Читать книгу The Wonder of All the Gay World - James William Barke - Страница 11

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Being a bachelor, Creech had more room in his Craig’s Close apartments than he would have had he been married and had anything like the family Henry MacKenzie was able to boast. The Man of Feeling had caused his wife to throw him some thirteen children in some eighteen years; and he had no intention (such was the quality of his sensibility) of stopping at the limit of the baker’s dozen. The result was that few people had ever been inside MacKenzie’s old house—where his father’s three wives had died—at the corner of the Cowgate and the Grassmarket.

Nevertheless the Man of Feeling envied Creech his comparative spaciousness and was thinking of moving soon to the new square that builder Brown had erected close to Argyle Square (south of Hume’s Close and the Cowgate) in the still-fashionable south-side of the Town. He would have liked to be able to move to the New Town; but the expense of a large family and the fact that he would be expected to entertain there instead of in the tavern had to be thought of.

He was discussing this projected move to Brown’s Square with Creech and Lord Monboddo of the Court of Session when the Bard and Professor Dugald Stewart (whom he had met outside) were shown in.

To the Bard, the meeting with Henry MacKenzie was not without a quality of emotion. He recalled how, some five years ago in Irvine, he had first read The Man of Feeling. This best-selling novel of sensibility had had a very deep and profound effect on him. He was not to know that he had given more to the book than the book had given to him, and that he had come to place in its hero’s hand a sword of a sharper social sensibility than the author had intended, or could have been capable of intending. And now the author’s elegant equine countenance (for it was something more than a common face) smiled to him; and well-modulated periods began to fall with a proper elegance from his carefully-manipulated lips.

“Mr. Burns: my verra dear sir! How glad I am that I should so soon have the pleasure of greeting you in person—having so lately laid aside your volume, not without a sigh, for the noble proof it contained that the heavenly light of poetical inspiration rests not where we list, but rather—eh—where the inscrutable will of the Almighty directs: yes... There have been few occasions when I can say I have met a man who was also a poet of nature ... indeed you are the first poet of nature I have met; and I trust you will find your stay in Edinburgh maist pleasant and ... instructive.”

“Mr. MacKenzie, sir: you pay my rustic bardship an honour dear to my heart. Since I was a young man I have read the Man of Feeling with much pleasure and more edifying instruction... Since I arrived in the Town I have looked forward to meeting you in the flesh more than I can say.”

“So you liked my Man of Feeling?”

“ ’Tis a glorious book, sir, and one that had a great influence on me in forming my opinions on the society of men and of manners. It proved to me that the injustices of this world were recognised and appreciated far more widely than I had had reason to suppose. Indeed, sir, it would not be too much to say that Harley gave my knowledge of the inequalities of this world a political and philosophical direction that they might not otherwise have taken so soon: I mean that Harley proved to me that I was by no means alone in seeing how this world operates against sensibility: especially when that sensibility is translated, as Harley translated it, from the personal field of experience to the moral and political field.”

MacKenzie’s horse-face assumed an involuntary expression of vacuous alarm.

“God bless me! Did Harley do all this to you, Mr. Burns?”

“That and much more, sir. When Harley put his finger on the evil of the nabobs, he put his finger on the social evil of our times.”

“Did he indeed! Do you mean that Harley conveyed to you a political message? I had not intended that: in your sense, Mr. Burns.”

At this point Dugald Stewart, who had listened to this conversation with some amusement, said:

“I warned you, Henry, that Mr. Burns has a political philosophy he holds to with the utmost tenacity.”

“But Harley was innocent of politics! Perhaps you are thinking of the passage about India? But I didna intend that that passage should be read as a political message but merely as an illustration of Harley’s feelings under circumstances of peculiar import ... of a moral nature.”

“But can morality and politics be separated? Or do you regard politics as a party game?”

“I regard politics as being outside the field of literature. A novel ought not to be regarded in the same light as a political treatise: far from it, indeed. I should be very distressed, Mr. Burns, if you saw in Harley a political lesson that had a direct bearing on the politics of the day.”

“And why not, sir? There are political lessons in the Old Testament that have a direct bearing on the politics of the day.”

Lord Monboddo smacked his lips in a curious fashion. “Mmmyes... Verra weel put, Mr. Burns: verra weel observed. There’s nothing like the study of ancient history to show up the shortcomings of the present day. Have you Greek?”

“I have some English and some Scotch: did I live to the age of Methuselah I doubt if I would be able to master either.”

“Ah! but without the classics, sir, you canna go far. The Ancients, my dear Burns, knew everything that was worth knowing.”

“But would you say, sir, that knowing their languages was the same thing as having their knowledge?”

“What’s that? Having their knowledge? Pray, how else can we have access to their thoughts did we not know their language?”

“But surely every generation must think out its thoughts afresh? Else how came it that Greek and Latin are now dead languages?”

“Dead languages! Greek and Latin will never die: they are eternal! Nae man can think properly except wi’ their aid.”

“But I’m a rustic who has followed the plough. Am I not to think because I’ve no Greek? What you say, sir, is no doubt true for scholars; but the bulk of mankind must go about the tasks of mankind without the assistance of scholarship. And because of this they must be allowed to think in their own way: and give expression to their thoughts in their own language—whatever that language may be.”

