ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{Master-Spirits 1873}

                                                                                                                                                             303

POETS IN OBSCURITY

I.

GEORGE HEATH, THE MOORLAND POET.

IT was one day in the late autumn of 1870, when the silvern light and the grey cloud were brooding over the windless waters and shadowy moors of Lorne, that we leant over a little rural bridge close to our home in the Highlands, and watched the running burn, where, in the words of Duncan Bàn of Glenorchy—

With a splash, and a plunge, and a mountain murmur,
     The gurgling waters arise and leap,
And pause and hasten, and spin in circles,
     And rush and loiter, and whirl and creep;

and on that day, as always when we stand by running water, we were thinking of the author of the ‘Luggie,’ whose tale we have told to the world both in prose and verse; thinking of him and wondering why the very brightness of his face seemed to have faded into the dimness of dream, so that we found it almost difficult to realise that David Gray had lived at all. The fair shape seemed receding further and further up the mysterious vistas, and the time seemed near when it would vanish ³⁰⁴ altogether, and be invisible even to the soul that loved it best. The thought was a miserable one. It is so hateful that grief should grow dull so soon; that the inconsolable should find the fond habit of earthly perception obliterating memory; that passionate regret should first grow sweet, and then faint, and finally should fade away; and that, until a fresh shock came from God to galvanise the drowsy consciousness, the dead should be more or less forgotten—the mother by her child, the mistress by her lover, the father by his son, the husband by the wife; and all this though heaven might be thronging with dead to us invisible, with eyes full of tears and straining back to earth, with faces agonised beyond expression to see the bereft ones gradually turning their looks earthward, and brightening to forgetfulness and peace.
     While we were full of such thoughts, the Highland postman passed and handed our letters, and the first packet we opened was a little volume, ‘Memorial Edition of the Poems of George Heath, the Moorland Poet.’ ¹ There was a portrait, a memoir, and some two hundred pages of verse. The portrait struck us first, for about lips and chin there was a weird reminiscence; and on the whole face, even in the somewhat rude engraving, there was a look seen only on the features of certain women, and on those of poets who die young—a look unknown to the face of Milton, or of Wordsworth, or of Byron, but faintly traceable in every likeness of Shelley that I have ever seen, and almost obtrusive in

—    ¹ London: Bemrose and Sons, Paternoster Row.    —

 ³⁰⁵ the one existing portrait of Keats. This look is scarcely describable—it may even be a flash from one’s own imagination; but it seems there, painful, spiritual, a light that never was on sea and land, quite as unmistakable on poor Kirke White’s face as on the mightier lineaments of Freidrich von Hardenburg. Next came the memoir, and then the verse. It was what we anticipated—the old story over again; the story of Keats, of Robert Nicoll, of David Gray; the old story with the old motto, ‘Whom the gods love die young.’ Though it came like a rebuke, it illuminated memory. What had seemed to die away and grow into the common daylight was again shining before me—the face of the dear boyish companion who had died, the eyes that had faded away in divine tears, the look that had been luminous there and was now dimly repeated in the little woodcut of George Heath. Out of almost the same elements, nature had wrought another tragedy, and through nearly the same process another young soul had been consecrated to the martyrdom of those who sing and die.
     Is it worth telling over again, this tale that nature repeats so often? Is it worth while tracing once more the look with which we are so familiar, the consecrated expression Death puts upon the eyes and mouth of his victims? Is not the world sad enough without these pitiful reminders? Genius, music, disease, death—the old, weary, monotonous tune, have we not heard enough of it? Not yet. It will be repeated again and again and again, till the whole world has got it by heart, and ³⁰⁶ its full beauty and significance are apprehended by every woman that bears a son. At the present moment it comes peculiarly in season: for England happens to be infested at present by a school of poetic thought which threatens frightfully to corrupt, demoralise, and render effeminate the rising generation; a plague from Italy and France; a school æsthetic without vitality, and beautiful without health; a school of falsettoes innumerable—false love, false picture, false patriotism, false religion, false life, false death, all lurking palpable or disguised in the poisoned chalice of a false style.
     Just when verse-writers who never lived are bitterly regretting that it is necessary to die, and thinking the best preparation is to grimace at God and violate the dead, it may do us good to read the old story over again, this time in the rude outline of a life which was even more than ordinarily conscious of poetic imperfection.
     George Heath was born at Gratton, a hamlet in the moorlands of Staffordshire, on the March 9, 1844. He was the eldest son of poor parents, who lived in an old weather-beaten cottage in a lonely part of the moors, and farmed a small piece of the adjoining ground. At the National School of Horton he learned to read and write, but at a very early age he was compelled to work as a farm-labourer in his father’s fields. For some reason unknown to me, but most probably because he was somewhat too frail for hard work out-of-doors, he was afterwards apprenticed to a carpenter, ‘Mr. Samuel Heath, of Gratton, joiner and builder;’ and here some ³⁰⁷ secret literary influence reached him—‘fancy,’ to quote his own words, ‘indulged in wildly beautiful dreams to the curl of the shavings and rasp of the saw’—and with  that, awoke the delicious hunger we all remember, the never-satisfied appetite for books. What he read, how and where he read, how his later thoughts were affected by what he read, cannot, of course, be determined by a stranger, though I shall not be far wrong in guessing that he was quite as eager to acquire knowledge of a useful sort as to gratify his as yet faint poetic tastes. Youths overdosed with school hate useful knowledge, but the poor half-starved ignoramus devours it, and finds it sweeter to his taste than honey. Heath’s best friend in those days, and all days after, seems to have been a young man named Foster, described in the memoir ‘as a young man of like mind with himself—one who had received a good education at the old grammar school of Alleyne’s, at Uttoxeter, and to whom a well-stocked library at home had always been accessible.’ Foster could draw, and was ambitious to distinguish himself as an artist. The portrait of Heath is from his pencil, and is quite tenderly executed. The two lads loved each other, influenced each other, inspired each other, as only two such young souls can do, and the fellowship existed till the very last. Only a few months before his death George Heath wrote in his diary, ‘My dear old friend and fellow-toiler came up for just an hour. He is still as earnest and persevering as ever. He and I started together in the life struggle. We cannot be said to have fought shoulder to shoulder, ³⁰⁸ for our paths have laid apart, and he, I believe, has, through my ill-health and one thing and another, gained upon me. But we have always been one in heart, and still we are agreed our motto must be Steadily onward.’
     The stranger who first sent us George Heath’s poems, with a letter telling how tenderly some thoughts of ours had been prized by the poor boy in Staffordshire, and how we had been able to influence him for good, afterwards procured, at our particular request, the ‘Diary’ from which we have quoted above, and from which we shall have occasion to quote again; and it lies now before us—four little volumes, purchased by Heath for a few pence, filled with boyish handwriting, in the earlier portions clear and strong, but latterly nervous and weak, and ever growing weaker and weaker. Every day, for four long years of suffering and disease, George Heath wrote his thoughts down here. However dim were his eyes with pain, however his wasting hand shook and failed, he managed to add something, if only a few words; and let those who upbraid God for their burdens read these pages, and see how a poor untaught soul, stricken by the most cruel of all diseases, and tortured by the wretchedest of all disappointments, could, year after year, day after day, hour after hour, collect strength enough to say unfalteringly—‘God, Thy will be done, for Thou art wiser than I.’ When the hand is too weak to write more, a wild effort is made to say this much—‘Another day; thank God! Oh, God is good!’ There are men in the world—gifted men, too—who see no more in this than the submission of ³⁰⁹ despair; but they err from lack of human knowledge. The gratitude is not that of despair, but of hope, of thanks for most heavenly consecration. It is born of the strange sense of beatification vhich only ensues after extreme physical pain, and still more, of the quiet feeling of security consequent on great spiritual vitality; both these deepening the sufferer’s conviction that he whose fondest hope was to sing living and be the chosen of man, may in all happiness sing dying and become the chosen of God. ‘God has love, and I have faith,’ said David Gray, just before the final darkness. ‘Thanks to God for one more day,’ wrote George Heath in his diary overnight; and he died peacefully in the morning. There it is, the one Word, the awful Mystery. Why do these poor lambs thank God? For what do they thank Him? Not through fear surely, for they are brave, more fearless than any men who fall in fight. Can it be that He communicates with them in His own fashion, and gives them the supreme assurance which, in us, causes nothing but amaze? Poor lambs! bleating to the Shepherd as they die!
     It was while assisting at the restoration of Hendon Church, ‘just before the close of his apprenticeship in 1864,’ that Heath caught the complaint, a consumption of the lungs, to which he ultimately succumbed. The writer of the memoir adds that the ‘sorrow of a broken first love’ had something to do with his disease, but the inference is doubtful. There are, indeed, clear evidences in the poems that Heath had been passionately in love with an object he afterwards found to be ³¹⁰ unworthy. One of his early pieces, entitled ‘The Discarded,’ written on New-Year’s Eve, is addressed to the girl he loved, after she had played with his heart and wounded it cruelly. It is a boy’s production, with a man’s heart in it—strong, nervous, real, showing inherent dignity of nature, and full of a firm voice that could not whine. Those who are now familiar with the musical ravings of diseased animalism may find freshness even in some of these lines, bald as they are in form and cold in colour:—

