Chapter XXXI…

Chapter XXXI

Ballad, and Jacobite Literature of Scotland.

WHEN attempting to reach an exhaustive explanation of the causes and influences which have contributed to the development of the mind and character of a nation, everything which has affected their civilisation, and especially whatever has been mainly produced by the people themselves, demands the careful attention of the historian. It is admitted on all hands that the ballad literature and national songs of Scotland are of this character. For centuries these compositions have exercised an influence on the feelings and sentiments of the people. The songs associated with the national music, and with the popular tunes and dances, are essential elements of the national life, and have long been a source of real enjoyment to the people. But the field of Scottish ballad and song is wide and varied, and cannot be treated in minute detail here, my aim being to ascertain and indicate the bearing of this class of writings on the life of the nation. And yet if one must try as far as possible to escape the error of forming imperfect and unjust estimates of the national character, it is necessary to look at this branch of literature, as it contains real evidence of the states of feeling, of the opinions, and of the manners of the people.

Some account of the origin, the progress, and the value of our ballad literature was given in the eleventh chapter of this work, and its influence upon the Reformation was noticed in the thirteenth and in the twenty-first chapters;¹ in the present chapter the exposition is continued till past the midde of the eighteenth century, and thus includes the Jacobite ballads as well as compositions of a satirical turn, and the popular songs of the people, beginning with those of a historical and satirical description, and closing with the popular or lyric songs.

¹ Mackintosh’s History of Civilisation in Scotland, Volume I., pages 441‒451, seq.; Volume II., pages 22‒24, 331‒340, et seq.

The disturbed state of the nation from the death of James VI. to the Union, was unpropitious to literary culture of any kind. Yet the opinions and the sentiments of the contending parties occasionally sought vent in rude ballads and rhymed compositions. There are ballads on the Covenanting armies and battles, and on some of the events of the long struggle from the Restoration to the Revolution, after which the distinctive Scotch Jacobite ballads and satires begin. The greater part of the Jacobite ballads are rather rude and coarse in phraseology, but they gave expression to the feelings and sentiments of one of the parties in the struggle; indeed, the Jacobite ballads and songs embodied a kind of creed of the party, and, historically, they are valuable.

It was reported that Argyle was the first who raised fire in the Civil War, by burning the house of Airlie, in June, 1639, thus originating the ballad “The Bonnie House of Airlie.” It was long popular, and there are several versions of it extant. Argyle being intent on the destruction of the house, was represented as working with his own hands in “knocking down the doorposts and the headstone of Airlie.” The ballad opens thus:――

“It fell on a day, and a bonnie summer day, When the corn grew green and yellow, That there fell out a great dispute Between Argyle and Airlie. The Earl o’ Montrose has written to Argyle, To come in the morning early, An’ lead his men by the back o’ Dunkeld, To plunder the bonnie house o’ Airlie. The lady looked o’er her window sae hie, And oh, but she looked weary, And there she espied the great Argyle, Come to plunder the bonnie house o’ Airlie. ‘Come down, come down, Lady Margaret,’ he says, ‘Come down and kiss me fairly, Or before the morning clear day-light, I’ll not leave a standing stane in Airlie.’”¹

¹ Another version contains a pointed reference to a blemish in Argyle’s eyes, and has two additional verses. It is conjectured by Maidment “that the grim chief of the Campbells had been a rejected suitor, and that the lady treated by him in so base a manner preferred the Loyalist lover of Airlie to the Covenanting lord of Lochow.”――Maidment’s _Scottish Ballads_, Volume I., pages 272‒274.

The lady replied that she would not submit, even though he should carry out his threat.

The short satirical ballad, called “Leslie’s March to Long-Marston Moor,” is curious, and contains a few hits at the prevailing feeling of the Covenanters:――

“Stand till it, and fight like men, True gospel to maintain; The parliament’s blyth to see us a’ coming. When to the Kirk we come, We’ll purge it each room From popish relics and a’ such innovation, That the world may see, There’s none in the right but we, O’ the sons of the auld Scottish nation; And the kist fu’ o’ whistles, that mak sic a cleiro, Our pipers brave shall have them a’, Whate’er comes o’ it.”¹

¹ Ibid., Volume I., page 293.

The aversion of the Presbyterians to the organ in churches was emphatic; and they were also very sure of the truth of their own opinions, and determined to maintain them.

The battle of Philiphaugh was fought on the 13th of September, 1645, when Montrose was completely defeated by a portion of the Covenanting army, under the command of David Leslie. This battle terminated the short and brilliant career of Montrose. The ballad gives an account of the battle from the Covenanters’ standpoint, and expressed their feeling of exultation:――

“Sir David from the borders came, Wi’ heart and hand came he, Wi’ him three thousand bonny Scots, To bear him company.”

After describing the movements of the army and the battle pretty accurately, the ballad concludes with these words:――

“Now let us a’ for Leslie pray, And his brave company, For they have vanquished great Montrose, Our cruel enemy.”

Montrose escaped from the field; but five years afterwards he fell into the hands of his enemies, and perished upon the scaffold. From time to time various writers have attempted to make him a hero, and a contemporary ballad, entitled “The Gallant Grahams,” contains a lamentation over his final discomfiture and cruel end. This ballad enumerates the deeds of the Grahams at some length, and gives particulars of the military achievements of Montrose, and of several of his companions in arms who fought for the royal cause; and concludes with the following lines on the last exploit of Montrose:――

“Montrose again, that chieftain bold, Back into Scotland fair he came, For to redeem fair Scotland’s land, The pleasant, gallant, worthy Graham. At the water of Carron he did begin, And fought the battle to the end; And there were killed for our noble King Two thousand of our Danish men.¹

* * * * *

“Then woe to Strachan and Hacket both, And, Lesly, ill death may thou die, For ye have betrayed the gallant Grahams, Who aye were true to Majesty. And the Laird of Assaint has seized Montrose, And led him into Edinburgh town, And frae his body taken the head, And quartered him upon a trone.

“And Huntly’s gone the self-same way, And our noble King is also gone; He suffered death for our nation, Our mourning tears can ne’er be done. But our brave young King is now come home, King Charles the Second in degree; The Lord send peace into his time, And God preserve his Majesty.”²

¹ “The Danish men” were Montrose’s foreign auxiliaries, but in all they did not exceed six hundred men.

² Scott’s Minstrelsy, Volume II., pages 187‒194. At the present time, John Skelton, writing on the death of Montrose, says, among other and very fine touches:――“When at length his doom was read to him in the crowded house, he lifted up his face without any word speaking.” He lifted up his face! A grand speech――eloquent in its solemn simplicity. A silent protest――a silent appeal. Was it with him as with an old martyr?

“And looking upward, full of grace, He prayed, and from a happy place, God’s glory smote him on the face.”

The opposing parties in religion and in politics often assailed each other in satirical rhymes, in pasquils, and in lampoons, which were printed on broadsheets and circulated through the country. But this class of composition generally was extremely coarse and profane, and hardly fit for publication in the present day. On both sides they could scarcely find language abusive and vulgar enough in which to describe, traduce, and stigmatise each other; nevertheless, without entering into long details on this subject, a few illustrations of it as explicative of the spirit of the times in some of its modes seem requisite. In 1638, a pasquil against the bishops appeared, written in a sort of rhyme, beginning thus, “St. Andrews is an atheist, and Glasgow is a gouke,” and so on touching the rest of the bishops. On the other hand, some of the Episcopal party produced a satire on the General Assembly of 1638――a curious performance consisting of two parts, and opening with the following description of the meeting of the Assembly:――

“From Glasgow Raid to which made meeting, Huge troops from all quarters came fleeting, With dags and guns in form of war, All loyal subjects to debar; Where bishops might not show their faces, And mushroom elders filled their places; From such mad pranks of Catharus, Almighty God, deliver us.”¹

¹ A Book of Scottish Pasquils, edited by Mr. Maidment, page 29, 1868.

The Assembly and its leading members were caricatured at length, and sometimes with effect, but with extreme coarseness and vulgarity. Henderson, the moderator of the Assembly, was called a pope, and some of the covenanting nobles were severely dealt with, and also the small gentry: “From beggars, beggar-makers, from all bold and blood undertakers, from hungry calepoles, knighted loons, from perfumed puppies and baboons, from caterpillars, mothes and rats, horse-letches, state blood-sucking brats,” the writer prayed to be delivered from all such. Another lampoon, called “The New Litany,” assailed the Covenanters in a similar strain. The author prayed that he might be preserved from all the actions of the party then contending against the King:――

“From the long prayers of devote sisters, From master madcaps’ rotten glisters, From sermons made to blow the fire, From bishops that betray the cause, And advocates that write the laws; From the table, nay tables three, Of lords, barons, and ministry―― From their decrees and all new glosses, And from all conspiracy and treason.

* * * * *

“From pupil, pastor, tutor, flock, From gutter Jennie, pulpit Jock, From covenanting tage and rage, From horsruber, scudler, scold, and hage, From tinker, treulerd, slouene, and sluit, Dick, Jack, and Tom, long-tail and coitt, Drunkard, thief, and whore――infamous rascals by the score.”¹

¹ Ibid., pages 53, 57.

In England the Long Parliament got its share of buffets from the wits of the time; and as the Covenanters became associated with the Long Parliament, the following notice of this famous assembly may be given here:――

“It’s full of questions and commands, It’s armed with muskets and pikes; it fears Naught in the world but cavaliers; It was born in England, but begot Between the English and the Scot; Though some are of opinion rather, That the devil was its father.”

Another contemporary rhyme on the Long Parliament has a slight touch of grim humour in it:――

“O God preserve the parliament, And grant it long to reign, From three years’ unto three years’ end, And then to three again. That neither king, nor bishop lord, So long as they are alive, Have power to rebuke their souls, Or hurt the members five. For they be good and godly men, No wicked paths they tread; For they are pulling bishops down, And setting up Roundhead. For holy Burton, Baswick, Pryme, Lord keep them in Thy bosom; Keep him who did keep out the King, Worshipful Sir John Hotham. Pull down the King and Hartsford both, And keep them down for ay; But set Thy chosen Pym on high, And eik my good lord Say. For Warwick we entreat the Lord, Be Thou his strong defence; For Bedford, Hollis, Fairfax, Brooke, And also his Excellence. Bliss once again Thy parliament, And let them sit secure, And may their consultations, From aye to aye endure. Let all the people say Amen, Then let us praises sing, To God and to the parliament, And all that hate the King.”

The Rising of 1666, which was terminated by the engagement of the Pentland Hills, where the Royal army defeated the Covenanters, is commemorated in the ballad entitled “The Battle of Pentland Hills.” The Covenanters having been dispersed, the ballad is interesting as an expression of the feeling of their opponents:――

“Between Dumfries and Argyle, The lads they marched many a mile; Souters and tailors unto them drew, Their Covenants for to renew. The Whigs they wi’ their merry cracks, Gar’d the poor pedlars lay down their packs; But aye sinsyne they do repent, The renewing o’ their Covenant.

* * * * *

“General Dalziel held to the hill, Asked at them what was their will, And who gave them this protestation, To rise in arms against the nation? ‘Lay down your arms in the king’s name, And ye shall a’ gae safely hame;’ But they a’ cried out, wi’ ae consent, ‘We’ll fight for a broken Covenant.’ ‘O weel,’ says he, ‘since it is so, A wilful man never wanted woe.’ He then gave a sign unto his lads, And they drew up in three brigades. The trumpets blew, and the colours flew, And every man to his armour drew; The Whigs were never so much aghast, And to see their saddles toom sae fast. The cleverest men stood in the van, The Whigs they took their heels and ran; But such a raking was never seen, As the raking of the Rullion Green.”¹

¹ Scott’s Minstrelsy, Volume II., pages 203‒205.

As we have seen, the oppressed people again rebelled in 1679, and in June they defeated a party of the Royal army under Captain Graham, at Drumclog. In the ballad on the engagement it is called “The Battle of Loudon Hill.” The Covenanters were led by Robert Hamilton and John Balfour of Kinloch, the latter, commonly called Burly, a vehement and determined man. Graham was represented as ordering an attack upon the westland men, while his officers attempted to dissuade him from it on the ground that it would be courting certain defeat:――

“There is not one of yon men, But who is worthy other three; There is not one among them a’ That in his cause will stap to die. As for Burly, him I know, He’s a man of honour, truth, and fame; Gie him a sword into his hand, He’ll fight thyself, and other three.

* * * * *

“Then up he drew in battle rank, I wat he had a bonnie train, But the first time that bullets flew, Ay he lost twenty o’ his men. Then back he came the way he gaed, I wat right soon and suddenly, He gave command among his men, And sent them back, and bade them flee. Then up came Burly, bauld and stout, Wi’s little train o’ westland men, Who more than either once or twice, In Edinburgh confined had been. They had been up to Loudon sent, An’ yet they’ve a’ come safely down, Six troop o’ horsemen they have beat, And chased them into Glasgow town.”¹

¹ Ibid., Volume II., pages 222‒225.

There is a ballad on the Battle of Bothwell Bridge, where the Covenanters were defeated in 1679. Though none of these ballads on the Civil War have much merit, they are comparatively free from coarseness, and occasionally touches of feeling occur in them. The ballad on Bothwell Bridge concludes thus:――

“Alang the brae, beyond the brig, Many brave men lies cauld and still; But lang we’ll mind, and sair we’ll rue, The bloody fight of Bothwell Hill.”

The ballad on this battle is printed in most of the collections of ballads and songs; and there is another contemporary one, beginning “Ye are welcome Whigs from Bothwell Bridge.” Hogg composed a modern ballad on the battle of Bothwell Bridge, from which I quote the following verse:――

“When rank oppression rends the heart, And rules wi’ stroke o’ death, Wha wadna spend their dear heart’s blood, For the tenets of their faith.”

In the satirical rhymes and lampoons from the Restoration to the Revolution there is ample evidence of the dissolute life of the ruling party; but the far greater part of these compositions are unsuitable for quotation. There is a vehement and violent satire on the Stair family, and the famous lawyer himself is made the object of much bitter abuse. His crooked neck is constantly alluded to; while his wife had the reputation of being a witch. The apparent inconsistencies and shortcomings in the career of the great President of the Session, and of his eminent son, were mercilessly exposed and held up to scorn; and their changes of front in politics were sharply brought out, with damaging effect.¹

¹ Book of Scottish Pasquils, pages 179‒190.

