Reminiscences of Scottish Life & Character Part 4

My dear and venerable Brother Dean--It was very ungrateful of me not to have thanked you before for your most kind vindication of my act in Westminster Abbey. I had read your letter with the greatest pleasure, and must now thank you for letting me have a separate copy of it. I certainly have no reason to be dissatisfied with my defenders. All the bishops who have spoken on the subject (with the single exception of the Bishop of Winchester) have approved the step--so I believe have a vast majority of English churchmen.

How any one could expect that I should make a distinction between confirmed and unconfirmed communicants, which would render any administration in the abbey impossible, or that I should distinguish between the different shades of orthodoxy in the different nonconformist communions, I cannot conceive.

I am sure that I acted as a good churchman. I humbly hope that I acted as He who first inst.i.tuted the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper would have wished.

You are very kind to have taken so much interest in my essays, and what you say of the Athanasian Creed is deeply instructive. You will be glad to hear--what will become public in a few days--that of the 29 Royal Commissioners, 18 at least--including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of St. David's and Carlisle and the two Regius Professors of Divinity--have declared themselves against continuing the use of it.

I found your note here when we arrived last night to a.s.sist at the coming of age of young Lord Elgin. We were obliged to pa.s.s rapidly through Edinburgh, in order to reach this by nightfall. In case I am able to come over this week to Edinburgh, should I find you at home, and at what hour?

It would probably be on Thursday that I could most easily come.--Yours sincerely,

A.P. STANLEY.

DEAN RAMSAY to Rev. MALCOLM CLERK,

Kingston Deverell, Warminster, Wilts.

23 Ainslie Place, Edin., Sept. 5 [1872].

My dear Malcolm Clerk--Many thanks for your remarks touching the Athanasian Creed. I agree quite, and am satisfied we gain nothing by retaining it, and lose much. You ask if I could help to get facsimiles; I am not likely--not in my line I fear. Should anything turn up I will look after it. One of the propositions to which unlimited faith must be given, is drawn from an a.n.a.logy, which expresses the most obscure of all questions in physics--i.e. the union of mind and matter, the what const.i.tutes one mortal being--all very well to use in explanation or ill.u.s.tration, but as a positive article of faith in itself, monstrous. Then the Filioque to be insisted on as eternal death to deny!

People hold such views. A writer in the _Guardian_ (Mr.

Poyntz) maintains that G.o.d looks with more favour upon a man living in SIN than upon one who has seceded ever so small from orthodoxy. Something must be done, were it only to stop the perpetual, as we call it in Scottish phrase, _blethering_!

I am always glad to hear of your boys. My love to Stuart, and same to thyself.--Thine affectionate fourscore old friend,

E.B. RAMSAY.

I am preparing a twenty-second edition of _Reminiscences_. Who would have thought it? No man.

I have not hitherto made any mention of the Dean's most popular book, the _Reminiscences_. I cannot write but with respect of a work in which he was very much interested, and where he showed his knowledge of his countrymen so well. As a critic, I must say that his style is peculiarly unepigrammatic; and yet what collector of epigrams or epigrammatic stories has ever done what the Dean has done for Scotland? It seems as if the wilful excluding of point was acceptable, otherwise how to explain the popularity of that book? All over the world, wherever Scotch men and Scotch language have made their way--and that embraces wide regions--the stories of the _Reminiscences_, and Dean Ramsay's name as its author, are known and loved as much as the most popular author of this generation. In accounting for the marvellous success of the little book, it should not be forgotten that the anecdotes are not only true to nature, but actually true, and that the author loved enthusiastically Scotland, and everything Scotch. But while there were so many things to endear it to the peasantry of Scotland, it was not admired by them alone. I insert a few letters to show what impression it made on those whom one would expect to find critical, if not jealous. d.i.c.kens, the king of story-tellers; Dr. Guthrie, the most picturesque of preachers; Bishop Wordsworth, Dean Stanley, themselves masters of style--how eagerly they received the simple stories of Scotland told without ornament.

BISHOP WORDSWORTH to DEAN RAMSAY.

The Feu House, Perth, January 12, 1872.

My dear Dean--Your kind, welcome and most elegant present reached me yesterday--in bed; to which, and to my sofa, I have been confined for some days by a severe attack of brow ague; and being thus disabled for more serious employment, I allowed my thoughts to run upon the lines which you will find over leaf. Please to accept them as being _well intended_; though (like many other good intentions) I am afraid they give only too true evidence of the source from which they come--viz., _disordered head._--Yours very sincerely,

C. WORDSWORTH,

_Bp. of St. Andrews_.

