Part 3 (1/2)

PROFESSOR BLACKIE IN THE HIGHLANDS.

One hears a great deal of Professor Blackie in the North and West, and no wonder. He was a laughing, jocular, impressionable man, who hobn.o.bbed with landlords and amiably slapped drivers and policemen on the back, throwing a Gaelic greeting at them as he did so. His faculty for writing poetry is seen in many a guidebook; Oban, Inverness, Pitlochry, and numberless other places, have had their beauties celebrated by this animated writer. He was a good friend to the Highlands--studied Gaelic most arduously, translated some of the finest of the Celtic bards, worked a.s.siduously for the establishment of a Celtic Chair in Edinburgh, spoke many a good word for the crofters--in fact, did everything well except what he was paid to do, viz., teach Greek to his students. Grave D.D.'s could not understand or condone his cantrips. I have been a.s.sured that on one occasion, when Professor in the College of Aberdeen, he actually _stood on his head_ before a cla.s.s of students. Mr. Barrie has given a very amusing and quite unexaggerated account of the Professor's normal demeanour in Edinburgh. Blackie's text books of _Greek Dialogues_ are full of the most waggish remarks.

The landlady of Kinlochewe Hotel gave some lessons in Gaelic to this convulsive old scholar. He would come in with a Celtic Bible below his arm, and, opening the sacred volume, read a chapter or two at a terrific rate of speed, and whistle triumphantly when he had finished. Highland folk did not care to converse with Blackie for three reasons: (1) he spoke too quickly for the leisurely and composed conversation of the Gael; (2) his p.r.o.nunciation was bad, and people did not like to tell him so or correct him--(no one ever p.r.o.nounced Gaelic to perfection who did not get the language with his mother's milk); (3) he was fond of using literary words, taken from the older bards, in his ordinary conversation; now, such words are obsolete in every-day talk and quite unfamiliar to crofters and cottars. In the Highlands, Blackie's English was better understood than his Gaelic.

Blackie was undoubtedly a very able scholar--not, indeed, of that minute burrowing kind famous in Germany, but rather of the cla.s.s that delights in the literature and vivid force of a language. He _spoke_ Latin and Greek, and held views on the teaching of these tongues that seemed more eccentric in his time than they do now. He declared that the linguistic achievement of which he was proudest was his mastery, such as it was, of the language of the Gael.

It affords me pleasure in the retrospect to think of old Blackie at a distribution of prizes to school-children in a town of the West some years before his death. During the chairman's opening remarks the merry old man continued to whistle like a mavis. When the chairman sat down, Blackie embraced him and called him fellow-sinner. Some recitations followed from the children, one of which was Burns's ”Address to a Haggis.” When the young elocutionist came to the lines--

”Till a' their weel-swall'd kites belyve Are bent like drums.”

Blackie rolled in his chair, held his sides and uproariously expressed his approbation. Then came the distribution of prizes, during which the Grand Old Boy made some pun or quaint remark on each of the children's names, as he presented the books: _”Miss Minnie Morrow_: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day; _James Glen_: be a real genuine _Glen_ all through life, not a _valet_ or flunkey; _William Lindsay_: Willie, my lad, imitate your ancestors at Otterburn: 'The Lindsays flew like fire about till a' the fray was done'; _Mary Black_: black but comely like the daughters of Jerusalem,” and so on, in a bird-witted, half-daft way that the audience contemplated with benevolent wonder.

NOTE ON INVERNESS SURNAMES, ETC.

Let me mention here a very useful and interesting piece of philology that was done by Dr. Macbain in 1895. That eminent scholar, working on the _Inverness Directory_, a.n.a.lysed the names occurring there, explained them on sound principles of etymology, and gave percentages of Celtic and Saxon surnames in the Highland capital.

Roughly speaking, the _Directory_ of 1894-1895 had 5,000 single entries, and _750 distinct surnames_. Of these surnames, only 110 are pure Gaelic. About 70 per cent. of the natives are, however, supposed to be of Highland descent.

