Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844

Professor Wilson rose and simply bowed his acknowledgments.

The Earl of Eglinton then rose and said—Ladies and Gentlemen,

“Nae man can tether time nor tide;The hour approaches—Tam maun ride.”

This brought the proceedings to a close.

We have thought it due—not less to the character of the meeting than to the sincere and fervid eloquence of the speakers—to place upon our pages an authentic record of the whole proceedings of the day. This “great national gathering,” as it was aptly denominated, must be of enduring and not ephemeral interest, and will be remembered, and spoken of, and quoted, long after events of greater apparent importance have passed away into oblivion. The outpourings of a nation’s heart are immortal. The tributes that were paid, in the ages long since gone by, to the poets of Greece and of Italy, have outlived the most enduring monuments of marble, and we dare not hesitate now to recognise a triumph which will be as everlasting as theirs.

We feel that little comment is necessary upon the various addresses that are given above. But we should not be justified—and no man who was there that day would forgive us—if we passed over in silence the manly and distinguished manner in which Lord Eglinton discharged the duties of the chair. Scotland, as we have already had occasion to say, is proud, and justly so, of her aristocracy; but there is not one of them all, through the whole length and breadth of the land, to whom she can point more exultingly than to this young nobleman. His opening address would have done honour to one long trained in the schools of oratory, and that was its   smallest merit. The emphatic and earnest tone of admiration in which he spoke of the peasantry of his country—his generous and touching allusions to Burns in his earlier years, to what he had done and suffered, and to the honours so long withheld, and now so brilliantly conferred—and the patriotic fervour which pervaded his whole address—carried along with him not only the applauses, but the hearts of the whole assemblage. Lord Eglinton may well look back with pride and satisfaction to the proceedings of that day; for he has secured the affections of thousands who already respected his name.

Of the other speeches, eloquent and impressive as they were, we shall—with only one exception—speak collectively; and the highest praise we can give is to say, that they were every way worthy of the occasion, of the subjects which they celebrated, and of the men by whom they were uttered. There was a delicate propriety in the feeling which excluded from the list of toasts the names of the living poets, with the great and glorious exceptions of Wordsworth and Moore, now beyond all cavil at the head of the literature of their respective countries. Their presence, though ardently hoped for, was hardly to be expected on this occasion; for their advanced years, and the distant journey they must have undertaken, were serious obstacles; but their apologetic letters, full of deep feeling and sympathy, were received, and the reception which greeted their names, showed the respect and love which the Scottish people entertain for the greatness and universality of their fame. Deep also and thrilling was the emotion evinced at the mention of the illustrious dead, who have passed away into their graves in the fulness and maturity of their fame. Strange and powerful is the spell which lies in the mere plain utterance of their names! Scott, and Byron, and Campbell, (just laid in the noblest mausoleum of the world,) the Ettrick Shepherd, and Allan Cunningham—what names for a country to record in its annals, in the brief space of one generation!

But the speech to which all looked forward with the utmost expectation and anxiety, was that of Professor Wilson. His zeal in the cause of Burns, his earnest and reiterated defence of his reputation, were so well known, that on this occasion, when the balance might be held as finally struck, and when the nation, by its own voluntary act, had recognized the position which its poet, through all time coming must maintain, it would have been felt as a vast and serious omission if the last elegy had not been uttered by the greatest vindicator of his fame. It was so uttered, and none but those who listened to that address can conceive the effect which it produced. Elsewhere than in these pages we should assuredly have attempted some comment upon it. As it is, we shall borrow an opinion of the provincial press, from the pen, we believe, of the Editor of the Dumfries-shire Herald, Mr Aird, himself a spectator of the scene, and a man of high intellect and imagination, whose remarks we have been led to adopt, not from the eulogy they contain, but from their just and reverential truth:—

