No More Learning

Restoration, has he undertaken a fresh in cruelty and bloodshed ; he reduced
215 biography ? Apparently because none
none Galloway
Galloway“ without blood. ” But, after
INDUSTRIAL UNREST (The Labour Unrest ; The English of his predecessors
Agricultural Labourer ; Chauge in the Village
has presented a Renwick's declaration of war, he shot
Wages and Hours in the Railway Service in 1907 ; complete and living portrait of their such persons as came within the law,
A Living Wage)
NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES (The Fugitives; John subject,” and “military justice” has not including the famous John Brown. What
Stuart; The Victories of Olivia ; Manalive)
SCOTTISH BOOKS - HISTORY AND 'GENEALOGY (The
been done to Dundee. Mr. Barrington has most injured Dundee's character is
Awakening of Scotland ; Hume Brown's History of therefore dwells on the masterly qualities his remark to Brown's new-made widow.
Scotland ; Lang's Short History of Scotland; of Dundee as he moved about in Scot- Mr. Barrington says that Macaulay's
Rait's Scotland; The Scotsman in Canada; The
Scots Peerage); MEMOIRS AND REMINISCENCES land, with a small troop of horse and “dramatic version" (certainly an ignorant
“
(Mrs. Story's Early Reminiscences ; Three Genera.
tions ; The Gentle Art); EDINBURGH (Edinburgh scanty supplies, raiding where he could, version) is “ founded on eighteenth-century
Revisited ; Romantic Edinburgh ; Deeside) 218-220 inspiriting the clans, evading and eluding tradition. ” It is a mixture of Wodrow,
THIS WEEK's Books (Letters and Recollections of
Mazzini; My Idealed John Bullesses; The Women's Mackay, and finally routing him at who is erroneous, and of what Mrs. Brown
Suffrage vovement ; Oxford Books; Standard
Books)
Killiecrankie. The tale is like a page told Patrick Walker. What objection
THE LATE DR. SOPHIA Jex-BLAKE
from the campaigns of Montrose, or like can be urged to her evidence, except that
EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
THE FRENCH LITERARY WORLD; Cornisa Mss. "; the admirable Southern movement of Claverhouse was not the man to speak
List Of New Books ::
Lord George Gordon shortly before Cul- of “taking God into his own hand ? ”
LITERARY GOSSIP
227 loden. Certainly Dundee had all the In those days, and much later, women
SCIENCE-ANTHROPOLOGY; A COLLEGE TEXT BOOK
qualities of a leader-personal daring, insisted on attending the executions of
OF PHYSICS; SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD;
THE BRITISH BIRD BOOK ; SOCIETIES; MEETINGS alertness, power of enforcing discipline their husbands and lovers ; Mrs. Brown
Next WEEK ; Gossip
Fine ARTS-FIVE YEARS' EXPLORATIONS AT THEBES; even among the jealous chiefs and cians, was not singular in this respect. The
THE HOARE PICTURES; OUR LIBRARY TABLE and care for the well-being of his soldiers. unhappy fact is that Claverhouse, as a
(Rembrandt's Etchings; The Laws of Japanese
Painting ; Textile Design; The Abbot's House at But, like Montrose and Prince Charles, soldier, had only the choice of obeying his
Westminster; Explorations in the Island
Dundee had not to meet leaders of great orders or sending in his papers and aban-
Mochlos); Gossip
MUSIC-FRANZ LISZT; MEMORIES OF 'Liszt; six
merit, or armies consisting, like his own, doning his career. His ambition, and
LECTURES ON THE RECORDER; Gossip; PER.
of born fighting men, nimble and hardy, even his principles of loyalty, forbade
DRAMA-Two PLAYS BY TCHEKHOF; AN ACTOR'S
and accustomed to their native mountains. him to take the second course. Thus,
NOTEBOOKS; THE
RELIGION ;
Mackay, though a professional of much though wholly apart in character from
, a
INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
experience and a gallant man, let himself the rulers of Scotland in 1679-88-
into a position, at Runrarie, rather worse though a better statesman than they,
than that of Cope at Preston Pans; and in comparison with them almost a
LITERATURE
like Cope, he had no guns worth reckoning, saint-he shares in their condemnation,
and with muskets clogged with bayonets and is remembered for evil. His place-
stuck into the barrels, the best troops historically-is assigned to him by Scott
could scarcely have stopped the fury of a in ‘Redgauntlet,' in which Scott for
Highland charge. Dundee did “alſ that once wrote with the care due to his genius.
Grahame of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee.
man can do”: with his means, did more That immortal description of the shade of
By Michael Barrington. (Martin Secker. ) than any man but himself could have Claverhouse, beautiful as when he lived,
done. Had he survived to take part in sitting among the revelries of the perse-
THERE are probably more biographies of Marlborough's campaigns, he would no cutor, but remote and scornful, gives the
Dundee than of Montrose, though Mont- doubt have greatly distinguished himself ; last word on Dundee.
rose occupies, by his action and passion, but perhaps no fair historian has ever It is not easy to appraise Mr. Barring-
a far larger space in history than the denied the merit of the defeated at ton's book. His object is to present
younger glory of the Grahams,” and was Drumclog, where he seems to have a complete and living portrait of his
å man of greater genius and more sym- rashly attempted too hard a task with an hero. ” R. L. Stevenson might here
pathetic character. Mark Napier's work insufficient force. He sent to Glasgow have succeeded in a brief monograph,
on Montrose is also much superior to his for supports, which proves that
he but Mr. Barrington's work is too long
* Life of Dundee, in which he lets his thought his troop of dragoons and handful by far for such a portrait. He says,
hatred of the Presbyterians and their of horse inadequate in the circumstances, with truth, that in Dundee's corre-
historians carry him away. Probably a fact not mentioned by Mr. Barrington. spondence “ we observe a knowledge of
a
Dundee has found so many biographers Probably he was surprised when the men's foibles, an insight into character, a
because he is one of the best-abused men
Covenanters took the offensive, and, being penetrative and ironic humour, which are
in history; assailed not only by Wodrow badly beaten, he confessed the fact with in striking contrast to Montrose's noble
and all the other chroniclers of the
perfect candour. Except for the pursuit blindness. ' But Montrose was not blind
sufferings,” but also by Macaulay and after Bothwell Bridge, Dundee saw in to the character of the Hamiltons. Mont-
almost all modern popular historians. Scotland nothing more that could be called
never on the make,” and
Mr. Hume Brown, indeed, treats Dundee
Dundee was, though the fact was con-
with impartial calm ; the late
Dundee took no public part in affairs trolled by his haughty pride.
Maclaren" made him the hero of a novel ; till the end of 1678 and the beginning of We are not examining Mr. Barrington's
but recently a temerarious scribe brought 1679, when the country, through mis- work in search of knots in the reed of
Dundee into the scandal of the drowning government of all kinds, and want of a accuracy; but Montrose did not fight
of Margaret Wilson, and offered as his regular military force, was in a very at Tippermuir with “300 Highlanders”
portrait a miniature of an ugly, bullet-dangerous condition. He then held the against over 7,000 Covenanters (p. 256).
headed soldier of the period. We may posts of a captain of horse and of sheriff. Mr. Hay Fleming's criticism of the story
guess that Dundee has so many biographers depute of a wide disturbed district. His that at Bothwell Bridge was displayed
because he has so many assailants ; while
desire was to spare the multitude and a banner with “ No Quarter to the active
his foes perhaps find it wiser not to study punish the ringleaders. ”. But as he enemies of the Covenant (see a picture
him from the point of view of the bio- * rifled the houses and imprisoned the of it in Napier, vol. i. p. 288) ought to
grapher.
servants of those who remained stubborn, have been cited, though the point is of
Mr. Barrington, in his massive ‘Grahame so that when their wives and children little importance (p. 64). As for the
of Claverhouse '---beautifully printed, and were reduced to starvation they were appearance of the death-wraith of Dundee
equipped with excellent reproductions of thankful. . . . to renounce their principles," to
portraits, a good Index, and an opulent we cannot marvel that the name of earliest authority who mentions it is
bibliography-admits that he has failed Claverhouse is still detested, though " he ! Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe.
:
1
46
rose
was
war.
“ Ian
>
>
66


