after
Culloden
!
Athenaeum - London - 1912a
,
Coming to tables of separate grades,
the debasing of the coinage under Ed-
we find engine - drivers receiving the
making of individual men rich regardless ward VI. , and the enclosure of common highest rates of pay, at 408. weekly, with
of social consequences, but the development lands at the beginning of the eighteenth an average bonus of 3d. When, however,
of the resources of the country for the pro- century. But, where he deals with the find the average to be 21.
58. 11d. , or 58. 8d.
motion of the happy and rational life of its present position, his indictment is on all
people,”
fours with that of our previous author;
a week beyond the nominal rate. This,
on the face of it, indicates overwork to
and that the separation of capital and witness the only quotation we can permit the value of more than 58.
a week,
or over
labour, which has proved so disastrous, ourselves :-
two-thirds of a seventh day. The facts
could have been avoided by co-operation. “Equally certainly the labourer has little are not quite so bad, however, since the
Some consolation may be derived un- to be thankful for. It may be said that method of paying partly by the trip leads
doubtedly from the fact that a higher good he gets now for nothing what he used to in some instances to payments higher
-a greater conception of God-must ever have to pay for. But we must insist that than the nominal wage without overtime.
emerge from a knowledge of evil, which is those who do the world's work have a right Even so,
the amount of overtime
perhaps the mightiest
truth enshrouded in thisufficiente
payment not to freed to be given indicated'is far too high.
the story of our first parents.
ourselves on what we give when we with- Signalmen, upon whose attention and
The points where, in our opinion, hold what is due is to aggravate the offence efficiency so many human lives depend,
vision is most clarified by the work which exists. "
have a nominal average wage of 24s. 8d. ,
concern, first, the wholesale exploitation
Mr. George Bourne may question the raised by bonuses to 258. 4d. ; but the aver-
of the 66
higher middle classes ”
by the
unloading on them of stocks and shares e appropriateness of including his book age of actual earnings is 278: 6d. Thirty-
such a heading as that
that we five per cent of the 26,800 odd signal-
the dividends from which enable them have adopted, but in spite of his more
men were paid at rates of between 258.
to maintain a position which would be optimistic outlook, exemplified in his and 308. , and over 51 per cent at wages
impossible if they had to rely, as the eulogy of the forces of “ the new civiliza- of between 208. and 253. Now the father
“ lower classes do, on the meagretion, we find the key-note of his sym- of a family whose wages are below 30s.
recompense for their individual labours. pathetic discourse in his words regarding a week cannot, in the large towns of this
Secondly, Mr. Henderson exposes the those same forces :-
country, be so lodged and fed as to be
bolstering up of the manual labour
physically and mentally capable for many
market - economically rotten — by relief “ There is a vague menace in them. They years at a time of duties requiring so
works and those forms of doles which betoken to all the labouring people that their much alertness and concentration
have made the very enunciation of the old home is no longer quite at their own
once beautiful word “- charity” nauseating disposal, but is at the mercy of a new class those of a signalman. It is, indeed, a
who would willingly see their departure. ”
question whether any man is fit to fulfil
to those who have delved below the surface
such duties for many hours on six (not to
of our boasted civilization.
In seeking after palliation for the say seven) consecutive days. But the aver-
present condition of things he even finds age weekly hours of duty among signal-
The Labour Unrest : What It Is and What a good word for our yellow press, and,
It Portonds. By Fred Henderson. (Jar. though we should like to join him in times and overtime)
men“ in à Full Week (exclusive of meal-
rold & Sons. )
were 62; and as
his high opinion of the activities of the their average actual earnings exceeded
The English Agricultural Labourer. By the village church, we confess that to us
Rev. A. H. Baverstock. With an Intro they often smack more of the drilling wages” (including average bonus), the
by 23. 2d. weekly their average
rate of
duction by G. K. Chesterton. (A. C. into submissive attitude of the “under nominal "Full Week” must have been
Fifield. )
Change in the Village. By George Bourne, ethics among their “ betters. ”
dogs” than an inculcating of Christian generally exceeded. The nominal hours
(Duckworth & Co. )
of engine drivers considerably exceeded,
Report of an Enquiry by the Board of Trade Railway Report is that it was not issued in a week.
The greatest fault to be found with the as has already been noted—were also 62
Let any hard-working man
Workpeople of the United Kingdom. —VII. last summer. If any member of the consider what it would mean to himself
Railway Service in 1907. (Stationery public could, for the expenditure of 28. 3d. , to drive an engine for, say, 66 hours
Office. )
have ascertained the actual wages and every week, in all weathers, with an
A Living Wage : a National Necessity. By hours of the men who were then preparing annual holiday of, at the most, 6 to 12
C. C. Cotterill. (A. C. Fifield. )
for the strike that caused so much incon- | days, for an average actual payment of
>
as
## p. 217 (#171) ############################################
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
217
even more
as
a
-
21. 58. lld. weekly. Yet the engine-
state of severe illness. James was suffer-
NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES.
drivers are the millionaires of the railway
ing from threatenings of apoplexy—the
service. Let him reflect upon the work The Fugitives. By Margaret Fletcher. disease from which his brother had died,
-familiar now to all Londoners-of lift- (Longmans & Co. )
and from which he himself was to die
men and gatemen on electric railways,
and from that most enfeebling symptom,
and consider how such men
ran 21. STORIES about art students or about violent, prolonged, and recurrent bleeding
respectably—if they marry-upon average for the reader. Of course, as a matter according to the custom of the time,
theatrical life have always a fascination from the nose, for which his physicians,
earnings of form 248. to 258. 6d.
of fact, artists and actors, like other bled him four times during the week.
London these earnings are
inadequate to-day than they were in 1907, people who really earn their livings,
Surely, too, it is rash to declare that
and a rise in wages of 28. 6d. a week spend
the greater part of their time in Charles II. had “ little wit ; for, despite
between 1907 and 1912 is merely enough solitary work that lends itself no better the usual supposition, he appears to have
--if, indeed, it is enough to keep to description than that of the writer or been
tiresome
of the analytical chemist. But they work because he recounted too much. ”
raconteur, just
a family abreast of the increased cost
It
of living.
in groups, and their professions have
outward signs — the palette and the favourite narrative remains, and is excel-
was not that he recounted too much-his
In spite of certain obvious objections brushes and the pretty colours, the grease lent reading—but that he recounted too
to the nationalization of railways, no paint and the rouge familiar enough often- an infirmity from which wits of
person who studies these figures can avoid to be easily imagined, yet strange enough the first order are not exempt.
asking himself whether, if it be really to be romantic. The students of Miss
true that private enterprise cannot so
Fletcher's novel are real students, with
manage the great highways of communica- the material in them of real artists, and
tion as to combine cheap efficiency for they are set-three refined English girls | The Victories of Olivia. By Evelyn Sharp.
the public with a decent livelihood for
-in the cosmopolitan roughness of a
(Macmillan & Co. )
the men employed, it may not become Parisian studio twenty-one years ago. It is seldom indeed that we find a col-
They are genuinely interesting people ; | lection of stories so uniformly good as
highways. It has already taken over the and the whole story has charm. Perhaps The Victories of Olivia. ' We have only
carriage roads, the prisons, and the the best things in it are the vignette of noted two occasions on which the author
delivery of letters, which were also, in the Australian painter, of whom, almost strays markedly from the paths of real
their day, private enterprises, and as a without one descriptive word, we are
are life into the realm of artifice
rule exceedingly ill-managed.