Ah! but think not, haughty maiden,
     That I envy thee thy power,
Or the grand and lofty beauty
     Which was all thy virgin dower;
Think not, either, that I would be
     Unconcerned and gay and free;
Doff a love, and don another,
     In a twilight like to thee.
No! I sooner far would suffer
     All the agony of heart—
Ay, an age of desolation—
     Than be fickle as thou art.
For it proves to me, my spirit
     Has not lost the stamp divine;
That my nature is not shallow,
     Is not base and mean as thine.
Neither think thou that my being
     Yearns towards thee even yet;
That a smile of thine would banish
     All I never may forget;
That a look of thine would make me
     All I dreamed I once might be;
That one gleam of love would chain me
     Once again a slave to thee.

*    *    *    *    *    *

Should the richest of the carver,                                                      311
     And the fairest of the loom,
And the choice of art and nature
     Lustre round thy beauties’ bloom;
Ah! should all the gifts and graces
     Gather round thee, and conspire
In thy form to fix their essence,
     Flush thy face with spirit-fire;
Nay! should’st thou in tears, forgetting
     Beauty-love is calm and proud,
Should’st thou humble thee, and bow thee
     Where I once so meekly bowed:
Having once deceived me, never,
     Never more, whate’er thy mien,
Could’st thou be to me the being
     That thou mightest once have been.
No, alas! thy tears might give me
     Less of pride, and less of scorn,
Deeper pity, deeper shadow,
     Make me sadder, more forlorn.”

     These were the utterances of a lofty nature, capable of becoming a poet sooner or later; already indeed a poet in soul, but lacking as yet the poetic voice. That voice never came in full strength, but it was gathering, and the world would have heard it if God had not chosen to reserve it for His own ears. The stateliness of character shown in this little love affair was never lost from that moment, and is in itself enough to awaken our deepest respect and sympathy.
     In 1865 appeared a little volume by Heath, under the title of ‘Preludes,’ consisting chiefly of verses written ³¹² during the first year of his illness. These poems, like all he wrote, are most noteworthy for the invariable superiority of the thought over the expression. They are not at all the sort of verses written by brilliant young men. Their subjects are local places, tales of rude pathos like ‘The Pauper Child,’ and religious sentiment. Here, as in the ‘Discarded,’ there is too much of the old tawdry metaphor characteristic of the pre-Wordsworthian lyrists, and to some extent of Wordsworth himself; and we read with little pleasure about ‘blushing spring in her robe of virgin pride,’ summer’s ‘gushing tide,’ ‘Deception’s soulless smile,’ ‘flower-enamelled glades,’ and ‘halcyon glory,’ hear too many allusions to the ‘zodiac’ and the (most insufferable) ‘zephyr,’ and note too many such words as ‘empyrean,’ ‘amaranthine,’ ‘lambling,’ ‘fledgeling,’ ‘glorious,’ ‘gorgeous.’ Nevertheless, there is truth in the verses. The poor boy is not composing, but putting his own experience into the form that seems beautiful to him, however unreal it seems to us. He had not read widely enough to be consciously guilty of insincerities of style.
     But as he lingered, confiding daily in the little diary as to a friend’s bosom, George Heath read more. He received lessons in Latin and Greek from the Vicar (Latin and Greek! for a poor soul going to speak the tongue of the angels!); and as if this was not enough, he studied arithmetic. It is sad to think of him greedily picking up any crumb of knowledge, and unconscious as yet of his approaching doom. His pen was most ³¹³ busy all the time, composing poetry more or less worthy of preservation. The disease was doing its work slowly, and the fated hand was never at rest for years. For four years—1866, 1867, 1868, 1869—he kept his diary; and even the entries made when the last hope had fled are very patient.
     Here are a few extracts from the diary for 1866; they tell his story with far more force and tenderness than we could hope to tell it:—

     January, 1866.—Thus, with the dawn of a new year, I commence to write down some of the most prominent features of my every-day life. Not that I have anything extra to write, but this is a critical period of my life. I may never live to finish this diary. On the other hand, should it please God to raise me up again, it will be a source of pleasure in the future to read something of the thoughts and feelings, hopes and aspirations, that rise in the mind when under the afflicting hand of Providence; and its experience will help me to trust God where I cannot trace Him.
     Thursday, January 4.—Still feeling very unwell, with a bad cold and pain in my side, pursuing my studies much as usual, trying to get up the Latin verbs thoroughly. I have been my usual walk twice per diem across to Close Gate. The weather is still very unfavourable. I am sorry to hear that Mrs. S. Heath, sen., is very poorly. I am thinking much of a dear one far away. Praise God, He is good!
     Saturday, January 13.—How changeable is the weather: yesterday it was fine and frosty; to-day it is dark, damp, and cheerless. How like our earthly life! Sunshine and shadow, storm and calm, all the way through. I am scarcely so well in body, and somewhat depressed in spirits. I have not received the letter that is due to me, and that I have been looking so anxiously for, at present. Though I have been struggling hard ³¹⁴ the past week, yet I cannot see much that I have done. Courage!
     Monday, January 15.—Almost racked to death with a fearful cough and cold, but quite as hopeful as usual. To- day Miss D. Crompton called to see us, and my very kind friend Mrs. Dear sent me a bottle of wine.
     Friday, January 19.—I have with great difficulty finished writing out a poem of some three hundred lines in length, entitled, ‘The Discarded: a Reverie.’ It is my longest, and I think it will be almost my last.
     Thursday, January 25.—I am feeling still better to-day, and lighter in heart. The weather is fine and mild, and early this morning the birds chirped and sang just as they do at the approach of spring, and the sun burst out in all his splendour. I could not remain in the house, but sauntered round the croft and down the lane. I have not yet heard from my friend.
     Monday, January 29.—I have been writing out a few lines on the ‘cattle plague.’ What an alarming visitation of Providence it is! It seems to be steadily on the increase. It has come within two miles of here. I tremble to think of the consequences should it visit our home; it would sweep away all our little subsistence.
     Friday, March 2.—It is a gloriously fine day, but keen and frosty. I am feeling the benefit of the pure air. I am grieved to hear that Mr. W. Heath has lost all his milking cows through the ‘rinderpest.’ This morning I received a kind letter from my friend Mademoiselle J. M. It is a nice letter, but still somehow it has left a painful impression behind.
     Wednesday, March 14.—I am sitting by the fireside dreaming strange fantastic day-dreams! And why? I cannot tell. This dreaming seems to have become a part of my very nature. Perhaps it is wrong, but it is so sweet! Mother is gone to market, the orphan babe is in its cradle, all is quiet, and I am poorly and unable to study; so what can I do but dream?
     Thursday, April 26.—Still fine and hot. The aspect of ³¹⁵ things is slowly but surely changing. Dame Nature, ’neath the sweet influences of spring, is putting on her glorious mantle! The lambs are frisking in the fields, the birds unite in sending forth one rich volume of praise to God, myriads of insects, long dormant, are waking into life! Praise God!
     Monday, May 14.—Very unwell. The sombre goddess Melancholy has gained almost the mastery of me. I feel quite alone in the world—a puerile, unloved thing; but I think that my earthly race is almost at a close, and then if I, through the blood and mediation of Christ, am enabled to reach that bright land, O how glorious will be the change!
     Monday, June 4.—A hot sultry day. I feel so languid and listless; but can enjoy to the full the beautiful panorama spread out before me, and, indeed, it is beautiful! The scent of dewy foliage and nectar-filled flowers fills me with a dreamy, undefined pleasure; I love the world, I love every one in it, and its Maker.
     Friday, June 15.—I am very unwell and low-spirited; the house is dull and gloomy; outside the rain keeps falling incessantly. Mother and father are both very poorly. My kind friend, Mrs. B. Bayley, has sent me several books and magazines to look over; one especially interests me, ‘Punch’s collection of Leech’s cuts.’
     Wednesday, July 4.—Very wet. I am a prisoner; very poorly; forbidden by the doctor to do any close study. I am sadly low-spirited. Grieving foolishly enough that all my correspondents have forsaken me.
     Saturday, August 4.—Another week is calmly gliding away, and strange to say the period of the year that I dreaded most is passed away, and I am still alive, and, thank Heaven, as well as usual. Two years ago in July I was taken ill, and one year since in the same month I had an issue of blood from the lungs; but, praise God, I am still alive.
     Thursday, August 9.—I have been a walk to Close Gate, and had a game of ‘croquet.’ My spirits are better. There is ³¹⁶ a grand Choral Festival at Horton Church—one hundred and sixty performers; how I should like to hear them! It would waft me to heaven.
     Wednesday, August 22.—I have been out into the lanes and fields, watching the ‘shearers’ with their shiny hooks gathering the golden corn into sheaves; far and near the eye rests upon rich fields of grain, ‘white unto harvest.’
     Tuesday, October 2.—I am feeling somewhat sad-hearted to-day. I suppose the fading robe of nature affects me with its melancholy, yet it is an exceedingly fine and warm day; perhaps it is because I have been reading Tennyson, and the grandeur of his works disheartens me, showing me how low I am.
     Thursday, November 8.—Silently, slowly another day is gliding into eternity; wet, dark, and gloomy! I am, however, feeling somewhat better to-day. Dr. White has been to see me, and informs me that my poems have had the honour of a public reading at Leek, and the knowledge of all this kindness has, in spite of the gloomy weather, cheered me up.
     Monday, December 17.—A damp, foggy, uncongenial day. I have not been doing much study, for I am feeling very unwell. I have heard of a terrible calamity which happened at Talk-o’-the-Hill on Thursday last—an explosion of fire- damp, by which eighty lives were lost, leaving some sixty widows and one hundred orphans. I have been round trying to collect something for them.
     Monday, December 24.—Bless God! another year has almost passed away, and He has preserved me. Even while I write I hear the sound of ‘Christmas singers,’ and though the sounds are not very melodious, yet they are sweet to me, for they remind me of Christ my Saviour, whom from the earnest depths of my soul I love and bless to-night.’

