Chapter III (3)

I think the circumstance of the expression, "marks of the Lord Jesus," occurring just where it does, at the close of the Epistle, is worthy of remark. From what he says at the 11th verse of the same chapter ("Ye see how large a letter I have written to you with my own hand") it is obvious that, to whatever cause it is to be attributed, the act of writing was one of considerable effort to the apostle. His zeal, and anxiety, and Christian affection, however, had borne him up, and carried him through with his task. But just as he was concluding, I imagine that he began to feel that the effort he had made was greater than his infirmity was well able to bear. If my idea as to the nature of that infirmity be correct, his weak, diseased eyes were burning and smarting more than ordinarily, from the unusual exertion that had been demanded from them; and this, at once leading his mind to what had been the cause of that exertion, the misconduct of the Galatians and their teachers, naturally wrung from him an assertion of his authority, in the impetuous and reproachful, but at the same time deeply pathetic exclamation: "From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." And so he concludes his Epistle.

In pursuing the above inquiry, certain further conclusions, naturally flowing out of what I have attempted to establish, and yet involving results considerably remote from it, have presented themselves to my thoughts. I am inclined to regard them as calculated in some degree to simplify the mode of presenting the Christian scheme to the mind, and to impart to its claims upon the understanding and belief more of logical directness, and less of the liability to evasion, than appear to me to characterize some of the more ordinary modes of its presentation. But I must leave the development of this, the most interesting, as I think, and important part of my subject, to some future opportunity, should it be granted me.

_THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES._

... "_If thou wert grim,
Lame, ugly, crooked, swart, prodigious._"

KING JOHN.

These gnarled, stunted, useless old bones, were all that David Ritchie, the original of the Black Dwarf, had for left _femur_ and _tibia_, and we have merely to look at them and add poverty, to know the misery summed up in their possession. They seem to have been blighted and rickety. The thigh-bone is very short and slight, and singularly loose in texture; the leg-bone is dwarfed, but dense and stout. They were given to me many years ago by the late Andrew Ballantyne, Esq. of Woodhouse (the Wudess, as they call it on Tweedside), and their genuineness is unquestionable.

As anything must be interesting about one once so forlorn and miserable, and whom our great wizard has made immortal, I make no apology for printing the following letters from my old friend Mr. Craig, long surgeon in Peebles, and who is now spending his evening, after a long, hard, and useful day's work, in the quiet vale of Manor, within a mile or two of "Cannie Elshie's" cottage. The picture he gives is very affecting, and should make us all thankful that we are "wiselike." There is much that is additional to Sir Walter's account, in his "Author's Edition" of the Waverley Novels.

"HALL MANOR, _Thursday, May 20, 1858._

"MY DEAR SIR,--David Ritchie, _alias_ Bowed Davie, was born at
Easter Happrew, in the parish of Stobo, in the year 1741. He was
brought to Woodhouse, in the parish of Manor, when very young.
His father was a laborer, and occupied a cottage on that farm;
his mother, Anabel Niven, was a delicate woman, severely
afflicted with rheumatism, and could not take care of him when
an infant. To this cause he attributed his deformity, and this,
if added to imperfect clothing, and bad food, and poverty, will
account for the grotesque figure which he became. He never was
at school, but could read tolerably; had many books; was fond of
poetry, especially Allan Ramsay; he hated Burns. His father and
mother both died early, and poor Davie became a homeless
wanderer; he was two years at Broughton Mill, employed in
stirring the husks of oats, which were used for drying the corn
on the kiln, and required to be kept constantly in motion; he
boasted, with a sort of rapture, of his doings there. From
thence he went to Lyne's Mill, near his birth-place, where he
continued one year at the same employment, and from thence he
was sent to Edinburgh to learn brush-making, but made no
progress in his education there; was annoyed by the wicked boys,
or _keelies_, as he called them, and found his way back to Manor
and Woodhouse. The farm now possessed by Mr. Ballantyne, was
then occupied by four tenants, among whom he lived; but his
house was at Old Woodhouse, where the late Sir James Nasmyth
built him a house with two apartments, and separate outer doors,
one for himself exactly his own height when standing upright in
it; and this stands as it was built, exactly four feet. A Mr.
Ritchie, the father of the late minister of Athelstaneford, was
then tenant; his wife and Davie could not agree, and she
repeatedly asked her husband to put him away, by making the
highest stone of his house the lowest. Ritchie left, his house
was pulled down, and Davie triumphed in having the stones of his
chimney-top made a step to his door, when this new house was
built. He was not a little vindictive at times when irritated,
especially when any allusion was made to his deformity. On one
occasion, he and some other boys were stealing pease in Mr.
Gibson's field, who then occupied Woodhouse; all the others took
_leg-bail_, but Davie's locomotion being tardy, he was caught,
shaken, and scolded by Gibson for all the rest. This he never
forgot, and vowed to be avenged on the "auld sinner and deevil;"
and one day when Gibson was working about his own door, Davie
crept up to the top of the house, which was low, and threw a
large stone down on his head, which brought the old man to the
ground. Davie crept down the other side of the house, got into
bed beside his mother, and it was never known where the stone
came from, till he boasted of it long afterwards. He only prayed
that it might sink down through his "_harn-pan_" (his skull).
His personal appearance seems to have been almost indescribable,
not bearing any likeness to anything in this upper world. But as
near as I can learn, his forehead was very narrow and low,
sloping upwards and backward, something of the hatchet shape;
his eyes deep set, small, and piercing; his nose straight, thin
as the end of a cut of cheese, sharp at the point, nearly
touching his fearfully projecting chin; and his mouth formed
nearly a straight line; his shoulders rather high, but his body
otherwise the size of ordinary men; his arms were remarkably
strong. With very little aid he built a high garden wall, which
still stands, many of the stones of huge size; these the
shepherds laid to his directions. His legs beat all power of
description; they were bent in every direction, so that Mungo
Park, then a surgeon at Peebles, who was called to operate on
him for strangulated hernia, said he could compare them to
nothing but a pair of corkscrews; but the principal turn they
took was from the knee outwards, so that he rested on his inner
ankles, and the lower part of his tibias.