“The remarkable speech of the day was Professor Wilson’s. Since the time when in his ‘bright and shining youth’ he walked seventy miles to be present at a Burns’ meeting, and electrified it with a new and peculiar fervour of eloquence, such as had never been heard among us before, how manifold, how multiform have been this man’s generous vindications of our great Bard! Now broad in humour; now sportive and playful; now sarcastic, scornful, and searching; now calmly philosophic in criticism; now thoughtful and solemn, large of reverent discourse, ‘looking before and after,’ with all the sweetest by-plays of humanity, with every reconciling softness of charity—such, in turns, and in quickest intermingled tissue of the ethereal woof, have been the many illustrations which this large-minded, large-hearted Scotchman, in whose character there is neither corner nor cranny, has poured in the very prodigality of his affectionate abundance around and over the name and the fame of Robert Burns. It became him—and he knew it—that on this great and consummating occasion, so full of reconcilement betwixt human frailty and human   worth, his address, on which so much expectation waited, should be a last Solemn Requiem over the grave of the illustrious dead, pronounced not merely to the congregation of the day, but to mankind in general, and to every future age. With those long, heart-drawn, lingering, slow-expiring tones, solemn as a cathedral chant, the whole of this sacred piece of service (for we can call it nothing else) was to us like some mournful oratorio by Mozart, soft at once and sublime. Some might be disappointed that they heard nothing on this occasion of the varied play of Christopher North; but the heart of Scotland, in its calm retirement, will appreciate this holy oration, as worthily hallowing and sanctifying her meeting.”

The proceedings in that Pavilion were a just and fitting conclusion to the splendid jubilee of the day. Some no doubt were absent, whom the public would gladly have seen there; for, on an occasion like this, the general wish must have been, that all the greatness, and talent, and learning of the land should have united in the National Festival. But that absence, though regretted, did not, in any degree, lessen the enthusiasm. Indeed, as we looked around the meeting, and saw, unelevated to any conspicuous place, Delta, and Chambers, and Ferrier, and a hundred other distinguished men, not only content, but proud to bear testimony by their simple presence to the genuine purpose of the assembly, it was hardly possible to wish for more. Every individual feeling was merged in the common desire, that the day should be consecrated to its own peculiar object; and consecrated it was, if unanimity, and eloquence, and tears, and the outpouring of all that is lofty, and generous, and sincere, can consecrate aught on earth—where error and frailty must abide, but where the judgment of man in his weakness, may not, and dare not, usurp the functions of the All-seeing and Eternal Judge.

And now we close the hasty record of a scene that will be remembered so long as Scotland is a nation. Some there may be—for there are malignant and jaundiced spirits every where—who may sneer at the solemnities we have witnessed; and it is well that they should do so, for the praise of such men is no honour—far better that it should be withheld. We conclude by again adopting the language of Mr Aird, which leaves no word unsaid.

“Such has been the tribute of a country to her national poet. She furnished him with the rich materials of his song—with her dear victories set in blood; with the imperishable memory of her independence; with the character of her sons and daughters, simple as water, but strong as the waterfall; with her snatches of old-world minstrelsy, surely never composed by mortal man, but spilt from the overflowing soul of sorrow and gladness; with her music, twin-born, say rather one with her minstrelsy; with her fairy belief, the most delicately beautiful mythology in the history of the human mind, and strangely contrasted with the rugged character of her people, a people of sturt and strife; with her heroic faith; with the graves of her headless martyrs, in green shaw or on grim moor, visited by many a slip of sunshine streaming down from behind the cloud in the still autumnal afternoon. These, and all the other priceless elements of ‘the auld Scottish glory,’ he—the national bard—compacted and crystallized into a Poetry which, by innumerable points of sympathetic contact, carries back into the national heart, by ever-conducting issue, the thoughts and feelings which itself first gave forth to his plastic genius; and thus there is an eternal interchange of cause and effect, to the perpetuation and propagation of patriotism, and all that constitutes national spirit and character.

“THEREFORE it was fitting that such a national tribute should be paid to such a national benefactor.”