“I think, gentlemen,” said Creech, “we had better be seated. We seem to be in the mood for talk this morning and we might as well be comfortable.”

Creech had a fine room. It was oak-panelled, carpeted, and there were pictures on the walls. The chairs were of polished oak and high-backed. A good coal fire burned in the grate which was framed in highly-polished marble... A man-servant waited on the table; and there was a variety of cold meats and chickens, kippered salmon, bakers’ bread and both oaten and wheaten cakes, to say nothing of smaller delicacies. There were coffee and tea and small ales...

The Bard was becoming used to the well-stocked tables of the Edinburgh gentry. Glencairn’s table at Coates House had been a shock to him. Now he realised that the rich did not live by bread alone and that a well-stocked sideboard was one of the infallible signs of a well-lined purse. But as his stomach had been conditioned to scarcity and to a severe limitation of variety, he surprised his hosts by the smallness of the food he ate... But the literati were not so limited. One witty hostess had named them the eaterati. Henry MacKenzie had a voracious appetite and could stuff himself at any time of the day with whatever was going. Dugald Stewart was not far behind him in this respect. As for James Burnett, he slobbered like a toothless dog that hadn’t seen food for days; and always he kept smacking and clacking his toothless gums in his curiously-detached fashion. Creech, with characteristic finickiness, was more dainty with his food and though he ate little he ate with a show of discrimination.

Creech’s breakfast table was inexpensive, however; and he more than made up the expense of it through the business it brought him. He was not in the habit of selling any of his numerous hens on a rainy day.

Soon the gathering consisted of MacKenzie, Burnett of Monboddo, Professor Stewart, Doctor Hugh Blair and his assistant-to-be the Reverend William Greenfield... Dugald Stewart, who had already sampled the Bard’s forensic powers in Ayrshire, was anxious to see how he would conduct himself in the company of the first brains in the Town. With some skill he led the conversation into channels he thought would produce the best results. But the Bard needed little encouragement from Dugald Stewart; and the company was only too anxious to hear the quality of his conversation. They had never before been in the company of a ploughman, far less a ploughman who wrote poetry.

The Reverend Doctor Hugh Blair was a vain and pompous cleric who had gained the reputation of being the most elegant sermoniser of his day. So elegant was he thought in this respect that the King had granted him a pension of two hundred pounds a year; and the Senate of the University, with pressure from the Town Council, had created the Chair of Rhetoric for him to grace. In an even more official capacity then Henry MacKenzie, he was reckoned the arbiter of literary taste and fashion. He advised the Bard to abandon the use of the Scotch dialect.

“It is a dying dialect, Mr. Burns. You are restricting your audience to the ever-decreasing number of those who understand its meaning. Besides, your dialect will never be understood in London; and it’s to London that Scottish writers must increasingly look for the suffrage of intelligent readers.”

But the Bard was not dismayed. “I’ve no great ambition to woo the suffrage of London, sir. I’ll be happy to be understood by my compeers in Scotland.”

“Then you must realise that we are of small numbers.”

“When I refer to my compeers, sir, I refer to the common people: I make no pretence to write verses for the polite and the learned. I fear that my homespun muse would look ridiculous in the elegant robes of classical learning.”

“That, sir, I can well appreciate. Nevertheless I dinna think you are wise to aim so low. There’s no reason why a man of your ability should not take steps to remedy the defects o’ an imperfect schooling.”

“Ah, yes, Doctor,” said MacKenzie, “but what I take Mr. Burns to mean is that he is a bard of nature’s making and that as such he would prefer to remain; and there, I think you’ll admit, lies his present strength.”

“Sir: I do not admit that nature has the advance on art. Nature can always admit of improvement and refinement: this I take to be the object of all learning...”

Lord Monboddo clacked furiously with his tongue. “Nature, my dear Blair, leads us back to the origin of all custom. It is from nature that we must draw the lesson that all things hae a beginning as well as leading us to an understanding of how they began.”

Blair spoke in his haughtiest tones. “We need look no further than the Creation for any explanations. The duty of scholarship is to expound fundamental truth and not to confound with a multiplicity of non-scriptural ... er ... ah ... explanation.”

Monboddo waved this aside impatiently and turned eagerly to the Bard. “Mr. Burns: ye are a man much endowed wi’ sound native sense. Has it ever occurred to ye that there’s a striking resemblance between ourselves and the monkey tribe? Have you ever had the good fortune to clap eyes on a new-born infant? I mean in all its nakedness as delivered from its mother’s womb? It is my convinced opinion, sir, that many babes are born with tails, and that it is the practice of midwives to bite off the offending appendage in its rudimentary state... If monkeys could be prevailed upon to sit about on chairs instead of swinging about on their ancestral branches, they would very soon wear away their tails as we have done.”

“It is a barbarous notion, sir, and not to be thought of.”

“There, Blair, you speak as a Doctor of Divinity. Mr. Burns: I await your opinion.”