'An' his knotted knees play'd aye knoit between.'

"He had never a shoe on his feet; the parts on which he walked
were rolled in rags, old stockings, &c., but the toes always
bare, even in the most severe weather. His mode of progressing
was as extraordinary as his shape. He carried a long pole, or
'kent,' like the Alpenstock, tolerably polished, with a turned
top on it, on which he rested, placed it before him, he then
lifted one leg, something in the manner that the oar of a boat
is worked, and then the other, next advanced his staff, and
repeated the operation, by diligently doing which he was able to
make not very slow progress. He frequently walked to Peebles,
four miles, and back again, in one day. His arms had no motion
at the elbow-joints, but were active enough otherwise. He was
not generally ill-tempered, but furious when roused.

"ROBERT CRAIG."

"HALL MANOR, _June 15, 1858._

"MY DEAR SIR,--I have delayed till now to finish Bowed Davie, in
the hope of getting more information, and to very little
purpose. His contemporaries are now so few, old, and widely
scattered, that they are difficult to be got at, and when come
at, their memories are failed, like their bodies. I have
forgotten at what stage of his history I left off; but if I
repeat, you can omit the repetitions. Sir James Nasmyth, late of
Posso, took compassion on the houseless, homeless _lusus
naturae_, and had a house built for him to his own directions;
the door, window, and everything to suit his diminished,
grotesque form; the door four feet high, the window twelve by
eighteen inches, without glass, closed by a wooden board, hung
on leathern hinges, which he used to keep shut. Through it he
reconnoitred all visitors, and only admitted ladies and
particular favorites; he was very superstitious; ghosts,
fairies, and robbers he dreaded most. I have forgotten if I
mentioned how he contrived to be fed and warmed. He had a small
allowance from the parish poor-box, about fifty shillings; this
was eked out by an annual peregrination through the parish, when
some gave him food, others money, wool, &c., which he hoarded
most miserly. How he cooked his food I have not been able to
learn, for his sister, who lived in the same cottage with him,
was separated by a stone and lime wall, and had a separate door
of the usual size, and window to match, and was never allowed to
enter his dwelling; but he brought home such loads, that the
shepherds had to be on the lookout for him, when on his annual
eleemosynary expeditions, to carry home part of his spoil. On
one occasion a servant was ordered to give him some salt, for
containing which he carried a long stocking; he thought the
damsel had scrimped him in quantity, and he sat and distended
the stocking till it appeared less than half full, by pressing
down the salt, and then called for the gudewife, showed it her,
and asked if she had ordered Jenny only to give him that wee
pickle saut; the maid was scolded, and the stocking filled. He
spent all his evenings at the back of the Woodhouse kitchen
fire, and got at least one meal every day, where he used to make
the rustics gape and stare at the many ghost, fairy, and robber
stories which he had either heard of or invented, and poured out
with unceasing volubility, and so often that he believed them
all true. But the Ballantyne family had no great faith in his
veracity, when it suited his convenience to fib, exaggerate, or
prevaricate, particularly when excited by his own lucubrations,
or the waggery of his more intellectual neighbors and
companions. He had a seat in the centre, which he always
occupied, and a stool for his deformed feet and legs; they all
rose at times, asking Davie to do likewise, and when he got upon
his pins, he was shorter than when sitting, his body being of
the ordinary length, and the deficiency all in his legs. On one
occasion, a wag named Elder put up a log of wood opposite his
loophole, made a noise, and told Davie that the robbers he
dreaded so much were now at his house, and would not go away; he
peeped out, and saw the log, exclaimed, 'So he is, by the Lord
God and my soul; Willie Elder, gi'e me the gun, and see that she
is weel charged.' Elder put in a very large supply of powder
without shot, rammed it hard, got a stool, which Davie mounted,
Elder handing him the gun, charging him to take time, and aim
fair, for if he missed him, he would be mad at being shot at, be
sure to come in, take everything in the house, cut their
throats, and burn the house after. Davie tremblingly obeyed,
presented the gun slowly and cautiously, drew the trigger; off
went the shot, the musket rebounded, and back went Davie with a
rattle on the floor. Some accomplice tumbled the log; Davie at
length was encouraged to look out, and actually believed that he
had shot the robber; said he had done for him now, 'that ane wad
plague him nae mair at ony rate.' He took it into his head at
one time that he ought to be married, and having got the consent
of a haverel wench to yoke with him in the silken bonds of
matrimony, went to the minister several times, and asked him to
perform the ceremony. At length the minister sent him away,
saying that he could not and would not accommodate him in the
matter. Davie swung himself out at the door on his kent, much
crestfallen, and in great wrath, shutting the door with a bang
behind him, but opening it again, he shook his clenched fist in
the parson's face, and said, 'Weel, weel, ye'll no let decent,
honest folk marry; but, 'od, lad, I'se plenish your parish wi'
bastards, to see what ye'll mak o' that,' and away he went. He
read Hooke's _Pantheon_, and made great use of the heathen