     It would serve no purpose to multiply our extracts. What does the world care whether this poor boy was ³¹⁷ better or worse on such a day, whether the weather was good or bad, whether his sweetheart was true or false, whether he himself lived or died? For two more complete years George Heath kept the same simple memoranda, fluctuating all the time between hope and despair, and suffering extreme physical pain. The most pregnant entry in the whole diary is that made on 26th February, 1868:—

     February 26th, 1868.—To-day I have brought down and committed to the flames a batch of letters that I received from a love that was once as life to me—such letters—yet the writer in the end deserted me. Oh, the anguish I suffered! I had not looked at them for three years, and even to-day, when I came and fingered them, and opened the portrait of the woman I loved so much, I could scarcely keep back the bitter tears. Oh, Jenny, the bitterness you caused me will never be obliterated from my heart.

     According to the memoir, nearly all the poems Heath left in manuscript were written in 1867; but after that—after the miserable 26th February, 1868—he wrote little, and all he wrote was sad. The year 1869 opened dark and gloomy, and Heath still lived, still sadly striving to pick up knowledge.

     Wednesday, January 6.—Have been writing to my sister, reading English History, &c., and poring over the old, tough Latin Grammar. I have been much interested with the plotting and counter-plotting for and against the liberties of poor Mary Queen of Scots; and now the darkness is coming down over valley and hill, and another day has gone to the eternal.
     Saturday, January 16.—Still the dreary, dead damp. Have been reading some of the myths in Smith’s smaller Mythological ³¹⁸ Dictionary—some of the accounts of the heroes and demigods. Have been much interested with Newman Hall’s paper in The Broadway, ‘My Impressions of America,’ in which he describes some of the most magnificent river, lake, and mountain scenery.
     Tuesday, January 26.—The dense fog is over all things. I am unwell, having passed almost a sleepless night from anxiety on account of poor John; for at midnight there was an alarm raised. John was taken suddenly worse. They feared he was dying. Our people were sent for. But he survived, thank God! Doing a little light reading, a little grammar, &c. ‘Better rub than rust,’ so says Ebenezer Elliot.
     Friday, February 5.—Fine and mild as April. Have been all about the fields, and my heart has been thrilled beyond measure by the appearance of several beautiful and only-just-peeping daisies. The hyacinths, too, are actually springing, and the celandine is out in leaf. How magnificent are the snowdrops! These flowers seem to my barren and often sadly yearning spirit like my own children—something I have a right to love and cherish.
     Saturday, February 13.—No better inside. My chest feels feverishly hot, while cold shivers run all over my  exterior. I half expect that some of these attacks will prove too much for the force of nature. It feels as though my vitality were burning and washing away within me. Ah! how shall I support this weary, fluctuating life of mine? I feel almost a yearning to fly away and be at rest! My Father, be still my strength!
     Thursday, February 18.—I am still a prisoner. The worry and fret of life and ambition seem quite to have left me. I have no more a recognised hope of standing amongst the glorious, the renowned in song. I have no hope of winning that for which I have toiled all these years—a wide range of knowledge, a mind imbued with great and noble thoughts, and a grand power of expressing. I shall sing still, but ’t will be to soothe myself.
 ³¹⁹ Thursday, February 25.—No better—worse, if anything. I can do little but lay my head down in quiet, or watch the clouds gliding turbulently over the patch of sky seen through the window, while the trees rock their arms, toss, and gesticulate. I wonder what particular lessons I should learn here. If those of patience, trust, and fortitude? ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.’
     Tuesday, March 9.—Here is my birthday once more. My twenty-fifth year has passed off into the eternity of the past. My twenty-sixth dawns over me. I am filled with strange thoughts; things look very dark about me now. My health is bad. Shall I, as I half expect, go down to the grave, or shall I again awake to life and energy? My God! Thou only knowest! Help me to do my duty well in any case!
     Wednesday, March 10.—Little Harriet has to-day brought into the house a little bunch of the celandine flower. I dare say there are lots of various sorts of flowers beginning to show themselves. The beautiful anemones will soon be  out, and I cannot go to see them! I seem to drift further and further down, am doing just nothing. A great shadow of weariness is upon me. Sent a letter—written at a many sittings—to my sister Hannah.
     Tuesday, March 23.—Most deeply ill all day—utterly prostrated in mind and body. My affliction seems to have laid hold of my whole system with an iron grasp which nothing can shake off. Have read a very little of English History. It seems to me there is quite a danger of my sinking down into stupor, if not imbecility even.
     Thursday, April 8.—To-day Dr. Heaton has visited me, and, as far as he is concerned, has left me without a shadow of hope. I had tried before, and believe I had earnestly said, ‘My God, Thy will be done!’ but when you come to find that your doom is really fixed, the pang of bitterness is none the less. But the bitterness is past, and I can trust in God.
     Friday, April 23.—The day has been a beautiful one. ³²⁰ Outside the green foliage is beginning to sheet the landscape, and some of the trees are hung with blossoms. It has been a very quiet day with us, and I am trying to look homeward. How good is the Lord!
     Thursday, April 29.—How beautifully the thought of my far-off home—that home whose wonder none may guess—comes to me through the glory of the sun-radiance that falls through the windows! The easterly wind is cold, and my throat is worse. Bless God!
     Monday, May 3.—It is the gloomiest day there has been for some time past. The rain is dripping down, doing wonders of good. I am very ill—sinking. My cough is almost continuous. But in God is my trust.
     Tuesday, May 4.—Praise God for one more day!”