Dr. Macbain points out that certain Highland clans have names that are not Celtic: _Grant_ is from the French ”grand”; _Fraser_ from the French ”fraise,” a strawberry (the Frasers have a strawberry in their coat-of-arms); _Chisholm_ is English and means ”gravel-holm,”--the Anglo-Saxon _ceosol_ (pebble) is preserved in _Chesil Beach_ and _Chiselhurst_; _MacLeod_ signifies ”son of Ljot”; and _ljotr_ is the Norse word for ”ugly.” _Campbell_ is probably Norman-French, though Dr.

Macbain suggests _cam-beul_, Gaelic for ”crooked mouth.” In olden times an external conqueror would sometimes subdue a district, and call the natives after his n.o.ble self.

The commonest names in the town are Fraser, Macdonald, Mackenzie, Macintosh, Ross, Cameron, and Munro. About 1,200 of the population have one or other of the first three names. The Frasers are an easy first, and form more than 9 per cent. of the population.

_John_, _Alexander_, and _William_, are the commonest Christian names in Inverness. ”It is remarkable and indeed regrettable,” says Dr. Macbain, ”that the Gaelic Christian names (Donald, Duncan, Kenneth, Murdoch, and Angus), are not higher in the list.”

The name of the first recorded inhabitant of Inverness (A.D. 1200) is Geoffrey Blount, a feudal warrior no doubt (French _blond_). In the thirteenth century we have the names _Noreys_, _Grant_, and _Hay_. In the fourteenth century the leading name is Pilch, derived from _peluche_, the French for ”plush.” In the fifteenth century, _Reid_, _Vaus_, and _Cuthbert_ are prominent citizens. _Vaus_ is said to mean ”of the vales,” _i.e._, _de Vallibus_; _Reid_ is Scotch for ”red”; and _Cuthbert_ is pure Lowland. Evidently the leading men were aliens and interlopers.

CHAPTER II.

MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE.

Scotch a reading nation--Hards.h.i.+ps of students in old days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--”Coming to the point”--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon.

SCOTCH A READING NATION.

I think it was Mr. Holyoake, the veteran lecturer, who, in a volume of reminiscences, declared he found the audiences in Scotland more intelligent than elsewhere. I cannot draw such comparisons, for I have not spoken often south of the Tweed; this I can say with a.s.surance, however, that no one need hesitate to address an audience of Scotch peasants on a topic of literary interest. Predestination and such religious trifles may stir them to disrespectful heat, but pure literature invariably draws forth their cool and critical attention.

Probably no nation has ever devoted so much attention to books, and, as the result of this characteristic, Scotland, considering its size and population, has produced far more than its proportion of eminent men. At the Reformation epoch, when the comforts of a Lowland cottage would be little in advance of those in a present-day Uist croft, writers like George Buchanan and his fellows of the _Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum_ made the excellence of Scotch scholars.h.i.+p known in every university of Europe. Buchanan was really a typical Caledonian man of genius--open-eyed, sagacious, patriotic, and cosmopolitan--and I can strongly recommend the occasional perusal of his Latin Psalms to all modern readers who wish to keep their feelings of reverence fresh and prevent their Latin quant.i.ties from getting amorphous.

HARDs.h.i.+PS OF STUDENTS IN OLD DAYS.

Those who think highly of the Scotch intellect, point with pride to the fact that for many a year the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition, and the Archbishop of Canterbury all hailed from the North.

For my own part, I am chiefly interested in cases where eminence has resulted from the cultivation of literature on a little oatmeal. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of chatting, over a cup of tea, with the suave old gentleman who combines the postmasters.h.i.+p of Dunvegan with the office of factor to the Macleod of Macleod. He held me spell-bound for an afternoon as he narrated in graphic language the hards.h.i.+ps of the Skye students in former times. Many a Skye youth, I was told, bent on studying the humanities at Aberdeen, would mount his sheltie, traverse thereon the rough roads of his misty island as far as Kyleakin, cross the ferry there, ride on east through the ben-shadowed track of Glen Moriston, and finally bear down on the streets of the Granite City.

There the o'erlaboured sheltie would be sold to pay the matriculation fees.

HOMER IN SCALLOWAY.