The Genius of Scotland Part 1

The Genius of Scotland.

by Robert Turnbull.

PREFACE.

Having been born and educated in Scotland, and possessing a tolerable acquaintance with its History and Literature, the Author of the following Work felt that he had some facilities for giving to the people of this country a just idea of his native Land. The plan of his work is somewhat new, combining in a larger degree, than he has. .h.i.therto seen attempted, descriptions of Scenery, with Literary and Biographical Sketches, portraitures of character social and religious, incidents of travel, and reflections on matters of local or general interest. Hence he has omitted many things which a mere tourist would not fail to notice, and supplied their place with sketches of more enduring interest. He would particularly invite attention to the sketches of Knox, Burns, Wilson, Chalmers, Bruce, 'The Ettrick Shepherd,' and Sir Walter Scott. His rambles through fair or cla.s.sic scenes are thus enlivened with useful information. In a word, it has been his endeavor, in an easy natural way, to give his readers an adequate conception of the Scenery, Literature, and Religion of Scotland.

HARTFORD, CONN.

GENIUS OF SCOTLAND.

CHAPTER I.

Beauty an Element of the Mind--Our Native Land--Auld Lang Syne--General Description of Scotland--Extent of Population--Spirit of the People--The Highlands--The Lowlands--Burns's 'Genius of Scotland'--Natural and Moral Aspects of the Country--'The Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night'--Sources of Prosperity.

The theory has become prevalent among philosophers, and even among literary men, that beauty is more an element of the mind than of external objects. Things, say they, are not what they seem. Their aspects are ever varying with the minds which gaze upon them. They change even under the eyes of the same individuals. A striking ill.u.s.tration of this may be found in the opening stanza of Wordsworth's Ode to Immortality.

There was a time when meadow, grove and stream, The earth and every common sight To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

It is the mind then, which transfers its own ethereal colors to the forms of matter, and invests scenes and places with new and peculiar attractions. Like the light of the moon streaming through a leafy grove and transforming its darkness into its own radiant beauty, the spirit of man diffuses its own inspiration through the universe,

"Making all nature Beauty to the eye and music to the ear."

Now if this theory be true, it follows that no country will appear to us so beautiful as the one which happens to be endeared to our hearts by early recollections and pleasant a.s.sociations. No matter how rude and wild,--that spot of all others on earth, will appear to us the sweetest and most attractive! 'New England,' says a native of Ma.s.sachusetts or of Vermont, 'is the glory of all lands. No hills and vales are more picturesque than hers, no rivers more clear and beautiful.' 'Visit Naples, and die!' exclaims the Neapolitan, proud of his cla.s.sic home.

'Green Erin, my darling,' is the fond language of the Hibernian, 'first gem of the ocean, first flower of the sea.' 'Here's a health,' shouts the native of Caledonia, 'bonny Scotland to thee!' Others may speak disparagingly of the sour climate and barren soil of Scotland; but to a native of that country, the land of his fathers is invested with all the charms of poetry and romance. Every spot of its varied surface is hallowed ground. He sees its rugged rocks and desolate moors mantled with the h.o.a.ry memories of by-gone days, the thrilling a.s.sociations of childhood and youth. Therefore, with a meaning and emphasis, which all who love their native land will appreciate, he appropriates the words of the poet:--

Land of the forest and the rock, Of dark blue lake and mighty river, Of mountains reared aloft to mock, The storm's career, the lightning's shock, My own green land forever!

Land of the beautiful and brave!

The freeman's home, the martyr's grave!

The nursery of giant men, Whose deeds have linked with every glen, The magic of a warrior's name!

Does not Scotland, however inferior, in some respects it may be deemed to other lands, possess a peculiar charm to all cultivated minds?[1]

What visions of ancient glory cl.u.s.ter around the time-honored name!

What a.s.sociations of 'wild native grandeur,'--of wizard beauty, and rough magnificence. What gleams of 'poetic sunlight,'--what recollections of martial daring by flood and field,--what hallowed faith and burning zeal,--what martyr toils and martyr graves, monuments of freedom's struggles and freedom's triumphs in moor or glen,--what 'lights and shadows' of love and pa.s.sion,--what ancient songs, echoing among the hills,--what blessed sabbath calm,--what lofty inspiration of the Bible and covenant,--in a word, what dear and hallowed memories of that 'Auld lang syne,' indigenous only to Scotland, though known throughout the world! Should this be deemed enthusiastic, let it, and all else of a similar character which may be found in this volume, be ascribed to a natural and not unpardonable feeling on the part of the writer. The remembrance of 'Auld lang syne' can never be extinguished.

Except the hope of heaven, it is our best and holiest heritage.

