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IT is a misery to find a good cause, which
requires delicate treatment, placed in the wrong hands. The writer
of Hugh Macdonald's Memoir means well, but has a Brobdingnagian bad way
of showing it. It is apparently written in the early cock-crow of
dawning youth, and in the spirit which can see a Burns in every village
rhymester of all Scotland. There was no need to mount upon stilts
of this height for a tall talk on such a quiet genial subject. The
discourse and its style are ludicrously disproportionate to the matter
which follows. Hugh Macdonald was one of the most modest and amiable
fellows in the world, and he would have shrunk back aghast from this
attempt to clothe him in the suit of an intellectual giant. The
Introducer looms on us so hugely himself that the poor Poet is dwarfed,
instead of being enlarged, by his friend's presence, and almost lost
sight of. Young Glasgow introduces his subject, or rather
himself:—"It was 'a raw and gusty day ;' the rain fell in torrents ; and
'the wind blew as 'twad blawn its last,' yet three hundred men of mind
and merit, kindred spirits to the beloved dead, did battle in along and
straggling row with the boisterous elements and 'bode the pelting of the
pitiless storm,' till they saw the mortal part of Caleb committed to the
dust. Three years after that memorable and mournful funeral, we
find that the history of the departed bard is still to write.
Shall his literary friends take blame to themselves that the work has
been so long delayed? We trow not." We trow that some of them
should take to themselves both blame and shame for having allowed this
writer to ascend and hold forth from the top of the pillar of his
friend's fame, which he is calculated to turn into a pillory.
Again Young Glasgow writes :
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"Well
can we recall his genial presence in a company of local
celebrities, when 'he was the king amang us
a',' and evinced the enviable combination of a fellow of
infinite jest, whose jokes and humour 'set the table in a roar,'
with 'the intellectual giant whose vivid eloquence entranced or
electrified the meeting." |
So the writer informs us that he,
himself, is a local celebrity. Would he had been content to remain so.
But fancy poor Hugh Macdonald's feelings, with his keen sense of irony,
could he have been present at this coronation! We happened to meet
Hugh Macdonald some years ago, liked the man, enjoyed his humour, took
an interest in the story of his life, and feel enough respect for his
memory to wish him rescued from hands more fit to twist a fool's cap
than to twine a crown.
He was, as we have said, of a most modest and genial
nature—one of the many men in Scotland who, in the lowliest walks of
life, will be cultivating a little plot of soil in which to grow the
immortal flower of poetry, and, under the most adverse circumstances,
will tend it with a love that would wring out the last drop of life to
give colour to the wan, delicate blossom, and lean over it and fold it
about with all the strength of their character to shelter and shield it
from the nipping winter of poverty. It may often be a poor thing,
but it is their own, and the offspring of a genuine love. To them
it is a delight of the eye, a pride of the heart, and to them it smells
sweet, though the rest of the world may pass it by as they would the
merest wild flower by the way. There is frequently the eye of the
poet and the heart of the poet, but the tongue is wanting to tell the
world what these see and feel. Nevertheless, we believe this
cherished love of poetry helps to make the poor peasant's life sweeter
with its nestling purity, and hoards in the heart some little pearl of
preciousness for a life beyond. There was more in Hugh Macdonald
than gets adequate expression in his poetry. The world is more
likely to find the man in his prose.
As we remember him, he was a small man who looked as
though there was a keen spirit in the spare body, well knit by the many
blows and much knocking about the world which had served to weld it into
a greater strength. The face was somewhat hard, but the smile that
came out of it was pleasant. The writer of this 'Memoir'
speaks of the "cast in his eye," which he says made him "more amiable,
roguish and interesting." Certainly a great deal of character may
exist in a cast of the eye, from that politic one in Lord Shaftesbury's—
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So politic, as if one eye,
Upon the other were a spy,
That to trepan the one to think
The other blind, both strove to blink,— |
to this of Macdonald, which seemed
to give his eyes a glint of more humorous light, as though they rather
enjoyed the chance of making a little extra fun on the cross.
Charles Lamb would have recognized the proper twinkle in those eyes.
Macdonald was a well-read man, and knew much more than the usual run of
poets belonging to the working-classes. He was very fond of poking
about in out-of-the-way places for quaint specimens of human character.
His mind was rich in legendary lore, and continually tickled into
laughter with some choice waif and stray of the national humour.