A dispute, already noticed, arose between the Court of Session and the bar, touching the question whether a party aggrieved by a sentence of this court might lawfully appeal to the parliament of Scotland. Many of the advocates maintained the affirmative, which greatly offended the lords and the government, and they were dismissed from their places, and forbidden to reside in Edinburgh, being treated as malcontents, because they had disagreed with the lords, and ventured to defend law and justice. But after a short time, many of them yielded, acknowledging the error of their ways, and professed repentance. The lords, however, did not long enjoy their victory, as shortly afterwards parliament began to entertain appeals, though not with the aim of checking the corruption of the judges, but because some of the chief members of the Estates desired to have a share of the good things which were agoing, and thus to be enabled to assist the fortunes of their friends. In the satirical squibs on this matter, the President of the Session received much attention; and the verses to the advocates who stayed behind contain the following lines:――

“Even so, of advocates you’re but the Rump, That noble faculty’s turn’d to a stump; And so Dundonald does you much commend, Because you are the faculty’s wrong end. But since a Rumple president does sit, That rumps at bar should domineer was fit;

Yet where the tail is thus in the head’s place, No doubt the body has a sh――――en face.

Thus, thus, some men reform our laws and gown, As tailors do, by turning upside down.”

The following lines refer to the president’s threats against the malcontent advocates:――

“The president with his head on one side, He swears that for treason we all shall be tried.

* * * * *

The president bids us repent of our sin, And swears we’ll be forfeit if we don’t come in: We answer him all, we care not a pin.”¹

¹ Book of Scottish Pasquils, pages 216, 218‒221.

At this period there were persons in Scotland called peats or pats, whose function was to extract as much as could be got from the pockets of clients, “whether rich or poor, for the purpose of perverting justice.” On this there is a curious contemporary rhyme entitled, “Robert Cook’s Petition against the Peats,” addressed to the Lords of Session, which begins thus:――

“The humble petition of Master Robert Cook, Having spent all his money in following his book, Now humbly does show to the Lords of the seat, That he is likely to starve unless made a peat. Yet first he must know whose peat he must be, The president’s he cannot, because he has three, And for my lord Hatton,¹ his son now Sir John, By all is declared to be peattie patron.”

¹ Mr. Charles Maitland.

And so on the rhyme proceeded, naming the different lords, and showing that they all employed peats; and that John Hay of Murray, by virtue of his daughter, had a peatry which yielded thousands annually; that Lord Newbyth had hitherto run halves with the peats, but having found that they were all cheats, he resolved that his own son, William Baird, should be peat of the house as well as heir; that Lord Newton was always ready to take whatever men would give, and when he was peat to himself, avoided all the danger of sharing the half. After hearing the petition, the bench remitted it to Lord Castlehill,¹ who, after duly considering it, declared that the peats were grievous to the nation, as by some inspiration they pled without speaking, and consulted without writing.²

¹ Sir John Lockhart.

² Book of Scottish Pasquils, pages 224‒227.

Without attaching much importance to writings of this description, we know from various sources of information that instances of disgraceful judicial delinquency were then common in Scotland.

A satirical rhyme on the government of the Duke of Lauderdale, and his wife, called “A Litany,” was written about 1671. There are several other satires on his wife, under the name of Bessie; and it is stated that she swayed both Church and State. “She plots with her tail, and her lord with his pate――with a head on one side, and a hand lifted high――she kills us with frowning, and makes us to die――the nobles and barons, boroughs and clownes――she threatened at home even the principal towns――but now she usurps both the sceptre and crown――and thinks to destroy us with a flap of her gown.”¹

¹ The following lines are from the “Litany”:――

“From this huffing Hector,ᵃ and his queen of love, From all his blank letters from above, From a parliamentary council that does rage and rave, From an archbishopᵇ graft on a presbyterian stock, From the declaration built on a covenant dock, From opposite oathsᶜ that would make a man chock.”

ᵃ Duke of Lauderdale. ᵇ Sharpe. ᶜ The Test.

The Revolution and the events flowing from it called forth many satirical ballads and rhymes, especially from the party who adhered to the banished dynasty. It is from this date that Jacobitism assumed the form of a political creed, and became a distinctive name of a party in the State. This party, in manifesting their opinion and feeling in favour of the exiled family, endeavoured by all means to depreciate the Revolution settlement, and the whole course of subsequent proceedings, by satirising and abusing all who adhered to the new order of affairs. Many of the Jacobite ballads and songs are rude and coarse, but some of them are very humorous, and occasionally pathetic. They afford important elements for the history of the period from the Revolution to the Rising of 1745; and at that time they supplied to many of the people the chief political and literary food within their reach.

Here it may be stated that satire is and always has been a powerful weapon when properly wielded; but none of the Jacobite ballads or rhymes have attained to high rank as really genuine and effective satires. Indeed, though they are not often deficient in the elements of contempt and scorn of a kind, they seldom or never rise to the height of vigorous sarcasm; they never hit on the strain of that seething and stinging roll of sarcasm which smites its victims right and left, till they fall helpless under its piercing force. The Jacobite ballads have more of the comic and the ludicrous elements, of homely but effective forms of humour and wit, which together constitute their main characteristics.

The ballad entitled “The Coronation Song,” 1689, is a comic and ridiculous description of King William and Queen Mary. It is full of rough humour, and excessively coarse in phraseology. William is represented as descended from the orange tree, but it was hoped that he will soon descend from a tree of another class――the gallows. His personal appearance was minutely described: “he had the head of a goose, and the legs of a crane,” and rode in Hyde Park like a hog in armour, and in Whitehall carped like a country farmer. He had not stood to his declaration, but had completely cheated the nation. Cromwell only smelt at the crown through the rump; but, though there were three who had better claims than Orange, yet he with a jump ventured his neck to place himself upon the throne. Some of the verses are extremely profane and vulgar, and the song concludes with this wish:――

“Then may the confusion that hither has brought us Always attend them, until it has wrought us, To bring back King James, as loyalty taught us―― Our gracious King again, Our gracious King again.”

After the Revolution, the Presbyterians were assailed in popular rhymes by the party who adhered to the banished royal family, and the Duke of Hamilton and the Union formed ample topics for satirical rhymes and lampoons. The Duke of Hamilton was chosen president of the Revolution convention, which declared the throne vacant; and directly after he was appointed royal commissioner. He has been represented as a proud, impatient, and overbearing man; he died in 1694. He was severely handled in a rhyme called “The Presbyterians’ Address,” beginning thus:――

“Welcome, great Duke, with all the joy that’s due, To the blest union of our friends and you; The Lord has done it, is all that we can say; But first to reverence, and next to pray. Not free of fears, we beg in the first place, For grace of perseverance to your grace; For when with holy zeal we think upon, The old malignant house of Hamilton, Who our reforming course at first withstood, At Langside bathed themselves and us in blood, While the next heir the nation made consent To the five articles in parliament.”

The story proceeded to mention other heads of the house and their fate; and then stated that his grace had taken Bradshaw for his patron, and, as the latter had judged the father, the former had forfeited the son, but advises him to proceed:――

“Go on, great Duke, your hand is at the plough, For looking back’s both sin and follow now; Let Crawford,¹ Cardross,² Melvin, you advise, Let Polwart³ flourish out the enterprise; Here and hereafter both the malignants damn, Down o’er their throats the new allegiance cram, First fill the prisons till they’ll hold no more, Then let the scaffolds, reeking with their gore, Be the gam’d theatres that shall express, Your pious princely zeal to be no less, Than old Argyle, when he the maxim prov’d, That it was safer to be fear’d than lov’d. Thus we take leave, and all with one consent Does rest your grace’s servants in the Lord.”⁴

¹ The Earl of Crawford.

² Lord Cardross, a warm supporter of the Covenant.

³ Sir Patrick Home, afterwards Earl of Marchmont.

⁴ A Book of Scottish Pasquils, pages 255‒257. The severest attack of this class on the Presbyterians was the one entitled “The Western Presbyterian’s Address to the Prince of Orange.”

The Scotch Jacobites satirised King William from time to time till the end of his reign, under the names of Willie Winkie, Willie Wanbeard, and Willie the Wage. But none of these pieces have much merit, their humour being homely and often coarse. The Jacobites were most bitterly opposed to the Union, and exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent it from being brought to a successful issue. The Parliament of 1704 was attacked and denounced in a rhyme beginning thus:――

“Our parliament is met on a hellish design, ’Gainst God and the true heir knaves do combine, To play the game over of old forty-nine, But unless they repent they’ll be d――――d.”

It proceeded to traduce and condemn all who in any way assisted in changing the succession of the throne, and vehemently caricatured many of the Scotch nobles, satirising them in the rudest strain. Indeed, this is one of the most outrageous and scurrilous compositions of the period. Johnston, the secretary, a son of Lord Warriston’s, was described in the following terms:――

“Thou, Johnston, thou spawn of a villain and traitor, A varlet by birth, education, and nature. Old Scotland’s base cut-throat, and false England’s creature. For which sin on and be d――――d.”¹

¹ Ibid., pages 379‒384.

The most of the nobles who adhered to the Government were handled in a similar style.

Contemporary rhymes and ballads on the Union Parliament, and on the Union itself, were numerous, and most of them emanated from the Jacobite party. But they are all marked by the characteristics which have already been sufficiently illustrated, and very few of them have assumed a popular and purified form, or lived into the present age.

But many of the Jacobite songs written between the accession of the House of Hanover and the middle of the eighteenth century, were, and still are, exceedingly popular. The satirical songs on George I. and the members of his family are generally humorous and homely, such as the well-known song of “The Riding Mare,” “The Wee, Wee German Lairdie,” “The Sow’s Tail to Geordie,” and others of a similar character, all so full of derision and contempt that they became national favourites――the fact of their being usually sung to old and popular airs greatly enhancing their merit in the estimation of the populace. The immorality of the courts of the Georges afforded ample scope for coarse satire; and Lady Darlington, one of the mistresses of George I., who figures under the name of the “Sow,” was a constant theme for lampoon and satire. In person she was excessively large and corpulent.¹

¹ The air of the song, “The Sow’s Tail to Geordie,” has always been highly popular, and has been rendered from time to time with innumerable variations.

The Whigs were another subject for Jacobite invective and biting song. While the conflict of the two parties raged, and the result of the struggle was still uncertain, the arts of ridicule, depreciation, and jeering scorn, were more effective for stirring the passions of the people than elevated appeals to patriotism and the better sentiments of the mind. Hence it was not until the cause of Jacobitism was seen to be lost past all hope of recovery, that the best and most pathetic of their songs appeared,――it is only then that their songs begin to manifest the touching strains and the ennobling glow of genuine poetry.

The song entitled “Awa’, Whigs, Awa’,” was long popular, though more on account of the beauty of its air than of the merit of the song itself. Another one entitled, “What’s the matter with the Whigs?” was written in the early part of the reign of George I., and opens with these lines:――

“O what’s the matter with the Whigs, I think they’re all gone mad, sir, By dancing one and forty jigs, Our dancing may be dad, sir.

* * * * *

“Did you not swear, in Anna’s reign, And vow too, and protest, sir, If Hanover were once come o’er, Then we should all be blest, sir?

* * * * *

“And was there ever such a King As our brave German prince, sir? Our wealth supplies him everything Save what he wants――good sense, sir. Our jails with British subjects crammed, Our scaffolds reek with blood, sir, And all but Whigs and Dutch are damn’d By the fanatic crowd, sir.”

The Jacobite song entitled, “The Wind has Blawn my Plaidie Awa’,” which is sung to the popular air “O’er the Hills and Far Awa’,” was very popular, and has appeared in various forms. The Whigs too had their songs, some of which were a sort of parody on the Jacobite ones; while the English also had many Jacobite songs and rhymes. The popular song beginning “From Caledonia’s loyal lands, where justice uncontrolled commands,” had its counterpart in a song used by the Whigs of the Revolution Club, in Edinburgh. It was sung to the tune of “O’er the Hills and Far Awa’,” and opened with the following lines:――

“From barren Caledonian lands, Where rapine uncontrolled commands, The rebel clans in search of prey, Came o’er the hills and far away. Regardless whether right or wrong, For booty, not for fame, they fight; Banditti-like, they kill, they slay, They plunder, rob, and run away.

* * * * *

“With them a vain pretender came, And perjured traitors, dupes to Rome, Resolved all, without delay, To conquer, die, or run away. Our sons of war, with martial frame, Shall bravely merit lasting fame; Great George shall Britain’s sceptre sway, And chase rebellion far away. Amen.”¹

¹ English Jacobite Ballads, edited by the Rev. A. B. Grosart, pages 176‒177.

From the Revolution to the suppression of the last Rising, rhymes, ballads, and songs were the common outcome of the rhymers of the street, the alehouse, the club, and the festive board, or it might be of the farm-house, or the cot among the valleys and hills. It was a time when men of strong passions and feelings, rude humour, homely and coarse wit, could express themselves in language intelligible to all ranks of the nation. The Jacobites always eagerly endeavoured to gain the ear and enlist the favour of the people. Accordingly they were constantly appealing to the lighter emotions, the selfish feelings, and the passions, under the guise of a mass of rough and vulgar humour, and coarse satire, thrown at the new dynasty, and at the Whigs――the alleged authors of the ruin and all the woes of the nation.

But after the Battle of Culloden, a higher strain was struck. The bitterness of the sense of defeat, of suffering, of sorrow, and lamentation, filled the souls of the Jacobites, and inspired them with a mournful and yet noble resolution to yield to their fate, and to make the best of the changed circumstances. Having referred in a preceding chapter to the sentiments expressed after Culloden, it is only necessary to give one or two illustrations in concluding this brief account of the Jacobite songs and ballads.

The following lines are from the ballad called “The Lament of Old Duncan Skene of the Clan Donochie:”――¹

“Thy foes they were many, and ruthless their wrath, Thy glens they defaced with ravage and death, Thy children were hunted and slain on the heath, And the best of thy sons are no more.”

¹ Mackay’s Jacobite Songs and Ballads, page 247.