-even then
made to feel the singular offensiveness ; her situations are possibilities, if not
Mr. Cotterill's pamphlet ‘A Living and the everyday tragedy of the girl probabilities. She is particularly happy
Wage' is too largely given over to whom her ignorantly selfish family pull when writing of children and young
sentimentality to gain the considera- back again into domestic servitude at people, her delineations of their thoughts,
tion that it really deserves. The great the very moment when she was reasonably conversation, and point of view all being
dependence he places on law-making will hoping to succeed and to help that family touched with delightful humour and
hardly commend itself to those who hope with her earnings.
with her earnings. To some the tacit understanding. If one story more than
more from an awakening of the social assumption that Roman Catholicism is the another lingers in the memory, it is,
conscience than from any legislation, and one and only religion will be irritating.
perhaps, that ofJimmy's Aunts, whose
is open to much the same objections as
spare room had never before held any-
can be advanced against the magistrate
thing so young as thirteen-and-a-half, or
who orders a thrashing to the worst John Stuart. By Robert Vansittart. so masculine as the possessor of a bowling
type of criminal—with the hope of bringing (John Murray. )
average. ”
The dialogue is refreshingly
him into a state of temporary subjection,
during which the processes of thought The reader who hopes to find here a novel witty and to the point throughout.
may have an opportunity to develope.
in the strict sense of the word will be
Nor have we much more sympathy with few disjointed facts in the history of a
disappointed. He will find, instead, a
our author's suggestions for individual real man, who, apparently, has entirely
Manalive. By G. K. Chesterton. (Nelson. )
enterprise in assuaging present distress, escaped previous record, and a con- THIS is the story of the irruption of
unless he means to infer the abandon- siderable quantity of connecting tissue Innocent Smith — like a great, cloud-
ment of all superfluity by the well-to-do
woven, confessedly, by Mr. Vansittart's shouldering wind-into the life of a
until such time as
,
children can affirm that they are so placed imagination. This weaving is very skil
. dreary suburban boarding - house. He
that day by day they must sink lower and fully done, and the figure thus completed enters it over
the garden-wall in chase
lower in the scale, on account of the im- fortunately, the plan adopted involves he plays, in the course of one day, a
has every appearance of reality. Un- of his hat, which he catches with his feet ;
possibility of obtaining the time or the
many explanatory pages about politics hundred mad pranks, which release the
means for recreating the energy expended contemporary with the time of the boarders from their dreariness and cause
in their ceasuless scramble to exist.
tale, but long since dead. Such pages them to imitate him—though they them-
When we hear the ancient cry“ Watch- (seldom interesting, even in the hands of selves hardly know why they do so ;
man, will the night soon pass ?
à master) are of value only when the he fires a revolver at an eminent doctor,
feel we cannot yet give the Handelian writer is a thoroughly well-informed and and thus runs a close risk of being
response, though we would fain hope accurate historian; and Mr. Vansittart shut up as a criminal lunatic. The
that the labour world is now surrounded is not always accurate. Especially is he farce is a wild one; it is besides, as
by that visible darkness which pre- unjust to that much-maligned monarch Mr. Chesterton's readers will expect, a
cedes the dawn. Whether this is so James II. To represent as a coward a parable. With the general sense of this-
or not, there can be no doubt that the man who had passed through three cam- that going right round the world is (or
face of youth is turned towards the East; paigns literally at the elbow of the great may be] the shortest way to where you
and so to youth may yet be applied the Turenne, and of whom Turenne had are already”; that one must become a
words Mr. Eden Philpotts wrote when declared that "he was like to be the pilgrim to cure oneself of being an exile
Swinburne passed :
best general of his time,” is to follow-most people, on reflection, will agree.
Macaulay at his worst. Moreover, Mac- Most people, too, will enjoy the epigrams
Seer before the sunrise, may there come,
Spirits of dawn to light this aching wrong
aulay must have known, and Mr. Vansit- of Mr. Chesterton. But the book seems
Cated Earth! Thou saw'st them in the fore-glow roam;
But we still wait and watch, still thirst and long.
tart could easily have discovered, that to us to lack two things essential for
the conduct described as irresolute and first-rate work: first, the art of the story-
vacillating at the time of William's teller ; and, secondly, the appearance of
invasion was the conduct of a man in a spontaneity.
66
we still
## p. 218 (#172) ############################################
218
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
seven
SCOTTISH BOOKS.
History of Scotland to the Present Time. MR. ANDREW LANG's Short History of
By P. Hume Brown. Vols. I. and II. With Scotland (Blackwood) is, in all essentials, a
Maps and Illustrations. (Cambridge Uni. condensation of his four-volume 'History of
HISTORY AND GENEALOGY.
versity Press. This valuable history of Scotland from the Roman Occupation’;
The Awakening of Scotland. By W. Law Scotland has now been before the public for and as regards matters of debate and opinion
Mathieson. (Glasgow, MacLehose & Sons. )
a sufficiently long period—the first volume the same criticism might be applied to the
In “a history” of Scotland “from 1747 to was published in 1899—for its merits to smaller work that was applied to the larger.
1797” Mr. Mathieson has not a very
obtain due recognition, and the publica- David Hume, writing to Adam Smith in
interesting subject. The leading minds in tion of an illustrated edition offers an 1759, asks Smith to “flatter my vanity
Scotland Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith-opportunity for renewing the welcome we by telling me that all the godly in Scotland
for whose books Charles Lamb had such a offered it on its first appearance, and ex. abuse me for my account of John Knox
terribly “imperfect sympathy,” were doing pressing the gratification we feel at the hand and the Reformation. ” Mr. Lang has
their best to anglicize themselves, at least
some form in which it is now issued. The suffered sufficient abuse on that and other
in style and language. The sons of nobles and illustrations are a real help to the student of grounds, such as his exposure of the tyranny
gentlemen were being sent, though perhaps Scottish life and manners, though their of the Kirk and his views of the Covenanters.
not in many cases, to English public schools. cogency might have been enforced to the But he holds to his opinions ; and rightly
The mercantile classes were steadily making advantage of the ordinary reader by a few so, for they are backed up by documentary
money ; landlords were “improving " their lines of general description.
evidence, the results of original research
estates with social results which Burns
which popular" writers, truckling to un-
thought deplorable. The political repre- We take the opportunity of this reissue informed Scottish sentiment and tradition,
sentatives of the country at Westminster to make some remarks on the work as a for the most part gaily ignore. The old
were really not remarkable persons ; many whole. We feel that Prof. Hume Brown troubled subject of Mary Stuart and the
Scots got profit, most of them deservedly, out constantly under-estimates his audience. Casket Letters is here raised again, but
of Buto's administration, and shared in his A History of Scotland' is written primarily that subject, too, has already been fully
extreme unpopularity. The Moderates and for Scotsmen, but when it is published by exploited by the author, and it is only
High Flyers kept up their strife in the Kirk. an English University Press, it seems likely necessary to note that his former arguments
Wº know much about them already, from that a South British public is also intended tending to suggest that parts of the letter
Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk, and Burns's verses on to read it. Yet time after time the author usually numbered II. are forged, he now
the High Flyers. We know how Scots began goes into an elaborate account of a Scottish believes to be unavailing (p. 129). In a
to take the lead in literature, philosophy, mediæval institution without alluding to the word, we have here & digest, done with
even science; we know about John Hume, well-known English one of which it is a practised skill and judgment and literary
and the Moderates, and the theatre ; we more or less faithful copy. To the mind grace, of all the author's numerous writings
know about Macpherson and Ossian, and of an unprejudiced observer it would seem that come within the scope of Scottish
* The Epigoniad which was admired by that, so far as mediæval Scotland had any history. The 'Conclusion is (shall we say
Hume.
fixed constitution at all, it was a mere copy significantly ? ) abrupt, for Mr. Lang gives
Henry Grey Graham told the story of of the English altered to fit Scottish only seven pages to the history of Scotland
everyday life with great vivacity, if not with conditions.
after Culloden ! The picturesque and the
complete sympathy. The history of the
romantic element has gone, and
Highlands receives but slight attention from Further, Prof. Hume Brown says in his pages suffice to cover the story from 1746 to
Mr. Mathieson, though the romance of the Preface that in all three volumes changes 1911 !