## p. 216 (#170) ############################################

216
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4400, FEB. 24, 1912
an
It is curious that our author, who venience and ill-feeling, the attitude of
INDUSTRIAL UNREST.
can quote such a master of English as the railway companies must inevitably
Ruskin to good purpose, should himself have been altered . In all such disputes
VERILY signs of the times are rapidly militate against his own effectiveness by the weight of public opinion is an im.
multiplying when The Athenæum has to
a bad style. His book will be difficult portant factor; and for any candid
deal in one week with six productions except to an audience already sympathetic. reader the facts of underpayment and
of which unrest is the inherent cha-
A competent printer's reader might have overwork are written clearly in the
racteristic. The five we have here grouped helped him by a proper attention to
helped him by a proper attention to tables and the paragraphs of this Report.
deal with more than a half of our
our punctuation.
Indeed, the simple statements are more
population, and the sixth, which we allude
*The English Agricultural Labourer,' eloquent than any declamation :-
to elsewhere, touches again more than
quite apart from what may be usefully
half of the nation, though in this last culled from its fifty odd pages, will weekly rates of wages of over one-fourth
" For the United Kingdom as a whole the
case it is a sexual rather than
serve to introduce the serious student to of the adult workmen fell below 208. ,
industrial division.
and
the classics of the subject. Mr. Chesterton, those of nearly two-thirds below 258. , while
As for Mr. Henderson's book, it has in his Introduction, in which he endeavours rather less than a fifth were rated at 30s. or
rarely been our good fortune to read to overthrow any insular complacency more. ”
anything which so thoroughly sweeps that may remain tous, deserves our
It should be added that in some cases a
away the capitalistic prejudice which has gratitude for discarding for the nonce the bonus is given, and that this bonus
gathered round labour discontent-pre- buffoonery, which has recently spoilt (highest where wages are highest) averages
judice which, in the present reviewer's many of his public utterances on social
opinion, has fostered evil feelings, and the questions.
as much as 7d. weekly in the large towns
clearing of which is more calculated to
of the North and West Midlands, and 5d.
Mr. Baverstock concerns himself for the in London and the large towns of Lanca-
secure their abolition than any so-called greater part with tracing the evils from shire or Cheshire, while in other districts
strike settlements.
which the agricultural labourer suffers“ it did not as a rule exceed ld. ”
As our author says, the moral inspira- to their origin : the break-up of the
tion of the revolt lies in the facts that monastic system under Henry VIII. ,
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
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## 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
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## 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.