The song entitled “The Highlander’s Farewell,” is exceedingly pathetic. It was composed in Gaelic, and the following quotation is from an English translation:――

“O where shall I gae seek my bread? O where shall I gae wander? O where shall I gae hide my head? For here I’ll bide nae langer. The seas may row, the winds may blow, And swath me round in danger, My native land I must forego, And roam a lonely stranger. The glen that was my father’s own, Must be by his forsaken; The house that was my father’s home, Is levell’d with the bracken. Ochon, ochon, our glory’s o’er, Stolen by a mean deceiver, Our hands are on the broad claymore, But the might is broke forever. Farewell, farewell, dear Caledon, Land of the Gael no longer, A stranger fills thy ancient throne, In guilt and treachery stronger. Thy brave and just fall in the dust, On ruin’s brink they quiver; Heaven’s pitying e’e is clos’d on thee, Adieu, adieu, for ever!”¹

¹ Mackay’s Jacobite Songs and Ballads, pages 251‒252. In passing from the subject. I may mention that Mr. Robert Malcolm edited a collection of Jacobite songs and ballads, published at Glasgow in 1829; while Hogg’s Jacobite Relics, first and second series, are well worth careful perusal.

For all this the Highlanders soon betook themselves to other forms of energy, and as already mentioned, they have done good service to the empire since the collapse of their memorable and last Rising in Britain.

The Lowland Scottish ballad literature embraces a wide and rich field, ranging over and engrossing almost every element of poetry, save the purely religious. The songs and ballads, of course, present all degrees of merit and variety, of love and pathos, of keen feelings, of wild passions, and of glowing emotions; but only a few examples may be presented here, as every reader can easily go himself to the fountain-head. Perhaps the ballad called “The Lament of the Border Widow,” is among the most touching of the pathetic class. It has been supposed to relate to the execution of Cockburn of Henderland, who was hanged over the gate of his own tower, by the order of the King, in 1529. In its present form it was obtained from recitation, and printed in Scott’s Minstrelsy:――

“My love he built me a bonnie bower, And clad it a’ wi’ lilye flouer, A brawer bower ye ne’er did see, Than my true love he built for me. There came a man, by middle day, He spied his sport, and went away, And brought the King that very night, Who brake my bower, and slew my knight. He slew my knight, to me sae dear; He slew my knight, and poin’d his gear; My servants all for life did flee, And left me in extremitie. I sew’d his sheet, making my mane, I watched the corpse, myself alane, I watched his body, night and day; No living creature came that way. I took his body on my back, And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat; I digg’d a grave, and laid him in, And happ’d him with the sod sae green. But think na ye my heart was sair, When I laid the moul’ on his yellow hair; O think na ye my heart was wae, When I turned about away to gae. Na living man I’ll love again, Since that my lovely knight is slain. Wi’ a lock of his yellow hair, I’ll chain my heart for ever mair.”

The simple and natural pathos of these lines is inimitable, and at once touches the heart.

There are not only pathos, genuine feeling and fire in many of the national songs, but also in some of them good sense and shrewd judgment of the world. A song by the author of “Tullochgorum,” the Rev. John Skinner, presents in a brief compass a kind of philosophy of life. It is entitled, “John o’ Badenyon,” and I tempted to quote it:――

“When first I came to be a man of twenty years or so, I thought myself a handsome youth, and fain the world would know. In best attire I stept about, with spirits brisk and gay: And here, and there, and everywhere was like a morn in May. No care I had, no fear of want, but rambled up and down, And for a beau I might have passed in country or in town; I still was pleased where’er I went, and when I was alone, I tuned my pipe, and pleased myself wi’ John o’ Badenyon. Now in the days of youthful prime, a mistress I must find, For love, they say, gives one an air, and even improves the mind: On Phillis fair, above the rest, kind fortune fixed mine eyes, Her piercing beauty struck my heart, and she became my choice. To Cupid now, with hearty prayer, I offered many a vow, And danced, and sang, and sigh’d, and swore, as other lovers do: But when at last I breathed my flame, I found her cold as stone―― I left the girl, and tuned my pipe to John o’ Badenyon. When love had thus my heart beguiled with foolish hopes and vain, To friendship’s port I steer’d my course, and laugh’d at lover’s pain. A friend I got by lucky chance――’twas something like divine; An honest friend’s a precious gift, and such a gift was mine. And now, whatever may betide, a happy man was I, In my strait I knew to whom I freely might apply. A strait soon came, my friend I tried, he laugh’d and spurn’d my moan; I hied me home, and tuned my pipe to John o’ Badenyon. I thought I should be wiser next, and would a patriot turn, Began to doat on Johnnie Wilkes, and cry’d up parson Horne; Their noble spirits I admired, and praised their noble zeal, Who had with flaming tongue and pen maintained the public weal. But ere a month or two had passed, I found myself betrayed; ’Twas self and party, after all, for all the stir they made. At last I saw these factious knaves insult the very throne, I cursed them all, and tuned my pipe to John o’ Badenyon. What next to do I mused a while, still hoping to succeed; I pitched on books for company, and gravely tried to read: I bought and borrowed everywhere, and studied night and day, Nor miss’d what dean or doctor wrote, that happened in my way. Philosophy I now esteemed the ornament of youth, And carefully, through many a page, I hunted after truth: A thousand various schemes I tried, and yet was pleased with none, I threw them by, and tuned my pipe to John o’ Badenyon. And now ye youngsters everywhere, who wish to make a show, Take heed in time, nor vainly hope for happiness below; What you may fancy pleasure here, is but an empty name; And girls, and friends, and books also, you’ll find them all the same. Then be advised, and warning take from such a man as me; I am neither pope, nor cardinal, nor one of high degree; You’ll meet displeasure everywhere; then do as I have done―― Even tune your pipe and please yourself with John o’ Badenyon.”

There are some points which I might illustrate in greater detail; but, as already stated, a lengthy account of this branch of literature does not seem necessary. Besides, in a work of this character, some proportion must be observed in treating the various subjects which properly comes within its range, and suggestion and stimulation may be legitimately used where space for criticism cannot be afforded. An appropriate conclusion to this chapter will be found in the following lines by the late John Imlach, entitled “Auld Scotia’s Songs,” and prefixed to Whitelaw’s Book of Scottish Song:――

“Auld Scotia’s Songs, Auld Scotia’s Songs,――the strains o’ youth and yore, O lilt to me, and I will list――will list them o’er and o’er, Though mak’ me wae, or mak’ me wud, or changefu’ as a child, Yet lilt to me, and I will list――the native woodnotes wild. They mak’ me present wi’ the past――they bring up fresh and fair, The Bonnie Broom o’ Cowden Knowes, the Bush aboon Traquair; The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow, or the Birks o’ Invermay, Or Catrine’s green and yellow woods in autumn’s dawning day. Now melt we o’er the lay that wails for Flodden’s day o’ dule: And now some rant will gar us loup like daffin’ youth at Yule―― Now o’er youth’s love’s impassion’d strain our conscious heart will yearn―― And now our blude fires at the call o’ Bruce o’ Bannockburn.

* * * * *

“O born o’ feeling’s warmest depths――o’ fancy’s wildest dreams, They’re twined wi’ monie lovely thoughts, wi’ monie lo’esome themes; They gar the glass o’ memory glint back wi’ brichter shine, On far-off scenes, and far-off friends――and Auld Lang Syne. Auld Scotia’s Songs, Auld Scotia’s Songs――the native woodnotes wild, Her monie artless melodies, that move me like a child; Sing on, sing on, and I will list, will list them o’er and o’er―― Auld Scotia’s Songs, Auld Scotia’s Songs, the songs o’ youth and yore.”

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Chapter XXXII

Literature of the Nation in the Seventeenth Century.

THROUGHOUT the seventeenth century the ablest minds in Scotland were mainly absorbed in religious and political struggles, or devoted to theology and practical religious duties; yet law, science, and cognate subjects began to attract more attention, especially towards the end of the century. The theological and religious literature diverged but little from the leading doctrines of the Reformation, for though in some writings there might be greater elaboration of doctrinal points, there was no radical change in the method of investigation or of interpretation of the fundamental doctrines. The Westminster Confession, like the Reformation one of the Scotch Reformers, is essentially Calvinistic; and the chief doctrines in both are viewed from the same standpoint. After the lengthy account of the social condition of the nation, and of the tendency of the stream of history given in the preceding chapters, it would be superfluous to enter into a minute detail of the religious literature of the century. Both the contending parties were represented by writers of reputation and authority in their day; but comparatively few persons now read their productions. The religious difficulties which demand discussion in the present day have assumed different forms, for in the interval of two centuries, the ideas and convictions of the people have gradually undergone a great modification and change. It will be the aim of the remaining part of the work to explain the causes of this change in the opinions and habits of the people.

David Calderwood, a Presbyterian minister, is the author of numerous works, mostly of a polemical character.¹ He was a man of unbending integrity, bold and fearless in maintaining his opinions, and thoroughly consistent in his profession. He was acute and learned, and familiar with the writings of the Fathers, and theological literature generally. The greater part of his writings and pamphlets related to ecclesiastical disputes in the reigns of James VI. and Charles I.; such as the polity of the Church, the five articles of Perth, and cognate matters. But the most important and valuable of his writings is “The History of the Church of Scotland, from the beginning of the Reformation to the end of the reign of James VI.”; although, strictly speaking, it is not a history, but rather a collection of the materials for history, than a digested and critical narrative of events. It contains a great number of historical papers, Acts of Parliament, Acts of the Privy Council, Acts and proceedings of the General Assembly, royal proclamations, and other documents of a public character. Calderwood was extremely greedy of information, and notices incidentally many curious facts and notions which prevailed amongst the people. Hence his History of the Church is very valuable to the historical student.

¹ Born 1572, died 1650.

John Spottiswood,¹ Archbishop of St. Andrews, is the author of a “History of the Church and State of Scotland.” Though he leans to the side of his own party in the Church, his statement of facts is generally fair and moderate. In extent and variety of material his history falls much below Calderwood’s, but in arrangement and in style, it is superior to any contemporary history composed in the vernacular language.

¹ Born 1565, died 1639.

Robert Baillie was one of the most eminent and learned of the Presbyterian clergyman of the Covenanting period.¹ He was actively engaged in the struggle of the Civil War, but he was more reasonable and moderate in his views than the majority of his brethren. His writings are numerous, and were chiefly devoted to Church polity and religion. He wrote both in English and in Latin, but the greater part of his works were published in the former language. He devoted much attention to the Oriental languages, and was conversant with the Hebrew and cognate tongues. He was one of the Scotch ministers who sat in the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and subsequently he was appointed Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow. After the Restoration, he was admitted Principal of the University of Glasgow, an office which he held until his death. His principal works are “An Historical Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland,” a work of considerable ability, and his “Chronology,” written in Latin. One of Baillie’s first productions was levelled against Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and published in 1640, under the title, “The Canterburians Self-convicted, or an evident demonstration of the avowed Arminianism, popery, and tyranny of that faction, by their own confession.” A third and enlarged edition of this pamphlet was published in 1641, and a fourth in 1643. Several of Baillie’s pamphlets directly attacked the Liturgy, as his “Comparison of the Liturgy with the Mass-book, Breviary, the Ceremonial, and other Romish Rituals,” published in 1641; “Inquiries anent the Service-book, an antidote against Arminianism.” He was earnest in addressing the people on the reforming work of the time, especially in his sermons preached before Parliament in 1643 and 1645, the former entitled “Satan the Leader-in-chief to all who Resist the Reformation of Zion,” and the latter, “Errors and Induration are the great Sins and the great Judgments of the Times.” A list of Baillie’s publications was given in Dr. Irving’s Lives of Scottish Writers. But his Letters and Journals relating to the wars and the affairs of the period from 1637 to 1662, are now the most interesting and the most valuable of his compositions.²

¹ Born 1599, died 1662.

² An imperfect edition of his Letters and Journals was published in 1775, but a more complete one in three volumes, edited by the late Dr. Laing, appeared in 1841‒42.

Zachary Boyd, minister of the Barony Parish, in the suburbs of Glasgow, was a writer of note in the first half of the century.¹ At first he seemed inclined to side with the Loyalist party, but at last he signed the Covenant, and continued a firm adherent of the popular cause, although he did not take so active a part in the field as some of his brethren. But when Cromwell, with his army, arrived at Glasgow, “he rallied on them all to their face in the High Church.” Having chosen for his text the eighth chapter of the book of Daniel, he expounded the vision of the ram with two horns, which was overcome and trampled down by a he-goat, and exerted all his ingenuity to extend the parable to existing circumstances, and demonstrating that Cromwell was the he-goat. In another sermon, on some verses of the thirty-eighth Psalm, he made many pointed and bitter references to the sectarian General; and it was reported that one of the officers whispered into Cromwell’s ear, and asked permission to “shoot the scoundrel at once,” but he replied that “we will manage him in another way.” Cromwell invited Boyd to dine with him, and completely gained the preacher’s respect by the fervour of the devotions in which he spent the evening, and it was said that their mutual exercise was continued till three in the morning.²

¹ Born 1590, died 1653.

² Life of Boyd, prefixed to his Last Battle of the Soul.

Boyd was the author of various works, chiefly of a religious character. In 1629, he published a work entitled “The Last Battle of the Soul in Death,” which is written in a kind of dramatic form, and sustained with spirit and interest, and differs from most of the religious works of the period in not being controversial. He had an imaginative and vigorous mind, and his thought is often strikingly original; and, with an exceedingly copious command of words and imagery, he combined a style which was remarkably good for the period. His highest flights are embodied in a work of two volumes, entitled “Zion’s Flowers,” which have received the name of “Boyd’s Bible.” They consist of a collection of poems on subjects of Scripture history, such as David, Jonah, and others, presented in a dramatic form, in the execution of which he sometimes produced extremely ludicrous and grotesque passages.

James Durham, minister of the Blackfriars Church in Glasgow, from 1647 to 1658,¹ was one of the most popular preachers of his day. His writings consist of commentaries on Scripture, and a large number of sermons on a variety of subjects. “He was a burning and shining light, a star of the first magnitude, and of whom it may be said, without derogation from the merit of any, that he had a name among the mighty.”²

¹ Born 1622, died 1658.

² Scots Worthies, Volume I., page 220.

David Dickson¹ was minister of Irvine for upwards of twenty years, and subsequently a professor in the University of Glasgow, and also in that of Edinburgh. He was a successful teacher and a popular preacher, and, as we have seen, he was a man of standing and influence among the Covenanting party. He is the author of commentaries on the Psalms, and on various parts of the New Testament, of a series of lectures, and other pieces, and his writings were for long popular.