deities. He railed sadly at the taxes; some one observed that he
need not grumble at them as he had none to pay. 'Hae I no'?' he
replied, 'I can neither get a pickle snuff to my neb, nor a
pickle tea to my mouth, but they maun tax 't.' His sister and he
were on very unfriendly terms. She was ill on one occasion; Miss
Ballantyne asked how she was to-day. He replied, 'I dinna ken, I
ha'na been in, for I hate folk that are aye gaun to dee and
never do't,' In 1811 he was seized with obstruction of the
bowels and consequent inflammation; blisters and various
remedies were applied for three days without effect. Some one
came to Mrs. Ballantyne and said that it was 'just about a' owre
wi' Davie noo.' She went, and he breathed his last almost
immediately. His sister without any delay, got his keys, and
went to his secret repository, Mrs. Ballantyne thought to get
dead-clothes, but instead, to the amazement of all present, she
threw three money-bags, one after another, into Mrs.
Ballantyne's lap, telling her to count that, and that, and that.
Mrs. B. was annoyed and astonished at the multitude of
half-crowns and shillings, all arranged according to value. He
hated sixpences, and had none, but the third contained four
guineas in gold. Mrs. B. was disgusted with the woman's greed,
and put them all up, saying, what would anybody think if they
came in and found them counting the man's money and his breath
scarcely out,--took it all home to her husband, who made out L4
2_s._ in gold, L10 in a bank receipt, and L7 18_s._ in
shillings and half-crowns, in all L22. How did he get this? He
had many visitors, the better class of whom gave him
half-crowns, others shillings and sixpences; the latter he never
kept, but converted them into shillings and half-crowns whenever
he got an opportunity. I asked the wright how he got him into a
coffin. He replied, 'Easily; they made it deeper than ordinary,
and wider, so as to let in his distorted legs, as it was
impossible to streek him like others.' He often expressed a
resolve to be buried on the Woodhill top, three miles up the
water from the church-yard, as he could never 'lie amang the
common trash;' however, this was not accomplished, as his
friend, Sir James Nasmyth, who had promised to carry this wish
into effect, was on the Continent at the time. When Sir James
returned, he spoke of having his remains lifted and buried where
he had wished; but this was never done, and the expense of a
railing and plantation of rowan-trees (mountain ash), his
favorite prophylactic against the spells of witches and fairies,
was abandoned. The Woodhill is a romantic, green little mount,
situated at the west side of the Manor, which washes its base on
the east, and separates it from Langhaugh heights, part of a
lofty, rocky, and heathery mountain range, and on the west is
the ruin of the ancient peel-house of old Posso, long the
residence of the Nasmyth family. And now that we have the Dwarf
dead and buried, comes the history of his resurrection in 1821.
His sister died exactly ten years after him. A report had been
spread that he had been lifted and taken to dissecting-rooms in
Glasgow, which at that period was the fate of many a more seemly
corpse than Davie's; and the young men--for Manor had no
sexton--who dug the sister's grave in the vicinity of her
brother's, stimulated by curiosity to see if his body had really
been carried off, and if still there what his bones were like,
lifted them up, and carried them to Woodhouse, where they lay a
considerable time, till they were sent to Mr. Ballantyne, then
in Glasgow. Miss Ballantyne thinks the skull was taken away with
the other bones, but put back again. I have thus given you all
the information I can gather about the Black Dwarf that I think
worth narrating. It is reported that he sometimes sold a gill,
but if this is true the Ballantynes never knew it. Miss
Ballantyne says that he was not ill-tempered, but on the
contrary, kind, especially to children. She and her brother were
very young when she went to Woodhouse, and her father objected
to resetting the farm from Sir James, on account of the fearful
accounts of his horrid temper and barbarous deeds, and Sir James
said if he ever troubled them that he would immediately put him
away; but he was very fond of the younger ones, played with
them, and amused them, though when roused and provoked by
grown-up people, he raged, stormed, swore terrifically, and
struck with anything that was near him, in short, he had an
irritable but not a sulky, sour, misanthropic temper. The
Messrs. Chambers wrote a book about him and his doings at a very
early period of their literary history. Did I tell you of a
female relative, Niven (whom he would never see), saying that
she would come and streek him after he died? He sent word, 'that
if she offered to touch his corpse he would rive the thrapple
oot o' her--he would raither be streekit by Auld Clootie's ain
red-het hands.'--Yours, truly obliged, R. C."

This poor, vindictive, solitary, and powerful creature, was a philocalist: he had a singular love of flowers and of beautiful women. He was a sort of Paris, to whom the blushing Aphrodites of the glen used to come, and his judgment is said to have been as good, as the world generally thinks that of Oenone's handsome and faithless mate. His garden was full of the finest flowers, and it was his pleasure, when the young beauties

"Who bore the blue sky intermixed with flame
In their fair eyes,"

came to him for their competitive examination, to scan them well, and then, without one word, present each with a flower, which was of a certain fixed and well-known value in Davie's standard _calimeter_.