lost cause was living yet, in a tangle of have been introduced where later investiga- MR. ROBERT S. Rait is one of the younger
intrigues. The land question has perhaps tions rendered them necessary. But we school of historians who exemplify the
never been treated in a truly historical have sought in vain for any recognition of the best methods of modern research. An Aber-
spirit, and Mr. Mathieson has not much to important Tudor and Stuart Proclama. donian by birth, he has already proved
say about this miserably important matter. tions published at the close of 1910, under himself a sympathetic investigator in two
On the other hand, he is justifiably copious the direction of the Earl of Crawford. The volumes dealing, the one with The Scottish
about the amazing state of representation account of the history of the Scottish Privy Parliament, the other with ‘The Relations
of the people in Parliament and in the Council there given shows it as the com- between England and Scotland. '
His
municipalities; and about the political mittee of management of the governing Scotland, in “The Making of the Nations
awakening,” which was pretty violent. We faction during the long succession of Stuart Series (A. & C. Black), is an equally careful
are enabled to understand that of these minorities before the accession of James VI. piece of work, sound in historical fact,
two rather distasteful parties in the Kirk, to power, and the carefully traced-out critical and dispassionate, and dealing, for
the Moderates and the High Flyers, the analogy of the Conventions of Estates to the the most part, with just those periods in
latter had more of the right on their side. Great Councils of England and Ireland in which it is possible to trace a real advance
Scott said once, with passion, that if you mediæval times should in future prevent in the national development. A work of
anglicized the Scottish people you would any historian from saying that the distinc. this kind imposes obvious limitations on
“make them d—d bad Englishmen. ” Per. tion between them and Parliaments is the author. Given “ ample room and
haps some Englishmen may agree with him. vague. To any student of original docu- verge enough,” he would enlarge on many
À penetrating study of the Bar, the ments the fact that the records of Great important themes which can only be briefly
judges, and legal procedure would have Councils and Conventions of Estates are discussed, if referred to at all, in a
been full of matter. From the trial of kept in the Privy Council Registers, while small volume. In such circumstances the
James Stewart of the Glens, the trial of the those of Parliaments are kept on the Parlia- selection of topics must be & difficult
men accused of the murder of Sergeant ment Rolls, should be conclusive. It is, problem ; but we cannot quite approve
Dacres, and above all from the trial of however, when we come to the troublous of Mr. Rait's decision to stop short with
Katherine Nairn, the most surprising, tragic, times of Charles I. and the Commonwealth his detail at Culloden. Mr. Lang has the
and romantic pictures of Scottish life while that the history suffers most by the author's same deficiency, as we have noted above, in
Scotland was waking might be selected. oversight. It was permissible to say for his 'Short History of Scotland. Mr. Rait
The behaviour of advocates and judges, and merly that Montrose summoned a. Parlia- pleads that “the events of the last hundred
the whole process of the law, are in a high ment to meet at Glasgow in October, 1645, and fifty years. . . . defy anything like com-
degree surprising. “ What the ghost said “in his Majesty's name," but not after the pression, and, as it is impossible to say
(the ghost of the Sergeant) was given in existence of the original proclamation, under much, I have said almost nothing. " But
evidence. Patrick Ogilvy was hanged for the sign manual docketed by the Secretary of Scotland has seen a good deal of “making. "
poisoning of his brother with arsenic, though State, had been calendared. The account since the '45; and in a work of this kind it
no attempt was made to find that substance of the behaviour of Charles at Newcastle in seems to us more expedient to compress the
in the body of the decedent. Mr. Mathieson 1646 would have been amended by the very early history and extend the later.
has avoided such interesting matters; perhaps knowledge that he did actually accept the This apart, the book is wholly admirable.
his book is too short, though on his chosen Scottish conditions. Prof. Brown does not in a series of ten chapters the gradual evolu-
themes he has certainly " said what he ought profess to be an authority on the Crom- tion of the nation is traced from the Roman
to ha' said "-but then so much of what he wellian settlement of Scotland, and he invasions and the Norse settlements down-
says is already familiar. He had better frequently slips on minor points; for example, wards. The first period specially dealt with
themes in his earlier volumes, when Scotland in saying that seven Commissioners, four is that of Malcolm Canmore and his imme-
was still a nation, and a nation by no means English and three Scots, were charged with diate successors, in which the Celtic kingdom
drowsy. She was, in fact, always fairly the double function of
administering of Scotland was profoundly affected by
wide awake, though inappreciative of the justice and of visiting the universities. ” Anglo-Norman influences. Mr. Rait rightly
beauties—or opposed to the horrors of Only three of the seven sat on both Comº ascribes more influence to Margaret than to
“ Material Progress. ”
missions.
her husband, Malcolm III. , in matters that
>
## p. 219 (#173) ############################################
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
219
66
as
8
66
as
we
ultimately affected “the real conquest of has dedicated his volume to a compatriot
England. " She objected to the Celtic whose name is familiar_to every Canadian,
Church in Scotland because of its inefficient the Duke of Argyll. Dr. Bryce, from his
MEMOIRS AND REMINISCENCES.
organization and the use which it made of place in that city of magical growth which
the Gaelic tongue :-
We cannot honestly say that Mrs. J. L.
forms the gate and the emporium of the
“ The Gaelic tongue was thus associated with new Canada—the thousand-mile-long wheat Story, the widow of the late Principal of
the Celtic Church, and the Queen waged a merci. field—has chosen to deal with the Scotsmen Glasgow University, has recorded much that
less and gradually successful warfare against both. of Western Canada, and, appropriately,
is worth preserving in her Early Reminiscences
The task was not accomplished in Margaret's
has dedicated his work to Lord Strathcona, (Glasgow, MacLehose). “I have taken my
lifetime, but the irrevocable step had been taken,
and she left her children to carry on her work. ” the oldest and most distinguished of all courage in my two hands,” she writes,
theo ts. -dent diand, most mements of experi- cand amenom tening to marked, though
Mr. Rait is especially successful in his ences and friendship shared in Winnipeg still trivial incidents that have occurred
treatment of the War of Independence,
which he describes as
" in the early seventies. ”
But it must not be supposed that these during a life that has been protracted
“the story of how the people of Scotland,
to the outstanding age of 83 years. ". Mrs.
deserted by the nobility, asserted their independ? notable men as Lord Strathcona, Sir John A. Story claims that
there may be
human
gentleman, and how after his defeat they
rallied Macdonald, Lord Selkirk, Sir James
Douglas, We do not deny it. For instance, she tells
again round an Anglo-Norman noble whose deed
of blood severed him from his ancient loyalty On the contrary, their scope goes beyond that, before her marriage, she inaugurated
afternoon tea
the lives of individuals, and, particularly
(then known
As regards the Reformation and the subse in the case of Mr. Campbell's volume, afterwards, her husband, the Principal,
quent ecclesiastical turmoil, Mr. Rait shares embraces the origins and histories of afterwards, her husband, the Principal,
independence of judgment with Mr. Lang, settlements, in fact, the peopling and
was "complimented” on the fact by some
and his views will doubtless provoke some development of Canada, and the genesis little to do," he replied, rather grimly.
gossiping friend. “Then my wife had very
controversy. Scotsmen do not like the and rise of its institutions. If Dr. Bryce's
The human interest comes out here in
traditional romance of their history to be work has the more exact information, Mr.
the fact that Dr. Story usually fled the after-
dissipated, and they would rather be told, Campbell's has the more imaginative insight.
noon tea ! His wife would rate him for
one recent historian tells them, that
his “inhospitable behaviour," but "in my
“after the new Church became established, The Scots Peerage. Edited by Sir James heart of hearts I honestly allowed that
toleration was generally practised,” than Balfour Paul. Vol. VIII. (Edinburgh, his actual conduct was angelic. '
This sort
be told, as Mr. Rait tells them, that "the David Douglas. )—This is the last volume of of “ trivial incident” bulks largely in Mrs.
cruel, repressive measures against Roman this important work, if we exclude the extra Story's digressive pages. Here and there,
Catholics for two centuries are a dark stain one of corrigenda et addenda which we are
on the history of Protestant Scotland. ” promised. The families it contains include reminiscence.