¹ Born 1583, died 1663.

But none of the presbyterian ministers were more popular and famous than Samuel Rutherford.¹ He was actively engaged in the Covenanting struggle; and for the last ten years of his life, he maintained the battle on the side of the protestors. A talented, a consistent, and a learned man, he wrote on various topics of absorbing interest in his time, including his “Peaceable Plea for Presbytery,” a well-digested book, which he published in 1642. In 1649, he published, at London, “A Free Disputation against the Pretended Liberty of Conscience,” especially directed against the Independents, who were then rapidly rising to the height of power in England. Besides these he wrote several other treatises, some of them composed in Latin; but the most famous of his productions was “Lex Rex,” The Law and the King.²

¹ Born 1600, died 1661.

² His Letters were published after his death, and reprinted in 1824, and again quite recently.

This work on government is elaborate, and a good example of deductive exposition. After a very long preface, in which he says:――“That which moved the author was not, as my excommunicated adversary says, the escape of some fears, which necessitated him to write, for many before me have learnedly trodden in the path, but that I might add a new testimony to the times.” He gives a full and formal table of contents, and then proceeds to the discussion of his subject. He divided it into forty-four questions or leading topics, under each of which a great mass of matter comes in for discussion. He appeals to the authority of Scripture throughout, and refers to the examples in the Bible. But the general strain of the book leads to the utter overthrow of the idea that kings have prerogatives and absolute powers above the laws and acts of parliament; and this branch of the subject is well and conclusively reasoned. In the course of the long discussion, many other important political points are handled with ability and judgment. But it is a tedious book to read, though a valuable contribution to the principles of constitutional government.

Rutherford began his work by stating that, “I reduce all that I am to speak of the power of kings: (1) To the author or efficient, (2) the matter or subject, (3) the form or power, (4) the end and fruit of their government, and (5) to some cases of resistance.”¹ From these simple terms he proceeded deductively to expound his views and opinions on the origin of government, the power and rights of the king and of the people.

¹ Page 1. “It is reported that when Charles saw Lex Rex, he said it could scarcely ever get an answer, nor did it ever get any, except what the parliament in 1661 gave it, when they caused it to be burned at the Cross of Edinburgh by the hands of the common hangman. This was a summary way of answering a book, but it was somewhat more innocent than the practice of burning the authors of books. Charles’ parliament, by the hangman’s hands, burned the body of the book, but they could not consume its immortal spirit, with which the minds of the patriots of that age were deeply imbued, which they communicated to their children, and which ultimately produced the Revolution.” Claud’s Defence of the Reformation was condemned to be burned, on which the editor of an old edition very properly observes that “books have souls as well as men, which survive their martyrdom, and are not burned, but crowned by the flames that encircle them.”――Scots Worthies, Volume I., page 223.

In discussing the powers of the king, he stated that, “The royal power rests in three ways in the people: 1. Radically and virtually, as in the first subject. 2. Collectively, by way of free donation, they giving it to this man, not to this man that he may rule over them. 3. Under limitation, they giving it so as that these three acts remain with the people: 1. That they may measure out, by ounce weights, so much royal power, and no more, and no less. 2. So as they limit, moderate, and set bounds to the exercise of it. 3. That they give it out, conditionally, upon that and this condition, that they take again to themselves what they gave out, if the conditions be violated. The first, I conceive, is clear: 1. Because if every living creature have radically in them a power of self-preservation to defend themselves from violence, as we see lions with paws, some beasts have horns, some claws, men being reasonable creatures united in society, must have power in a more reasonable and honourable way to put this power of warding off violence in the hands of one or more rulers, to defend themselves by magistrates. 2. If all men be born as concerning civil power alike, for no man comes out of the womb with a diadem on his head or a sceptre in his hand, and yet men united in society may give crown and sceptre to this man, and not to that man, then this power was in the united society, but it was not in them formally, ... therefore this power must have been virtually in them, because neither man, nor community of men, can give that which they neither have formally, nor virtually, in themselves. 3. Royalists cannot deny that cities have power to choose inferior magistrates: therefore, many cities united have power to create a higher ruler, for royal is but the united and superlative power of inferior judges, in one great judge, whom they call king.”

Thus it is concluded that the people make the king. “The power of creating a man a king is from the people, because those who may create this man a king, rather than another man, have power to appoint a king. For a comparative action does positively infer an action; if a man have a power to marry this woman, not that woman, we may strongly conclude, therefore, that he has power to marry.”¹

¹ Page 10, edition 1644.

Rutherford had the reputation of being an effective preacher and an able and successful professor of divinity in the New College of St. Andrews, where he occupied a chair for about twelve years. But he was under the influence of the intolerant spirit of the age, and wrote earnestly against toleration of religious opinions. Yet, at that period few had risen to the idea of toleration, though the Independents had approached nearer it than the other religious bodies in the Island. In the estimation of his own party he held a high place, one of them summing up his character in these words: “He seems to have been one of the most resplendent lights that ever arose on our horizon.”¹

¹ Wodrow; Scots Worthies, Volume I., page 229.

George Gillespie¹ was one of the prominent ministers of the Covenanting period. He was the author of a work which was long popular, entitled “Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, or the Divine Ordinance of Church Government Vindicated,” published at London in 1646; he also wrote several controversial papers and tracts.

¹ Born 1613, died 1648.

There were a number of other presbyterian ministers celebrated in their day as preachers, of whom may be mentioned James Guthrie, Hugh Binning, Robert Blair, Andrew Gray, John Livingston, and James Wood; while there were others, like Henderson, who were too ardently engaged in the struggles of the times to produce works for publication.

Dr. John Forbes was the second son of the estimable Bishop Forbes, of Aberdeen.¹ He was appointed professor of divinity in King’s College, Aberdeen, in 1619, and was the author of several learned works. In discharging the duties of his chair, he delivered lectures on the history and progress of Christian doctrine. He was disposed to peaceful measures, and to promote this he published a pamphlet in 1638, under the title of “A Peaceful Warning to the Subjects of Scotland.” This was quickly answered by a tract attributed to Calderwood, the warm defender of the presbyterian polity. The professors and the ministers of Aberdeen offered a determined opposition to the Covenant, argued against it and disputed its lawfulness, and at last issued a printed paper containing, “General Demands concerning the Covenant.” This was answered by Henderson, Dickson, and Andrew Cant, whereupon the Aberdeen Doctors emitted replies, which called forth further answers from the Covenanters’ side; to these the Doctors published a rejoinder, and thus they had the satisfaction of the last word. Their learning, however, could not protect them, for they were all deprived of their offices in the Church and in the University, because they refused to sign the Covenant.²

¹ Bishop Forbes himself is the author of several works, some of which were published in a volume, entitled “A Learned Commentary upon the Revelation of St. John, newly corrected and revised, Middleburgh, 1614.” The volume also contained a treatise in defence of the lawful calling of the ministers of the Reformed churches. He is the author of “A Dialogue, wherein a rugged Romish Rhyme (Inscribed questions to the Protestant) is confuted, and the questions thereof answered,” Aberdeen, 1627.

Soon after his death, a volume, with a portrait, was published, under the title, “Funerals of a Right Reverend Father in God, Patrick Forbes of Corse, Bishop of Aberdeen, 1635.” It contains five funeral sermons in English by different professors and doctors, a Latin oration and a dissertation, and also a large collection of verses in the form of laudatory epitaphs on the deceased prelate, contributed by many of the learned men of the day; and at the end, “Edward Raban, master printer, the first in Aberdeen,” contributed the last epitaph himself, which concludes with these lines:

“Good Sir, I am behind the rest, I do confess, for want of skill: But not a whit behind the best To show the affection of good will.”

² The general demands of the Aberdeen Doctors, and the answers and replies, were published at Aberdeen by order of the Scotch parliament. A collected edition of Dr. Forbes’ Latin works was published in 1703.

Robert Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow, in the reign of Charles II., was perhaps the most cultured and learned, as well as the most humane of the prelates of the period. He was educated in the University of Edinburgh, and graduated in the year 1631. Afterwards having lived for several years in France, he learned to speak French like a native. Having returned to Scotland, he became a minister of the Presbyterian Church, and was appointed pastor of the parish of Newbattle in 1641, in which he laboured quietly till 1652, when he resigned his charge. In 1653, he was installed principal of the University of Edinburgh, to which office the chair of divinity was joined. After the Restoration, he accepted the bishopric of Dunblane, in which he officiated for about eight years, and was exceedingly attentive to his duties. He endeavoured to promote measures of moderation and conciliation, and disapproved of the severe modes of forcing a formal compliance with the established worship, and accordingly granted the nonconformists of his own diocese that liberty of conscience, which the laws of the times had ignored. In 1670, when he became Archbishop of Glasgow, he redoubled his efforts to persuade the ejected ministers to listen to terms of accommodation, but failed. At last, disheartened and tired of his position, he resolved to retire from all public employment, tendered his resignation, finally relinquishing the See of Glasgow in 1674. Afterwards, this truly religious and humane man retired to England, where he died in 1684.

Leighton’s writings consist of his “Commentaries on St. Peter,” sermons preached at Newbattle, lectures delivered in Latin before the University of Edinburgh, spiritual exercises, letters and other papers. None of his works were published in his lifetime, but collected editions of them have been issued in England and America, the most complete one having appeared in 1869‒70. His writings have been long and widely known, and it is unnecessary to enter into a lengthy criticism of them. His style is simple and easy, and glowing with genuine piety, the expression of a warm and generous heart.

Bishop Burnet was the greatest name in literature which Scotland produced in the seventeenth century. He was born in Edinburgh in 1643, but belonged to an Aberdeenshire family, and was educated at the University of Aberdeen. He was licensed to preach at the age of eighteen, visited England, Holland, and France, and having returned home, was appointed minister of the parish of Saltoun in 1665. Subsequently he became professor of divinity in the University of Glasgow. After the Revolution he was appointed a bishop in the Church of England. He was an exceedingly voluminous writer, and tried his hand on many subjects. He is the author of a large number of sermons, many of which were delivered on public occasions, of numerous discourses and tracts on divinity, and of tracts and pamphlets of a polemical description on popery, politics, and miscellaneous subjects. A considerable number of historical works emanated from his fertile mind, of which the most important are his “Memoirs of James and William, Dukes of Hamilton,” “History of the Reformation of the Church of England,” and his great work entitled, “History of His Own Time.” Burnet was a man of varied accomplishments and vast information, and was himself engaged in many of the events and transactions which he recorded in the above named work.

He had a wide and ready command of language, and his historical method and style are equal, if not superior, to the best English writers of his day. His narrative is always methodical, and runs on naturally with much simplicity and ease. His chief historical works are still valuable as sources of information, and they are also more interesting reading than almost any writings on the same subjects of that generation or the succeeding one. As a single specimen of his style, I may quote the passages of his history on the character of Archbishop Tillotson. “Tillotson was a man of a clear head and a sweet temper. He had the brightest thoughts and the most correct style of all our divines, and was esteemed the best preacher of the age. He was a very prudent man, and had such a management with it, that I never knew any clergyman so universally esteemed and beloved, as he was for above twenty years. He was eminent for his opposition to popery. He was no friend to persecution, and stood up much against atheism. Nor did many men do more to bring the city to love our worship than he did. But there was so little superstition, and so much reason and gentleness in his way of explaining things, that malice was long levelled at him, and in conclusion broke out fiercely on him.

“I preached his funeral sermon, in which I gave a character of him which was so severely true, that I perhaps kept too much within bounds, and said less than he deserved. But we had lived in such friendship together, that I thought it was more decent, as it always is more safe, to err on that hand. He was the man of the truest judgment and best temper I had ever known; he had a clear head, with a most tender and compassionate heart; he was a faithful and jealous friend, but a gentle and soon-conquered enemy; he was truly and seriously religious, but without affectation, bigotry, or superstition; his notions of morality were fine and sublime; his thread of reasoning was easy, clear, and solid; he was not only the best preacher of the age, but seemed to have brought preaching to perfection; his sermons were so well liked and heard, and so much read, that all the nation proposed him as a pattern, and studied to copy after him; his parts remained with him clear and unclouded, but the perpetual slanders and other ill-usage he had been followed with for many years, more particularly since his advancement to that great post, gave him too much trouble and too deep a concern; it could neither provoke him, nor fright him from his duty, but it affected his mind so much that this was thought to have shortened his days.”¹

¹ History of His Own Time, Volume I., pages 324‒325, 1823.

In the department of poetry, Scotland in the seventeenth century, unlike the two preceding ones, was rather barren. Sir William Alexander, subsequently better known as the Earl of Stirling, was a writer of rhymed compositions in the reigns of James VI. and Charles I. He broke away from his native dialect, and essayed to write in the literary English of the period; but his style is not pure or correct. He had a good command of language, but he lacked the poetic glow, though he tried his hand at various themes; his poetry is commonplace and monotonous, and often pervaded with a moralising strain.¹

¹ Alexander’s so-called “Monarchic Tragedy” was published at Edinburgh in 1603. “Thus known to James in Scotland as one of the most accomplished of his subjects there, Alexander continued after the union of the Crowns to put forth volume after volume, professedly as a British poet using the common literary tongue, vying with his English contemporaries.... At length, in 1614, appeared the huge poem, in twelve cantos of heavy eight-line stanzas, entitled ‘Doom’s Day, or the Great Day of the Lord’s Judgment.’” About this time he entered the King’s service, and was promoted step by step till he became Earl of Stirling in 1633.――Dr. Masson’s Life of Milton, Volume I., page 421.

William Drummond, of Hawthornden, attained to some distinction as a poet in the first half of the century. He was a notable man in his own lifetime, having travelled abroad, residing for some time in Paris and in Rome, and visited the most celebrated universities of the Continent. He corresponded with Ben Jonson and other English poets, and they recognised him as a member of their fraternity. He wrote a number of poems and sonnets, also a history of the first five Jameses; but his history is not of much historic value, as his special information on the subject was limited and incomplete. He left behind him various political papers relating to affairs between the years of 1632 and 1646, mainly written in support of the cause of Charles I. He died in 1649.

