Читать книгу Reminiscences of Scottish Life & Character - Edward Bannerman Ramsay - Страница 4

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The friends of Dean Ramsay desiring a memorial of his life, his friendly publishers, and his nearest relatives, have asked me to undertake the work, and placed in my hands some materials giving authentic facts and dates, and illustrating the Dean's own views on the leading events of his life.

I feel myself excluded from dealing with one important part of such a life, for I could not take upon me to speak with confidence or authority upon church doctrines or church government. On the other hand, for the man I have that full sympathy which I suppose ought to exist between the writer and the subject of the biography.

We were very old friends, natives of the same district, bred among a people peculiar in manners and language, a people abounding in a racy humour, differing from what prevails in most parts of Scotland--a peculiarity which it was the joy of the Dean to bring before his countrymen in his Reminiscences; and although he and I were not kindred of blood, his relatives and friends were very much mine, and my uncles and aunts were also his.

Edward Bannerman Burnett, known in after life as Edward Ramsay, and Dean of Edinburgh, was born at Aberdeen on the last day of January 1793. His father, Alexander, second son of Sir Thomas Burnett, Baronet, of Leys, was an advocate, and sheriff of Kincardineshire, where the family estates lay. The sheriff was of delicate constitution, and travelled in the south of Europe for his health, until obliged to fly from the French Revolution; and at Aberdeen, the first place where he and his wife stopped, Edward was born. The Dean's mother was Elizabeth, the elder daughter of Sir Alexander Bannerman of Elsick, and she and her sister Mary, afterwards Mrs. Russell, were co-heirs of his estates in the pretty valley of the Feugh, including the whole parish of Strachan, of which the southern part, looking over into the How of the Mearns, was Mrs. Burnett's portion; the northern, with the beautiful bank of Dee where Blackhall stands, falling to Mrs. Russell. Both sisters were eminently handsome. I have a tradition of the young ladies, when they first came from their York school to Edinburgh, being followed and gazed at by passengers in the streets, for their beauty; and there are many still living in Edinburgh who long after gazed with admiration on the fine old lady, the Dean's mother, bending over her embroidery frame in her window in Darnaway Street.