however, one lights upon an interesting
Mr. Rait, however, is right. A Parliament four of those on which Sir William Fraser Thackeray, and noted the velvety softness
As a young woman she met
illegally summoned changed the religion of wrote-Carnegie of Southesk, the Earls of of his hand. In a lady I have now and
the country, and substituted one series of Sutherland, Wemyss of Wemyss, and the
again observed the same peculiarity, but
dogmas for another. “Of liberty and tolera- old Earls of Strathearn. We are glad to find it is rare ; in a man I have only once besides
tion no one thought. ” “The new clergy that the Rev. John Anderson, whose death remarked it. " She had a distinct talent
made claims as dangerous to civil liberty as is deplored in the prefatory note, was able for music, and once sang to Jenny Lind,
the old. " "The Parliament, long a tool into abridge some of these histories for the
of whom, as of Mario, Grisi, Rubinstein,
the hands of the King, was soon to become present work. As he had assisted Sir Thalberg, Jullien, and other stars,'
a tool in the hands of the Church. ” It may William Fraser, they have a special value. have
readable recollections. The
be very disillusioning to Scotsmen to have The volume is, like those that preceded it, author settled in Edinburgh about 1830,
to admit all this, but it is true, and Mr. unequal. Female cadets or their issue are and glimpses of the social life of the capital
Rait's work is none the less, but all the more, included or excluded at the will of the
valuable, historically, because it runs counter writer or the editor, so that one will in thirty years later fill up a great part
from that time till her marriage some
to“ popular" beliefs. There are some good many cases be forced to supplement the of her book. With that event the record
illustrations and a full index.
information contained in it by other works. stops, but she expresses to her readers
the
The difference in the number of references fond anticipation that one day we may
The Scotsman in Canada : Eastern Canada, is very striking also—the article “Traquair
meet again,” in which case we should look
including Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, (of the cadets of which more might be for matter of more general interest.
New Brunswick,, Quebec, and Ontario, by known) containing, hardly any, whereas
Wilfred Campbell ; and Western Canadă, Tullibardino' and Seton, Earl of Winton' We have noted one or two slips. Sterndale
including Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, (which is particularly good), simply bristle Bennett's name is spelt with one t, which is
British Columbia, and Portions of old with important foot-notes. Still, the articles strange from one of his pupils; and it was
Rupert's Land and the Indian Territories, are well done on the whole, and now ground Handel
, not Beethoven, who declared that
by George Bryce. (Sampson Low & Co. )— has been broken in many. Among these he would rather have composed ‘Robin
Last year Mr. J. M. Gibbon's interesting are 'Stair,' useful, although it gives less than Adair, than all his own immortal produc-
little book “Scots in Canada' (see Athen. , one hoped about the early origin of the tions. "
July 15, 1911, p. 71) reminded us of the pro. Dalrymples ; the “Earls of Strathmore,'
minent part which Scotsmen have played, which hints that the Lyons, the first known Three Generations : the Story of a Middle-
and are playing to-day, in the development of member of which family dates temp. David II. , Class Scottish Family. By Henrietta Keddie.
that most progressive portion of our Empire, may have a Celtic origin, and quotes much (John Murray. )-The interest and value of
British North America. What Mr. Gibbon's from writs at Glamis ; Fleming, Earl of these reminiscences can best be gauged
book briefly indicated and touched upon, Wigtown'; 'Sandilands, Lord Torphichen when we realize that the younger of the
these two important volumes record and (allied to the Douglas " of auld "); 'Hay, “ three generations in question is repre-
analyze with painstaking thoroughness and Earl of Tweeddale'; Lord Spynie'; sented by a narrator whose memory retains
marked ability. That the research necessary the 'Earls of Stirling' (the writer goes out an impression of the floral street-arches
for the compilation of such a work as this of his way to accuse, without giving evidence, which honoured the passing of the first
has been a labour of love for Mr. Wilfred the Parisian “Seer" Mlle. Le Normand of Reform Bill. Miss Keddie has many enter-
Campbell, the well-known poet and scholar forgery); and. 'Lord Somerville. In the taining things to say about the Mid-Victorian
of Ottawa, and for Dr. George Bryce of last (and it is interesting when tonures celebrities with whom, in the course of her
Winnipeg, we can well believe. That their are so much in evidence) we find a curious long and active life, she has come into con-
effort was worth the making no one will reddendo for lands, viz. , a pair of hose con- tact, especially after her gift of writing
doubt who looks, even cursorily, into the taining half an ell of English cloth to be given attractive fiction for young people had se-
nine hundred odd
pages
of the two to the fastest runner from the East End of cured her a position in literary society. But
volumes. Outside the
of “The the town of Carnwath to the cross called the principal charm of the book lies, to our
Makers of Canada " library, the publi- | Cawlo Cross. "
thinking, in its memories of a still earlier
cation of which in Toronto was recently The volume might be more accurate in day, and the breadth and sympathy with
completed, we know of nothing more com. detail. In the Corrigenda the name of Dr. which they are handled. The writer refrains
prehensive, in the shape of biographical Tireman, Sub-Dean of Chichester (p. 85),
to an altogether unusual extent from exalt-
and historical records of the lives and should be filled up, the alteration of Graham ing the past at the expense of the present,
doings of the Dominion's more prominent of Inchbrackie (p: 236) to “Graeme. " made, She readily admits that the white scourge;"
citizens, than · The Scotsman in Canada. ' and in the Wemyss tree (p. 514) “ Keek”
consumption, “ which still slays its thousands,
Mr. Campbell has dealt with the Scotsmen should be Kock, and (p. 518) “ Yorks" in the beginning of the nineteenth century
of his own side of Canada, the east; and 'Yorke.
slow its tens of thousands. "
She bears
some
66
covers
## p. 220 (#174) ############################################
220
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
con-
66
66
ungrudging testimony to the great improve-
the removal of ancient landmarks in the
ment in the instruction now provided for EDINBURGH AND DEESIDE.
interval since the first issue appeared ;
girls, while reserving for the old system the
and, as it now stands, it is one of the best
merit, which, as carried out by some teachers,
it doubtless possessed, of developing general
GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH are, in the works in print dealing with the Scottish
intelligence. The
· popular” mind, regarded as rivals eternally removed. It is hardly correct to speak of
capital. There are trilling slips still to be
decline of those
vivial habits which made life a martyrdom criticizing each other --Glasgow sneering at
,
for many women not otherwise unhappily
Edinburgh's
of Porto-
genteel pride," and Edin- Hugh Miller as a “frequenter
situated is also duly recognized by her. burgh, sneering at Glasgow's
bello, since he lived there from 1852 till his
commercial
But the gaiety, the endurance, the bound-
taint
death in 1856. The family of Forrest are
and her smoky, sunless atmosphere.
less hospitality, the strong family affection Princes Street is regarded by many travelled still in possession of Comiston, though the
of that bygone day, are vividly brought people as the finest street in the world. It was Nathaniel
Gow, not his father, the
seems to .
before us.
Almost, indeed, we are led to I but it was a Glasgow man who called it
feel that the balance of happiness lay with
only hauf a street,” because the buildings (p. 23) " began selling fiddles and reel
more famous Niel (never in business), who
the two earlier of the three generations
are all on one side. Obviously, then, no
music at 41, North Bridge. It was in his
commemorated. Certainly Miss Keddie her- greater compliment could be paid to the
self and her sisters seem to have enjoyed a
Scottish capital than to have her praises St. John's Hill, that Campbell wrote his
dusky lodging" in Rose Street, not at
less lively girlhood than their mother and celebrated by a Glasgow man; and that is
* Pleasures of Hope. ' The Rev. Sir Henry
aunts, with their quilting parties and what has been done by Mr. James Bone in
bleaching frolics. But this was mainly due his sumptuous volume Edinburgh Revisited Wellwood Moncreiff (not “Moncrieff”) was
never minister of St. Cuthbert's parish
to a change of residence which condemned (Sidgwick & Jackson). It is said that we
“ Present
them to an exile in the depths of the country, may foretaste the future in the judgments church, as suggested at p. 203.