Drummond holds a place among the minor English poets, but represented nothing distinctively Scottish, as he wrote in the literary English of the period. His taste and culture were formed under the influences of Italian and English literature, and he seems to have shut himself out from the association and the inspiration of the vernacular. His poetry lacks fire and force, and emotional power; but on the other hand, he had a cultured taste, fancy, and a command of descriptive imagery. Some of his sacred poems exhibit poetical imagery and an easy flow of versification. In one of them, called “The Shadow of Death,” the following lines occur:――

“So seeing earth, of angels once the inn, Mansion of saints, deflowered all by sin, And quite confus’d by wretches here beneath, The world’s great sovereign moved was to wrath. Thrice did he rouse himself, thrice from his face, Flames sparkle did throughout the heavenly place, The stars, though fixed, in their rounds did quake, The earth, and earth-embracing sea did quake.”

His piece composed on the King’s visit to his native land in 1617, is one of his best; and in it he pays a warm tribute to the King’s love of peace.

But “his sonnets in particular have been praised in modern times, as among the second best in the language. In his narrative and descriptive poems he is decidedly one of the English Arcadians, with something of Browne’s sweet sensuousness, and using very musically the same metrical couplet.... If, as a poet of sensuous circumstance, Drummond has any one particular excellence, entitling him to a kind of pre-eminence, so far as that excellence could bestow it, among the minor poets, it is the description of the clear nocturnal sky and the effects of quiet moonlight on streams and fields”; as in these lines:――

“To western worlds when wearied day goes down, And from Heaven’s windows each star shows her head, Earth’s silent daughter Night is fair though brown, Fair is the moon though in love’s livery clad.”¹

¹ Dr. Masson’s Life of Milton, Volume I., pages 424‒425. An edition of Drummond’s Poems was published in 1656; a fuller one in 1711; but the most complete edition of his poems was printed for the Maitland Club in 1832.

With the progress of social organisation and civilisation, laws and legal writings accumulate; hence more legal literature was produced in Scotland in the seventeenth century than in the sixteenth. Sir Thomas Hope, the eminent advocate, and warm Covenanter, was the author of several well-known legal treatises, which were long esteemed among the faculty.

But the most famous writer of Scottish Jurisprudence was James Dalrymple, Viscount Stair, and president of the Court of Session.¹ His chief work, “The Institution of the Law of Scotland,” was long the standard authority on legal matters.² He is also the author of a digest of “The Decisions of the Court of Session, in the important cases debated before the judges, with the Acts of Sederunt,” published at Edinburgh in 1683‒87. It contained a report of cases from 1660 to the month of August, 1681, and thus it has an interesting and special historic value.

¹ Born 1619, died 1696.

² The first edition of Stair’s Institutions appeared in 1681; a second edition greatly enlarged, was published at Edinburgh in 1693; a third, corrected and enlarged, with notes, in 1759; a fourth, with commentaries and supplement by George Brodie, in 1829‒31; and another with notes and illustrations by John S. More, 1832, in two volumes.

But Lord Stair was the author of several other works of a different character. In 1686, he published in Latin a treatise entitled “Physiologia nova Experimentalis,” which was favourably noticed by Boyle. His last publication was “A Vindication of Divine Perfections, illustrating the Glory of God, by Reason and Revelation, methodically digested into several Meditations,” which appeared in 1695. In 1690, he published a defence of himself in a tract of four leaves.

Sir George Mackenzie, the notorious lord-advocate of the reign of Charles II., was a writer of reputation in his time, and a clear and vigorous thinker. He tried his hand on various subjects. His legal writings consist of “Institutes of the Law of Scotland,” “Laws and Customs in matters Criminal,” “Observations on the Laws and Customs of Nations as to precedency, with the Science of Heraldry as part of the Law of Nations.” Of these, the first is a well-arranged and digested treatise, but it is short and summary, and falls much behind Stair’s work on the same subject. The other two contain useful information forcibly expressed.

Concerning both the knowledge and the art of medicine the civilised world was still in a backward condition. The practice of surgery especially was very rude, even in its most elementary principles. In the treatment of simple wounds, “instead of bringing the edges of the wound together, and endeavouring to unite them by the first intention, as is practised in the present day, the wound was filled with dressing and acid balsams, or distended with tents and leaden tubes.... In those days every lap of skin, instead of being reunited was cut away, and every open wound was dressed as a sore, and every deep one was filled with a tent lest it should heal.”¹ Although in this branch of science there was no great advance in Scotland, yet more interest began to be manifested in the subject, and some progress was made.

¹ Physic and Physicians, Volume I., pages 42‒43.

It was stated that Sir Andrew Balfour¹ first introduced the dissection of the human body into Scotland. He projected a sick hospital for the relief of pain and poverty at the public expense. He also drew up a scheme for the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh, and formed the botanic garden there. To the public he bequeathed a museum which at that time would have been considered a great acquisition to any city. Further, he introduced into Scotland many foreign plants; and as in his youth he had travelled in foreign countries, he greatly extended his information, his culture, and experience.²

¹ Born 1630, died 1694.

² Though the Royal College of Physicians was not incorporated till 1681, it is recorded that “the doctors of physic” petitioned parliament in 1693, craving that a college of physicians should be established in Edinburgh.――_Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume V., page 283.

James Sutherland was appointed keeper of the new botanic garden in 1683. He published “A Catalogue of the Plants in the Physic Gardens at Edinburgh, containing their most proper names in Latin and in English.” In the dedication of it to the Provost of Edinburgh he says, “It has been my business for seven years past, wherein I have had the honour to serve the city as ♦intendant over the garden, to use all care and industry, by foreign correspondence, to acquire both seeds and plants from the Levant, Italy, Spain, Holland, England, and the East and West Indies, and by many painful journeys, in all seasons of the year, to recover whatever this kingdom possesses of variety, and to cultivate and to preserve them, with all possible care.”

♦ “intendent” replaced with “intendant”

After Dr. Balfour’s death, his library, consisting of about three thousand volumes, besides manuscripts, was dispersed; but his museum was placed in the hall which, till 1829, was used as the University. “There it remained many years useless and neglected, some parts of it falling into inevitable decay, and other parts being abstracted. Yet even after 1750, it still contained a considerable collection, which I have good reason to remember, as it was the sight of it about that time that inspired me with an attachment to natural history. Soon after that it was dislodged from the hall where it had been long kept, was thrown aside and exposed as lumber; was further and further dilapidated, and at length almost completely demolished. In the year 1782, out of its ruins and rubbish I extracted many pieces still valuable and useful, and placed them here in the best order I could. These, I hope, may long remain, and be considered as so many precious relics of one of the best and greatest men this country has produced.”¹

¹ Walker’s Essay on Natural History.

Sir Robert Sibbald attained a reputation as a physician and a naturalist. When the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh was incorporated in 1681, he became a member of that institution. In 1684, he published his valuable work entitled, “Scotia Illustrata sive Prodromus Historiæ Naturalis Scotiæ,” and a second edition appeared in 1696. He devoted much attention to the indigenous plants of Scotland, and discovered some rare species. In 1694, he published an interesting treatise containing “Observations on some Animals of the Whale Genus, lately thrown on the shores of Scotland.” He was also the author of a number of essays and papers, chiefly on topics connected with the antiquities of Scotland, which were written for the Royal Society, and published after his death in 1739. He wrote a description of Fife, published in 1710, which is full of interesting and curious information.

Dr. Robert Morison¹ was an industrious and persevering student of botany, and for ten years he held the position of intendant of the gardens of the Duke of Orleans. After the Restoration, the King invited him to England, and on his arrival, he was appointed royal physician, and professor of botany. In 1669, having been elected professor of botany in the University of Oxford, “he made his first entrance on the botanic lecture in the medicine school, on the 2nd of September, 1670, ♦and on the 5th of the same month, he translated himself to the physic garden, where he read in the middle of it, with a table before him, on herbs and plants thrice a week for five weeks, not without a considerable auditory. In the month of May, 1673, he read again, and so likewise in the autumn following; which course, spring and fall, he proposed always to follow, but was diverted for several years, by prosecuting his large design of publishing the universal knowledge of simples.”²

¹ Born 1620, died 1683.

♦ “aud” replaced with “and”

² Wood’s Fasti Oxonienses

He produced a work on botany which claimed to make some improvement on the system of classification, the first part of which appeared in 1672, and the second in 1680, but he did not live to finish it, having only completed nine of the fifteen classes of his own system.

Dr. Archibald Pitcairn was one of the original members of the Royal College of Physicians, and one of the most eminent of the profession in Scotland at that period.¹ He was a keen supporter and promulgator of Harvey’s doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and in 1688 he published a treatise touching that subject. He composed a number of dissertations on medical matters, which were published in a collected form in 1701; and in 1713, shortly before his death, he issued a new and enlarged edition. He belonged historically to what was sometimes called the mathematical school of physicians, that is, those who then insisted on the application of mathematical reasoning and demonstration to subjects of anatomy and physiology. Be that as it may, Pitcairn contributed to the improvement of the theory and practice of medicine, having assisted to complete Harvey’s theory of the blood, and made some advance in explaining the process of secretion. He exerted himself to explode some of the errors of preceding writers, and adopted a clear and concise mode of reasoning, and his dissertations are admirable specimens of exposition.²

¹ Born 1652, died 1713.

² An English translation of Dr. Pitcairn’s works was published in 1727, and there have been several editions of his writings issued.

Notwithstanding the unsettled state of Scotland in the seventeenth century, some of her sons contributed to the progress of science, although no genius of the highest rank arose to illuminate the pages of our annals; still several steps in science were taken which tended to extend the bounds of knowledge. Dr. James Gregory,¹ the inventor of the reflecting telescope, had directed his attention to the study of mathematical science from his boyhood, and in 1663, when only twenty-five, he published his treatise on optics. In this work he gave the first description of the reflecting telescope. The year after the publication of his work, he went to London, with the intention of having his telescope constructed, and was introduced to Mr. Reves, an optical instrument maker, but he could not finish the mirrors on the tool so as to preserve the figure. Indeed so unsuccessful was the trial of the telescope, that the inventor was discouraged from making more attempts to improve it. Thus the want of mere mechanical manipulation for a time delayed the completion of the instrument, and the inventor never had the satisfaction of seeing it completed.

¹ Born 1638, died 1675.

Sir Isaac Newton objected to this telescope on the ground that ♦the hole in the large speculum would cause the loss of so much light, and six years later invented his own one, in which this defect was obviated. Both forms, however, were long used, the Gregorian when the instrument was of moderate size, and the Newtonian one generally when the instrument was required to be large.¹

♦ duplicate word “the” removed

¹ Hutton’s Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary; _Life of Dr. Reid_, prefixed to Hamilton’s edition of Reid’s works.

Dr. Gregory was the author of several other geometrical treatises, which were important contributions to the science of the time. Having been elected a member of the Royal Society, he read various papers before it. He was also appointed professor of mathematics in the University of St. Andrews; but was subsequently transferred to the mathematical chair in the University of Edinburgh, which he held till his death in 1675, at the early age of thirty-seven.

David Gregory, a nephew of the preceding professor, attained distinction as a professor of mathematics, a scientific writer, and a commentator.¹ He was educated at the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and when only twenty-three years of age, he was appointed professor of mathematics in the latter. The following year he published a small treatise in Latin concerning the dimensions of figures, in which he made various references to the speculations of his uncle, from whom he received some of his materials.

¹ Born 1661, died 1708.

He has the distinction of being the first public teacher who taught the Newtonian system in the schools, which his brother James likewise introduced into the University of St. Andrews. David Gregory remained in the University of Edinburgh for seven years, expounding “The Principia” of Newton, and lecturing on optics. In 1691, the Savilian professorship of Astronomy in the University of Oxford became vacant, and Gregory proceeded to London with the view of offering himself as a candidate for the post. There he was introduced to Newton, who gave him a testimonial, which stated: “Being desired by David Gregory, mathematical professor of the College in Edinburgh, to testify my knowledge of him, and having known him by his printed mathematical performances, and by discoursing with travellers from Scotland, and of late by conversation with him, I do account him one of the most able and judicious mathematicians of his age now living. He is very well skilled in analysis and geometry, both old and new. He has been conversant with the best writers about astronomy, and understands that science very well. He is not only acquainted with books, but his invention in mathematical things is also good. He has performed his duties in Edinburgh with credit, as I hear, and advanced the mathematics. He is reputed the greatest mathematician in Scotland, and that deservedly so far as my knowledge reaches, for I esteem him an ornament to his country, and upon these accounts do recommend him to the electors of the astronomy professor for the place in Oxford now vacant.” Newton also gave him a letter of introduction to Mr. Flamsteed, the astronomer-royal. Gregory was elected professor of astronomy at Oxford in 1692; and about the same time he was admitted a member of the Royal Society, and he contributed to their transactions various papers. He occupied the chair of astronomy till his death.¹

¹ Letters Written by Eminent Persons, Volume I., page 177, 1813; Whiston’s Memoirs.

Gregory’s writings were mainly on mathematical subjects and the principles of the Newtonian system. In 1702 he published his greatest work, “Astronomiæ Physicæ et Geometricæ Elementa,” the aim of which was to present a connected view of Newton’s system, and thus it contained a digest of the “Principia.” Gregory manifested a great faculty of arrangement and exposition, and it was admitted by Newton himself that the work gave an excellent exposition and defence of his system. Much ability was shown in the illustrations. It appears that Newton had communicated to the author his theory of the moon, and given him some other curious information touching the notions of the ancients on the subject of gravitation. This work was reprinted at Geneva in 1713, and two editions of an English translation of it appeared, the last in 1726, in two volumes. Dr. Gregory edited an edition of the works of Euclid, which was published in 1703. He also left unpublished works, some of which were printed after his death.

John Keill was the author of several treatises on the new physics. He was a warm adherent of the Newtonian system, and it was reported that he was amongst the first who explained and illustrated the new system by experiments at Oxford about the end of the seventeenth century. His first work was an examination of Dr. Burnet’s “Theory of the Earth,” with some remarks on Whiston’s “Theory of the Earth,” published in 1698. It involved him in a controversy with the authors whose works he had attacked. In 1700 he published “An Introduction to Natural Philosophy,” being lectures read in the University of Oxford in Latin, but an English translation soon after appeared. This work was considered an able and useful introduction to the Newtonian system, and it has often been reprinted in England, and was translated into French.