Alexander Burnett and his wife Elizabeth Bannerman had a large family. Edward, the fourth son, when very young, was taken by his grand-uncle, Sir Alexander Ramsay, and sent to school near his own house at Harlsey in Yorkshire. Edward's first school, to which he was sent in 1801, made a remarkable impression upon the Dean's memory. "I believe," he says, "at that period (the very beginning of the century) it was about the most retired village in England not of a mountainous district. No turnpike road went through the parish. It lay in the line of no thoroughfare. The only inhabitants of education were the clergyman, a man of great simplicity of character, who had never been at the University, and my great-uncle, of above fourscore, and a recluse. The people were uneducated to an extent now unusual. Nearly all the letters of the village were written by my uncle's gardener, a Scotchman, who, having the degree of education usual with his countrymen of the profession, and who being very good natured, had abundant occupation for his evenings, and being, moreover, a prudent man, and safe, became the depository of nine-tenths of the family secrets of the inhabitants. Being thus ignorant generally, and few of them ever having been twenty miles from the place, I may consider the parish fifty years behind the rest of the world when I went there, so that it now furnishes recollection of rural people, of manners and intelligence, dating back a hundred years from the present time. It was indeed a very primitive race; and it is curious to recall the many indications afforded in that obscure village of unmitigated ignorance. With all this were found in full exercise also the more violent and vindictive passions of our nature. They might have the simplicity, but not the virtues, of Arcadia. … There were some old English customs of an interesting nature which lingered in the parish. For example, the old habit of bowing to the altar was retained by the rustics on entering church, and bowing respectfully to the clergyman in his place. A copy of the Scriptures was in the vestry chained to the desk on which it lay, and where it had evidently been since that mode of introducing the Bible was practised in the time of Edward VI. The passing bell was always sounded on notice of the death of a parishioner, and sounded at any hour, night or day, immediately on the event happening. One striking custom prevailed at funerals. The coffin was borne through the village to the churchyard by six or eight bearers of the same age and sex as the deceased. Thus young maidens in white carried the remains of the girl with whom they had lately sported. Boys took their playfellow and companion to the churchyard. The young married woman was borne by matrons; the men of middle age did the same office for their contemporary. … The worship of the little church was, as may be supposed, extremely simple, and yet even there innovation and refinement had appeared in the musical department. The old men who used to execute the psalmody, with the clerk at their head, had been superseded. A teacher of singing had been engaged, and a choir, consisting of maidens, boys and men, executed various sacred pieces with the assistance of a bassoon and violin. I recollect in the church a practice which would have shocked the strict rubricians of the present day. Whenever banns of marriage were proclaimed, immediately after the words 'This is the first, second, or third time of asking,' the old clerk shouted out, 'God speed them weel.' In nothing was the primitive and simple character of the people more remarkable than in the social position of the clergy amongst them. The livings were all small, so that there was no temptation for ecclesiastics of birth and high position in society to come there. The clergy were in many cases clergy only on Sundays, and for Sunday duty. The rest of the week they were like their people; engaged in agriculture or horse-breeding, they lived with their servants, and were scarcely raised above the position of farmers. To show the primitive manners of many clergymen, I may mention the case of an usher in my school, who was also curate. He enjoyed the euphonious name of Caleb Longbottom. I recollect his dialect--pure Yorkshire; his coat a black one only on Sunday, as I suppose he was on week days wearing out his old blue coat which he had before going into orders. Lord Macaulay has been charged that in describing the humble social condition of the clergy in the reign of Charles II., he has greatly exaggerated their want of refinement and knowledge of the world; but really, from my recollection of my friend Mr. Longbottom and others at the time I speak of, in the reign of George III., I cannot think he has overdrawn the picture. Suppose this incident at a table in our own time:--My uncle lived in what is called in Yorkshire the Hall; and being principal proprietor in the parish, he was in fact the squire or great man. The clergy always dined at the hall after evening service, and I recollect the first day the new curate dined. The awkwardness and shyness of the poor man were striking, even to the eyes of a thoughtless schoolboy. He summoned courage to call for beer, and, according to the old custom, deemed it necessary to drink the health of all present before he put the glass to his lips. He addressed first the old gentleman, then the vicar, then myself, and finally, with equal solemnity, drank to the servants in attendance--the old butler and coachman, who were waiting upon the company[1]."

I value these reminiscences of his Yorkshire school, written long after, because I think them very curious; and they show how early Edward Ramsay had his eyes open to characteristic features of the people.

Ramsay's grand-uncle, the old Sir Alexander Ramsay, died in 1806, neglecting to make the provision which he had intended for his grand-nephew, but leaving his estates to his nephew, Edward's father, who then gave up his sheriffship (in which he was succeeded by Adam Gillies), and being a Whig and of Whig family, accepted a baronetcy from Mr. Fox, and made Fasque his home for the short remainder of his life.

The future Dean was not fortunate in schools. On his father's succeeding to the family estates he quitted Harlsey indeed, but only to move to Durham, which left no more pleasant memories in his mind than the other, although there he learned to blow the flute, and indulge his strong musical taste. He writes of Durham school that it had fallen off terribly, from the increasing infirmities of the head master, and Ramsay was anxious to leave it, when that move came naturally by the death of his father[2]. Writing in his journal some time afterwards, he says, "What was I to do? I was determined to go into the Church, and must go to college. How was the intermediate period to be spent?" His first private tutor was the Rev. J.H. Browne, at Kegworth in Leicestershire, afterwards Archdeacon of Ely. "Here," says Edward, "I did learn something both of books and of the world. Browne was a scholar, and my fellow-students were gentlemen and knew something of life." He next lived for a time with Mr. Joynes, a clergyman, at Sandwich in Kent, and went from thence, in October 1811, to Cambridge.