If that be so, Mr. century at p.
Coming to tables of separate grades,
the debasing of the coinage under Ed-
we find engine - drivers receiving the
making of individual men rich regardless ward VI. , and the enclosure of common highest rates of pay, at 408. weekly, with
of social consequences, but the development lands at the beginning of the eighteenth an average bonus of 3d. When, however,
of the resources of the country for the pro- century. But, where he deals with the find the average to be 21.
58. 11d. , or 58. 8d.
motion of the happy and rational life of its present position, his indictment is on all
people,”
fours with that of our previous author;
a week beyond the nominal rate. This,
on the face of it, indicates overwork to
and that the separation of capital and witness the only quotation we can permit the value of more than 58.
a week,
or over
labour, which has proved so disastrous, ourselves :-
two-thirds of a seventh day. The facts
could have been avoided by co-operation. “Equally certainly the labourer has little are not quite so bad, however, since the
Some consolation may be derived un- to be thankful for. It may be said that method of paying partly by the trip leads
doubtedly from the fact that a higher good he gets now for nothing what he used to in some instances to payments higher
-a greater conception of God-must ever have to pay for. But we must insist that than the nominal wage without overtime.
emerge from a knowledge of evil, which is those who do the world's work have a right Even so,
the amount of overtime
perhaps the mightiest
truth enshrouded in thisufficiente
payment not to freed to be given indicated'is far too high.
the story of our first parents.
ourselves on what we give when we with- Signalmen, upon whose attention and
The points where, in our opinion, hold what is due is to aggravate the offence efficiency so many human lives depend,
vision is most clarified by the work which exists. "
have a nominal average wage of 24s. 8d. ,
concern, first, the wholesale exploitation
Mr. George Bourne may question the raised by bonuses to 258. 4d. ; but the aver-
of the 66
higher middle classes ”
by the
unloading on them of stocks and shares e appropriateness of including his book age of actual earnings is 278: 6d. Thirty-
such a heading as that
that we five per cent of the 26,800 odd signal-
the dividends from which enable them have adopted, but in spite of his more
men were paid at rates of between 258.
to maintain a position which would be optimistic outlook, exemplified in his and 308. , and over 51 per cent at wages
impossible if they had to rely, as the eulogy of the forces of “ the new civiliza- of between 208. and 253. Now the father
“ lower classes do, on the meagretion, we find the key-note of his sym- of a family whose wages are below 30s.
recompense for their individual labours. pathetic discourse in his words regarding a week cannot, in the large towns of this
Secondly, Mr. Henderson exposes the those same forces :-
country, be so lodged and fed as to be
bolstering up of the manual labour
physically and mentally capable for many
market - economically rotten — by relief “ There is a vague menace in them. They years at a time of duties requiring so
works and those forms of doles which betoken to all the labouring people that their much alertness and concentration
have made the very enunciation of the old home is no longer quite at their own
once beautiful word “- charity” nauseating disposal, but is at the mercy of a new class those of a signalman. It is, indeed, a
who would willingly see their departure. ”
question whether any man is fit to fulfil
to those who have delved below the surface
such duties for many hours on six (not to
of our boasted civilization.
In seeking after palliation for the say seven) consecutive days. But the aver-
present condition of things he even finds age weekly hours of duty among signal-
The Labour Unrest : What It Is and What a good word for our yellow press, and,
It Portonds. By Fred Henderson. (Jar. though we should like to join him in times and overtime)
men“ in à Full Week (exclusive of meal-
rold & Sons. )
were 62; and as
his high opinion of the activities of the their average actual earnings exceeded
The English Agricultural Labourer. By the village church, we confess that to us
Rev. A. H. Baverstock. With an Intro they often smack more of the drilling wages” (including average bonus), the
by 23. 2d. weekly their average
rate of
duction by G. K. Chesterton. (A. C. into submissive attitude of the “under nominal "Full Week” must have been
Fifield. )
Change in the Village. By George Bourne, ethics among their “ betters. ”
dogs” than an inculcating of Christian generally exceeded. The nominal hours
(Duckworth & Co. )
of engine drivers considerably exceeded,
Report of an Enquiry by the Board of Trade Railway Report is that it was not issued in a week.
The greatest fault to be found with the as has already been noted—were also 62
Let any hard-working man
Workpeople of the United Kingdom. —VII. last summer. If any member of the consider what it would mean to himself
Railway Service in 1907. (Stationery public could, for the expenditure of 28. 3d. , to drive an engine for, say, 66 hours
Office. )
have ascertained the actual wages and every week, in all weathers, with an
A Living Wage : a National Necessity. By hours of the men who were then preparing annual holiday of, at the most, 6 to 12
C. C. Cotterill. (A. C. Fifield. )
for the strike that caused so much incon- | days, for an average actual payment of
>
as
## p. 217 (#171) ############################################
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
217
even more
as
a
-
21. 58. lld. weekly. Yet the engine-
state of severe illness. James was suffer-
NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES.
drivers are the millionaires of the railway
ing from threatenings of apoplexy—the
service. Let him reflect upon the work The Fugitives. By Margaret Fletcher. disease from which his brother had died,
-familiar now to all Londoners-of lift- (Longmans & Co. )
and from which he himself was to die
men and gatemen on electric railways,
and from that most enfeebling symptom,
and consider how such men
ran 21. STORIES about art students or about violent, prolonged, and recurrent bleeding
respectably—if they marry-upon average for the reader. Of course, as a matter according to the custom of the time,
theatrical life have always a fascination from the nose, for which his physicians,
earnings of form 248. to 258. 6d.
of fact, artists and actors, like other bled him four times during the week.
London these earnings are
inadequate to-day than they were in 1907, people who really earn their livings,
Surely, too, it is rash to declare that
and a rise in wages of 28. 6d. a week spend
the greater part of their time in Charles II. had “ little wit ; for, despite
between 1907 and 1912 is merely enough solitary work that lends itself no better the usual supposition, he appears to have
--if, indeed, it is enough to keep to description than that of the writer or been
tiresome
of the analytical chemist. But they work because he recounted too much. ”
raconteur, just
a family abreast of the increased cost
It
of living.
in groups, and their professions have
outward signs — the palette and the favourite narrative remains, and is excel-
was not that he recounted too much-his
In spite of certain obvious objections brushes and the pretty colours, the grease lent reading—but that he recounted too
to the nationalization of railways, no paint and the rouge familiar enough often- an infirmity from which wits of
person who studies these figures can avoid to be easily imagined, yet strange enough the first order are not exempt.
asking himself whether, if it be really to be romantic. The students of Miss
true that private enterprise cannot so
Fletcher's novel are real students, with
manage the great highways of communica- the material in them of real artists, and
tion as to combine cheap efficiency for they are set-three refined English girls | The Victories of Olivia. By Evelyn Sharp.
the public with a decent livelihood for
-in the cosmopolitan roughness of a
(Macmillan & Co. )
the men employed, it may not become Parisian studio twenty-one years ago. It is seldom indeed that we find a col-
They are genuinely interesting people ; | lection of stories so uniformly good as
highways. It has already taken over the and the whole story has charm. Perhaps The Victories of Olivia. ' We have only
carriage roads, the prisons, and the the best things in it are the vignette of noted two occasions on which the author
delivery of letters, which were also, in the Australian painter, of whom, almost strays markedly from the paths of real
their day, private enterprises, and as a without one descriptive word, we are
are life into the realm of artifice
rule exceedingly ill-managed.