Ad virum venerabilem, optimum, dilectissimum, EDVARDUM B. RAMSAY, S.T.P., Edinburgi Decanum, accepto ejus libro cui t.i.tulus _Reminiscences_, etc.; vicesimum jam lautiusque et amplius edito.

Editio accessit vicesima! plaudite quiequid Scotia festivi fert lepidique ferax!

Non vixit frustra qui frontem utcunque severam, Noverit innocuis explicuisse jocis: Non frustra vixit qui tot monumenta priorum Salsa pia vetuit sedulitate mori: Non frustra vixit qui quali nos sit amore Vivendum, exemplo praecipiensque docet: Nec merces te indigna manet: juvenesque senesque Gaudebunt nomen concelebrare tuum; Condiet appositum dum fercula nostra salinum, Praebebitque suas mensa secunda nuces; Dum stantis rhedae aurigam tua pagina fallet, Contentum in sella taedia longa pati!

Quid, quod et ipsa sibi devinctum Scotia nutrix Te perget gremio grata fovere senem; Officiumque pium simili pietate rependens, Saecula nulla sinet non[11] meminisse Tui.

The TRANSLATION is from the pen of DEAN STANLEY:--

Hail, Twentieth Edition! From Orkney to Tweed, Let the wits of all Scotland come running to read.

Not in vain hath he lived, who by innocent mirth Hath lightened the frowns and the furrows of earth: Not in vain hath he _lived_, who will never let _die_ The humours of good times for ever gone by: Not in vain hath he _lived_, who hath laboured to give In himself the best proof how by love we may _live_.

Rejoice, our dear Dean, thy reward to behold In united rejoicing of young and of old; Remembered, so long as our boards shall not lack A bright grain of salt or a hard nut to crack; So long as the cabman aloft on his seat, Broods deep o'er thy page as he waits in the street!

Yea, Scotland herself, with affectionate care, Shall nurse an old age so beloved and so rare; And still gratefully seek in her heart to enshrine One more _Reminiscence_, and that shall be Thine.

From the DEAN of WESTMINSTER.

The Deanery, Westminster,

February 3, 1872.

My dear elder (I cannot say eldest so long as the Dean of Winchester lives) Brother--I am very glad that you are pleased with my attempt to render into English the Bishop's beautiful Latinity....

Accept our best wishes for many happy returns of the day just past.--Yours sincerely,

A.P. STANLEY.

On the publication of the Twentieth Edition of the _Reminiscences_, Professor Blackie addressed to the Dean the following sonnets:--

I.

Hail! wreathed in smiles, thou genial book! and hail Who wove thy web of bright and various hue, The wise old man, who gleaned the social tale And thoughtful jest and roguish whim, that grew Freely on Scotland's soil when Scotland knew To be herself, nor l.u.s.ted to a.s.sume Smooth English ways--that they might live and bloom With freshness, ever old and ever new In human hearts. Thrice happy he who knows With sportive light the cloudy thought to clear, And round his head the playful halo throws That plucks the terror from the front severe: Such grace was thine, and such thy gracious part, Thou wise old Scottish man of large and loving heart.

II.

The twentieth edition! I have looked Long for my second--but it not appears; Yet not the less I joy that thou hast brooked Rich fruit of fair fame, and of mellow years, Thou wise old man, within whose saintly veins No drop of gall infects life's genial tide, Whose many-chambered human heart contains No room for hatred and no home for pride.

Happy who give with stretch of equal love This hand to Heaven and that to lowly earth, Wise there to wors.h.i.+p with great souls above As here to sport with children in their mirth; Who own one G.o.d with kindly-reverent eyes In flowers that prink the earth, and stars that gem the skies.

JOHN STUART BLACKIE.

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS to DEAN RAMSAY.

Gad's Hill Place, Higham, by Rochester, Kent,

Tuesday, 29th May 1866.

My dear Sir--I am but now in the receipt of your kind letter, and its accompanying book. If I had returned home sooner, I should sooner have thanked you for both.

I cannot adequately express to you the gratification I have derived from your a.s.surance that I have given you pleasure.

In describing yourself as a stranger of whom I know nothing, you do me wrong however. The book I am now proud to possess as a mark of your goodwill and remembrance has for some time been too well known to me to admit of the possibility of my regarding its writer in any other light than as a friend in the spirit; while the writer of the introductory page marked viii. in the edition of last year[12] had commanded my highest respect as a public benefactor and a brave soul.

I thank you, my dear Sir, most cordially, and I shall always prize the words you have inscribed in this delightful volume, very, very highly.--Yours faithfully and obliged,

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS.

Dr. GUTHRIE to DEAN RAMSAY.

1 Salisbury Road,