     The whole story was now complete, and the morning after making that last entry—‘Thank God for another day’—Heath passed away, ‘peacefully,’ writes the author of the memoir. He was buried in Horton churchyard, and a Runic cross, designed by his friend Foster, is about to be raised over his grave, with this inscription:—

Erected in Memory
Of GEORGE HEATH, of Gratton,
Who, with few aids,
Developed in these Moorlands
Poetic powers of great promise,
But who, stricken by consumption,
After five years’ suffering,
Fell a victim to that disease,
May 5, 1869, aged 25 years.

_____

His life is a fragment—a broken clue—
His harp had a musical string or two,
The tension was great, and they sprang and flew,                           321
And a few brief strains—a scattered few—
Are all that remain to mortal view
Of the marvellous song the young man knew.”

     We have left little or no space to speak of George Heath’s poetry, the fragments of which already given were selected less for their intrinsic merit than for their value as autobiography. What struck us first when we read the little book of remains was the remarkable fortitude of style, fearlessly developed in treating most unpromising material, and the occasional intensity of the flash of lyrical emotion. There is nothing here of supreme poetic workmanship, perfect vision in perfect language, like those four lines of David Gray:—

Come, when a shower is pleasant in the falling,
     Stirring the still perfume that wakes around,
Now that doves mourn, and in the distance calling
     The cuckoo answers, with a sov’reign sound!

Nothing quite so overpowering as Gray’s passionate cry:—

O God, for one clear day! a snowdrop! and sweet air!

No descriptions of nature as loving, as beautiful as those in the ‘Luggie,’ and no music as fine as the music of Gray’s songs and sonnets. But there is something else, something that David Gray did not possess, with all his marvellous lyrical faculty, and this something is great intellectual self-possession combined with the faculty of self-analysis and a growing power of entering ³²² into the minds of others. The poem ‘Icarus, or the Singer’s Tale,’ though only a fragment, is more remarkably original than any published poem of Gray’s, and in grasp and scope of idea it is worthy of any writer. How the journal called the ‘Lynx’ contained the obituary notice of a certain Thomas String, ‘a power-spirit chained to a spirit that broods,’ but almost a beggar; how Sir Hodge Poyson, Baronet, deeply moved by the notice in the ‘Lynx,’ visited the room where String had lived,—

In the hole where he crept with his pain and his pride,
Mournful song-scraps were littered on every side;
I read the damp slips till my eyes were tear-blind.
Near the couch where he wrestled with hunger and died,
In a dirty, damp litter of mouldering straw,
Stood a rude alder box, which, when opened, supplied
Such proofs of a vastly superior mind,
As filled me with anguish and wonder and awe;

and how Sir Hodge determined to bring out the works in two volumes, with a portrait and prefatory essay,—all this is merely preliminary to the Singer’s own Tale, which was to have been recorded in a series of wonderfully passionate lyrics, ending with this one:—

Bless thee, my heart, thou wert true to me ever:
     Soft while I weep o’er thee, kiss thee, and waken
All the sad, sweet things that murmur and quiver!
     True to me still, though of all else forsaken!
No more I strike for the far generations,
     Lost to the hope of fame, glory, or pelf;
And the wild songs that I sang for the nations
     Now in my sadness I wail to myself.

 ³²³ After that women come and find the singer dead, and uplift him, saying:—

Soft—let us raise him, nor yield to the shrinking;
     Ah! it is sad to have never a dear one;
Sad to depart in the night, to my thinking,
     Up in a garret, with nobody near one!
Have we no feelings as women and mothers?
Aren’t we, from Adam, all sisters and brothers?

*          *         *          *         *          *         *

Stay, what is this ’neath his hand on his breast?
How stiff the long fingers! ’Tis rumpled and creased
Long lines all awry, blotted, jumbled, and stark!
Poor fellow! ay, true, it was done in the dark:—
‘Ah me, for a mother’s fond hand for a little—
         That tender retriever!
Oh, love, for the soothing of woman to quiet
         This burning and fever.
Ah, dying is bitter in darkness and hunger,
         When lonely, I wis;
I dreamed not in days that have summer’d and fallen
         Of coming to this!’’

It is impossible to represent this fragment by extracts, its whole tone being most remarkable. Of the same character, strong, simple, and original, are the love-poem called ‘Edith:’

Her face was soft, and fair, and delicate,
And constantly reminded me of music;

and the wonderful little idyl called ‘How is Celia to-day?’ in which a smart ‘sprightly maiden’ and a ‘thin battered woman’ embrace passionately on the roadside and soften each other. In all these poems, and even in ³²⁴ the ‘Country Woman’s Tale’ (which should never have been published in its present distorted shape), there seems to us the first tone of what might have become a great human voice; and nothing is more amazing to me than to find George Heath, an unusually simple country lad, marvellously content with the old theology and old forms of thought, flashing such deep glimpses into the hearts of women. He had loved; and we suppose that was his clue. The greatness he could show in his love would have been the precursor, had he lived, of a corresponding greatness in art. Both need the same qualities of self-sacrifice, fortitude, and self-faith.
     We shall conclude this slight sketch with a little piece, as slight in subject as it is tender in treatment, The readers of George Heath’s posthumous book will find many such poems, and every one they read, even when it does not excite their admiration as art, will deepen their respect for the writer’s stateliness of character and nobility of mind.

THE POET'S MONUMENT.

Sad are the shivering dank dead leaves,
     To one who lost love from his heart unweaves,
Who dreams he has gathered his life’s last sheaves,
     And must find a grave under wintry eaves!

Dead! dead! ’mongst the winter’s dearth,
     Gone where the shadows of all things go,
Stretch me full length in the folding earth,
     Wind me up in the drifting snow;

None of the people will heed it or say,                                            325
     ‘He was a singer who fainted there,
One who could leaven with fire, or sway
     Men’s hearts to trembling unaware.’

No one will think of the dream-days lost,
     Of the ardours fierce that were damped too soon;
Of the bud that was nipped by the morning’s frost,
     And shrivelled to dust in the sun ere noon.

No one will raise me a marble, wrought
     With meaning symbol, and apt device,
To link my name with a noble thought,
     A generous deed, or a new-found voice.

My life will go on to the limitless tides,
     Leaving no trace of its current-flow,
Like a stream that starts when the tempest rides,
     And is lost again in the evening’s glow.

The glories will gather and change as of yore,
     And the human currents pass panting by,
The ages will gather their wrinkles more,
     And others will sing for a day and die.

But thou, who art dearer than words can say,
     My more than all other of earth could be;
Such a joy! that the Giver I thank alway
     With a glowing heart, that He gave me thee.

I shall want thee to dream me my dream all through,—
     To think me the gifted, the Poet still,
To crown me, whatever the world may do,
     Though my songs die out upon air and hill.

And, Edith, come thou in the blooming time,—
     Thy world will not miss thee for just one hour;—
I’d like it best when the low Bells chime,
     And the earth is full of the sunset’s power,—

And bend by the silently settling heap,                                            326
     While the Nature we loved is a May all round,
While God broods low on the blue arched sweep,
     And the musical air is a-thrill with sound;

And look in thy heart circled up in the past,
     And if I am perfectly graven there,
Unshaded by aught, save the anguish cast
     By the parting clasp, and the death despair;

Encirqued with the light of the pale regret,
     Of a ‘might have been,’ of a day-dream lent,
With a constant hope of a meeting yet,—
     Oh! I shall not want for a Monument.

[Note:

The original, illustrated, version of this article, which was first published in Good Words (March, 1871), is also available on this site. Also, at the bottom of that page is a link to the website about George Heath which preceded this one.

‘George Heath’ from Good Words

George Heath ‘The Moorland Poet’

(A website including all of Heath’s poetry and sundry other material.) ]

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                                                                                                                                                             327

II.

THE LAUREATE OF THE NURSERY.