STANZAS FOR THE BURNS’ FESTIVAL

BY DELTAIStir the beal-fire, wave the banner,Bid the thundering cannon sound—Rend the skies with acclamation,Stun the woods and waters round—Till the echoes of our gatheringTurn the world’s admiring gazeTo this act of duteous homageScotland to her poet pays.Fill the banks and braes with music,Be it loud and low by turns—This we owe the deathless glory,That the hapless fate of Burns.IIBorn within the lowly cottageTo a destiny obscure,Doom’d through youth’s exulting spring-timeBut to labour and endure—Yet Despair he elbow’d from him;Nature breathed with holy joy,In the hues of morn and evening,On the eyelids of the boy;And his country’s Genius bound himLaurels for his sun-burn’d brow,When inspired and proud she found him,Like Elisha, at the plough.IIIOn, exulting in his magic,Swept the gifted peasant on—Though his feet were on the greensward,Light from heaven around him shone;At his conjuration, demonsIssued from their darkness drear;Hovering round on silver pinions,Angels stoop’d his songs to hear;Bow’d the Passions to his bidding,Terror gaunt, and Pity calm;Like the organ pour’d his thunder,Like the lute his fairy psalm.IVLo, when clover-swathes lay round him,Or his feet the furrow press’d,He could mourn the sever’d daisy,Or the mouse’s ruin’d nest;Woven of gloom and glory, visionsHaunting throng’d his twilight hour;Birds enthrall’d him with sweet music,Tempests with their tones of power;Eagle-wing’d his mounting spiritCustom’s rusty fetters spurn’d;Tasso-like, for Jean he meltedWallace-like, for Scotland burn’d!VScotland!—dear to him was Scotland,In her sons and in her daughters,In her Highlands,—Lowlands,—Islands,—Regal woods, and rushing waters;—In the glory of her story,When her tartans fired the field,—Scotland! oft betray’d—beleagur’d—Scotland! never known to yield!Dear to him her Doric language,—Thrill’d his heart-strings at her name;—And he left her more than rubies,In the riches of his fame.VISons of England!—Sons of Erin!Ye who, journeying from afar,Throng with us the shire of Coila,Led by Burns’s guiding star—Proud we greet you—ye will join us,As, on this triumphant day,To the champions of his geniusGrateful thanks we duly pay—Currie—Chambers—Lockhart—Wilson—Carlyle—who his bones to saveFrom the wolfish fiend, Detraction,Couch’d like lions round his grave. VIIDaughter of the poet’s mother!Here we hail thee with delight;Shower’d be every earthly blessingOn thy locks of silver white!—Sons of Burns, a hearty welcome,Welcome home from India’s strand,To a heart-loved land far dearer,Since your glorious Father’s land:—Words are worthless—look around you—Labour’d tomes far less could sayTo the sons of such a father,Than the sight of such a day!VIIIJudge not ye, whose thoughts are fingers,Of the hands that witch the lyre—Greenland has its mountain icebergs,Ætna has its heart of fire;Calculation has its plummet;Self-control its iron rules;Genius has its sparkling fountains;Dulness has its stagnant pools;Like a halcyon on the waters,Burns’s chart disdain’d a plan—In his soarings he was heavenly,In his sinkings he was man.IXAs the sun from out the orientPours a wider, warmer light,Till he floods both earth and ocean,Blazing from the zenith’s height;So the glory of our poet,In its deathless power serene,Shines—as rolling time advances—Warmer felt, and wider seen:First Doon’s banks and braes contain’d it,Then his country form’d its span;Now the wide world is its empire,And its throne the heart of man.XHome returning, each will carryProud remembrance of this day,When exulted Scotland’s bosomHomage to her bard to pay;—When our jubilee to brighten,Eglinton with Wilson vied,Wealth’s regards and Rank’s distinctionsFor the season set aside;And the peasant, peer, and poet,Each put forth an equal claim,For the twining of his laurelIn the wreath of Burns’s fame!

1

Histoire de Dix Ans, 1830-1840. Par M. Louis Blanc.

2

As well it might, if he had been clambering over barricades in those hot days of July; for the three glorious days were remarkable for their heat.

3

There is no surer way of ascertaining the State from which an American comes, than by his thinkings and guessings. The New-Englander guesses, the Virginians and Pennsylvanians think, the Kentuckian calculates, the man of Alabama reckons.

4

The Mussel shoals are broad ridges of rocks, above Florence, which spread out into the Tennessee.