The Bard realised that Monboddo was perfectly serious. He determined to give him a serious answer. “If you mean, sir, that all living things have a common origin then I can only say that, there, I am with you. On the other hand, it may be a factor in your favour that the Devil had not the services of a Scotch midwife at his delivery.”

The company roared with laughter. But the learned Lord of the Session was not the man to be put off with a joke.

“There, sir, you hae hit on a link in the chain of evidence that the Ancients had not thought of: you must come round to my house, number thirteen Saint John Street, and sup with me.”

And with that Lord Monboddo clacked his tongue, waved an impatient hand in Creech’s direction and shuffled from the room.

When he had gone Creech said: “You must not mind his Lordship: there are some points on which he is thought to be a trifle peculiar.”

“Does he carry his peculiarities to the benches of the Court of Session?”

The Reverend William Greenfield, a man of thoughtful and refined countenance, said: “There are many men of peculiar ideas gracing the benches of the Session, Mr. Burns; but in matters of law they remain singularly free from absurdity.”

“I must confess, sir, that to one of my humble situation in life, much of the law seems an absurdity—though often very cruel in its absurdity. Hence it may well be that absurdity breeds absurdity.”

“There, indeed, Mr. Burns, you speak literal truth. But then, if there were no absurd laws there would be no need for absurd lawyers.”

Blair turned to Greenfield with a severe look. “I need hardly remind you, Mr. Greenfield, that the law is a very ancient institution and that without its guidance we would find ourselves in a sorry state of barbarism. Moreover, secular law exists to reinforce divine authority.”

Greenfield bowed to his superior. “I was merely discussing the aspects of the matter, sir, on the secular plane; and I would humbly suggest that as our laws are man-made they carry with them, inherently, all the imperfections that are in man.”

But Doctor Hugh Blair was not the man to brook contradiction in any shape or form. He rose and bade the company a very good morning. But he had not gone further than the door when he returned.

“I understand, Mr. Burns, that you have some compositions that you intend to publish. I should be glad to be of assistance to you where improvements might be made and ... ahem ... indelicacies removed.”

“There,” interrupted Creech, “I think I may speak for Mr. Burns in thanking you for your great liberality, Doctor. We shall be only too glad to submit to your judgment any compositions of which we are in the slightest way doubtful. If, in addition to your generous offer, sir, Mr. MacKenzie and Professor Stewart were to join with you in helping us with your advice, then our proposed volume would be free from all those little complaints that were detected in the Kilmarnock one.”

As MacKenzie and Stewart readily agreed, the Bard felt that he must thank them. “There are a number of compositions I would like to see added to my second edition; and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to know that they had your approval. I shall immediately take steps to see that they are available for your strictures.”

Henry MacKenzie said: “Not strictures I hope, Mr. Burns. A suggestion perhaps here and there, and, as Doctor Blair suggests, the avoidance of indelicacies ... so that the most sensitive of female susceptibilities may have nae need to fear offence. But strictures! Heaven forbid!”

When the Bard and his publisher were alone, Creech said: “Whatever else happens, we must have the approval of the literati. If it got around that any of them were against the volume, it would fall stillborn from the press; and of course, Mr. Burns, it would be idle for me to point out that the loss would be yours: my reputation would survive since it is not founded on any one author.”

“Which means in plain language, Mr. Creech, that what is not approved by the literati of the Town will not be published in my book?”

“We understand each other perfectly, sir: there can be no question as to the respectability of any book that I handle ... irrespective of terms. And I think you will find that my Lord Glencairn and the gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt will be very much of the same mind. And now that we have the literati on our side...”

“But do you think they are on my side?”

“My dear fellow: do you think that any money or other inducement could prevail upon Doctor Blair or Mr. MacKenzie or Professor Stewart to read your verses—far less criticise them—unless we had got them on our side! I confess that they would do anything for me. But my good sir: Lord Monboddo has invited you to sup with him and Doctor Blair has asked you to bring him your compositions... Why, the highest in the land could not command more—to say nothing of a ploughman just arrived in Town. Believe me, these gentlemen do not give idly of their favours; and they are very busy and important men: none more so in the realm.”

Creech smiled importantly and patted the Bard on the shoulder. “Now you realise why it is so important that we give them no cause for offence. You must feel very proud, my dear Robert, that you have so captured their attention. And they tell me that your verses have captured the fancy of Her Grace the Duchess of Gordon! But a word, my dear Robert! The Duchess has her little peculiarities: you will not misunderstand her? But I know you will be discreet. There are many things about the Town that will no doubt surprise you; for aught I know they may even shock you. I may say—but only in your private ear—that there are many things that shock me; but it is most essential to keep a discreet silence. Mixing as you now are with the highest society in the land, you will understand that the gentlemen and their ladies have learned—as an essential part of good breeding—to be most discreet. And no verses, my dear Robert, no verses, epigrams or satires: on no account and no matter how you may be tempted—or even provoked! I must charge you on this. Not even the smallest line on paper—lest anything come to light. It would never be forgiven you and you would be ruined immediately and beyond any possibility of ever getting into their good graces. The ice upon which you skate, Robert, may seem very polished—as it undoubtedly is. But it is also very thin...”