IN an article entitled ‘Child-life as seen by the Poets,’ recently published in a leading Magazine, there appeared an allusion to the Scottish poet William Miller, whose ‘Wonderfu’ Wean’ was printed in full to justify, if justification were needed, the high praise bestowed on its writer as one of the sweetest and truest lyric poets Scotland has ever produced. The eulogy pronounced on Miller was, as we happen to know, rather under than over coloured. No eulogy can be too high for one who has afforded such unmixed pleasure to his circle of readers; who, as a master of the Scottish lyrical dialect, may certainly be classed alongside of Burns and Tannahill; and whose special claims to be recognised as the Laureate of the Nursery have been admitted by more than one generation in every part of the world where the Doric Scotch is understood and loved. Wherever Scottish foot has trod, wherever Scottish child has been born, the songs of William Miller have been sung. Every corner of the earth knows ‘Willie Winkie’ and ‘Gree, Bairnies, Gree.’ Manitoba and the banks of the Mississippi echo the ‘Wonderfu’ Wean’ as ³²⁸ often as do Kilmarnock or the Goosedubs. ‘Lady Summer’ will sound as sweet in Rio Janeiro as on the banks of the Clyde. The pertinacious Scotchman penetrates everywhere, and carries everywhere with him the memory of these wonderful songs of the nursery. Meantime, what of William Miller, the man of genius who made the music and sent it travelling at its own sweet will over the civilised globe? Something of him anon. First, however, let us look a little closer at his compositions, and see if the public is right or wrong in loving them so much.
     Having before us as we write a pretty considerable quota of Miller's writings, and reading them with as dispassionate a sympathy as possible, what strikes us first is their freedom from the false and meretricious, simplicity of two-thirds of the productions of the Scottish rural Muse. They are as noticeable for outspoken naturalness of manner as for fineness of poetical insight. They are such words as a happy father might say to his children, if he were, furthermore, a poet, with a fine eye for imagery, and a singer, with a delicate ear for music. They are plaintive, merry, tender, imaginative, poetical, just as the light happens to strike the hearth where the poet sits. We find ourselves in a lowly Scottish home to begin with; it is ten o’clock at night, and wee ‘Willie Winkie,’ a tricksy spirit who is supposed to run about the town ready to astonish any refractory child who won’t go to sleep, is wandering

Up-stairs and down-stairs
     In his nicht-gown!

 ³²⁹ The mother sits with the child, who is preternaturally wakeful, while Willie Winkie screams through the keyhole—

Are the weans in their bed?
     For it’s now ten o’clock!

One wean, at least, utterly refuses to sleep, but sits ‘glowrin’ like the moon;’ rattling in an iron jug with an iron spoon, rumbling and tumbling about, crowing like a cock, slipping like an eel out of the mother’s lap, crawling on the floor, and pulling the ears of the cat asleep before the fire. No touch is wanting to make the picture perfect. The dog is asleep—‘spelder’d on the floor’—and the cat is ‘singing grey thrums’ (‘three threads to a thrum,’ as we say in the south) to the ‘sleeping hen.’ The whole piece has a drowsy picturesqueness which raises it far above the level of mere nursery twaddle into the region of true genre-painting. The whole ‘interior’ stands before us as if painted by the brush of a Teniers; and melody is superadded, to delight the ear. Are we in town or country? It is doubtful which; but the picture will do for either. Soon, however, there will be no mistake, for we are out with ‘Lady Summer’ in the green fields, and the father (or mother) is exclaiming—

Birdie, birdie, weet your whistle!
     Sing a sang to please the wean!

Still more unmistakable is the language of ‘Hairst’ (the lovely Scottish word for Autumn): and we quote the poem in all its loveliness:—

Tho’ weel I lo’e the budding spring,                                               330
     I’ll no misca’ John Frost,
Nor will I roose the summer days
     At gowden autumn’s cost;
For a’ the seasons in their turn
     Some wished-for pleasures bring,
And hand in hand they jink aboot,
     Like weans at jingo-ring.

Fu’ weel I mind how aft ye said,
     When winter nights were lang,
‘I weary for the summer woods,
     The lintie’s tittering sang;’
But when the woods grew gay and green,
     And birds sang sweet and clear,
It then was, ‘When will hairst-time come,
     The gloaming o’ the year?

Oh! hairst-time’s like a lipping cup
     That’s gi’en wi’ furthy glee!
The fields are fu’ o’ yellow corn,
     Red apples bend the tree;
The genty air, sae ladylike!
     Has on a scented gown,
And wi’ an airy string she leads
     The thistle-seed balloon.

The yellow corn will porridge mak’,
     The apples taste your mou’,
And ower the stibble riggs I’ll chase
     The thistle-down wi’ you;
I’ll pu’ the haw frae aff the thorn,
     The red hap frae the brier—
For wealth hangs in each tangled nook
     In the gloaming o’ the year.

Sweet Hope! ye biggit ha’e a nest                                                  331
     Within my bairnie’s breast—
Oh! may his trusting heart ne’er trow
     That whiles ye sing in jest;
Some coming joys are dancing aye
     Before his langing een,—
He sees the flower that isna blawn,
     And birds that ne’er were seen;—

The stibble rigg is aye ahin’,
     The gowden grain afore,
And apples drop into his lap,
     Or row in at the door!
Come, hairst-time, then, unto my bairn,
     Drest in your gayest gear,
Wi’ soft and winnowing win’s to cool
     The gloaming o’ the year!

Is there in any language a sweeter lyric of its kind than the above? Not a word is wasted; not a touch is false; and the whole is irradiated with the strong-pulsing love of the human heart. It is superfluous to indicate beauties, where all is beautiful; but note the exquisite epithet at the end of every second stanza, the delicious picture of the Seasons dancing round and round like children playing at ‘jingo-ring,’ and the expression ‘saft and winnowing win’ in the last verse. Our acquaintance with Scottish rural poetry is not slight; but we should look in vain, out of Tannahill, for similiar felicities of mere expression. Though there is nothing in the poem to match the perfect imagery of ‘Gloomy Winter’s now awa’,’ we find here and elsewhere in Miller’s writings a grace and genius of style only achieved by lyrical poets ³³² in their highest and best moments of inspiration. As to the question of locality, we may be still in doubt. There is just enough of nature to show a mind familiar with simple natural effects, such as may be seen by any artizan on the skirts of every great city; but not that superabundance of natural detail which strikes us in the best poems of Burns and Clare. Nor is there much more specifically of the country in ‘John Frost.’ It is an address which might be spoken by any mother in any place where frost bites and snow falls. ‘You’ve come early to see us this year, John Frost!’ Hedge, river, and tree, as far as eye can view, are as ‘white as the bloom of the pear,’ and every doorstep is as ‘a new linen sark’ for whiteness.

There are some things about ye I like, John Frost,
And ithers that aft gar me fyke, John Frost;
         For the weans, wi’ cauld taes,
         Crying ‘shoon, stockings, claes,’
Keep us busy as bees in the byke, John Frost.

And gae ’wa’ wi’ your lang slides, I beg, John Frost!
Bairns’ banes are as bruckle’s an egg, John Frost;
         For a cloit o’ a fa’
         Gars them hirple awa’,
Like a hen wi’ a happity leg, John Frost.

This is the true point of view of maternity and poverty. ‘John Frost’ may be picturesque enough, but the rascal creates a demand for more clothing and thicker shoes, and he lames and bruises the children on the ice. ‘Spring’ is better, and furnishes matter for other verses.

The Spring comes linking and jinking through the woods,                                  333
Opening with gentle hand the bonnie green and yellow buds,—
There’s flowers and showers, and sweet song of little bird,
And the gowan wi’ his red croon peeping through the yird.

But the final consecration, here as before, is given by the Bairns:—

’Boon a’ that’s in thee, to win me, sunny Spring!
Bricht cluds and green buds, and sangs that the birdies sing;
Flower-dappled hill-side and dewy beech sae fresh at e’en;
Or the tappie-toorie fir-tree shining a’ in green—

Bairnies bring treasure and pleasure mair to me,
Stealing and speiling up to fondle on my knee!
In spring-time the young things are blooming sae fresh and fair,
That I canna, Spring, but love and bless thee evermair.