[Footnote 1: The following eloquent pa.s.sage from an address by the Honorable Edward Everett, before the "Scots' Charitable Society,"

Boston, well ill.u.s.trates the fact referred to.

"Not to speak of the worthies of ages long pa.s.sed; of the Knoxes, the Buchanans, and the early minstrelsy of the border; the land of your fathers, sir, since it ceased to be a separate kingdom, has, through the intellect of her gifted sons, acquired a supremacy over the minds of men more extensive and more enduring, than that of Alexander or Augustus. It would be impossible to enumerate them all,--the Blairs of the last generation, the Chalmerses of this; the Robertsons, and Humes; the Smiths, the Reids, the Stuarts, the Browns; the Homes, the Mackenzies; the Mackintoshes, the Broughams, the Jeffreys, with their distinguished compeers, both on physical and moral science. The Marys and the Elizabeths, the Jameses and the Charleses will be forgotten, before these names will perish from the memory of men. And when I add to them those other ill.u.s.trious names--Burns, Campbell, Byron, and Scott, may I not truly say, sir, that the throne and the sceptre of England will crumble into dust like those of Scotland: and Windsor Castle and Westminster Abbey will lie in ruins as poor and desolate as those of Scone and Iona, before the lords of Scottish song shall cease to reign in the hearts of men.

For myself, sir, I confess that I love Scotland. I have reason to do so.

I have trod the soil of the

Land of brown heath and s.h.a.ggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood,

I have looked up to the cloud-capt summit of Ben Lomond; have glided among the fairy islets of Loch Katrine; and from the battlements of Stirling Castle, have beheld the links of Forth sparkling in the morning sun. I have done more, sir; I have tasted that generous hospitality of Scotland, which her Majesty's Consul has so justly commemorated; I have held converse with her most eminent sons; I have made my pilgrimage to Melrose Abbey, in company with that modern magician, who, mightier than the magician of old that sleeps beneath the marble floor of its chancel, has hung the garlands of immortal poesy upon its shattered arches, and made its moss-clad ruins a shrine, to be visited by the votary of the muse from the remotest corners of the earth, to the end of time. Yes, sir, musing as I did, in my youth, over the sepulchre of the wizard, once pointed out by the b.l.o.o.d.y stain of the cross and the image of the archangel:--standing within that consecrated enclosure, under the friendly guidance of him whose genius has made it holy ground; while every nerve within me thrilled with excitement, my fancy kindled with the inspiration of the spot. I seemed to behold, not the vision so magnificently described by the minstrel,--the light, which, as the tomb was opened,

broke forth so gloriously, Streamed upward to the chancel roof, And through the galleries far aloof:

But I could fancy that I beheld, with sensible perception, the brighter light, which had broken forth from the master mind; which had streamed from his illumined page all-gloriously upward, above the pinnacles of worldly grandeur, till it mingled its equal beams, with that of the brightest constellations, in the intellectual firmament of England."]

As 'Auld Lang Syne' brings Scotland one and all, Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams, The Dee, the Don, Balgownies brig's black wall, All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall, Like Banquo's offspring; floating past me seems My childhood, in this childishness of mind; I care not;--'tis a glimpse of 'Auld Lang Syne.'

BYRON.

Beautiful is New England, resembling as she does, in many of her features, 'Auld Scotia's hills and dales,' and moreover being much akin to her, in religious sentiment and the love of freedom; so that a native of either might well be forgiven for clinging with peculiar fondness to the land of his birth, and, in certain moods of mind, prefering it to all the world beside. Though far away, and even loving the place of his estrangement, he cannot, if he would, altogether renounce those ties which bind him to his early home. A 'viewless chain,' which crosses ocean and continent, conveys from the one to the other that subtle, yet gracious influence, which is quicker and stronger than the lightning's gleam. Let no one then be surprised if a Scotsman in New England, the cherished land of his adoption, should solace his mind with the recollection of early days, and endeavor to set before others the characteristic beauties and excellences of his native country.

O Caledonia, stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child!

Land of brown heath and s.h.a.ggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! What mortal hand, Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand!

"Scotland," as one of her own sons has expressed it, "is a wee bit country," but possessed of "muckle pith and spirit." Its surface is rough and mountainous, with beautiful patches of rich arable land along the courses of its streams, and extensive level meadows, called Ca.r.s.es, as the Ca.r.s.e of Falkirk, and the Ca.r.s.e of Gowrie. It is of unequal breadth, being much indented with bays and creeks, and stretches some two hundred and eighty miles in length, reckoning from its most southerly point, the Mull of Galloway, to Dunnet's Head, its most northern extremity. This probably would be a little farther than from "Maiden Kirk to Johnny Groat's," the "from Dan to Beersheba" of Scotland. Cl.u.s.tering around its western and northern sides are the Hebrides, the Shetland and the Orkney islands; wild and rocky isles, with rude and primitive inhabitants, const.i.tuting the Ultima Thule of Great Britain. In Scotland, a considerable portion of the land is uncultivated, consisting of heathy hills, mountains and moors; and the most of that which is cultivated has been rendered productive by the hand of art and industry. Like Switzerland, it is comparatively a poor country, but has been made rich by the generative powers of mind. Her wealth consists in the brawny arms and vigorous intellects of her sons.