He entered as a pensioner at St. John's, and although professing to be a reading man, he was not eminently satisfied with the effects of the society into which he fell upon his habits and accomplishments. "Not," he says, "that I had not really good associates, but somehow it seems not to have been the best and such as I might have had." Another defect was his not having a skilful and effective private tutor at a time when he felt that he stood specially in need of one. "I could not form my reading habits alone, and I had not sufficient help. I did enough, however, to show I was not an ass. I got a scholarship. I was twice in goodish places in the first class. I had a name for flute-playing;" and then, ending this retrospect, which he wrote with some disgust, he tells how he left Cambridge in his third year, going out B.A. with no contest for honours. His college vacations were spent either in London with college friends, or with a reading party under Wilkinson, the tutor, at Redcar. In gathering up his recollections, he says he saw a good deal of society: one summer was very musical; of another which he spent at home he enumerates his occupations--"botany," "music," "Deeside." Through all, his study was theology, but in "small doses" he says. His brother Marmaduke joined him on the Christmas holiday of 1816, when they worked together at the cryptogamics, and then went up to Cambridge together--Edward to renew his theological studies with the help of the formal lectures at the University. He spent the remainder of that season at Bath with friends and relatives. He speaks of the Bath society, its gaiety, theatricals, music--some rich clergymen giving good dinners, and brother Marmaduke coming for his long vacation to a farm-house two miles from Bath, "where we had some good botanical fun. Can it be that the finding a new plant put us in a state of ecstasy? How we treasured up specimens! How we gloried in our collections! But it has all passed away; no chord is touched." To some, who think of the Dean as the reverend, pious, grave, even melancholy man, these youthful reminiscences may appear unnatural, even unworthy. I must own that there breaks out now and then in his journal something which shows that he himself was not satisfied with many of these juvenile memoranda, as if they showed unfitting occupation and education of a young clergyman. But that was not their real nature. Those small studies and accomplishments took the place in his early training which the cricket-match or the boat-race now take in the school time of Young England. The Dean speaks somewhat contemptuously--"Here I got a smattering of astronomy," and again of his studies of cryptogamics and botany; but he nevertheless felt the full benefit of such accomplishments. His music, his passion for rural and especially Highland scenery, the enjoyments of society, the love of seeing others happy, the joining of happiness with goodness, made the Dean what he was in after life, and enabled him to take that position amongst his countrymen which a purely theological upbringing would not have done.

But now our young cleric was to put away childish things, and to take upon him the duty of his high calling. He was ordained at Wells, and officiated for the first time as curate of Rodden, near Frome, Somerset, on Christmas day 1816.

Rodden is a very small village, of one or two farms and some labourers' cottages, nestling round the little church, with a few, very few, outlying houses or farms. It lies among meadows on each side of the rivulet which runs through the village. One of the outlying houses is "Styles Hill," inhabited by one family of the Sheppards, all of whom soon became dear friends of the Dean. Another was the "Pear-tree" Cottage, an uninteresting red brick house, where Mr. Rogers provided a residence for the young curate. The incumbent of the parish, when Ramsay went there, was the Rev. John Methwen Rogers of Berkley, who was non-resident. The duties of Rodden were too small to employ his whole time, and in the following year (1817) Ramsay became curate also of Buckland Dinham, the rector of which was non-resident and lived at a distance, so that the curate had the sole charge of the parish. In his work at Buckland, Ramsay took great delight, and soon won the hearts of his people, although many of them were Wesleyan Methodists of the old type[3]. But it was not only amongst the peasantry that Ramsay was beloved. All the upper and middle classes in his own little parishes, and through the whole valley, regarded him with strong esteem and affection, and amongst them were persons whose character, and even whose little peculiarities of language, he caught and remembered. One of these, a retired Captain Balne, although he failed in prevailing on the young clergyman to take a glass of grog, his own favourite cure for all ailments, was pleased when the curate came to take a dish of tea with him and his gentle wife. Once, when Ramsay was ill, the grief in the parish was universal; but he used to say that the greatest proof of attachment was given by Captain Balne, who happened to be enjoying his dinner when the news of his friend's illness reached him, upon which he laid down his knife and fork, and declared he could not take another mouthful. Captain Balne had a peculiar phraseology. One phrase, in particular, was, "If I may be allowed the language," which came readily on all occasions. If he was asked "How is Mrs. Balne to-day?" the Captain would reply, "She is quite well, I thank you, Mr. Ramsay, if I may be allowed the language;" or ask him, "Have you a good crop of apples this year?" "Pretty middling, sir, if I may be allowed the language." The constant recurrence of the phrase struck Mr. Ramsay, who quoted it long after in his letters to his Frome friends--"I am glad to say my congregation at St. John's continues good--if I may be allowed the language."