The last line of the first verse is perfect.
     Such are some of the little green glimpses of nature to be found in Miller’s songs; but the interior glimpses are far more numerous, from the picture of the ‘Sleepy wee Laddie,’ who won’t rise till his mother ‘kittles his bosie’ or ‘pouthers his pow with a watering-can,’ down to the proud king of the farm-yard, with his coat of ruddy brown waved with gold, and his crimson crown on his head, ‘tuning his pipes to Cockie-leerie-la!’ The whole ethical range of these pictures is summed up in such pieces as ‘Gree, Bairnies, Gree!’—before quoting which let us take one last glimpse into the Interior, on a frosty night, while the father is making ‘rabbits on the wall,’ to amuse the little ones, and others play on the whistle, saddle and ride the dog, and make a cart of the kitchen ladle. The mother is the speaker, and the words seem ³³⁴ to well up from the fulness of her heart, as we see her looking on:—

OUR OWN FIRE-END.

When the frost is on the grun’,
     Keep your ain fire- end,
For the warmth o’ summer’s sun
     Has our ain fire-end;
When there’s dubs ye might be lair’d in,
Or snaw wreaths ye could be smoor’d in,
The best flower in the garden
     Is our ain fire-end.

You and father are sic twa
     Roun’ our ain fire-end;
He mak’s rabbits on the wa’,
     At our ain fire-end.
Then sic fun as they are mumping,
When to touch them ye gae stumping,
They’re set on your tap a-jumping,
     At our ain fire-end.

Sic a bustle as ye keep
     At our ain fire-end,
When ye on your whistle wheep,
     Round our ain fire-end;
Now, the dog maun get a saddle,
Then a cart’s made o’ the ladle,
To please ye as ye daidle
     Round our ain fire-end.

When your head’s laid on my lap,
     At our ain fire-end,
Taking childhood’s dreamless nap,
     At our ain fire-end;
Then frae lug to lug I kiss ye,                                                          335
An’ wi’ heart overflowing bless ye,
And a’ that’s gude I wish ye,
     At our ain fire-end.

When ye’re far, far frae the blink
     O’ our ain fire-end,
Fu’ monie a time ye’ll think
     On our ain fire-end;
On a’ your gamesome ploys,
On your whistle and your toys,
And ye’ll think ye hear the noise
     O’ our ain fire-end.

The ‘best flower in the garden,’ assuredly, though the shortest in its bloom, to be remembered ever afterwards by the backward-looking wistful eyes of mortals that are children no more! And if ever there should enter into the hearts of such mortals those thoughts which wrong the brotherhood of nature and all the kindly memories of the hearth, what better reminder could be had than those words of the toiling, loving mother, seated in the fire-end, while winds shake the windows and sound up in the chimney with an eerie roar:—

GREE, BAIRNIES, GREE.

The moon has rowed her in a cloud,
     Stravaging win’s begin
To shuggle and daud the window-brods,
     Like loons that wad be in!
Gae whistle a tune in the lum-head,
     Or craik in saughen tree!
We’re thankfu’ for a cozie hame—
     Sae gree, my bairnies, gree.

Though gurgling blasts may dourly blaw,                                        336
     A rousing fire will thow
A straggler’s taes, and keep fu’ cosh
         My tousie taps-o’-tow.
O who would cule your kail, my bairns,
     Or bake your bread like me?
Ye’d get the bit frae out my mouth,
     Sae gree, my bairnies, gree.

Oh, never fling the warmsome boon
     O’ bairnhood’s love awa’;
Mind how ye sleepit, cheek to cheek,
     Between me and the wa’;
How ae kind arm was owre ye baith:
     But, if ye disagree,
Think on the saft and kindly soun’
     O’ ‘Gree, my bairnies, gree.’

That, again, seems to us a perfect lyric, struck at once in the proper key, and thoroughly in sympathy with nature. Perhaps its full flavour can only be appreciated by those familiar with the patois in which it is written.

Gae whistle a tune in the lum-head,
     Or craik in saughen tree!

Music and meaning are perfectly interblended.
     If our object in writing were merely to demonstrate the poetic merit of William Miller, we might go on quoting piece after piece, till we had transcribed his entire nursery-repertoire. At least ten of his pieces are (to use a phrase of Saint-Beuve’s) petits chefs d’œuvre: ten cabinet pictures worthy of a place in any collection. Few poets, however prosperous, are so certain of their immortality. We can scarcely conceive a period when ³³⁷ William Miller will be forgotten; certainly not until the Doric Scotch is obliterated, and the lowly nursery abolished for ever. His lyric note is unmistakable: true, deep, and sweet. Speaking generally, he is a born singer, worthy to rank with the three or four master-spirits who use the same speech; and we say this while perfectly familiar with the lowly literature of Scotland, from Jean Adams to Janet Hamilton, from the first notes struck by Allan Ramsay down to the warblings of ‘Whistle Binkie.’ Speaking specifically, he is (as we have phrased it) the Laureate of the Nursery; and there, at least, he reigns supreme above all other poets, monarch of all he surveys, and perfect master of his theme. His poems, however, are as distinct from nursery gibberish as the music of Shelley is from the jingle of Ambrose Phillips. They are works of art,—tiny paintings on small canvas, limned with all the microscopic care of Meissonier. Possibly, indeed, they are not large enough or ambitious enough to attract those personages who are infected with Haydon’s yearning for an enormous canvas and Gandish’s appreciation of ‘’Igh Art;’ yet it is not improbable that it required more genius to produce them than to mix up Euripides and water into a diluted tipple for groggy schoolmasters, or to indulge in any amount of what Professor Huxley styles ‘sensual caterwauling.’ The highest praise that can be said of them is that they are perfect ‘of their kind.’ That kind is humble enough; but humility may be very strong, as it certainly is here.
     And now, what of William Miller himself? Is he ³³⁸ living or dead, rich or poor, sickly or well, honoured or neglected? He is alive, certainly very poor, sickly to extremity, and, so far at least as practical sympathy goes, neglected by the generation which owes him so much. Our informant, indeed, describes him as a ‘cripple for life.’ He resides, to his misfortune, in the depressing city of Glasgow, with its foul air, its hideous slums, and its still more hideous social life. Were our power equal to our will, this master of the petit chef d’œuvre should be transported forthwith to some green country spot,—some happy Scottish village, where, within hearing of the cries of children, he might end his days in peace, and perhaps sing us ere he dies a few more songs such as ‘Hairst’ and ‘Spring.’ Then might he say again, as he said once, in his own inimitable manner—

We meet wi’ blithesome and lithesome cheerie weans,
Daffing and laughing far adoun the leafy lanes,
Wi’ gowans and buttercups busking the thorny wands,
Sweetly singing wi’ the flower-branch waving in their hands!

There might the Laureate of the Nursery enjoy for a little while the feeling of real fame, hearing the cotter’s wife rocking her child to sleep with some song he made in an inspired moment, watching the little ones as they troop out of school to the melody of one or other of his lays, and feeling that he had not lived in vain—being literally one of those happy bards whose presence ‘brightens the sunshine.’
     To honour a poet like William Miller is not easy; he seizes rather than solicits our sympathy and admiration; ³³⁹ but when the thousands who love his music hear, as we have heard, that his fellow-citizens are raising a Testimonial in his behalf, to show in some measure their appreciation of his genius, help of the most substantial sort is certain to be forthcoming in abundance. Wherever Scottish speech is spoken, and wherever these words penetrate, there will awaken a response. Miller’s claim to the gratitude of his countrymen is unmistakable. If that claim were contested, every child’s voice in Scotland should be raised in protest, and every Scottish mother and father would be convicted of worse than lack of memory—the lack of heart. For our own part, after having indicated very briefly how Miller’s compositions affect us personally, and the high poetical place we would assign them had we the will or the power to pronounce literary judgments, we can but wish William Miller God speed, and (in the words of one of his own songs) ‘a coggie weel fill’d and a clean fire-end’ so long as he lives to wear those laurels which have been awarded to him, north of the Tweed, by universal acclamation. ¹

—    ¹ Alas! since this article was written, William Miller has passed away.     —

[Note:
‘The Laureate of the Nursery’ was originally published in the July, 1872 edition of The Saint Pauls Magazine.]