The climate is cold and variable, though milder in winter than that of New England, and in summer cooler, and upon the whole, more agreeable, except when dense fogs and long-continued rains prevail.

The population is over two millions and a half, and is gradually increasing, though the people, like those of New England, are greatly given to migration, and may be found in every part of the world. Its commerce and manufactures are, for its size, very extensive. They have increased, since 1814, from twenty-five to thirty per cent. Agriculture and the mechanic arts have been carried to a high degree of perfection.

While the people are characteristically cautious and slow, "looking before they leap," to quote one of their favorite proverbs, they are bold and enterprising, and thus leap long and successfully. Few nations have accomplished so much in literature or trade, in science or the arts of industry. Their highest distinction, however, consists in their spirit of love and fealty, their leal-heartedness, their contempt of sham, their pa.s.sionate love of freedom, their zeal for G.o.d and the truth! Obstinate and wrong-headed at times, characteristically dogmatic, and perhaps a little intolerant, their very faults lean to virtue's side, and go to the support of goodness. Their punctiliousness and pride, their dogged adherence to what they conceive to be right, and their vehement mode of defending it, const.i.tute the rough and p.r.i.c.kly bark which defends the precious tree. One thing is certain, they are transparent as daylight, and honest as their own heathy hills.

They are preeminently a religious people, protestant to the backbone, occasionally rough and impetuous in the expression of their opinions, but never formal, never indecorous. A profound enthusiasm, bordering on fanaticism, a pa.s.sionate, though not boisterous or canting devotion, a fine sense of the grand and beautiful, intermingled with a keen conscientiousness, an ardent love of freedom, with a boundless trust in G.o.d, form the great elements of their religious life. Their theology is chiefly Calvinistic, apparently philosophical and dogmatic, but rather less so than popular and practical. Of cathedrals, old and dim, of ma.s.ses, chants and processions, the pomp and circ.u.mstance of a magnificent ritual, they have none.[2] But of old and glorious memories, solemn temples among the woods and hills, hallowed grave-yards, blessed sacraments, and national enthusiasm, they have abundance. Their religion is a part of the soil. It is indigenous to the country. It grew up among the mountains, was nursed by 'wizard streams,' and 'led forth' with the voice of psalms, among 'the green pastures of the wilderness.' Somewhat forbidding at first, like the rough aspect of the country, it appears equally picturesque and beautiful, when really known and loved. It is the religion not of form but of substance, of deep inward emotion, not of outward pretension and show. Neither is it a sickly sentimentalism which lives on poetic musings, and matures only in cloistered shades and moonlight groves; but it is a healthy, robust principle which goes forth to do and to suffer the will of Heaven. Its head and heart are sound, and its works praise it in the gate. Beautiful as the visions of fancy, it is yet strong as the everlasting hills among which it was reared. In a word, it is the religion of faith and love, the religion of the old puritans, of the martyrs and confessors of primitive times. Welling out forever from the unstained fountains of the Word of G.o.d, it has marked its course over the fair face of Scotland, with the greenest verdure, the sweetest flowers.

[Footnote 2: This is spoken, of course, of the great body of the people.]

Scotland is naturally divided into Highlands and Lowlands. The former includes, besides the various groups of islands on the north and north-west coast, the counties of Argyle, Inverness, Nairn, Ross, Cromarty, Sutherland and Caithness, with portions of Dumbarton, Stirling, Perth, Forfar, "Aberdeen awa," Banff and Elgin, or the more northerly regions of the country, protected and beautified by the mighty range of the Grampians, commencing at the southern extremity of Loch Etive, and terminating at the mouth of the Dee on the eastern coast. The Highlands again are divided into two unequal portions by the beautiful chain of lochs, or lakes running through the Glenmore-Nan-Albin, or Great Glen of Caledonia, forming some of the wildest and richest scenery in the world. To the north are the giant mountains of Macdui, Cairngorm, Ben-Aven and Ben-More, while nearer the Lowlands, rise the lofty Ben-Lomond, and the h.o.a.ry Ben-Awe. Under their shadows gleam the storied lochs, the wild tarns and trosachs, whose picturesque and romantic beauties have been immortalized by the pens of Burns, Scott, and Wilson.