I have heard that there was one kind of rose, his {kallisteion}, which he was known to have given only to three, and I remember seeing one of the three, when she was past seventy. Margaret Murray, or Morra, was her maiden name, and this fine old lady, whom an Oxonian would call a Double First, grave and silent, and bent with "the pains," when asked by us children, would, with some reluctance, and a curious grave smile, produce out of her Bible, Bowed Davie's withered and flattened rose; and from her looks, even then, I was inclined to affirm the decision of the connoisseur of Manor Water. One can fancy the scene in that sweet solitary valley, informed like its sister Yarrow with pastoral melancholy, with a young May, bashful and eager, presenting herself for honors, encountering from under that penthouse of eyebrows the steady gaze of the strange eldritch creature; and then his making up his mind, and proceeding to pluck his award and present it to her, "herself a fairer flower," and then turning with a scowl, crossed with a look of tenderness, crawl into his den. Poor "gloomy Dis," slinking in alone.

They say, that when the candidate came, he surveyed her from his window, his eyes gleaming out of the darkness, and if he liked her not he disappeared; if he would entertain her, he beckoned her into the garden.

I have often thought that the _Brownie_, of whom the south country legends are so full, must have been some such misshapen creature, strong, willing, and forlorn, conscious of his hideous forbidding looks, and ready to purchase affection at any cost of labor, with a kindly heart, and a longing for human sympathy and intercourse. Such a being looks like the prototype of the Aiken-Drum of our infancy, and of that "drudging goblin," of whom we all know how he

"... Sweat
To earn his cream-bowl daily set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubber[56] fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And cropful out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings."

[56] Lob-lye-by-the-fire.

My readers will, I am sure, more than pardon me for giving them the following poem on Aiken-Drum, for the pleasure of first reading which, many years ago, I am indebted to Mr. R. Chambers's _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, where its "extraordinary merit" is generously acknowledged.

THE BROWNIE OF BLEDNOCH.

There cam' a strange wicht to our town-en',
An' the fient a body did him ken;
He tirl'd na lang, but he glided ben
Wi' a dreary, dreary hum.

His face did glow like the glow o' the west,
When the drumlie cloud has it half o'ercast;
Or the struggling moon when she's sair distrest,
O sirs! 'twas Aiken-drum.

I trow the bauldest stood aback,
Wi' a gape an' a glow'r till their lugs did crack,
As the shapeless phantom mum'ling spak,
Hae ye wark for Aiken-drum!

O! had ye seen the bairns' fricht,
As they stared at this wild and unyirthly wicht,
As they skulkit in 'tween the dark an' the licht,
An' graned out, Aiken-drum!

"Sauf us!" quoth Jock, "d'ye see sick e'en?"
Cries Kate, "There's a hole where a nose should ha' been;
An' the mouth's like a gash that a horn had ri'en;
Wow! keep's frae Aiken-drum!"

The black dog growlin' cow'red his tail,
The lassie swarf'd, loot fa' the pail;
Rob's lingle brack as he mendit the flail,
At the sicht o' Aiken-drum.

His matted head on his breast did rest,
A lang blue beard wan'ered down like a vest;
But the glare o' his e'e hath nae bard exprest,
Nor the skimes o' Aiken-drum.

Roun' his hairy form there was naething seen,
But a philabeg o' the rashes green,
An' his knotted knees play'd aye knoit between;
What a sicht was Aiken-drum!

On his wauchie arms three claws did meet,
As they trail'd on the grim' by his taeless feet;
E'en the auld gudeman himsel' did sweat,
To look at Aiken-drum.

But he drew a score, himsel' did sain,
The auld wife tried, but her tongue was gane;
While the young ane closer clespit her wean,
And turn'd frae Aiken-drum.

But the canty auld wife cam till her braith,
And she thocht the Bible micht ward aif scaith;
Be it benshee, bogle, ghaist, or wraith--
But it fear'd na Aiken-drum.

"His presence protect us!" quoth the auld gudeman;
"What wad ye, whare won ye,--by sea or by lan'?
I conjure ye--speak--by the Beuk in my han'!"
What a grane gae Aiken-drum!

"I lived in a lan' whare we saw nae sky,
I dwalt in a spot whare a burn rins na by;
But I'se dwall noo wi' you if ye like to try--
Hae ye wark for Aiken drum?

"I'll shiel a' your sheep i' the mornin' sune,[57]
I'll berry your crap by the licht o' the moon,
An' ba the bairns wi' an unkenn'd tune,
If ye'll keep puir Aiken-drum.

"I'll loup the linn when ye canna wade,
I'll kirn the kirn, an' I'll turn the bread;
An' the wildest fillie that e'er ran rede
I'se tame't,' quoth Aiken-drum!

"To wear the tod frae the flock on the fell--
To gather the dew frae the heather-bell--
An' to look at my face in your clear crystal well,
Micht gie pleasure to Aiken-drum.

"I'se seek nae guids, gear, bond, nor mark;
I use nae beddin', shoon, nor sark;
But a cogfu' o' brose 'tween the licht an' the dark
Is the wage o' Aiken-drum."

Quoth the wylie auld wife, "The thing speaks weel;
Our workers are scant--we hae routh o' meal;
Giff he'll do as he says--be he man, be he de'il,
Wow! we'll try this Aiken-drum."

But the wenches skirl'd, "He's no' be here!
His eldritch look gars us swarf wi' fear;
An' the feint a ane will the house come near,
If they think but o' Aiken-drum.