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NOTE

ON ARTICLE ‘JOHN MORLEY’S ESSAYS.’
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SINCE this article appeared in the ‘Contemporary Review,’ Mr. J. K. Hunter, the local humourist alluded to in a note, has passed away. I subjoin, as a tribute to an obscure man of genius, my review of his ‘Retrospect,’ published in the ‘Athenæum’ newspaper for February 29, 1868.

The Retrospect of an Artist’s Life; Memorials of West Country Men and Manners of the Past Half Century. By John Kelso Hunter. (Greenock: Orr, Pollock & Co.)

THIS book is the legacy—we trust, not quite the last—of Mr. J. K. Hunter, better known in the West of Scotland as ‘Tammas Turnip,’ who unites in his own person the craft of a cobbler and the profession of an artist, whose somewhat dark fame as a conversationalist has reached our ears, and whom we have now to recognise as an author of singular vigour and actual literary power. It is many a long day since we encountered a work of the kind so fresh, so honest, so full of that clear flavour which smacks of the sound mind and the sound body. The language is of the simplest,—a fine mixture of powerful English and broad Scotch. There is no art, save that of thorough artlessness; the manner is colloquial, and the transitions are ³⁴² not always clearly to be followed. But the book will make its mark now, and live afterwards, long after posterity has forgotten the critic who is said to have returned the proof-sheets with the solemn and true assertion that ‘they contained a great many grammatical blunders!’ It has only to be known to be widely appreciated. Full of picture, brimful of character, marked everywhere by sanity and sincerity, it preserves for us many phases of life which might otherwise have been forgotten or unknown, and it communicates them, moreover, through a medium as quaint and characteristic as themselves. Those who like the book will love the man. On every page we feel the light of a pleasant human face, the gleam of kindly eyes, and seem to see the horny hand of the cobbler beating down emphasis at the end of periods; and a broad, clear, ringing voice lingers in our ears, and we catch the sound of distant laughter long after the book is closed. Mr. Hunter is not a profound reasoner, nor a man of mere literary disposition. He is something higher—a man of character, a being whose humour has so individual a flavour that no competent critic, on finding any of his stories gone astray, could hesitate for a moment in affirming, ‘This is, not a Jerrold, nor a Sydney Smith, nor a Dean Ramsay—no, it is a Tammas Turnip.’ He apprehends character by the pure sense of touch, as it were. He sympathises most with what is sound and true, though he has a corner of his heart for the gaudriole. In a word, he evinces an artist’s sensitiveness and a cobbler’s chattiness; and, whether as painter or cobbler, he loves the race thoroughly,—he follows humanity hardily, through all the vagaries of light and shadow, even in such atmospheres as those of Glasgow and Kilmarnock.
     Hunter’s early days were spent in a little Ayrshire village, where everybody was very poor, and most people were marked by some strong characteristic idiosyncrasies. He began life as a ragged shearer in the fields, but, fascinated at an early age by the superior intellectual resources of the makers of shoes, he determined to be a cobbler. ‘In 1812,’ he writes, ‘Napoleon ³⁴³ Bonaparte gaed away to Russia, thinking to make himself master of the unwieldy territory. That same year the United States of America declared war against Britain; and next year, in the month of June, when the sea-fight between the Shannon and the Chesapeake took place, my mother bought a bargain of sheep’s-wool and spun it hersel’ on the muckle wheel, and John Wilson in the Hollows was trysted to weave it into a plaidin’ web, which was to be dyed blue, and then I was to be dressed in a suit of the same.’ Shortly after these great events, he became the apprentice of a queer old shoemaker in a neighbouring clachan. Here his experience of the great world began; and many are the strange stories he has to tell us concerning those days—wild smuggling episodes, strange domestic experiences, anecdotes reeking of peat and whisky, weird country superstitions. Most of the latter may be described, in a local worthy’s words, as ‘stories which tell better over a dram than sitting dry-mouth’d; there is an inventive power in whisky, whereby you can put in more of the horrible and awfu’.’ Here is a wonderful glimpse of character, in the shape of ‘auld Ralston,’ the governor of the working department of a spinning-factory:—

     Ralston, when young, married a sister of his master, in whose service he had been accounted worthy; although some said that Mary wasna market-rife. She had some four of a family, and then fell into lingering trouble. She was bedfast for nine months; and it was said that the morning and evening inquiry for a period before her death was the same question—‘Are ye awa’ yet, Mary?’ A woman was got to keep her near her end; and one night when Ralston had reached near his own door, or what some sentimentalists wad call the house of mourning, the woman stood at the door-step, her heart was full, she burst into tears, and exclaimed, ‘James, the wife’s gone.’ Ralston looked at her rather in astonishment, and said, ‘Aweel, and what’s the use o’ you snottering about that? Let’s see some pork and potatoes, for I’m hungry.’ Being served with the desired meal, he ate with a relish for a time, then taking a rest, he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his coat, and said by way of soliloquy, ‘It’s a guid thing that she’s awa’; she was a ³⁴⁴ perfect waster, and wad soon hae herried me out o’ the door. She ate a peck o’ meal in the week, drank a bottle o’ whisky, ate nine tippenny oranges, forbye God knows what in the shape o’ cordials. I must say that I’m weel quat o’ her. But it has been a teugh job though. My first duty will be to see and get her decently buried:’ which duty seemed to afford rather pleasurable sensations. His son Jock took an overgrowth, springing up to manhood a lump of delicacy; without any apparent disease, yet feeling himself unwell, he was unable to do anything for some time. A neighbour said one day to Ralston, ‘I wunner that you wad keep a muckle idle fallow like Jock lying up at hame when there is evidently naething wrang wi’ him but laziness.’ However, within a week of this gratuitous speech Jock died, and, like his mother, had a cheerfu’ burial. The man wha made the unfeeling remarks on Jock shamming his trouble was at the burial, and stood talking with another man in the kirkyard. As soon as Jock was let down into the grave, his father came to the two as they talked together, and he who had not insulted the feelings of the father before now made an effort to sympathise with the bereaved parent touching the suddenness of Jock’s death, and how unexpected it seemed to him. Ralston, with great satisfaction, said—‘That’s a’ true; but it’s a guid thing that our Jock de’ed at this turn.’—‘What for, James?’ quo’ the astonished listener.—‘What way, or what for? Had he no de’ed the folk wad ha’e still been sayin’ that there was naething wrang wi’ him. I think he has gi’en the most obstinate o’ them evidence that there was something the matter wi’ him. It hasna been a’ a sham.’

     Elsewhere the same worthy is thus exquisitely described:—

     He had a distance in his manner, a kind of isolated dignity, which at no time seemed to be the right sort of metal. Everything he said or did seemed spurious. He walked and talked at the outer circle of friendship.

   To complete ‘auld Ralston’s’ outline, note the following bit of observation—significant, we think, of the writer’s peculiar insight:—

   In the summer evenings at Dundonald the young men of the village used to play at bowls and quoits at the outskirts by the roadside. One night old Ralston made his appearance to witness ³⁴⁵ a game of quoits. He stood alone; he spoke to no one; he watched every quoit as it came up. I stood near to him and made a study of his face. His expression was intense as he eyed the quoits as they sailed through the air. He looked cold at a wide shot, as if feeling disappointed; but when a close one was played he clapped his hands, exclaiming, ‘There’s a good shot; aha, but there’s a better!’ and he looked the picture of delight. You would have thought that he had a heavy interest in the matter. Charlie Lockhart came close up to him at this moment of seeming delight. Charlie looked at the quoit and said with great emphasis, ‘That’s a tickler! wha played that shot, James?’ James looked cold at him and said, ‘What ken I? or what care I? It’s a grand shot, play’t wha will. It’s a’ ane to me wha flings them up; it’s the quoits themsel’s that I watch or feel ony pleasure in seeing.’

