Ghost_, from the pen of John Burness,[25] a cousin of the national poet. Both of these effusions enjoyed a wide popularity as chapbooks; they were reprinted time and again, down to the very close of the period when these books may be said to have ceased to be vended; and then they passed on into standard collections of our national verse, through which they are known to a wide circle of readers. Two other publications which were popular, but which had not that fate, are—(1) _The Comical Tale of Margaret and the Minister_, which narrates how Margaret, having been invited to dinner at the manse, accepted the invitation; and then, through ignorance or misadventure, affixed the table-cover instead of a napkin to her breast: all went well until, having swallowed some mustard, she beat a hasty retreat from the room to hide her discomfiture, and dragged the cloth and dishes with her; (2) _The Dominie Deposed, with a Sequel_, by William Forbes, A.M., late schoolmaster of Petercoulter. This sets forth in vigorous verse the lamentation of a dominie, who had the misfortune to sweetheart, as Mr. Henley might say, “with all his heart, and soul, and strength.”[26]

While these were the most important of the humorous chapbooks, there were many others of a similar kind but of lesser merit. Graham called forth numerous imitators, and stories of love, courtship, and marriage fell fast from the chapbook press. _The Art of Courtship_,[27] a somewhat commonplace production, which, in Professor Fraser’s judgment, “bears strong signs of having been written or edited by Dougal Graham, or at least suggested by his writings,” was one; _A Diverting Courtship_,[28] and _The Pleasures of Matrimony_,[29] were others. Subjects of such a nature lent themselves to broad treatment; and the chapbook writer of a century ago—like the enterprising publisher of to-day—gave the public what it wanted, rather than what was good for it. If Graham was imitated in these productions, he also had companions who issued publications after the style of _Paddy from Cork_ and the _Exploits of George Buchanan_.

A collection of amusing, and sometimes coarse, anecdotes was published at Glasgow in 1767, under title, _The Comical Notes and Sayings of the Reverend Mr. John Pettigrew, Minister in Govan_,[30] and a budget of stories of a more general character was issued with the name of _The Scotch Haggis_.[31] In addition to these, there were _Odds and Ends; or, a Groat’s Worth of Fun for a Penny_,[32] and _Grinning Made Easy; or, Funny Dick’s Unrivalled Collection of Jests_.[33] By way of description, these books of _facetiæ_ do not call for much attention. Anything in the way of wit and humour was pressed into service. The editors did what they could to caricature Scotland, before _Punch_ and other enterprising London periodicals found this a pleasant and paying duty. Many of the more characteristically Scottish anecdotes in these chapbooks have been made familiar to modern readers through the dignified pages of Dean Ramsay’s volume and the works of other gleaners in the field of Scottish story.