5

A corruption of Bourgogne, Burgundy wine.

6

John Quincy Adams, then president of the United States.

7

The Greeks, who at that time were struggling for their independence, had received various succours from the United States. The Creeks are a well-known tribe of Indians on the frontiers of Georgia.

8

Turk’s island is a small island from which the Western States, North and South Carolina, Georgia, &c., get their salt.

9

“The contemporary historian of the Earls of Sutherland records, that (after the defeat of Invercarron) Montrose and Kinnoull ‘wandered up the river Kyle the whole ensuing night, and the next day, and the third day also, without any food or sustenance, and at last came within the country of Assynt. The Earl of Kinnoull, being faint for lack of meat, and not able to travel any further, was left there among the mountains, where it was supposed he perished. Montrose had almost famished, but that he fortuned in his misery to light upon a small cottage in that wilderness, where he was supplied with some milk and bread.’ Not even the iron frame of Montrose could endure a prolonged existence under such circumstances. He gave himself up to Macleod of Assynt, a former adherent, from whom he had reason to expect assistance in consideration of that circumstance, and, indeed, from the dictates of honourable feeling and common humanity. As the Argyle faction had sold the King, so this Highlander rendered his own name infamous by selling the hero to the Covenanters, for which ‘duty to the public’ he was rewarded with four hundred bolls of meal.”—Napier’s Life of Montrose.

10

“Friday, 17th May.—Act ordaining James Grahame to be brought from the Watergate on a cart, bareheaded, the hangman in his livery, covered, riding on the horse that draws the cart—the prisoner to be bound to the cart with a rope—to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and from thence to be brought to the Parliament House, and there, in the place of delinquents, on his knees, to receive his sentence—viz., to be hanged on a gibbet at the Cross of Edinburgh, with his book and declaration tied on a rope about his neck, and there to hang for the space of three hours until he be dead; and thereafter to be cut down by the hangman, his head, hands, and legs to be cut off, and distributed as follows—viz., His head to be affixed on an iron pin, and set on the pinnacle of the west gavel of the new prison of Edinburgh; one hand to be set on the port of Perth, the other on the port of Stirling; one leg and foot on the port of Aberdeen, the other on the port of Glasgow. If at his death penitent, and relaxed from excommunication, then the trunk of his body to be interred, by pioneers, in the Greyfriars; otherwise, to be interred in the Boroughmuir, by the hangman’s men, under the gallows.”—Balfour’s Notes of Parliament.

It is needless to remark that this inhuman sentence was executed to the letter. In order that the exposure might be more complete, the cart was constructed with a high chair in the centre, having holes behind, through which the ropes that fastened him were drawn. The author of the Wigton Papers, recently published by the Maitland Club, says, “the reason of his being tied to the cart was in hope that the people would have stoned him, and that he might not be able by his hands to save his face.” His hat was then pulled off by the hangman, and the procession commenced.

11

“In all the way, there appeared in him such majesty, courage, modesty—and even somewhat more than natural—that those common women who had lost their husbands and children in his wars, and who were hired to stone him, were upon the sight of him so astonished and moved, that their intended curses turned into tears and prayers; so that next day all the ministers preached against them for not stoning and reviling him.”—Wigton Papers.

12

“It is remarkable, that of the many thousand beholders, the Lady Jean Gordon, Countess of Haddington, did (alone) publicly insult and laugh at him; which being perceived by a gentleman in the street, he cried up to her, that it became her better to sit upon the cart for her adulteries.”—Wigton Papers. This infamous woman was the third daughter of Huntly, and the niece of Argyle. It will hardly be credited that she was the sister of that gallant Lord Gordon, who fell fighting by the side of Montrose, only five years before, at the battle of Aldford!

13

“The Lord Lorn and his new lady were also sitting on a balcony, joyful spectators; and the cart being stopt when it came before the lodging where the Chancellor, Argyle, and Warristoun sat—that they might have time to insult—he, suspecting the business, turned his face towards them, whereupon they presently crept in at the windows: which being perceived by an Englishman, he cried up, it was no wonder they started aside at his look, for they durst not look him in the face these seven years bygone.”—Wigton Papers.