"For a foul and a stalwart ghaist is he,
Despair sits broodin' aboon his e'e-bree,
And unchancie to light o' a maiden's e'e,
Is the glower o' Aiken-drum."

"Puir clipmalabors! ye hae little wit;
Is't na hallowmas noo, an' the crap out yet?"
Sae she seelenc'd them a' wi' a stamp o' her fit,
"Sit-yer-wa's-down, Aiken-drum."

Roun' a' that side what wark was dune,
By the streamer's gleam, or the glance o' the moon;
A word, or a wish--an' the Brownie cam sune,
Sae helpfu' was Aiken-drum.

But he slade aye awa or the sun was up,
He ne'er could look straught on Macmillan's cup;[58]
They watch'd--but nane saw him his brose ever sup
Nor a spune sought Aiken-drum.

On Blednoch banks, an' on crystal Cree,
For mony a day a toil'd wicht was he;
And the bairns they play'd harmless roun' his knee,
Sae social was Aiken-drum.

But a new-made wife, fu' o' rippish freaks,
Fond o' a things feat for the five first weeks,
Laid a mouldy pair o her ain man's breeks
By the brose o' Aiken-drum.

Let the learn'd decide when they convene,
What spell was him an' the breeks between;
For frae that day forth he was nae mair seen,
An' sair miss'd was Aiken-drum.

He was heard by a herd gaun by the Thrieve,
Crying, "Lang, lang now may I greet an' grieve;
For alas! I hae gotten baith fee an' leave,
O luckless Aiken-drum!"

Awa! ye wrangling sceptic tribe,
Wi' your pro's an' your con's wad ye decide
'Gainst the 'sponsible voice o' a hale country-side
On the facts 'bout Aiken-drum?

Tho' the "Brownie o' Blednoch" lang be gane,
The mark o' his feet's left on mony a stane;
An' mony a wife an' mony a wean
Tell the feats o' Aiken-drum.

E'en now, licht loons that jibe an' sneer
At spiritual guests an' a' sic gear,
At the Glasnock mill hae swat wi' fear,
An' look'd roun' for Aiken-drum.

An' guidly folks hae gotten a fricht,
When the moon was set, an' the stars gaed nac licht,
At the roaring linn in the howe o' the nicht,
Wi' sughs like Aiken-drum.

[57] On one occasion, Brownie had undertaken to gather the sheep
into the bught by an early hour, and so zealously did he
perform his task, that not only was there not one sheep left
on the hill, but he had also collected a number of hares,
which were found fairly penned along with them. Upon being
congratulated on his extraordinary success, Brownie
exclaimed, "Confound thae wee gray anes! they cost me mair
trouble than a' the lave o' them."

[58] A communion cup, belonging to M'Millan, the well-known
ousted minister of Balmaghie, and founder of the sect of
Covenanters of his name. This cup was treasured by a zealous
disciple in the parish of Kirkcowan, and long used as a test
by which to ascertain the orthodoxy of suspected persons.
If, on taking it into his hand, the person trembled, or gave
other symptoms of agitation, he was denounced as having
bowed the knee to Baal, and sacrificed at the altar of
idolatry.

We would rather have written these lines than any amount of Aurora Leighs, Festuses, or such like, with all their mighty "somethingness," as Mr. Bailey would say. For they, are they not the "native wood-notes wild" of one of nature's darlings? Here is the indescribable, inestimable, unmistakable impress of genius. Chaucer, had he been a Galloway man, might have written it, only he would have been more garrulous, and less compact and stern. It is like Tam o' Shanter, in its living union of the comic, the pathetic, and the terrible. Shrewdness, tenderness, imagination, fancy, humor, word-music, dramatic power, even wit--all are here. I have often read it aloud to children, and it is worth any one's while to do it. You will find them repeating all over the house for days such lines as take their heart and tongue.

The author of this noble ballad was William Nicholson, the Galloway poet, as he was, and is still called in his own district. He was born at Tanimaus, in the parish of Borgue, in August 1783; he died _circa_ 1848, unseen, like a bird. Being extremely short-sighted, he was unfitted for being a shepherd or ploughman, and began life as a packman, like the hero of "the Excursion;" and is still remembered in that region for his humor, his music, his verse, and his ginghams; and also, alas! for his misery and his sin. After travelling the country for thirty years, he became a packless pedler, and fell into "a way of drinking;" this led from bad to worse, and the grave closed in gloom over the ruins of a man of true genius. Mr. M'Diarmid of Dumfries prefixed a memoir of him to the Second Edition of his _Tales in Verse and Miscellaneous Poems_. These are scarcely known out of Galloway, but they are worth the knowing; none of them have the concentration and nerve of the Brownie, but they are from the same brain and heart. "The Country Lass," a long poem, is excellent; with much of Crabbe's power and compression. This, and the greater part of the volume, is in the Scottish dialect, but there is a Fable--the Butterfly and Bee--the English and sense, the fine, delicate humor and turn of which might have been Cowper's; and there is a bit of rugged sarcasm called "Siller," which Burns need not have been ashamed of. Poor Nicholson, besides his turn for verse, was an exquisite musician, and sang with a powerful and sweet voice. One may imagine the delight of a lonely town-end, when Willie the packman and the piper made his appearance, with his stories, and jokes, and ballads, his songs, and reels, and "wanton wiles."