     This is but one of many quaintly limned faces, all of which imply that Mr. Hunter, if he be one-half as subtle on canvas as on paper, must be an artist of no ordinary power of touch.
     We pass over much that is good (noting in our way the thrilling chapter containing the story of Witherington the packman), in order to reach the beginning of our cobbler’s career in art. Suspected of poaching, Mr. Hunter quitted his native place and settled in Kilmarnock, where his ambition was aroused by the sight of a great local work of art—the Royal Arms, painted for the Town Hall. He bought a box of water colours and a camel-hair brush for fivepence. Instead of copying the lion and unicorn, however, he made a ‘study’ from nature, so barbarous as to disgust even his own savage eye! His next attempt was a small profile on a card. He drew an outline, dashed in colour, and, using red copiously on the nose, made a striking portrait of Jock Steen, a dram-drinking acquaintance. Then, comparing his first two pictures, he decided that only one resembled the original; and therefore fixed on portraiture as his vocation—one which he has combined with shoemaking all his life, and follows still in the genial autumn of his days. And a wondrous portrait painter we find he is,—at any rate with pen and ink.
 ³⁴⁶   Every step of our cobbler’s onward career is fraught with portrait and picture. The following is a specimen, not quite so subtle as many, but truly humorous:—

     No eclipse, either heavenly or terrestrial, settles into permanent darkness. The garret door opened one day, and in came a particular acquaintance, one who from his heart wished me well. He was a calico-printer, wearing an appropriate and characteristic name, which often brought him into trouble. He was well known over Scotland, yet not well understood. He had a strong desire that the world should move in a proper way, and gave advice accordingly; but his theory and practice were often antagonistic. He would fain be an artist, but wanted patience. He had been at college to come out as a doctor, but left short of the mark. Volatile and unstable, yet wishing to see knowledge flowing around him, he was very communicative. He used to declare that muscle was with him fully as sensitive as mind, and he had an unfortunate knack of bringing his fist into contact with any person’s mouth out of which impudence came directed to him. His combativeness was great, and his kindness of heart unbounded. Bob Clink was the name of the new patron. His portrait was to be painted, and in an original style, both as regards attitude and execution. Bob had, when in Glasgow, studied the paintings when in the Hunterian Museum, visited fine art exhibitions, been acquaint with artists. He had good taste, and gave wholesome hints as to how his portrait was to be got up. I was so well pleased with his eccentricity that I agreed that the composition was to be his and the execution mine. Bob was to be seated by a table, as in the act of some undefined study. He was to be looking up, the left elbow was to be resting on the table and the snuff-box in the left hand. The right hand, between the forefinger and thumb, was to contain a snuff, which was to be arrested on the road to the nose, which was to remain ungratified till the problem was solved. It was to represent a night study; a candle was to be placed on the table well burned down, with a long easle crooked and melting doun the grease to show how deeply the student had been absorbed. A skull was to be on the table between the sitter and the light, one volume was to be open on the table with a confusion of old authors in mass, and a library carefully selected was to fill the background. Bob brought canvas and stretcher. The canvas was fine ³⁴⁷ linen, such as printers use to preserve their patterns at the corners or joinings of selvages. It was to be a cash transaction, and half-a-guinea was to be the sum total. All this was laid down by Bob.

     At this time Hunter was a member of the Kilmarnock drawing academy, consisting of one riddle-maker, two house-painters, one cobbler, one tailor, one confectioner, one cabinet-maker, one mason, one pattern-designer, one currier, and two young artists! A motley crew, and doubtless not too highly gifted. Yet, as Mr. Hunter says, ‘There is a something lovable in the naughtiest abortion produced by the pencil, as it generally is an inquiry after some great hidden, far-out-of-sight, never- to-be-seen mystery.’
     We cannot linger over the interval from those days to these. The cobbler’s path has been a hard, up-hill one; but he shows everywhere the firm footing of a man. The father of a huge family, he had to toil day and night, with awl or brush, for scanty wage; but his heart never failed him: he was ever ready for the world with jest or criticism, and even in the dull commonplace routine of small Scotch towns he was ever conscious of the motion and the colour of the world, and of the musical stir, under all disguises, of the great human heart. Great men, good men, droll men, mean men, had all their message to him; he slighted none, misunderstood but few.
     The style of Mr. Hunter’s book is rude and unpolished: but it contains a touching artlessness, a sound idiomatic force, seldom discovered in more ambitious styles. We are again and again struck by superb little snatches of word-painting. Subjoined is a string of brief bits of quotation, not equal in excellence, but all showing a vigour of style remarkable from such a quarter:—

     The first steamboat I saw was at Largs fair in 1818. That was the first one that I touched with my finger. It was on the day the Rob Roy steamer first crossed the Irish Channel to Belfast. From the heights above Largs I witnessed the spectacle. There ³⁴⁸ were ten of us. I was the only boy; all the rest were what in common cant are termed men, among whom a conversation sprung up anent the presumption of man. Some held out that the men and boat wad never come back; ithers thought that they should hae been prayed for before they started. A stern old farmer settled that point in a solid sentence—‘Pray for them, sir! No sensible man durst. Their conduct is an open tempting of Providence. That’s a thing no man has a right to do, and no man dare ask a blessing on such conduct.’
     A model of patience, industry, integrity, and every attribute which makes a man worthy of the name. John won, and wore before the world with all the simplicity of a child, a single-hearted individuality. He was a long thinker, a strong thinker, a simple yet determined thinker. He wrought long with his brother-in-law, trying to discover a system of mechanism for working carpets without the aid of draw-boys. He felt, as it were, that he had been pursuing a phantom, and resolved to give up the hunt in that direction. He then turned his spare time into a musical current, and set about making an organ, which he finished, and which I have heard give forth serious, sonorous, and joyful sounds. The step from shoemaking to that of a coach-builder was a wide step; and in the new business were twelve different branches, every one of which he plodded through and mastered with his own hand. He found that in the manipulating intricacy of making a shoe every feeling was present for starting, overcoming, and carrying on the coach-building to a decided success. I often watched the genius of John as he moved so earnest, spoke so kindly, and advised so fatherly.
     He had wrought on the sketch of this picture for thirty-two years; and but for want of a Judas, he could have had it finished sooner. His Judas was an ill-looking vagabond, far from being like a man that ony decent body wad tak’ up wi’. I remarked that had I been painting a Judas, I would have selected a thin-lippet, smiling, silly-like, nice man.
     When I passed the Shaw Brig on the auld road to Stewarton, the clear morning was obscured by a dark sky coming ower frae Arran airt. It had all the appearance of a total eclipse. Snow came scowring through the air, with a tremendous rushing wind. I sat down in the ditch on the lee side of the hedge; and in ten minutes the snow lay four inches on the ground. I sat in the ³⁴⁹ midst of this upper gloom and white under-world with my face toward Paisley, never once deigning to look back.
     J. M. W. Turner had seven specimens of his art on their walls. Whatever others might or may think, his pictures to me were the most marvellous of any in the exhibition. They were indications of pictures, painted with the colours which constitute light red, blue, and yellow. Wind and sunlight moved among his clouds. His water had motion. His mountains were indications; so was everything else. He indicated, and you were left at freedom to fill up your own picture. Wherever form went, there the prismatic rays went—reddish, greenish, bluish, yellowish, pinkish, purplish, silvery, grey, in abundance; and, in some spot of interest, the pure power of colour, from which everything else in the picture fled to its native place.

     Here we must conclude. Comment and extract can do no justice to a book like this; it must be read throughout to be appreciated. Its peculiar flavour perhaps does not quite satisfy at first, for it is local and provincial, and grows upon the reader, leaving a taste in the mouth like fine old whisky and oatmeal bannocks.

[Note:
The footnote in the article about John Morley (‘A Young English Positivist’) is as follows:

‘A Scotchman of much the same type of mind, though of course infinitely weaker in degree, once reminded me, in answer to such charges, that they were made by people who were blind to the prophet’s ‘exquisite’ sense of humour.’ Of course humour is at the heart of it but humour is character, and nothing so indicates a man’s quality as what he considers laughable. Carlylean humour, often exquisite in quality, may be found in a book called ‘Life Studies,’ by J. K. Hunter, recently published at Glasgow. Note especially the chapter called ‘Combe on the Constitution of Woman.’ Mr. Hunter is a parochial Carlyle, with some of the genius and none of the culture.’]

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