Buckland is a larger village than Rodden, containing nearly 500 inhabitants. The two places are five miles apart. Buckland is on the brow and slope of a steep hill, the church being on the summit, and the irregular street descending from it on the Frome side, with many cottages scattered about among orchards and meadows. So the curate of Buckland, living at the Pear-tree Cottage in Rodden, required a pony for locomotion, which he showed with some pride to his neighbours on first buying it. It was an iron-gray, and a sedate clerical pony enough, to which he gave the name of Rumplestiltskin, after one of Grimm's popular stories; and whenever he spoke of him or to him, he gave him his name at full length. The country and some of the places round Buckland are very interesting. On the west is one of the entrances to Vallis, a grassy valley bordered by limestone rocks, and trees and copse, with a trout-stream winding through it. There, when the labours of the day were done, the Sheppards and he would spend a summer afternoon sketching and botanising, whilst tea was prepared at a neighbouring farm.

Vallis opened into several other vales, and on the heights above were the picturesque villages of Elm and Skells, and the ruined nunnery and massive old castle, the old seat of Delameres, renowned for a defence in the Cromwellian wars. Mr. Ramsay proposed in jest to fit up the castle as a dwelling, and bring all his friends to live there. Another time he was for fitting it up as a museum. It would make, he said, a splendid place for a hortus siccus--a "great ornament to our ponds and ditches[4]." The writer of these trifles excuses herself for collecting them, because she knew the value which is attached to the least of the sayings and doings of a departed friend; but we are assured, that even in those Arcadian regions life was not always holiday. There was some serious work. The curate took great pains on the future interests as well as the characters of his little flock.

In one family he acted the part of the truest of friends--gently reproving the little ones when they deserved it, and ready to amuse when it was the time for amusement--sometimes taking them to Bath for the day, and making them very happy, bestowing at the same time great pains on their instruction--sometimes practising music with them, and accompanying their sonatas on his incomparable flute--recommending to the governess a higher style of music, leading them on gradually to the works of Beethoven and Mozart. By and by he gave them instructions in architecture; taught them, as he said, all that he had learned from Rickman. His teaching was minutely technical. He would assemble his class in a little morning room, with books before them, and a case of mathematical instruments, pens and pencils. His pupils wrote what he saw fit to dictate, and he taught them how to use the compasses. Next came botany, which was not a new study to his pupils. There his brothers assisted him. They made a joint hortus siccus under his instruction. Edwin contributed many specimens from Scotland, and Marmaduke made a little collection of mosses. But they had to thank the curate for yet higher and better instruction. His younger pupils were not excluded from the most earnest conversations between him and Mr. Algar, Mr. John Sheppard, and some friends of the neighbouring gentlemen and clergy. In these conversations books were read and criticised, theological and other subjects, including some politics, were discussed. Ramsay was quizzed for Whiggish tendencies. The mistress of the house usually joined and set them right in politics, for she had been brought up in Plymouth during the French war, and had learned the old-fashioned Tory doctrine, and to think any other politics sinful. But all those high subjects of politics and religion were discussed with fitting respect; for that society--young and old--had a deep sense of religion, and the parents encouraged the younger members to visit and instruct the workmen and their families who were employed in the large cloth manufactories of the Sheppards; so that it came to pass that every man, woman, and child was taught or helped to teach others, for in those days very few of the working-people, at least in that part of England, could read at all. A lending library was attached to the mills. A large Sunday school was formed, chiefly for the children of the workpeople, and additional services were undertaken by the curate--a second sermon on Sundays besides one on Thursday evenings, where the families of the neighbourhood attended, and as many of the servants as could be spared. There, be sure, was no big talk on the primary obligation of orthodoxy, no attempts to proselytise. But all classes of that primitive people valued his preaching, and farmers and their labourers, the workmen of the factories, as well as their masters, took advantage of it. His brothers often visited him, and joined heartily in his pursuits whether gay or serious. It was delightful to see the three brothers so happy in each other's society, and helping on a worthy common object. Marmaduke, the Cambridge man, would talk astronomy, and William, the sailor, afterwards Admiral Ramsay, brought down a fine telescope, and himself gave them their first lesson in practical astronomy, handing over the instrument when he left to his brother the curate, that he might continue the instruction.