There is one story about him which has always appeared to me quite perfect. A farmer, in a remote part of Galloway, one June morning before sunrise, was awakened by music; he had been dreaming of heaven, and when he found himself awake, he still heard the strains. He looked out, and saw no one, but at the corner of a grass-field he saw his cattle, and young colts and fillies, huddled together, and looking intently down into what he knew was an old quarry. He put on his clothes, and walked across the field, everything but that strange wild melody, still and silent in this the "sweet hour of prime." As he got nearer the "beasts," the sound was louder; the colts with their long manes, and the nowt with their wondering stare, took no notice of him, straining their necks forward entranced. There, in the old quarry, the young sun "glintin" on his face, and resting on his pack, which had been his pillow, was our Wandering Willie, playing and singing like an angel--"an Orpheus; an Orpheus." What a picture! When reproved for wasting his health and time by the prosaic farmer, the poor fellow said: "Me and this quarry are lang acquant, and I've mair pleasure in pipin to thae daft cowts, than if the best leddies in the land were figurin away afore me."

_NOTES ON ART._[59]

[59] Originally prefixed to a Criticism on some paintings in the
Scottish Academy.

"_The use of this feigned history" (the Ideal Arts of Poesy,
Painting, Music, &c.) "hath been to give_ SOME SHADOW OF
SATISFACTION TO THE MIND OF MAN IN THESE POINTS WHEREIN THE
NATURE OF THINGS DOTH DENY IT, _the world being in proportion
inferior to the soul; by reason whereof, there is, agreeable to
the spirit of man_, A MORE AMPLE GREATNESS, A MORE EXACT
GOODNESS AND A MORE ABSOLUTE VARIETY, _than can be found in the
nature of things. So it appeareth that Poesy" (and the others)
"serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to
delectation. And therefore it was even thought to have some
participation of divineness because_ IT DOTH RAISE AND DIRECT
THE MIND, BY SUBMITTING THE SHEWS OF THINGS TO THE DESIRES OF
THE MIND; _whereas reason" (science, philosophy) "doth buckle and
bow the mind to the nature of things._"--OF THE PROFICIENCE AND
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.

"_To look on noble forms
Makes noble through the sensuous organism
That which is higher._"--THE PRINCESS.

One evening in the spring of 1846, as my wife and I were sitting at tea, _Parvula_ in bed, and the Sputchard reposing, as was her wont, with her rugged little brown forepaws over the edge of the fender, her eyes shut, toasting, and all but roasting herself at the fire,--a note was brought in, which from its fat, soft look, by a hopeful and not unskilled _palpation_ I diagnosed as that form of lucre which in Scotland may well be called filthy. I gave it across to Madam, who, opening it, discovered four five-pound notes, and a letter addressed to me. She gave _it_ me. It was from Hugh Miller, editor of the _Witness_ newspaper, asking me to give him a notice of the Exhibition of the Scottish Academy then open, in words I now forget, but which were those of a thorough gentleman, and enclosing the aforesaid fee. I can still remember, or indeed feel the kind of shiver, half of fear and pleasure, on encountering this temptation; but I soon said, "You know I can't take this; I can't write; I never wrote a word for the press." She, with "wifelike government," kept the money, and heartened me to write, and write I did but with awful sufferings and difficulty, and much destruction of sleep. I think the only person who suffered still more must have been the compositor. Had this packet not come in, and come in when it did, and had the _Sine Qua Non_ not been peremptory and retentive, there are many chances to one I might never have plagued any printer with my bad hand and my endless corrections, and general incoherency in all transactions as to proofs.

I tell this small story, partly for my own pleasure, and as a tribute to that remarkable man, who stands alongside of Burns, and Scott, Chalmers, and Carlyle, the foremost Scotsmen of their time,--a rough, almost rugged nature, shaggy with strength, clad with zeal as with a cloak, in some things sensitive and shamefaced as a girl; moody and self-involved, but never selfish, full of courage, and of keen insight into nature and men, and the principles of both, but simple as a child in the ways of the world; self-taught and self-directed, argumentative and scientific, as few men of culture have ever been, and yet with more imagination than either logic or knowledge; to the last as shy and _blate_ as when working in the quarries at Cromarty. In his life a noble example of what our breed can produce, of what energy, honesty, intensity, and genius can achieve; and in his death a terrible example of that revenge which the body takes upon the soul when brought to bay by its inexorable taskmaster. I need say no more. His story is more tragic than any tragedy. Would to God it may warn those who come after to be wise in time, to take the same--I ask no more--care of their body, which is their servant, their beast of burden, as they would of their horse.

Few men are endowed with such a brain as Hugh Miller--huge, active, concentrated, keen to fierceness; and therefore few men need fear, even if they misuse and overtask theirs as he did, that it will turn, as it did with him, and rend its master. But as assuredly as there is a certain weight, which a bar of iron will bear and no more, so is there a certain weight of work which the organ by which we act, by which we think, and feel, and will--cannot sustain, blazing up into brief and ruinous madness, or sinking into idiocy. At the time he wrote to me, Mr. Miller and I were strangers, and I don't think I ever spoke to him: but his manner of doing the above act made me feel, that in that formidable and unkempt nature there lay the delicacy, the generosity, the noble trustfulness of a gentleman born--not made.

Most men have, and almost every man should have a hobby: it is exercise in a mild way, and does not take him away from home; it diverts him; and by having a double line of rails, he can manage to keep the permanent way in good condition. A man who has only one object in life, only one line of rails, who exercises only one set of faculties, and these only in one way, will wear himself out much sooner than a man who shunts himself every now and then, and who has trains coming as well as going; who takes in as well as gives out.