We remember his delight at the grotesque exclamation of the poor Paisley
weaver, when he had climbed the heights of Goatfell, and saw the sublime
scenery in all the glory of morning. "Eh, mon, Jock, are na the
works o' God deevilish?" And how he ignited on rubbing against
such an anecdote as the one he used to tell of the old Clyde boatman who
had floated down the river for many years before Steam had taken the
wind out of his sails. One day a steamer came racing alongside his
boat, and quickly passed him by with jeers from those on board. The old
man looked with contempt so long as he could contain himself ; but, when
wound up as far as his feelings would bear, he burst out with his "Ay,
ay, gang alang wi' your deevil's reek. I am just gawn as it
pleases the breath o' God!"
Hugh Macdonald was born in Runford Street,
Bridgetown, Glasgow, on the 4th of April, 1817. His parents were
very poor, and he was sent forth to work at an early age to increase, by
a little, the family earnings. He learned to read as he best
could, and in the absence of other books took to the fields and woods,
hills and glens, upon high days and holidays. He was very early a
rambler in all green places or nestling nooks, and knew every hoary ruin
of man's work, or secret triumph of Nature's, round Glasgow city for
many a mile away. He would trudge a long journey to see the first
snowdrop of the year, the earliest violet, or finest bluebell that
revisited some old haunt. Indeed, we think he was out in the cold
on one of his pilgrimages to the snowdrops the day or so before he died.
In his later writings he had become a sort of flower-gatherer for the
city-folk ; delighting them from time to time with a whiff of fragrance
that lifted the veil of smoke for a moment, as it came fresh from a
handful of Nature's nurslings, or breathed from the sweet slip of legend
that he had found blooming in the rent of some grim castle-wall, or by
the mounds of some old battle-field ; a genuine lover of Nature, who,
came home from his courtship with the smell of her field-fragrance
clinging to him.
Macdonald had a hard fight at times for the means of
living, but he battled on with a sturdy and cheery spirit. We are
told that he loved twice, married his sweethearts one after the other,
and was happy with both of them—the lucky fellow ! One was early "wede
awa"; from the other he has been taken at the age of forty-three.
She was left with a family of five children. Various efforts have
been made by Macdonald's Glasgow friends to raise some provision for
those dear ones that he loved and left behind. Nearly a thousand
pounds have been collected for them, and this book of poems has now been
published with the view of adding to the fund, as we hope it may.
We prefer Macdonald's prose to his poetry, and quote
part of his account of a visit which he made to Prof. Wilson. He
always looked back on that occasion as the top-gallant glory of his
career:—
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"And now I
must say I felt rather afraid to venture into the presence of
the redoubted Kit North, my heart beat rather thickish when I
thought of my hardihood; however, there was no drawing back now,
I must go on. * * In going up the stair to the great man's
study, his sanctum sanctorum, the palpitating symptoms
threatened to return on me; but the moment I was shown in, and
saw his noble intellectual countenance brighten with a smile of
welcome, as he shook me warmly by the hand and led me to a seat,
saying at the same time that he was very glad I had called, I
felt myself quite at home. He was in his workshop among
his books, which were scattered about in all directions in
glorious confusion, none of your gay glittering binding ranged
for show, but mostly 'scuft,' and bearing the marks of having
'seen service.' He sat in his easy chair, with a good
stout cudgel in his hand. Fillan's bust is very correct; I
would have known him by it, although I had never been told who I
was speaking to. His long yellow hair, now silvered and
thinned by time, hanging carelessly over his neck—his fine manly
features, and broad high dome-like head, would have pointed him
out at once as the mighty Christopher. He is becoming
rather fat and corpulent; and when he threw himself back, during
our conversation, in his chair, with the one leg resting on the
other, he brought Shakespere's worthy Sir John, who was not only
witty himself, but the cause of wit in others, forcibly to my
mind. Indeed, I felt above myself, as if he had not only
genius himself, but that for the time he had inspired me with a
portion of his glorious spirit. He said that from my
letter and poetry he had looked for an older man ; that I was
still a very young man, &c. Enquired very kindly after my
circumstances; was very sorry to hear that I had lost a wife.