-even then
made to feel the singular offensiveness ; her situations are possibilities, if not
Mr. Cotterill's pamphlet ‘A Living and the everyday tragedy of the girl probabilities. She is particularly happy
Wage' is too largely given over to whom her ignorantly selfish family pull when writing of children and young
sentimentality to gain the considera- back again into domestic servitude at people, her delineations of their thoughts,
tion that it really deserves. The great the very moment when she was reasonably conversation, and point of view all being
dependence he places on law-making will hoping to succeed and to help that family touched with delightful humour and
hardly commend itself to those who hope with her earnings.
with her earnings. To some the tacit understanding. If one story more than
more from an awakening of the social assumption that Roman Catholicism is the another lingers in the memory, it is,
conscience than from any legislation, and one and only religion will be irritating.
perhaps, that ofJimmy's Aunts, whose
is open to much the same objections as
spare room had never before held any-
can be advanced against the magistrate
thing so young as thirteen-and-a-half, or
who orders a thrashing to the worst John Stuart. By Robert Vansittart. so masculine as the possessor of a bowling
type of criminal—with the hope of bringing (John Murray. )
average. ”
The dialogue is refreshingly
him into a state of temporary subjection,
during which the processes of thought The reader who hopes to find here a novel witty and to the point throughout.
may have an opportunity to develope.
in the strict sense of the word will be
Nor have we much more sympathy with few disjointed facts in the history of a
disappointed. He will find, instead, a
our author's suggestions for individual real man, who, apparently, has entirely
Manalive. By G. K. Chesterton. (Nelson. )
enterprise in assuaging present distress, escaped previous record, and a con- THIS is the story of the irruption of
unless he means to infer the abandon- siderable quantity of connecting tissue Innocent Smith — like a great, cloud-
ment of all superfluity by the well-to-do
woven, confessedly, by Mr. Vansittart's shouldering wind-into the life of a
until such time as
,
children can affirm that they are so placed imagination. This weaving is very skil
. dreary suburban boarding - house. He
that day by day they must sink lower and fully done, and the figure thus completed enters it over
the garden-wall in chase
lower in the scale, on account of the im- fortunately, the plan adopted involves he plays, in the course of one day, a
has every appearance of reality. Un- of his hat, which he catches with his feet ;
possibility of obtaining the time or the
many explanatory pages about politics hundred mad pranks, which release the
means for recreating the energy expended contemporary with the time of the boarders from their dreariness and cause
in their ceasuless scramble to exist.
tale, but long since dead. Such pages them to imitate him—though they them-
When we hear the ancient cry“ Watch- (seldom interesting, even in the hands of selves hardly know why they do so ;
man, will the night soon pass ?
à master) are of value only when the he fires a revolver at an eminent doctor,
feel we cannot yet give the Handelian writer is a thoroughly well-informed and and thus runs a close risk of being
response, though we would fain hope accurate historian; and Mr. Vansittart shut up as a criminal lunatic. The
that the labour world is now surrounded is not always accurate. Especially is he farce is a wild one; it is besides, as
by that visible darkness which pre- unjust to that much-maligned monarch Mr. Chesterton's readers will expect, a
cedes the dawn. Whether this is so James II. To represent as a coward a parable. With the general sense of this-
or not, there can be no doubt that the man who had passed through three cam- that going right round the world is (or
face of youth is turned towards the East; paigns literally at the elbow of the great may be] the shortest way to where you
and so to youth may yet be applied the Turenne, and of whom Turenne had are already”; that one must become a
words Mr. Eden Philpotts wrote when declared that "he was like to be the pilgrim to cure oneself of being an exile
Swinburne passed :
best general of his time,” is to follow-most people, on reflection, will agree.
Macaulay at his worst. Moreover, Mac- Most people, too, will enjoy the epigrams
Seer before the sunrise, may there come,
Spirits of dawn to light this aching wrong
aulay must have known, and Mr. Vansit- of Mr. Chesterton. But the book seems
Cated Earth! Thou saw'st them in the fore-glow roam;
But we still wait and watch, still thirst and long.
tart could easily have discovered, that to us to lack two things essential for
the conduct described as irresolute and first-rate work: first, the art of the story-
vacillating at the time of William's teller ; and, secondly, the appearance of
invasion was the conduct of a man in a spontaneity.
66
we still
## p. 218 (#172) ############################################
218
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
seven
SCOTTISH BOOKS.
History of Scotland to the Present Time. MR. ANDREW LANG's Short History of
By P. Hume Brown. Vols. I. and II. With Scotland (Blackwood) is, in all essentials, a
Maps and Illustrations. (Cambridge Uni. condensation of his four-volume 'History of
HISTORY AND GENEALOGY.
versity Press. This valuable history of Scotland from the Roman Occupation’;
The Awakening of Scotland. By W. Law Scotland has now been before the public for and as regards matters of debate and opinion
Mathieson. (Glasgow, MacLehose & Sons. )
a sufficiently long period—the first volume the same criticism might be applied to the
In “a history” of Scotland “from 1747 to was published in 1899—for its merits to smaller work that was applied to the larger.
1797” Mr. Mathieson has not a very
obtain due recognition, and the publica- David Hume, writing to Adam Smith in
interesting subject. The leading minds in tion of an illustrated edition offers an 1759, asks Smith to “flatter my vanity
Scotland Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith-opportunity for renewing the welcome we by telling me that all the godly in Scotland
for whose books Charles Lamb had such a offered it on its first appearance, and ex. abuse me for my account of John Knox
terribly “imperfect sympathy,” were doing pressing the gratification we feel at the hand and the Reformation. ” Mr. Lang has
their best to anglicize themselves, at least
some form in which it is now issued. The suffered sufficient abuse on that and other
in style and language. The sons of nobles and illustrations are a real help to the student of grounds, such as his exposure of the tyranny
gentlemen were being sent, though perhaps Scottish life and manners, though their of the Kirk and his views of the Covenanters.
not in many cases, to English public schools. cogency might have been enforced to the But he holds to his opinions ; and rightly
The mercantile classes were steadily making advantage of the ordinary reader by a few so, for they are backed up by documentary
money ; landlords were “improving " their lines of general description.
evidence, the results of original research
estates with social results which Burns
which popular" writers, truckling to un-
thought deplorable. The political repre- We take the opportunity of this reissue informed Scottish sentiment and tradition,
sentatives of the country at Westminster to make some remarks on the work as a for the most part gaily ignore. The old
were really not remarkable persons ; many whole. We feel that Prof. Hume Brown troubled subject of Mary Stuart and the
Scots got profit, most of them deservedly, out constantly under-estimates his audience. Casket Letters is here raised again, but
of Buto's administration, and shared in his A History of Scotland' is written primarily that subject, too, has already been fully
extreme unpopularity. The Moderates and for Scotsmen, but when it is published by exploited by the author, and it is only
High Flyers kept up their strife in the Kirk. an English University Press, it seems likely necessary to note that his former arguments
Wº know much about them already, from that a South British public is also intended tending to suggest that parts of the letter
Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk, and Burns's verses on to read it. Yet time after time the author usually numbered II. are forged, he now
the High Flyers. We know how Scots began goes into an elaborate account of a Scottish believes to be unavailing (p. 129). In a
to take the lead in literature, philosophy, mediæval institution without alluding to the word, we have here & digest, done with
even science; we know about John Hume, well-known English one of which it is a practised skill and judgment and literary
and the Moderates, and the theatre ; we more or less faithful copy. To the mind grace, of all the author's numerous writings
know about Macpherson and Ossian, and of an unprejudiced observer it would seem that come within the scope of Scottish
* The Epigoniad which was admired by that, so far as mediæval Scotland had any history. The 'Conclusion is (shall we say
Hume.
fixed constitution at all, it was a mere copy significantly ? ) abrupt, for Mr. Lang gives
Henry Grey Graham told the story of of the English altered to fit Scottish only seven pages to the history of Scotland
everyday life with great vivacity, if not with conditions.
after Culloden ! The picturesque and the
complete sympathy. The history of the
romantic element has gone, and
Highlands receives but slight attention from Further, Prof. Hume Brown says in his pages suffice to cover the story from 1746 to
Mr. Mathieson, though the romance of the Preface that in all three volumes changes 1911 !