My hobby has always been pictures, and all we call Art. I have fortunately never been a practitioner, though I think I could have made a tolerable hand; but unless a man is a thoroughly good artist, he injures his enjoyment, generally speaking, of the art of others. I am convinced, however, that to enjoy art thoroughly, every man must have in him the possibility of doing it as well as liking it. He must feel it in his fingers, as well as in his head and at his eyes; and it must find its way from all the three to his heart, and be emotive.

Much has been said of the power of Art to refine men, to soften their manners, and make them less of wild beasts. Some have thought it omnipotent for this; others have given it as a sign of the decline and fall of the nobler part of us. Neither is, and both are true. Art does, as our Laureate says, make nobler in us what is higher than the senses through which it passes; but it can only make nobler what is already noble; it cannot regenerate, neither can it of itself debase and emasculate and bedevil mankind; but it is a symptom, and a fatal one, when Art ministers to a nation's vice, and glorifies its naughtiness--as in old Rome, as in Oude--as also too much in places nearer in time and place than the one and the other. The truth is, Art, unless quickened from above and from within, has in it nothing beyond itself, which is visible beauty--the ministration to the lust, the desire of the eye. But apart from direct spiritual worship, and self-dedication to the Supreme, I do not know any form of ideal thought and feeling which may be made more truly to subserve, not only magnanimity, but the purest devotion and godly fear; by fear meaning that mixture of love and awe, which is specific of the realization of our relation to God. I am not so silly as to seek painters to paint religious pictures in the usual sense; for the most part, I know nothing so profoundly profane and godless as our sacred pictures; and I can't say I like our religious beliefs to be symbolized, even as Mr. Hunt has so grandly done in his picture of the Light of the World. But if a painter is himself religious; if he feels God in what he is looking at, and in what he is rendering back on his canvas; if he is impressed with the truly divine beauty, infinity, perfection, and meaning of unspoiled material nature--the earth and the fulness thereof, the heaven and all its hosts, the strength of the hills, the sea and all that is therein; if he is himself impressed with the divine origin and divine end of all visible things,--then will he paint religious pictures and impress men religiously, and thus make good men listen, and possibly make bad men good. Take the landscapes of our own Harvey. He is my dear old friend of thirty years, and his power as a painter is only less than his fidelity and ardor as a friend, and that than his simple, deep-hearted piety; I never see one of his transcripts of nature, be they solemn and full of gloom, with a look "that threatens the profane;" or laughing all over with sunshine and gladness, but I feel something beyond, something greater and more beautiful than their greatness and their beauty--the idea of God, of the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, the living One; of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things; who is indeed God over all, blessed forever; and whom I would desire, in all humbleness of mind, to sanctify in my heart, and to make my fear and my dread. This is the true moral use of Art, to quicken and deepen and enlarge our sense of God. I don't mean so much our belief in certain articulate doctrines, though I am old-fashioned enough to think that we must know what as well as in whom we believe--that our religion, like everything else, must "have its seat in reason, and be judicious;" I refer rather to that temper of the soul, that mood of the mind in which we feel the unseen and eternal, and bend under the power of the world to come.

In my views as to the office of the State I hold with John Locke and Coventry Dick,[60] that its primary, and probably its only function is to protect us from our enemies and from ourselves; that to it is intrusted by the people "the regulation of physical force;" and that it is indeed little more than a transcendental policeman. This is its true sphere, and here lies its true honor and glory. When it intermeddles with other things,--from your Religion, Education, and Art, down to the number, and size, and metal of your buttons, it goes out of its line and fails; and I am convinced that with some benefits, specious and partial, our Government interference has, in the main and in the long run, done harm to the real interests of Art. Spontaneity, the law of free choice, is as much the life of Art as it is of marriage, and it is not less beyond the power of the State to choose the nation's pictures, than to choose its wives. Indeed there is a great deal on the physiological side to be said for law interfering in the matter of matrimony. I would certainly make it against law, as it plainly is against nature, for cousins-german to marry; and if we could pair ourselves as we pair our live stock, and give ear to the teaching of an enlightened zooenomy, we might soon drive many of our fellest diseases out of our breed; but the law of personality, of ultroneousness, of free will, that which in a great measure makes us what we are, steps in and forbids anything but the convincement and force of reason. Much in the same way, though it be a more trivial matter, pleasure, in order to please, must be that which you yourself choose. You cannot make an Esquimaux forswear train oil, and take to tea and toast like ourselves, still less to boiled rice like a Hindoo; neither can you all at once make a Gilmerton carter prefer Raphael and claret to a glass of raw whiskey and the _Terrific Register_. Leviathan is not so tamed or taught. And our Chadwicks and Kaye Shuttleworths and Coles--kings though they may be--enlightened, energetic, earnest, and as full of will as an egg is full of meat, cannot in a generation make the people of England as intelligent as themselves, or as fond and appreciative of the best Art as Mr. Ruskin. Hence all their plans are failing and must fail; and I cannot help thinking that in the case of Art, the continuance of the Cole dynasty is not to be prayed for very much. As far as I can judge, it has done infinitely more harm than good. These men think they are doing a great work, and, worse still, the country thinks so too, and helps them, whereas I believe they are retarding the only wholesome, though slow growth of knowledge and taste.