To the south and east of the Grampian range, and running parallel to them, you discover a chain of lower and more verdant hills, bearing the well known and poetical names of the Sidlaw, Campsie and Ochil hills.

These are divided by the fertile valleys of the Tay and Forth. Between them and the Grampians lies the low and charming valley of Strathmore.

The "silver Tay," one of the finest rivers in Scotland, rises in Breadalbane, expands into lake Dochart, flows in an easterly direction through the vale of Glendochart, expands again into the long and beautiful Loch Tay, which runs like a belt of silver among the hills, whence issuing, it receives various accessions from other streams, pa.s.ses on in a southerly direction to Dunkeld, famous for its ancient Abbey and lovely scenery, skirts the ancient and delightful city of Perth, below which it is joined by its great tributary the Earn, which flows, in serpentine windings, through the rich vale of Strath-Earn, touches the populous and thriving town of Dundee, and gradually widens into the Firth of Tay, whose clear waters mirror the white skiff or magnificent steamer, and imperceptibly mingle with the waves of the Northern Sea. Further north, the rapid Spey, springing from the 'braes of Badenoch' near Lochaber, pa.s.ses tumultuously through a rough and mountainous country, lingering occasionally, as if to rest itself in some deep glen, crosses the ancient province of Moray, famous for its floods, so admirably described by Sir Thomas d.i.c.k Lauder, pa.s.ses Kinrara, "whence, for a few miles, it is attended by a series of landscapes, alike various, singular and magnificent," after which, it moves, with a monotonous aspect, and a steady pace, to the sea. Portions of the country through which this river pa.s.ses are exceedingly sterile and wild. Covered with the birch, the alder and the pine, varied by rugged rocks and desolate moors, it admirably corresponds to our notions of Caledonia, in her ancient and primitive integrity.

In the more remote and northern regions of the Highlands, and in most of the Scottish isles, the Gaelic, or Erse, a primitive and energetic tongue, somewhat akin to the Welsh or Irish, is spoken by a majority of the inhabitants. In other parts of Scotland, the English, with a Scottish idiom, is the prevalent speech. The literature of the Gaelic is exceedingly limited, confined chiefly to old ballads, songs and traditionary stories. The poems of Ossian are doubtless the production of Macpherson, their professed translator, while they probably contain a few translated fragments, and some traditionary facts and conceptions afloat among the Highlanders, ingeniously interwoven with the main fabric of the work.

The Highlanders are a simple-hearted, primitive race, mostly poor, and imperfectly educated. Those of them that are wealthy and well educated, are said to be remarkably acute, courteous, and agreeable.

The Lowlands of Scotland comprehend the south and southeastern portions of the country, and though not the grandest and most romantic, are by far the best cultivated, and in some respects the most beautiful.

Including the level ground on the eastern coast to the south of the Moray Firth, they stretch along the coast through portions of Perthshire, and the old kingdom of Fife, towards the regions bounded on either side, by the river and the Firth of Forth, and thence to Kircudbright and the English border, including the princ.i.p.al cities, the most fertile tracts of arable land, the rivers Forth, Clyde and Tweed, and the range of the Cheviot hills, which extend from the north of England towards the north-west, join the Louther hills in the region of Ettrick and Yarrow, with their 'silver streams,' pa.s.s through the southern part of Ayrshire and terminate at Loch Ryan, in the Irish Channel. The Clyde is the most important commercial river in Scotland.

Taking its origin among the mountains of the south, not far from the early home of its beautiful and more cla.s.sic sisters, the Tweed and the Annan, it runs in many capricious windings, in a northwesterly direction, leaps in foaming cascades first at Bonnington, and then at Cora Linn, rushes on through the fine country of Lanarkshire, till, joined by many tributary streams, it pa.s.ses through the large and flourishing city of Glasgow, bearing upon its bosom the vast commerce and population of the neighboring regions, flows around the walls of old Dumbarton Castle, with its time-worn battlements and glorious memories, in sight, too, of the lofty Ben Lomond, and the beautiful lake which it protects, touches the ancient city of Greenock, expands into the Firth of Clyde, and gradually loses itself amid the picturesque islands which adorn the western coast of Scotland.

Were it possible, by placing ourselves upon some lofty elevation, to take in at one glance, the whole of this varied landscape of lake, river, and mountain; of tarn, trosach and moor, with verdant vales, and woody slopes between, we should confess that it was one of as rare beauty and wild magnificence as ever greeted the vision of man. And were our minds steeped in ancient and poetic lore, we should be prepared to appreciate the faithfulness and splendor of Burns's allegorical description of the "Genius of Scotland."