lost cause was living yet, in a tangle of have been introduced where later investiga- MR. ROBERT S. Rait is one of the younger
intrigues. The land question has perhaps tions rendered them necessary. But we school of historians who exemplify the
never been treated in a truly historical have sought in vain for any recognition of the best methods of modern research. An Aber-
spirit, and Mr. Mathieson has not much to important Tudor and Stuart Proclama. donian by birth, he has already proved
say about this miserably important matter. tions published at the close of 1910, under himself a sympathetic investigator in two
On the other hand, he is justifiably copious the direction of the Earl of Crawford. The volumes dealing, the one with The Scottish
about the amazing state of representation account of the history of the Scottish Privy Parliament, the other with ‘The Relations
of the people in Parliament and in the Council there given shows it as the com- between England and Scotland. '
His
municipalities; and about the political mittee of management of the governing Scotland, in “The Making of the Nations
awakening,” which was pretty violent. We faction during the long succession of Stuart Series (A. & C. Black), is an equally careful
are enabled to understand that of these minorities before the accession of James VI. piece of work, sound in historical fact,
two rather distasteful parties in the Kirk, to power, and the carefully traced-out critical and dispassionate, and dealing, for
the Moderates and the High Flyers, the analogy of the Conventions of Estates to the the most part, with just those periods in
latter had more of the right on their side. Great Councils of England and Ireland in which it is possible to trace a real advance
Scott said once, with passion, that if you mediæval times should in future prevent in the national development. A work of
anglicized the Scottish people you would any historian from saying that the distinc. this kind imposes obvious limitations on
“make them d—d bad Englishmen. ” Per. tion between them and Parliaments is the author. Given “ ample room and
haps some Englishmen may agree with him. vague. To any student of original docu- verge enough,” he would enlarge on many
À penetrating study of the Bar, the ments the fact that the records of Great important themes which can only be briefly
judges, and legal procedure would have Councils and Conventions of Estates are discussed, if referred to at all, in a
been full of matter. From the trial of kept in the Privy Council Registers, while small volume. In such circumstances the
James Stewart of the Glens, the trial of the those of Parliaments are kept on the Parlia- selection of topics must be & difficult
men accused of the murder of Sergeant ment Rolls, should be conclusive. It is, problem ; but we cannot quite approve
Dacres, and above all from the trial of however, when we come to the troublous of Mr. Rait's decision to stop short with
Katherine Nairn, the most surprising, tragic, times of Charles I. and the Commonwealth his detail at Culloden. Mr. Lang has the
and romantic pictures of Scottish life while that the history suffers most by the author's same deficiency, as we have noted above, in
Scotland was waking might be selected. oversight. It was permissible to say for his 'Short History of Scotland. Mr. Rait
The behaviour of advocates and judges, and merly that Montrose summoned a. Parlia- pleads that “the events of the last hundred
the whole process of the law, are in a high ment to meet at Glasgow in October, 1645, and fifty years. . . . defy anything like com-
degree surprising. “ What the ghost said “in his Majesty's name," but not after the pression, and, as it is impossible to say
(the ghost of the Sergeant) was given in existence of the original proclamation, under much, I have said almost nothing. " But
evidence. Patrick Ogilvy was hanged for the sign manual docketed by the Secretary of Scotland has seen a good deal of “making. "
poisoning of his brother with arsenic, though State, had been calendared. The account since the '45; and in a work of this kind it
no attempt was made to find that substance of the behaviour of Charles at Newcastle in seems to us more expedient to compress the
in the body of the decedent. Mr. Mathieson 1646 would have been amended by the very early history and extend the later.
has avoided such interesting matters; perhaps knowledge that he did actually accept the This apart, the book is wholly admirable.
his book is too short, though on his chosen Scottish conditions. Prof. Brown does not in a series of ten chapters the gradual evolu-
themes he has certainly " said what he ought profess to be an authority on the Crom- tion of the nation is traced from the Roman
to ha' said "-but then so much of what he wellian settlement of Scotland, and he invasions and the Norse settlements down-
says is already familiar. He had better frequently slips on minor points; for example, wards. The first period specially dealt with
themes in his earlier volumes, when Scotland in saying that seven Commissioners, four is that of Malcolm Canmore and his imme-
was still a nation, and a nation by no means English and three Scots, were charged with diate successors, in which the Celtic kingdom
drowsy. She was, in fact, always fairly the double function of
administering of Scotland was profoundly affected by
wide awake, though inappreciative of the justice and of visiting the universities. ” Anglo-Norman influences. Mr. Rait rightly
beauties—or opposed to the horrors of Only three of the seven sat on both Comº ascribes more influence to Margaret than to
“ Material Progress. ”
missions.
her husband, Malcolm III. , in matters that
>
## p. 219 (#173) ############################################
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
219
66
as
8
66
as
we
ultimately affected “the real conquest of has dedicated his volume to a compatriot
England. " She objected to the Celtic whose name is familiar_to every Canadian,
Church in Scotland because of its inefficient the Duke of Argyll. Dr. Bryce, from his
MEMOIRS AND REMINISCENCES.
organization and the use which it made of place in that city of magical growth which
the Gaelic tongue :-
We cannot honestly say that Mrs. J. L.
forms the gate and the emporium of the
“ The Gaelic tongue was thus associated with new Canada—the thousand-mile-long wheat Story, the widow of the late Principal of
the Celtic Church, and the Queen waged a merci. field—has chosen to deal with the Scotsmen Glasgow University, has recorded much that
less and gradually successful warfare against both. of Western Canada, and, appropriately,
is worth preserving in her Early Reminiscences
The task was not accomplished in Margaret's
has dedicated his work to Lord Strathcona, (Glasgow, MacLehose). “I have taken my
lifetime, but the irrevocable step had been taken,
and she left her children to carry on her work. ” the oldest and most distinguished of all courage in my two hands,” she writes,
theo ts. -dent diand, most mements of experi- cand amenom tening to marked, though
Mr. Rait is especially successful in his ences and friendship shared in Winnipeg still trivial incidents that have occurred
treatment of the War of Independence,
which he describes as
" in the early seventies. ”
But it must not be supposed that these during a life that has been protracted
“the story of how the people of Scotland,
to the outstanding age of 83 years. ". Mrs.
deserted by the nobility, asserted their independ? notable men as Lord Strathcona, Sir John A. Story claims that
there may be
human
gentleman, and how after his defeat they
rallied Macdonald, Lord Selkirk, Sir James
Douglas, We do not deny it. For instance, she tells
again round an Anglo-Norman noble whose deed
of blood severed him from his ancient loyalty On the contrary, their scope goes beyond that, before her marriage, she inaugurated
afternoon tea
the lives of individuals, and, particularly
(then known
As regards the Reformation and the subse in the case of Mr. Campbell's volume, afterwards, her husband, the Principal,
quent ecclesiastical turmoil, Mr. Rait shares embraces the origins and histories of afterwards, her husband, the Principal,
independence of judgment with Mr. Lang, settlements, in fact, the peopling and
was "complimented” on the fact by some
and his views will doubtless provoke some development of Canada, and the genesis little to do," he replied, rather grimly.
gossiping friend. “Then my wife had very
controversy. Scotsmen do not like the and rise of its institutions. If Dr. Bryce's
The human interest comes out here in
traditional romance of their history to be work has the more exact information, Mr.
the fact that Dr. Story usually fled the after-
dissipated, and they would rather be told, Campbell's has the more imaginative insight.
noon tea ! His wife would rate him for
one recent historian tells them, that
his “inhospitable behaviour," but "in my
“after the new Church became established, The Scots Peerage. Edited by Sir James heart of hearts I honestly allowed that
toleration was generally practised,” than Balfour Paul. Vol. VIII. (Edinburgh, his actual conduct was angelic. '
This sort
be told, as Mr. Rait tells them, that "the David Douglas. )—This is the last volume of of “ trivial incident” bulks largely in Mrs.
cruel, repressive measures against Roman this important work, if we exclude the extra Story's digressive pages. Here and there,
Catholics for two centuries are a dark stain one of corrigenda et addenda which we are
on the history of Protestant Scotland. ” promised. The families it contains include reminiscence.