[60] In the thin octavo, _The Office of the State_, and in its
twin volume on _Church Polity_, there will be found in
clear, strong, and singularly candid language, the first
lines of the sciences of Church and State politics. It does
not say much for the sense and perspicuity of the public
mind, if two such books are allowed to fall aside, and such
a _farrago_ of energetic nonsense and error as Mr. Buckle's
first, and we trust last, volume on Civilization, is read
and admired, and bought, with its bad logic, its bad facts,
and its had conclusions. In bulk and in value his volume
stands in the same relation to Mr. Dick's, as a handful, I
may say a _gowpen_ of chaff does to a grain of wheat, or a
bushel of sawdust to an ounce of meal.

Take the Kensington Museum: the only thing there (I speak in all seriousness) worth any man spending an hour or a shilling upon, are the Sheepshank and Turner galleries; all those costly, tawdry, prodigious, and petty displays of arts and manufactures, I look upon as mere delusions and child's play. Take any one of them, say the series illustrating the cotton fabrics; you see the whole course of cotton from its _Alpha_ to its _Omega_, in the neatest and prettiest way. What does that teach? what impression does that make upon any young mind? Little beyond mere vapid wonder. The eye is opened, but not filled; it is a stare, not a look.

If you want to move, and permanently rivet, a young mind with what is worth the knowing, with what is to deepen his sense of the powers of the human mind, and the resources of nature, and the grandeur of his country, take him to a cotton-mill. Let him hear and come under the power of that wonderful sound pervading the whole vast house, and filling the air with that diapason of regulated, harmonious energy. Let him enter it, and go round with a skilled workman, and then follow the _Alpha_ through all its marvellous transformations to the _Omega_; do this, and you bring him out into the fresh air not only more knowing, but more wise. He has got a lesson. He has been impressed. The same with calico-printing, and pottery, and iron-founding, and, indeed, the whole round of that industry which is our glory. Do you think a boy will get half the good from the fine series of ores and specimens of pig-iron, and all the steels he may see in cold blood, and with his grandmother or his sweetheart beside him at Kensington, that he will from going into Dixon's foundry at Govan, and seeing the half-naked men toiling in that place of flame and energy and din--watching the mighty shears and the Nasmyth-hammers, and the molten iron kneaded like dough, and planed and shaved like wood; he gets the dead and dissected body in the one case; he sees and feels the living spirit and body working as one, in the other. And upon all this child's-play, this mere make-believe, our good-natured nation is proud of spending some half-million of money. Then there is that impertinent, useless, and unjust system of establishing Government Schools of Design in so many of our towns, avowedly, and, I believe (though it is amazing that clever men should do such a foolish thing), honestly, for the good of the working-classes, but actually and lamentably, and in every way harmfully, for the amusement and benefit of the wealthy classes, and to the ruin of the hard-working and legitimate local teachers.

I have not time or space, but if I had I could prove this, and show the curiously deep injuries this system is inflicting on true Art, and upon the freedom of industry.

In the same line, and to the same effect, are our Art-Unions and Associations for "the encouragement" of Art; some less bad than others, but all bad, because founded upon a wrong principle, and working to a wrong end. No man can choose a picture for another, any more than a wife or a waistcoat. It is part of our essential nature to choose these things for ourselves, and paradoxical as it may seem, the wife and the waistcoat and the work of Art our departmental wiseacres may least approve of, if chosen _sua sponte_ by Giles or Roger, will not only give them more delectation, but do them more good, than one chosen by somebody else for him upon the finest of all possible principles. Besides this radical vice, these Art-Unions have the effect of encouraging, and actually bringing into professional existence, men who had much better be left to die out, or never be born; and it, as I well know, discourages, depreciates, and dishonors the best men, besides keeping the public, which is the only true and worthy patron, from doing its duty, and getting its due. Just take our Edinburgh Association, in many respects one of the best, having admirable and devoted men, as its managers, what is the chance that any of the thousand members, when he draws a prize, gets a picture he cares one straw for, or which will do his nature one particle of good? Why should we be treated in this matter, as we are treated in no way else? Who thinks of telling us, or founding a Royal Association with all its officers, to tell us what novels or what poetry to read, or what music to listen to? Think of a Union for the encouragement of Poetry, where Mr. Tennyson would be obliged to put in his _In Memoriam_ or his _Idylls of the King_, along with the Lyrics and the Sonnets of we don't say who, into a common lottery, and be drawn for at an annual speechifying? All such associations go to encourage quantity rather than quality. Now, in the ideal and pleasurable arts _quality_ is nearly everything. Our Turner not only transcends ten thousand Claudes and Vanderveldes; he is in another sphere. You could not thus sum up his worth.

One of the most flagrant infractions of the primary laws of political economy, and one of the most curious illustrations of the fashionable fallacies as to Government encouragement to Art, is to be found in the revelations in the Report of the Select Committee on the South Kensington Museum. Mr. Lowe, and the majority of the Committee, gave it as their opinion, that Government should deal in photographs, and _undersell_ them (thereby ruining the regular trade), and all for the encouragement of Art, and the enlightenment of the public! Can there be anything more absurd than this, and at this time of day? and not only absurd and expensive, but mischievous. All this, you see, would be avoided, and society left to provide its own Art, as it provides its own beef and trousers for itself; if men would hold with John Locke, and Coventry Dick, and _Egomet_, that the Government, the State, has simply nothing to do with these things, that they are _ultra vires_ not less than religion, and, I am bold to add, education.