Keill entered the arena as a warm supporter and defender of Newton in the famous dispute between Leibnitz and Newton about the priority of their claims to the invention of fluxions and the calculus. Into the evidence or the merits of this question I cannot enter here, but it may be said that Keill and some others who took part in the discussion introduced into it rather too much vehemence and passion. In 1712 Keill was appointed Professor of Astronomy in the University of Oxford, and in 1718 he published “An Introduction to the True Astronomy: or Astronomical Lectures read in the Astronomical School of the University of Oxford,” of which an English translation was published in 1721, which was long regarded as a standard work.

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Chapter XXXIII

Education and Art in the Seventeenth Century.

AS we have seen in the second volume, after the Reformation many efforts were made to extend the elements of Education to the people. Though the nation was disturbed touching forms of Church polity, and often torn by civil war and persecution, yet the parish and elementary schools increased in number during the century, while the number of adventure-schools which appeared throughout the kingdom humbly praying for liberty to teach, indicates a growing and pretty general desire among the people to partake of the benefits of education. Thus there were signs that the mass of ignorance was slowly but surely yielding to the influences of civilisation. Still, the vagrant habits of many persons, the severe oppression of a portion of the people, and many other obstacles, required a long time to elapse ere they could be thoroughly overcome or a complete system of national education established.

The legislature, the church, and the local authorities, all endeavoured to promote the education of the people. In 1616 the Privy Council enacted that there should be a school established in every parish of the kingdom, and the Act was to be carried into effect with the concurrence of the burghs. But this Act was not fully carried out, and so ten years later the Government ordered a report to be drawn up on the state of the parishes throughout the kingdom, from which it appeared that the majority of the parishes were then without regular schools. Parliament in 1633 ratified the Act of Council, and further enacted that the bishops, with the consent of the majority of the parishioners, might impose a rate upon the possessors of land for establishing and supporting the parish schools. In 1641 the subject came again before Parliament in the form of an overture, which, among other points concerning schools and education, stated that “every parish should have a reader and a school wherein children are to be taught in reading and writing, and the grounds of religion, according to the laudable acts both of church and parliament before enacted.” One of the articles in the overture on the schools was to this effect: “The Assembly would supplicate the parliament that for youths of the finest and best spirits of the Highlands and Borders, maintenance may be allowed as to bursars, to be trained in the Universities.” Again, in 1645, Parliament ordered “that there be a school founded, and a schoolmaster appointed in every parish not already provided.” For this purpose the proprietors in every congregation were enjoined to meet and to provide a suitable building for a school, and modify a salary to the schoolmaster, which should not be under one hundred merks or above two hundred annually. A rate was to be imposed by the proprietors to maintain the schools and pay the schoolmasters; but if they could not agree among themselves to settle the matter, then in that case, the presbytery were to nominate twelve honest men within its bounds, who should be empowered to execute the work of establishing a school, which should be as valid as if the proprietors had done it themselves.¹ But troubles came fast and thick upon the party then at the head of affairs, and this Act was not put into operation.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume V., pages 21, 367; Volume VI., page 216.

In 1696 Parliament anew enacted that a school and schoolmaster should be established in every parish not already provided “by advice of the proprietors and the minister of the parish.” As in the Act of 1645, they were enjoined to provide a suitable building for a school, and settle a salary to a schoolmaster, which should not be under one hundred merks (five pounds and eleven shillings) sterling, or above two hundred merks (eleven pounds, two shillings, and twopence.) The proprietors were to pay a share of the rate according to their valued rent within the parish, “allowing each of them relief from his tenants of the half of his proportion for settling and maintaining of a school and payment of the schoolmaster’s salary.... If the proprietors, or a majority of them, shall not meet, or being met and shall not agree among themselves, then in that case, the Presbytery shall apply to the commissioners of supply of the shire, who, or any five of them, shall have power to establish a school, and settle and modify a salary for the schoolmaster, and to rate and lay on the same upon the proprietors according to their valued rent, which shall be as valid and effectual as if it had been done by the proprietors themselves. And because the proportion imposed upon each proprietor will be but small, therefore for the better and more ready payment thereof, it is ordained that if two terms’ proportions run in and the third unpaid, then those that so fail in payment shall be liable in double of their proportions then resting, and in the double of every term’s proportion that shall be resting thereafter, until the schoolmaster be completely paid, and that without any defalcation.”¹ From this date the parish system of primary schools became established and continued without interruption, excepting in some parts of the Highlands, where parishes were so large as to render the act inoperative; but ultimately other means of providing elementary education in those remote quarters of the kingdom were adopted.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume X., page 63.

Throughout this period there were elementary schools in many of the towns distinct from the grammar or burgh schools. But it must be observed that the grammar schools from an early period enjoyed a monopoly of teaching certain branches, as they were protected more or less strictly until recent times. Education like trade and everything else was subject to the spirit and the influences of the age, and a few examples of the modes of protection in this field may be interesting to many. In 1668, the town council of Edinburgh stated that it was illegal for any person to teach Latin or grammar within the city, except the masters of the high school, and that none residing in the town might send their children to be taught without the gates; nevertheless, several persons were teaching within the city, “to its public loss, and to the overthrow of the high school.” And therefore the council “ordained that no person upon any pretence whatever teach grammar within the city except at the schools of Leith, Canongate, and the readers’ school of West Port; and that no inhabitant send their children to any other place within the liberties of the city; and anyone teaching in contempt of this act shall be imprisoned, and parents sending their children elsewhere shall pay quarterly to the master of the high school as much as his other scholars.”¹ Yet “the adventure schools seemed to have gained ground on the high school in the course of 1684, when the doctors appeal for augmentation, because of the number of private schools which, if suppressed, will become their mortal enemies, slandering them to all concerned.”²

¹ Burgh Records of Edinburgh.

² Grant’s History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland, page 136.

In 1686, the town of Wigton ordered that no other school but the burgh one should be permitted there, except for girls to learn sewing, under a fine on the teachers of ten pounds quarterly, and five groats on parents for each child. The town council of Banff, in 1688, prohibited private schools within the burgh under the penalty of banishment. In 1693, the council of Edinburgh ordered the doors of private schools to be closed; while, in 1698, the council of Stirling ordained that no child above six years of age should be taught in any school but the grammar school, no private school was to be permitted. The town council of Selkirk, in 1721, having appointed an English master, prohibited all other persons from teaching English to boys within the burgh.¹

¹ Grant’s History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland, pages 138‒140; Burgh Records of Banff; _Burgh Records of Stirling_.

The English or primary schools in the burghs were partly under the control of the magistrates, and their sanction had to be obtained before a teacher could open a school. In March, 1636, the town council of Aberdeen discovered that three women had opened a school without asking or receiving a license from the council, and that they were teaching their scholars to read, and thus injuring the masters of the English schools, who had been authorised and admitted by the council; therefore, the council prohibited these women from keeping a school for teaching the children, excepting only schools for “learning the bairns” to sew and weave, and no further; “and that with the licence of the council, sought and obtained, and in no other way.”¹ In 1658, William Findlay applied to the council for liberty to teach an English school, stating that he had been a teacher in John Brown’s school, that he thought himself capable of conducting an English and writing school, and that he was very anxious to do it, if their honours should see fit to authorise him. The council, having considered his application, granted him a licence to open a school in the Green or Shoregate, “for teaching the young ones and children of the inhabitants of this burgh, during the council’s pleasure, and his good service in that charge.”²

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume III., page 98.

² Ibid., Volume IV., page 176.

The council of Glasgow, in 1639, enacted that there should be four English schools in the city, with a writing school, “and the masters of these schools to be admitted by the council, and to receive instructions from them touching the school hours and other matters, and this act to be proclaimed by sound of drum.” But in 1654, eight teachers had taken up Scots schools without authority in the city, and they then humbly supplicated the magistrates to be allowed to continue them, while two others prayed that they might be permitted to open new Scots schools. After consideration, the magistrates authorised them, on condition that they conducted themselves religiously, praying morning and evening in the schools, exacting only certain fees, and instructing all poor children without fees, whose parents or friends required them to do this; while it was declared that the opening of ♦schools without the authority of the magistrates “was against all reason, and contrary to precedent, and to what had been heretofore observed.” In 1663, fourteen persons, male and female, were authorised to keep Scots schools in Glasgow.¹

♦ “scheols” replaced with “schools”

¹ Burgh Records of Glasgow, page 397; Grant’s History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland, page 385.

In 1662, the town council of ♦Aberdeen concluded that the English and reading schools of the burgh had been for several years much neglected and abused, owing to there being too many licenced to teach, who were incapable of teaching. But the council, having now brought John Gormak from Edinburgh, a highly qualified teacher of reading and writing, to assume the duties of teaching in the city, and that the schools may be better regulated and the youth better instructed in future, “resolved to have a school for teaching the young ones in reading and in writing; and that Robert Webster, who also has the liberty of the school, continue it for teaching and instructing the children in reading and arithmetic; and John Moubray to have the liberty of a school for teaching the children of Footdee and the Castlegate; prohibiting all other persons from keeping any English schools for reading, writing, or arithmetic, within this burgh, except such women as the council shall permit, for instructing children in the grounds of reading.” The same year, the council admitted Barbara Mollison as teacher of the school founded by the Lady of Rothiemay, “in this burgh, for teaching the young ones in reading, writing, and sewing.”¹

♦ “Aberbeen” replaced with “Aberdeen”

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., page 201.

From an early period, French was very generally taught in Scotland, but no other modern language was introduced into the schools until very recent times. In 1635, the town council of Aberdeen authorised Alexander Rolland to open a French school in the city, “for teaching the youth, and such as shall please to come to him, and for that end to put up a sign before his school door, to give notice of his licence, to all who are anxious to learn the French tongue.”¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume III., page 80.

The Church was invested with the power of visiting and examining all the parish schools of the kingdom, and she manifested a deep interest in their welfare. But the Church also claimed, and generally exercised the right of visiting and examining all the schools in the realm, though, in the case of the burgh or grammar schools, she usually acted in conjunction with the town councils or the magistrates. These visitations of the schools were made at stated times, and helped to sustain their spirit and efficiency.

Thus in 1629, the town council of Aberdeen appointed four men to assist Dr. Forbes, Dr. Dun, Dr. Johnston, and Mr. Robert Barron, in the visitation of the Grammar, English, and Music schools of the city, enjoining them to take notice of the form of doctrine and discipline in all of them, and how the masters and the scholars observed the rules and the instructions set down for their guidance. “And wherein they find any of the masters deficient, either in doctrine or discipline, to report this to the council, with their proposals as to how all such defects should be remedied, to the end that the magistrates may order reformation, according to an act formerly drawn up. It was also commanded that the laws of all the schools should be printed and affixed in every school, that neither master nor scholar may pretend ignorance.”¹ In 1652, the council of Peebles ordered the school to be visited, and the minister to be informed thereof. The town council of Jedburgh, in 1656, ordered visitations of the school to be made twice a year, in May and November, “in order that the master and assistant shall be tried, concerning the soundness of their judgment in matters of religion, their ability as teachers, the honesty of their conversation, and the fidelity with which they discharge their duties, so that the proficiency of the scholars may be known.”²

¹ Ibid., Volume III., pages 14, 26, et seq.

² Burgh Records of Peebles; Burgh Records of Jedburgh; Grant’s History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland, page 148.

The General Assembly of 1642 appointed a committee to consider the time and manner of visiting schools, and the best and most orderly course for teaching grammar. And in 1645, the Assembly, with the aim of advancing learning and good order in grammar schools, enacted that every grammar school should be visited twice in the year by visitors appointed by the presbytery and kirk-session in landward parishes, by the town council and ministers in burghs, and by the universities where there are any, always with the consent of the patrons of the school, in order that the diligence of masters, and the proficiency of scholars may be ascertained, and deficiency censured.¹ The Presbyteries, generally, were painstaking and careful in assisting to conduct these examinations.

¹ Acts of the General Assembly.

In 1659, the town council of Aberdeen, considering that the quarterly visitation of the grammar and music schools of the city, appointed by the former acts, if rightly conducted, would tend to promote the learning of the youth, approved the following regulations, together with the laws of the school adopted in 1636: 1. That there should be four solemn visitations of the grammar school every year, one at the beginning of every quarter, at which the scholars should be tried in making themes, interpreting and analysing authors, and making verses, which will take up one day, if rightly done. 2. That the master of the grammar school should keep a register of visitations, in which should be entered “the laws of the school,” printed about the year 1636, and also the act of council approving these regulations; and the scholar who at the quarterly visitation gains the prize, should with his own hand insert his name in the register, mentioning whether he gained it by making a theme or a verse, or analysing authors, and also recording the date of the visitation, which must be done by nonas idus calendus, the master helping those of the lower classes to enter it correctly, and the prizeman’s name to be affixed above his class till the next visitation. 3. That each scholar in the school should have an antagonist, who as near as possible should be his equal, for stirring up emulation, and neither to receive help in his trials at the visitation. 4. The masters should keep the themes of the present visitation until the next quarterly visitation, that their proficiency may be observed. 5. Those who make the best verse and the best theme should each have a prize, after it appears by examination to be their own composition. 6. At every quarterly visitation there should be public acting, short recitations and declamations before the visitors, that the scholars may learn boldness and vivacity in public speaking. 7. When two or more are equal in making a theme or in any other point of trial, they may be put to an extempore trial for ascertaining the order of merit; but the visitors must be careful not to discourage the unsuccessful competitor, who should also receive a word of public commendation when the prize is given to the victor. 8. That the visitors should test the scholars on the grounds of religion by asking some questions of the Shorter Catechism, and to ascertain if they understood them.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 180‒182.

The Town Council of Aberdeen passed an act for redressing abuses which had arisen in the Grammar School in 1671. The scholars were interrupted in their learning by being changed from one teacher to another too often, as the assistant teachers were changed from one class to another every quarter, therefore it was settled that all the assistant teachers should begin with the scholars they received at each of the four quarters of the year, and carry them on continuously till they were fit for entering the master’s class. “Seeing that in the three years’ time, the scholars coming in May and in August cannot be so far advanced as those who came in autumn and at Candlemas, their teacher having delivered up the autumn scholars to the master’s class, he may begin to receive the new class in the elementary branch at the same time, and also perfect the rest of his former classes, and always as he receives a new class every quarter so he may give off the class of his former course every quarter to the master’s class, and so every third year each teacher of the school is to receive the scholars of a whole year, and at the four general quarters go up with his own scholars to the master’s class. And if any boy through neglect or dullness of understanding fall short of his fellows, by the advice of the visitors or with consent of his parents, he ought to descend under the master that teaches next to that class.” The mode of exercising discipline being defective, it was enjoined that the head master and the assistant teachers should exercise discipline every twenty-four hours upon the scholars under their respective charges. The master and teachers had been in the habit of not attending to their duty till eight in the morning, therefore it was enacted that one of the teachers should be in the school every day at six in the morning, and the head master and the rest of the teachers should be in the school every day before seven, that the scholars might not be idle when they came. It was ordered that one at least of the teachers should attend the scholars when they were at their play, to keep them in the usual playgrounds, and see that they did not hurt each other.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 270‒272.