Said that a great many young men sent him verses, in general the
greatest trash—that they either would not or could not think for
themselves. Said that he had been pleased with both my
letter and verses. * * Said that he had made up his mind
at once, on reading them, to see me ; and again said he was
proud I had called. He then read over 'the birds,' verse
by verse, making remarks on each. 'The lark that sings the
stars asleep:' Did I mean to say that the lark sung after
the stars begun to shine? I said no ; but that this bird
rising in the early morn before the stars begun to fade, and
continuing to sing while they were one after the other
disappearing, might in a poetic sense be supposed to sing them
asleep. Said it was beautiful, but did not strike one at
first. 'The merle that wakes their beam :' He had
often admired the song of the merle while he was wandering in
the saft simmer gloamin'. 'The wagtail by the
forest-spring or lonely waterfall:' Said that he had been once
taken to see a painting of a waterfall, by a very clever artist,
one Harvey, that he had noticed a bird sitting on a stone at the
bottom of it; he had turned to a friend and said this must be a
wagtail. His friend, who was a naturalist, said, No; it is
a waterpyet or ousel; and that this bird was more frequently
found in these situations than the wagtail. I would not
agree to this; said that what I had written was from actual
observation. That the ousel was a comparatively rare bird,
but that it was always to be seen walking about the margin of
the lonely linns ; and that I saw several last time I was in
Killoch Glen. Said he knew that sweet little glen, and he
was glad I had stuck to my point, as his observations and mine
were in accordance with each other. 'The red-breast
wailing sad alone:' He did not think the robin's song a
sad one. When he lived last in the country, one came morning and
evening, and sung sitting on the top of his pig-house, and he
always thought it a very lightsome and blithe song; he used to
be quite charmed with it, but singing, as it did alone, at the
fa' o' the leaf, there was no doubt but it excited melancholy
feelings—this was wholly owing to the associations however.
I said it was probably so, but it appeared sad to me, and I
wrote as I felt. I said I had been to see poor Ferguson's
grave that morning; and while musing there, a red-breast had
burst into song on a poplar tree in the churchyard, and that it
had struck me as a very sad song indeed. He assented.
'Familiar as a mother's voice:' He was not quite sure of
this—there was familiarity in a mother's voice, but there was a
great deal more; it might pass however. 'Matchless mottled
breast:' Thought it would be better without 'matchless.'
'Wells of glee' was a strong phrase, but beautiful, applying
both to throstle and merle, and he thought there was strength
enough without 'matchless.' * * These are the
principal remarks he made on the piece—it was well worth the
pains of polishing, and all short poems should be attended to in
this respect. When he had read it, he folded it carefully
up, placed it in a small rosewood box lying on the table, saying
at the same time, 'I must take care of this.' He asked
what part of Paisley I worked in, and said he was sorry to go to
that place now—the old familiar faces were nearly all gone, even
the houses, he scarcely knew them now. There were only two
families that he knew—the Louses in the Sneddon, and some old
ladies named Orr, somewhere in Causeyside. He minded the
Louses, they came from England when boys; and he remembered very
well, that he envied their roast beef and plum-pudding dinner,
when he only got his parritch and milk. When he was last
in Paisley, he went to see the garden outside the town, where he
used to go for gooseberries, and to look for birds' nests when a
boy. He had gone into some old haunt of his childhood (a
garden), when an old woman came out and looked after him, as
much as to say 'I'm no very sure about you'; he said he was glad
to walk off. He had known very little of Tannahill
until very recently. He said he had left Paisley when a
boy, before Tannahill's time, and was in England for a
lengthened period; and somehow, even when he came on visits to
his native place, his friends had never spoken to him of the
weaver bard. Talking of Wordsworth, he said that he had
met him when a young man in England; Wordsworth's poetry was
then very much ridiculed, even his most beautiful productions.
I said that Wordsworth was much indebted to him for the high
degree of popularity he now enjoyed; that it was, for instance,
almost altogether through his writings an Wordsworth's poetry
that I knew anything of it. He considered this great poet
had been unfairly treated, and he had done what he could to
place his writings before the public in their proper light.
He did not think that Wordsworth would ever be very popular, it
was only the few who could devote a considerable portion of
thought to his works, who could perceive the peculiar beauties
of his poetry. * * So we shook hands, and I came away with
a heart rinin' ower wi' gratitude, pride, and love to the
greatest mind I have ever met, or in all likelihood ever may
meet in this world." |
We trust that our opening remarks
on the want of taste with which this book has been sent into the world
may not militate against its success. That is not our meaning.
In fact, it needs all the more support in consequence. |