14

Archibald Johnston of Warristoun. This man, who was the inveterate enemy of Montrose, and who carried the most selfish spirit into every intrigue of his party, received the punishment of his treasons about eleven years afterwards. It may be instructive to learn how he met his doom. The following extract is from the MSS. of Sir George Mackenzie:—“The Chancellor and others waited to examine him; he fell upon his face, roaring, and with tears entreated they would pity a poor creature who had forgot all that was in the Bible. This moved all the spectators with a deep melancholy; and the Chancellor, reflecting upon the man’s great parts, former esteem, and the great share he had in all the late revolutions, could not deny some tears to the frailty of silly mankind. At his examination, he pretended he had lost so much blood by the unskilfulness of his chirurgeons, that he lost his memory with his blood; and I really believe that his courage had been drawn out with it. Within a few days he was brought before the parliament, where he discovered nothing but much weakness, running up and down upon his knees, begging mercy; but the parliament ordained his former sentence to be put to execution, and accordingly he was executed at the cross of Edinburgh.”

15

“He said he was much beholden to the parliament for the honour they put on him; ‘for,’ says he, ‘I think it a greater honour to have my head standing on the port of this town, for this quarrel, than to have my picture in the king’s bedchamber. I am beholden to you, that, lest my loyalty should be forgotten, ye have appointed five of your most eminent towns to bear witness of it to posterity.’”—Wigton Papers.

16

“In his downgoing from the Tolbooth to the place of execution, he was very richly clad in fine scarlet, laid over with rich silver lace, his hat in his hand, his bands and cuffs exceeding rich, his delicate white gloves on his hands, his stockings of incarnate silk, and his shoes with their ribands on his feet; and sarks provided for him with pearling about, above ten pund the elne. All these were provided for him by his friends, and a pretty cassock put on upon him, upon the scaffold, wherein he was hanged. To be short, nothing was here deficient to honour his poor carcase, more beseeming a bridegroom than a criminal going to the gallows.”—Nicholl’s Diary.

17

The Presbyterian ministers beset Montrose both in prison and on the scaffold. The following extracts are from the diary of the Rev. Robert Traill, one of the persons who were appointed by the commission of the kirk “to deal with him:”—“By a warrant from the kirk, we staid a while with him about his soul’s condition. But we found him continuing in his old pride, and taking very ill what was spoken to him, saying, ‘I pray you, gentlemen, let me die in peace.’ It was answered, that he might die in true peace, being reconciled to the Lord and to his kirk.”—“We returned to the commission, and did show unto them what had passed amongst us. They, seeing that for the present he was not desiring relaxation from his censure of excommunication, did appoint Mr Mungo Law and me to attend on the morrow on the scaffold, at the time of his execution, that, in case he should desire to be relaxed from his excommunication, we should be allowed to give it unto him in the name of the kirk, and to pray with him, and for him, that what is loosed in earth might be loosed in heaven.” But this pious intention, which may appear somewhat strange to the modern Calvinist, when the prevailing theories of the kirk regarding the efficacy of absolution are considered, was not destined to be fulfilled. Mr Traill goes on to say, “But he did not at all desire to be relaxed from his excommunication in the name of the kirk, yea, did not look towards that place on the scaffold where we stood; only he drew apart some of the magistrates, and spake a while with them, and then went up the ladder, in his red scarlet cassock, in a very stately manner.”

18

“He was very earnest that he might have the liberty to keep on his hat; it was denied: he requested he might have the privilege to keep his cloak about him—neither could that be granted. Then, with a most undaunted courage, he went up to the top of that prodigious gibbet.”—“The whole people gave a general groan; and it was very observable, that even those who at his first appearance had bitterly inveighed against him, could not now abstain from tears.”—Montrose Redivivus.

19

The Natural History of Man. By J. C. Prichard, M.D.

20

The term Hamitish is not used by Dr Prichard; but as he gives no distinctive appellation to his third division, we adopt that which has been used by Beke and others.

21

The term Arian, used by Dr Prichard, is objectionable as having received a very different application.

22

London: Moxon. 1844.