In 1700 the council of Aberdeen, the principal and regents of Marischal College, and the ministers of the city, framed a set of rules for the government of the Grammar School. It was resolved that a solemn visitation of the school should be held annually in the beginning of October, at which the scholars were to be examined, and prizes awarded to the most deserving. Besides this, there should be three other visitations at intervals of three months conducted by members of the council, the ministers of the burgh, and one or two of the regents of the College. Further, two or more of the magistrates should visit the school on the first Tuesday of every month and inquire how the rules and the discipline of the school were observed. At the same time they appointed the method of teaching grammar and the classical authors, and enjoined that they should be diligently pursued.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., page 327.

As to the subjects taught in the grammar schools and the method of teaching, there seems to have been a gradual improvement. In the higher class of schools the course extended to five years. At the High School of Edinburgh in 1640 the order of teaching was as follows:――For the first half of the first year the scholars were taught the principles of grammar “in vernaculo sermone,” at the same time learning the Latin names of everything on earth and in heaven; and during the second half they had daily to repeat a certain portion of grammar, and learn particular sentences relating to life and manners. The first half of the second year they daily repeated certain parts of grammar, especially as laid down by Despauter,¹ translating it into English, and at the same time reading Cordery’s Colloquies; while, during the second half, they were taught daily the Syntax of Erasmus, the masters teaching and the scholars learning in the Latin language. Throughout the third year they repeated daily a portion of etymology and syntax, being exercised in reading Cicero’s De Senectute and De Amicitia, Terence’s Comedies and Elegies, Ovid’s Tristia, Buchanan’s Psalms, and Cicero’s Epistles, reading the same clara voce. The fourth year, for the first month they repeated daily what they had already learned, being taught Buchanan’s Prosody, Despauter’s Select Rules, and Buchanan’s Epigrams and Poetry. During the rest of the year they were exercised in poetry and in the practice of the rules of grammar, reading Virgil, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Horace, Buchanan’s Psalms, translating Cicero, Cæsar, and Terence, and the beauties of these authors were explained to them. The fifth year they studied the rhetoric of Tully, and the compendious rhetoric of Cassander, read Cicero’s Orations, the short speeches in Sallust, Virgil, and Lucan, and were at all times enjoined to read audibly and distinctly, and declaim.²

¹ A notable Flemish grammarian, who flourished from 1460 to 1520, and whose grammar long continued to be used in our schools.

² Chalmers’ Life of Ruddiman, pages 88‒90; Grant’s _History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland_, page 339. For comparison of the above course of instruction in this school with the earlier one adopted in 1598, see the second volume of this history, pages 404‒5.

The course of the Grammar School of Glasgow and that of Aberdeen also extended to five years, and the class of subjects and the instruction imparted being very similar in these schools, though there were some variations which may be a little further illustrated. In 1685, at the request of the Town Council of Glasgow, the regents of the College and the ministers of the city framed a scheme of teaching for the Grammar School. According to it, the first year the scholars were to be taught the common rudiments of Latin, including the Vocables; the second year the larger half of the first part of grammar, with Cordery’s Colloquies, Erasmus’s Minor Colloquies, and some select epistles of Cicero and Cato. The third year they were to be taught the other half of the first part of grammar, and a short piece of the second, as far as Regimen Genitivi; and for authors they were to have Ovid’s Epistles, Buchanan’s Psalms, especially such of them as are written in elegiac verse, with themes and versions from the best authors. The fourth year they were to learn the rest of Syntax from Regimen Genitivi, repeating the former parts, and reading Cæsar’s Commentaries, Justin’s History, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Virgil. The fifth year they were to be perfected in the third and fourth parts of the Latin grammar, and to learn Buchanan’s Epigrams, Jephtes, and Baptistes, and also select parts of Horace and Juvenal, with exercises in poetry, in themes and versions.¹

¹ Grant’s History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland, page 338.

The course of instruction in the grammar school of Aberdeen, in 1700, was ordered as follows: “The entrants should read Latin during the first quarter, or longer if the masters thought fit. After this, they should learn the declensions, comparisons, pronouns, conjugations, and the rest of the rudiments, to the constructions, and they should also learn by heart the first four sections of Webberburn’s Vocables, and decline and conjugate them; with the constructions they should have the two last sections of Vocables. With the first part of the grammar they should have Tully, Sulpicius, Distich of Cato, Ovid’s Epistles, Virgil’s Epigrams, and Terentii Andria; and for prose authors, Cordery, Erasmus’s Minor Colloquies, and Cicero’s Minor Epistles; and for sacred prose, Ursin’s Catechism, Dialogi Sacra Sebastiani. With the second part of the grammar, Virgil’s Eclogues and the fourth book of his Georgics, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, should be used; for prose authors, Curtius, Sallust, and Cæsar’s Commentaries; and for sacred lessons, Buchanan’s Paraphrase of the Psalms. With the third part of the grammar, Virgil’s second and sixth Æneids, and Horace’s Odes; and for prose authors, Cicero’s Offices, and Erasmus’s Minor Colloquies; and for sacred lessons, Buchanan’s ♦Paraphrase continued. With the fourth part of the grammar, some of the select Satires of Horace, the tenth and thirteenth Satires of Juvenal, and some of the Satires of Persius; and for prose authors, Livy’s First Decade, and Buchanan’s History, together with the turning and making of verse, dictates of rhetoric and rules of elegance, to which should be added some practice in composing and resolving orations according to the rules of rhetoric. After Despauter’s Grammar, Kirkwood’s Orthography and Syntax should be learned, with his tract, De Variis Carminum Generibus. Throughout the prose authors, the choicest sentences of each day’s lesson should be dictated in Latin and in English, together with the versions of each day’s lesson, and for each lesson throughout the several factions, a daily conference should be appointed. As to composition, the public arguments should be dictated thrice a week, and besides these the high class should have five arguments more. On Saturday afternoon there should be disputes, repeating of rules and authors publicly by the several classes in turn; and all the rules and questions of the Shorter Catechism should be repeated once a week publicly. In the winter quarter each scholar of the higher class should repeat a fable of Æsop from the public desk before the whole class.” Rules were also adopted for regulating the discipline of the school, the play-days, and the tasks for Sunday.¹

♦ “Paraphase” replaced with “Paraphrase”

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., 327‒332.

Though provision was made for teaching Greek in some of the grammar schools, it was not generally taught in these schools during the seventeenth century. There are some notices of the teaching of Greek in the schools; thus in the high school of Edinburgh, a class was established for teaching the rudiments of Greek, in 1614. In 1625, 1642, 1656, the masters of the grammar school of Stirling promised to teach all the scholars both Latin and Greek grammar. The town council of Aberdeen, in 1661, authorised Mr. William Aidy to teach scholars in the Greek tongue at such hours as should not interfere with the teaching of the grammar school. In 1663, Latin and Greek were taught in the school of Dumfries. As indicated before, Latin, and its classic writers, formed the chief subject-matter in the higher grammar schools. But in most of the smaller grammar or burgh schools, English was taught, including even reading, spelling, and writing. Throughout this period, however, there is little mention of the teaching of arithmetic, or any branch of mathematics, geography, or drawing; and, indeed, in these and other cognate branches of knowledge the nation as yet was not far advanced.¹ From about the end of the seventeenth century onward the subject of navigation was assiduously taught in the schools of the chief seaport towns of Scotland. In 1673, the master of the Scots school at Ayr was enjoined to teach the children to paint, but there was little teaching of drawing anywhere.

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV.; _Burgh Records of Stirling_; Grant’s _History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland_, page 332.

The town councils throughout the kingdom frequently encouraged and rewarded their school teachers. In 1620, the master of the grammar school of Paisley was made a burgess and freeman of the burgh, and in 1632, the assistant teacher, for his encouragement, was made a burgess without paying any composition; and again, in 1685, the master of the grammar school was admitted a burgess gratis, on account of his service to the town, and for his encouragement. In 1677, the master of the grammar school of Ayr was made a burgess and guild brother “for the good service which he had done in attending on the scholars in the school.” The town council of Aberdeen, in 1632, granted to David Wedderburn, master of the grammar school, the sum of two hundred merks Scots, for printing his grammar, lately published, which he had dedicated to the council.

During the century some interest was manifested in the teaching of music. In a considerable number of the schools music was taught as a subordinate branch of education, and there were also, in different places, separate schools for teaching the vocal and instrumental forms. In 1624, the town council of Glasgow arranged with James Sanders to teach all the children of the burgh who should be sent to his music school, allowing him ten shillings each quarter, and three shillings and fourpence for his assistant. Then the provost and magistrates prohibited all other schools from teaching music in the city, unless they were licensed by the council. But in 1638, their music school had decayed, “to the disgrace of the city, and the regret of all honest citizens;” the council, therefore, with the consent of James Sanders, appointed Duncan Burnett to teach the music school. In 1669, the council agreed to give the teacher of music three hundred and fifty merks annually, and the bishop of Glasgow also was to give one hundred pounds Scots. In 1691, the music master was to receive fourteen shillings monthly for teaching one hour daily, and for writing the thirteen common tunes and some psalms, fourteen shillings; and further, the magistrates allowed him one hundred pounds Scots yearly.¹ The town council of Stirling, in 1620, granted to the teacher of music an annual salary of twenty pounds, with six shillings and eightpence quarterly, for every scholar of the town learning music; and in 1694, the precentor of the burgh was appointed to keep a public school for teaching singing and playing. Frequently the master of the song school was also English or rather Scots master, and taught the children reading and spelling, and sometimes writing and grammar. In 1621, the master of the music school of Dunbar was also the English master of the town school. Shortly before the Restoration, the music school of Elgin was converted into an English school, music, however, being still taught.²

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume III., page 50; _Burgh Records of Paisley_; Burgh Records of Ayr; _Burgh Records of Glasgow_, pages 354, 388, et seq.

² Grant’s History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland, pages 381‒382.

In 1636, the town council of Aberdeen admitted Andrew Melville to be master of the music school. He had already been a teacher of music for eighteen years, and the council thought he had produced sufficient evidence of his qualifications in the art. They, therefore, appointed him master of the music school, to teach the art of singing and playing, stipulated that he should find a properly qualified assistant, to instruct and attend to scholars, and also to take up the psalms in both the churches of the city, at preaching and at prayers, evening and morning, on week-days and Sunday. In 1666, the council agreed to give Thomas Davidson, the master of the music school, a salary of two hundred and fifty merks annually, with school fees. The council, in 1675, issued a notice inviting persons expert in the science of music to compete for the office of master of the song school; and this brought an application from a Frenchman, who had been teaching music in Edinburgh with much success. The council engaged him for one year, or longer if they thought fit, at an annual salary of two hundred pounds, and thirty shillings quarterly from each scholar. His hours for teaching were fixed from seven to nine, and ten to eleven, in the forenoon, and from two to three in the afternoon.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 212, 226, 292‒293. In 1682, the town council of Aberdeen granted John Forbes, printer, one hundred pounds Scots, as a gratuity, in recognition of his merit in publishing a book for the instruction of the young, which he dedicated to the provost and council. Ibid., page 302. The council, in 1643, granted John Row four hundred merks Scots, in consideration of his having taught the Hebrew tongue, and published a Hebrew Dictionary, which he dedicated to the council. Ibid., Volume III., pages 165, 248.

Passing to the Universities of Scotland, we cannot record that they exhibited any marked advance in the seventeenth century. There was scarcely any improvement or change in the regular methods of imparting knowledge, but some additional subjects were introduced. Amidst the ecclesiastical and political wars under which the nation groaned, letters, science, philosophy, and art, could not be expected to bloom and ripen. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to find that in spite of adverse circumstances, much violence, suffering, and poverty, many of the people continued to take a lively interest in the diffusion of the higher education.

About the beginning of the century, the magistrates and council of Glasgow manifested a keen interest in the preservation of the rights of their University. And in 1630, the town council, upon a petition from the principal and the regents of the University for assistance to erect a new building, agreed to contribute a sum of one thousand merks when the building was commenced, and another thousand merks to purchase books for increasing the number of volumes in the library. Later in the century, we find the council still taking a warm interest in the College.¹ The town council of Aberdeen, in 1634, granted four hundred merks to the masters and regents of King’s College, to help to repair the crown of the College, which had lately been broken down by a tempest. In 1642, the council granted four hundred merks to aid in repairing the College of the burgh. The same year the council commanded that all the bursars admitted into the College of the burgh should diligently attend all the public lectures and lessons of the several professors, during the time that they received the benefit of their bursaries. The town council also appointed Mr. John Row to teach Hebrew in the College of the burgh. Dr. Robert Dun bequeathed his books to the College, and the town council was careful to see them placed in the library, and entered in a catalogue. In 1694, the council gave a contribution of five hundred merks for the observatory of Marischal College.²

¹ Burgh Records of Glasgow, pages 217‒223, 245, 275, 336, 340, 345, 351, 352.

² Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume III., pages 26, 59, 67; Volume IV., pages 169, 199, 232, 315.

As observed in the last volume, each dominant party in the government eagerly sought to impose their views upon the universities. When the Covenanting party gained the ascendancy, it was resolved, in 1639, that all masters and teachers of universities, colleges, and schools, and all scholars at the passing of their examination for degrees, should subscribe the Covenant, and this resolution was carried out by a commission of visitation between 1639 and 1642.¹ One of the proposals touching the universities which the General Assembly presented to Parliament in 1641, was to the following effect:――That in order to remove and to prevent abuses in the universities, to promote piety and learning, it was very requisite and highly expedient that a constant intercourse and correspondence should be kept up between all the universities and colleges of the kingdom. And, therefore, it should be ordained that a meeting of commissioners from all the universities and colleges should be held once every year, at such time and place as should be agreed upon, who should consult and determine upon their common affairs, and the best means of advancing the end above specified; and who also, or some of their number, should represent to parliament, and to the General Assembly, what should be necessary and best for the universities. Another item was, that special care should be taken that all the chairs in the universities, and more especially the chairs of divinity, should be filled with the ablest men, and the best affected to the Reformation and the order of the Church.²

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume V., pages 291‒293.