During all these years of useful, cheerful, happy employment at Frome, Edward Ramsay never forgot the land of his forefathers and of his own youth. He sometimes visited Bath and London to hear Edward Irving preach, to see Kean act, to stare at old books and prints in the shop windows, to revel in the beauties of Kew Gardens; but every summer he found time for a visit to Scotland, and spent his holiday with boyish delight amongst the scenes and friends of his childhood.

It was on one of those visits to Scotland, in the autumn of 1822, whilst Mr. Ramsay was spending his holidays among his friends on Deeside, that the managers of St. Paul's Chapel, Aberdeen, offered him the place of second minister to that congregation, along with Mr. Cordiner. He was much gratified, and would gladly have accepted the appointment. He liked the place--his native town; thought highly of the respectability of the congregation; but there was one objection, which to him was insuperable. The congregation had for some time been Episcopal only in name, and it went against Mr. Ramsay's conscience to minister in a church calling itself Episcopal, but without the communion or discipline of a bishop. He explained to the managers his objection, and thought for a time it might be overcome by a union with the Scotch Episcopal churches in the diocese. He had yet to learn the strength, of the Scotch prejudice against bishops; perhaps to learn that the more shadowy the grounds of dispute, so much the more keenly are ecclesiastical squabbles fought. Worthy Bishop Skinner would have been glad to have Ramsay a fellow-labourer in his city upon whatever conditions. Yet he could not contradict his younger friend's honest and temperate adherence to his principles and to Episcopacy. The correspondence all round, which I have before me, is quite decorous; but after Ramsay had stated his objection, and that it was insuperable, the managers wrote to him, 1st October 1822, that "a unanimous election would follow if he accepted the situation under the present establishment." It would have been easy to divide the congregation, but this did not suit Ramsay's feelings or nature, and he courteously bowed to the decision of the managers, and returned to Frome, where his income from both curacies was £100 a year,--a poverty the more irksome to a man of culture and refined tastes.

Not long after (still, I think in 1823), the Journal records--"Mrs. Forbes, my aunt, had just come into her accession of fortune, and presented me with £5000. A man may live many days in this world, and not meet the like gift in a like kindly spirit[5]."

Of the year 1823 the Journal remarks very severe winter. "Marmaduke and Edwin with me at the Pear-tree[6]; a delightful tour in South Wales with the Sheppards and other friends most agreeable and good-humoured,--botany, sketching, talk, and fun. Life has few things to offer more enjoyable than such tours. I have found in them the happiest hours in my life." And then follows the wail for so "many of them departed; so many dear good friends; all different, but all excellent!"

Marmaduke having gone as tutor to Lord Lansdowne's eldest son, Edward was more free to consider an offer from Edinburgh, and ultimately accepted the curacy of St. George's in York Place, under Mr. Shannon. He preached his two last sermons at Rodden and Buckland on Christmas day 1823.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Reminiscences (Second Series, 1861). Introduction.

[2] May 10, 1810.

[3] Some account of his dealings among the Methodists may be found in the Sunday Magazine, January 1865, edited by the Rev. Dr. Guthrie. The paper is titled "Reminiscences of a West of England Curacy."

[4] This was a favourite quotation of Ramsay's, who was amused with the remark of Withering's or Woodward's botany, repeated in his letters for long after:--"The organ at St. John's gives universal satisfaction--a great ornament to our ponds and ditches."

[5] Mrs. Forbes, the sister and aunt of so many Burnetts and Ramsays, lived the latter part of her life at Banchory Lodge, in the middle of that "Deeside" country, where the future Dean spent many of his happy holidays, and learned much of the peculiar ways of that peculiar people. There were no two ladies in Scotland more esteemed and beloved than the Dean's aunts on both sides--Mrs. Russell, his aunt and mine, living in widowhood at Blackhall, and Mrs. Forbes at Banchory Lodge, three miles apart, on the opposite banks of Dee. Mrs. Forbes died 1st February 1838.

[6] His dwelling near Frome.