however, one lights upon an interesting
Mr. Rait, however, is right. A Parliament four of those on which Sir William Fraser Thackeray, and noted the velvety softness
As a young woman she met
illegally summoned changed the religion of wrote-Carnegie of Southesk, the Earls of of his hand. In a lady I have now and
the country, and substituted one series of Sutherland, Wemyss of Wemyss, and the
again observed the same peculiarity, but
dogmas for another. “Of liberty and tolera- old Earls of Strathearn. We are glad to find it is rare ; in a man I have only once besides
tion no one thought. ” “The new clergy that the Rev. John Anderson, whose death remarked it. " She had a distinct talent
made claims as dangerous to civil liberty as is deplored in the prefatory note, was able for music, and once sang to Jenny Lind,
the old. " "The Parliament, long a tool into abridge some of these histories for the
of whom, as of Mario, Grisi, Rubinstein,
the hands of the King, was soon to become present work. As he had assisted Sir Thalberg, Jullien, and other stars,'
a tool in the hands of the Church. ” It may William Fraser, they have a special value. have
readable recollections. The
be very disillusioning to Scotsmen to have The volume is, like those that preceded it, author settled in Edinburgh about 1830,
to admit all this, but it is true, and Mr. unequal. Female cadets or their issue are and glimpses of the social life of the capital
Rait's work is none the less, but all the more, included or excluded at the will of the
valuable, historically, because it runs counter writer or the editor, so that one will in thirty years later fill up a great part
from that time till her marriage some
to“ popular" beliefs. There are some good many cases be forced to supplement the of her book. With that event the record
illustrations and a full index.
information contained in it by other works. stops, but she expresses to her readers
the
The difference in the number of references fond anticipation that one day we may
The Scotsman in Canada : Eastern Canada, is very striking also—the article “Traquair
meet again,” in which case we should look
including Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, (of the cadets of which more might be for matter of more general interest.
New Brunswick,, Quebec, and Ontario, by known) containing, hardly any, whereas
Wilfred Campbell ; and Western Canadă, Tullibardino' and Seton, Earl of Winton' We have noted one or two slips. Sterndale
including Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, (which is particularly good), simply bristle Bennett's name is spelt with one t, which is
British Columbia, and Portions of old with important foot-notes. Still, the articles strange from one of his pupils; and it was
Rupert's Land and the Indian Territories, are well done on the whole, and now ground Handel
, not Beethoven, who declared that
by George Bryce. (Sampson Low & Co. )— has been broken in many. Among these he would rather have composed ‘Robin
Last year Mr. J. M. Gibbon's interesting are 'Stair,' useful, although it gives less than Adair, than all his own immortal produc-
little book “Scots in Canada' (see Athen. , one hoped about the early origin of the tions. "
July 15, 1911, p. 71) reminded us of the pro. Dalrymples ; the “Earls of Strathmore,'
minent part which Scotsmen have played, which hints that the Lyons, the first known Three Generations : the Story of a Middle-
and are playing to-day, in the development of member of which family dates temp. David II. , Class Scottish Family. By Henrietta Keddie.
that most progressive portion of our Empire, may have a Celtic origin, and quotes much (John Murray. )-The interest and value of
British North America. What Mr. Gibbon's from writs at Glamis ; Fleming, Earl of these reminiscences can best be gauged
book briefly indicated and touched upon, Wigtown'; 'Sandilands, Lord Torphichen when we realize that the younger of the
these two important volumes record and (allied to the Douglas " of auld "); 'Hay, “ three generations in question is repre-
analyze with painstaking thoroughness and Earl of Tweeddale'; Lord Spynie'; sented by a narrator whose memory retains
marked ability. That the research necessary the 'Earls of Stirling' (the writer goes out an impression of the floral street-arches
for the compilation of such a work as this of his way to accuse, without giving evidence, which honoured the passing of the first
has been a labour of love for Mr. Wilfred the Parisian “Seer" Mlle. Le Normand of Reform Bill. Miss Keddie has many enter-
Campbell, the well-known poet and scholar forgery); and. 'Lord Somerville. In the taining things to say about the Mid-Victorian
of Ottawa, and for Dr. George Bryce of last (and it is interesting when tonures celebrities with whom, in the course of her
Winnipeg, we can well believe. That their are so much in evidence) we find a curious long and active life, she has come into con-
effort was worth the making no one will reddendo for lands, viz. , a pair of hose con- tact, especially after her gift of writing
doubt who looks, even cursorily, into the taining half an ell of English cloth to be given attractive fiction for young people had se-
nine hundred odd
pages
of the two to the fastest runner from the East End of cured her a position in literary society. But
volumes. Outside the
of “The the town of Carnwath to the cross called the principal charm of the book lies, to our
Makers of Canada " library, the publi- | Cawlo Cross. "
thinking, in its memories of a still earlier
cation of which in Toronto was recently The volume might be more accurate in day, and the breadth and sympathy with
completed, we know of nothing more com. detail. In the Corrigenda the name of Dr. which they are handled. The writer refrains
prehensive, in the shape of biographical Tireman, Sub-Dean of Chichester (p. 85),
to an altogether unusual extent from exalt-
and historical records of the lives and should be filled up, the alteration of Graham ing the past at the expense of the present,
doings of the Dominion's more prominent of Inchbrackie (p: 236) to “Graeme. " made, She readily admits that the white scourge;"
citizens, than · The Scotsman in Canada. ' and in the Wemyss tree (p. 514) “ Keek”
consumption, “ which still slays its thousands,
Mr. Campbell has dealt with the Scotsmen should be Kock, and (p. 518) “ Yorks" in the beginning of the nineteenth century
of his own side of Canada, the east; and 'Yorke.
slow its tens of thousands. "
She bears
some
66
covers
## p. 220 (#174) ############################################
220
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
con-
66
66
ungrudging testimony to the great improve-
the removal of ancient landmarks in the
ment in the instruction now provided for EDINBURGH AND DEESIDE.
interval since the first issue appeared ;
girls, while reserving for the old system the
and, as it now stands, it is one of the best
merit, which, as carried out by some teachers,
it doubtless possessed, of developing general
GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH are, in the works in print dealing with the Scottish
intelligence. The
· popular” mind, regarded as rivals eternally removed. It is hardly correct to speak of
capital. There are trilling slips still to be
decline of those
vivial habits which made life a martyrdom criticizing each other --Glasgow sneering at
,
for many women not otherwise unhappily
Edinburgh's
of Porto-
genteel pride," and Edin- Hugh Miller as a “frequenter
situated is also duly recognized by her. burgh, sneering at Glasgow's
bello, since he lived there from 1852 till his
commercial
But the gaiety, the endurance, the bound-
taint
death in 1856. The family of Forrest are
and her smoky, sunless atmosphere.
less hospitality, the strong family affection Princes Street is regarded by many travelled still in possession of Comiston, though the
of that bygone day, are vividly brought people as the finest street in the world. It was Nathaniel
Gow, not his father, the
seems to .
before us.
Almost, indeed, we are led to I but it was a Glasgow man who called it
feel that the balance of happiness lay with
only hauf a street,” because the buildings (p. 23) " began selling fiddles and reel
more famous Niel (never in business), who
the two earlier of the three generations
are all on one side. Obviously, then, no
music at 41, North Bridge. It was in his
commemorated. Certainly Miss Keddie her- greater compliment could be paid to the
self and her sisters seem to have enjoyed a
Scottish capital than to have her praises St. John's Hill, that Campbell wrote his
dusky lodging" in Rose Street, not at
less lively girlhood than their mother and celebrated by a Glasgow man; and that is
* Pleasures of Hope. ' The Rev. Sir Henry
aunts, with their quilting parties and what has been done by Mr. James Bone in
bleaching frolics. But this was mainly due his sumptuous volume Edinburgh Revisited Wellwood Moncreiff (not “Moncrieff”) was
never minister of St. Cuthbert's parish
to a change of residence which condemned (Sidgwick & Jackson). It is said that we
“ Present
them to an exile in the depths of the country, may foretaste the future in the judgments church, as suggested at p. 203.
If that be so, Mr. century at p.