² Ibid., Volume V., page 367.

It was not merely the doctrines and political opinions taught in the universities that were affected by the changes and the revolutions in the government, but even the funds of these institutions were greatly affected, being often diminished and sometimes a little increased. The general seizure of Church property and funds at the Reformation has been already explained. The portion that belonged to the universities was, like the rest, generally diverted from its purpose, notwithstanding the efforts made to recover it; but without enlarging on this, it may be well to state a few facts. In 1641, parliament passed an act, granting the revenues of the bishopric and the priory of St. Andrews to the University of St. Andrews; that is, the income of the dismissed primate of Scotland was now to be transferred to the principal, the regents, and the professors of the University of St. Andrews. Accordingly, the Estates appointed a commission for the visitation of the Colleges of St. Andrews, to distribute the above fund among the principals, professors, and other members of the University, assigning due proportions to each of the three Colleges. The commission was also empowered to order the course of studies, to rectify what was wrong, to recommend what was best for training the students in religion and in learning, and to report their proceedings to the Estates.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, pages 382, 448‒450, 483, 498‒499.

In 1641, the King and parliament granted to the University of Glasgow the temporality of the bishopric of Galloway, and ordered that the name and the memory of this bishopric should be suppressed and extinguished. The same year the Estates passed an act assigning the revenues of the bishopric of Aberdeen to the Colleges of Old and New Aberdeen. Cromwell, as we have seen, had to listen to some scathing preaching against himself in Glasgow; and though the majority of the professors and masters of the University submitted, with much reluctance to his government, still, Oliver and his council renewed all its immunities and privileges, adding that of printing bibles and all kinds of books relating to the liberal sciences or licensed by the University. The Protector further confirmed all former foundations, mortifications, and donations made in favour of the University, and particularly those of the bishopric of Galloway, adding thereto, for seven years to come, the vacant stipends of the parishes which had been in the patronage of the bishop of Galloway, also in perpetuity, the revenues of the deanery and sub-deanery of Glasgow. This last gift, however, was under several restrictions, by which the University could not obtain possession of the subjects during Cromwell’s rule; however, as his acts were rescinded at the Restoration, it fell to the ground.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume V., page 566; Dr. Reid’s Account of the University of Glasgow.

At the Restoration, the universities were as far as possible made subservient to the government and its principles. When Episcopacy was re-established, the funds which the universities were receiving from the revenues of the bishoprics, as above indicated, were at once withdrawn. This crippled them for some time. At this time there were eight chairs in the University of Glasgow, but three of them had to be given up, and the five which remained were reduced to very low salaries, while the College buildings remained in an unfinished condition. According to the report of a visitation appointed by parliament in 1644, an annual sum of three thousand nine hundred and forty-one pounds Scots should speedily be provided for the University, otherwise it would quickly decay and go to ruin; for it had a great load of debt, and many chairs wanting which it should have, but cannot for want of revenue. In this state, however, it continued till after the Revolution. In 1693, however, each of the Scotch universities received a grant of three hundred pounds annually out of the bishops’ rents in Scotland. They continued to struggle on, but none of them have yet become very rich institutions.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VII., page 498. Dr. Reid’s Account of the University of Glasgow.

After the Revolution, of course, the universities had to be purged, and in 1690, parliament passed an act authorising the visitation of all the educational establishments of the kingdom. A long list of commissioners were named in the act, and empowered to proceed, and to see that no person disaffected to the government, or otherwise disqualified, should be permitted to remain in any of the universities or schools, upon the ground of its being necessary “for the advancement of religion and learning, the good of the Church, and the peace of the kingdom, that the universities, colleges, and schools be provided and served with pious, able, and qualified principals, professors, regents, masters, and others bearing office therein, well affected to their Majesties, and the established government of Church and State.” Therefore it was enacted that henceforward “no professors, principals, regents, masters, or others bearing office in any university, college, or school, in this kingdom, be permitted to continue in the exercise of their functions, but such as shall acknowledge and profess, and subscribe, the Confession of Faith, ratified by this parliament; and also swear and subscribe the oath of allegiance to their Majesties: and withal shall be found of a pious, loyal, and peaceable conversation, and of good and sufficient literature and abilities for their respective employments; and submitting to the government of the Church now settled by law.”¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IX., pages 163‒164.

In 1695, the commissioners of the universities had arrived at the conclusion that none of the text-books should be of foreign origin. “They tell the commissioners of parliament that it is altogether dishonourable to the universities, and the famed learning of the nation, that a course of philosophy should be made the standard of authority, which none belonging to the universities have composed. They criticise the existing books and systems of logic and philosophy. The existing courses of philosophy are either not intended and suited for students, or they are in themselves objectionable. The course that runs the fairest is, ‘Philosophia Vetus et Nova,’ which is done by a popish author, and bears marks of that religion; but therein the logics are barren, the ethics erroneous, and the physics too prolix. Henry Moir’s ethics cannot be admitted; they are grossly Arminian, particularly in his opinion ‘de libero arbitrio.’ The determinations and pneumatology of De Vries are too short. Le Clerc is merely sceptical and Socinian. For Cartesius, Rohault, and others of his gang, besides what may be said against their doctrine, they all labour under this inconvenience ――that they give not any sufficient account of the other hypotheses, and the old philosophy, which must not be ejected.”¹

¹ Printed Muniments of the University of Glasgow, Volume II., page 531.

In accordance with this conclusion, the University of St. Andrews was ordered to draw up the logics and general metaphysics; to that of Edinburgh was given the pneumatology; to Glasgow, the general and special ethics; and to the two Colleges of Aberdeen the general and special physics. The treatises were written and placed before the commissioners of parliament in 1697, who were empowered to revise them. Two of these productions were printed in London in 1701. The one produced in Edinburgh is entitled “An Introduction to Metaphysics,” and contains fifty-six pages; the other from St. Andrews, “An Introduction to Logic,” of the same size. But no more was heard of the project, and it produced no practical effect on the course of university education. In short, these compends, and the views which they expressed, may be regarded as the closing words of the regenting system, and of the older method of philosophical teaching in the Scotch universities. The leading peculiarity of this method has been pointed out in the previous volume.¹ The professorial system was finally instituted in Glasgow in 1727: it was introduced there by Melville in 1577, but regenting was resumed in 1642; in Edinburgh in 1708; in St. Andrews, 1747; but in Aberdeen the regenting continued till 1754.

¹ Mackintosh’s History of Civilisation in Scotland, Volume II., page 407, 416.

The chief point of difference between this system and that of the regents is the limiting of the teaching of the professor to a special subject, out of the many subjects which the regent had to teach. Then in the newer system, the professor is not usually restricted to the teaching of specific books, but may arrange and develop his subject as he thinks fit, and in his lectures contribute what he can to its progress. Thus the professorial system allows the instructor full freedom to exert his powers in presenting the various points and relations of his subject, as well as its special exposition and practical applications. But the mode of instruction in the universities will be fully explained in the next volume, in connection with the history of Scottish philosophy.

In what is usually termed the fine arts, Scotland long remained behind other modern nations. Indeed the circumstances of the nation were exceptionally unfavourable to the growth of art. There was too much internal strife, too few of the elements of wealth, too little culture or love of refinement, or elevated ideal feeling, among the Scotch aristocracy, to prompt and encourage art; even though the Scots naturally possessed aptitude for art, the conditions for its encouragement and realisation did not exist. Hence the seventeenth century produced only one eminent Scottish artist, George Jamesone.

George Jamesone, a son of Andrew Jamesone, master mason, was born in Aberdeen about the year 1588, and was the first Scottish painter who attained to historic character. He received his early education at the Grammar School of Aberdeen. On leaving the school in 1601, it seems probable that he studied for some time at Marischal College. At the age of eighteen years he probably had fixed on his calling, and commenced to try his hand and eye in drawing and painting. Strictly speaking, he could have had no teacher, and only a few primitive examples to stimulate him. Little is known of Jamesone’s early career as an artist. “Who first encouraged the young artist with the responsibility of perpetuating their features on canvas or panel we do not know, but a test of his quality as a faithful painter would quickly justify their trust in him, and induce that current of popularity which never forsook him, but went on ever broadening till his death.... Jamesone’s merit in a great measure, consists in this, that without examples worthy of mention, without a master of any kind, and, probably, with very poor materials――with nothing, in short, but his own sense of the beautiful, and a strong determination to arrest it by his brush――he reached such a degree of excellence.... Ten years, then, of assiduous work brought their legitimate rewards of improvement and appreciation.... Something like a fatality seems to exist in obliterating almost every historical proof of Jamesone’s early career and movements. It follows us when we seek to verify the tradition that he went to Antwerp and entered the study of the famous Rubens, where he met, among others, the brilliant Vandyck, the prince of portrait painters. But whilst there is no positive evidence, there is at the same time no moral doubt. The only doubt on the subject of his having studied abroad is as to the date.” It seems probable that Jamesone went abroad in 1618, and returned home about the year 1620.¹

¹ Bullock’s Life of Jamesone, pages 36‒45. 1885.

Jamesone established himself as a portrait-painter in his native city in 1620, and several references to him occur in the Burgh Records. In 1621 he produced a portrait of John Stewart, Earl of Traquair; it is a bust portrait representing the Earl as a man past middle age. From this time onward Jamesone was busily engaged. His early patrons were chiefly local and north country people; and subsequently some of the southern nobles and gentry patronised him. On the occasion of the coronation of Charles I. at Edinburgh in the summer of 1633, Jamesone visited the capital, and was introduced at Court. Charles sat to Jamesone for his portrait, and the King was highly pleased with it. It was said that he presented to the artist a diamond ring from his own hand as a special mark of his approval. The picture of the King was a full length figure, but it is lost. Amongst many other persons of rank whom Jamesone met during his visit to Edinburgh, Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy, the chief of the house of Breadalbane, was the most important. Campbell became an appreciative patron and a warm friend of the artist. Sir Colin was a man of culture and an admirer of art. Jamesone painted many portraits for him; and nineteen specimens of the artist’s work are still in Taymouth Castle.

In May, 1635, Jamesone acquired from the town council of Aberdeen a lease of a piece of ground lying along the banks of the Denburn valley, which he laid out as a garden, and erected a summer house in the middle of it.

Jamesone’s usual scale of prices was, for a half length portrait, twenty merks, if he provided a gold-gilded frame the price was twenty pounds. In making arrangements for a list of sixteen portraits for Sir Colin Campbell, Jamesone said in the postscript to his letter:――“If I begin the pictures in July, I will have the sixteen ready about the last of September.” Sixteen portraits in three months was pretty rapid work. It has ♦been calculated that “In full employment, and at his own prices, Jamesone was making a very good annual income of not less than £1000 or £1500 a year.”¹ Considering the position of the nation this was a handsome sum.

♦ “beeu” replaced with “been”

¹ Bullock’s Life of Jamesone, pages 91‒93.

In Mr. Bullock’s interesting and valuable work a very careful catalogue of Jamesone’s works is presented, accompanied with much interesting information. The list includes one hundred and eighty-six well authenticated works of Jamesone, and indicates where they were preserved in 1885. Amongst these may be mentioned, a half-length portrait of the Marquis of Montrose, dated 1640; a half-length portrait of General Alexander Leslie, the commander-in-chief of the Covenanters; George, first Marquis of Huntly; George, second Marquis of Huntly; Lord Loudon; Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston; and a fine portrait of William, sixth Earl Marischal. Jamesone was working for the Haddington family in 1644. In the autumn of that year he died at Edinburgh, and was interred in the Churchyard of Greyfriars.

Jamesone’s style was comparatively simple and uniform. The greater part of his portraits are half-lengths. “The face is a three-quarter, looking to the sitter’s left.” The head is usually somewhat smaller than life-size, which slightly detracts from the dignity of the portraits. The drawing of the face is mannered, though presenting a naturalness of expression; the eyes are well formed and restful; the nose long; and the corners of the mouth slightly turned up. Hands are seldom introduced.¹

¹ Bullock’s Jamesone, page 115.

His chief merit lay in portraying the human countenance, and in making it appear as if animated by a soul within; he concentrated his power on the face and the head: he rarely introduced accessories to arrest attention.

It was reported that Michael Wright had been a pupil of Jamesone’s, but there is no evidence of this; and it seems unlikely that he really trained any one to his art. Wright was an artist of some note, and went to London when a youth, and it does not appear that he returned to Scotland. Thomas Murray was born about the year 1666. He studied under John Riley, painter to King William. Murray was an eminent painter of portraits, and was very successful in his profession. He died in 1724. John Scougal had an extensive practice as a portrait painter in Edinburgh in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Three full-length portraits by him, representing William III., Queen Mary, and Queen Anne, are in the Glasgow Collection. He died at Prestonpans in 1730.

The art of architecture showed some progress in the seventeenth century, despite the unfavourable conditions of society. But there is little information as to the names of architects in any branch of the art before the eighteenth century; although the names of certain persons, called masters of works, occasionally occurs in the national and local records. Sir William Bruce was the son of Robert, third baron of Blairhall. He was trained abroad; and appears as architect to Charles II. in 1671. He prepared designs for rebuilding a part and restoring the palace of Holyrood. He had intended the interior of the quadrangle to be finely decorated, but this was not carried out, because “his Majesty thinks the way proposed for the inner court would be very noble, but he will not go to that charge; and therefore his pleasure is that it be plain ashlar, as the front is, with table divisions for storeys; and if that be deemed too great an expense, his Majesty will rest satisfied if it be good handsome rough work, with handsome mouldings for the windows and table divisions for the storeys.” This work was completed in 1679 at a cost of £127,000 Scots. Sir William planned Hopetoun House, Linlithgowshire, which was commenced in 1698, but not completed for several years. He also designed several other mansions and buildings, and died in 1710.¹

¹ Notes on Early Scottish Architects, in Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Scotland, Volume I., pages 64‒67.

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