THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SCOTTISH SONG.* Tins volume, if not positively
the best book that Emeritus Professor Blackie has written, is without doubt the most effective and successful of his recent performances in the character of modern Scotch patriot. There is in it more concentration of purpose than is generally to be found in the work of the evergreen Adonis of the North, and less of that literary whistling, slapping the back, pacing the room, and bursting into irrelevant song, which often make the critic of his ordinary writing so exasperated as to leave him positively incapable of doing justice to its genuine literary merits. Even here there is a good deal of gesticulation ; but happily, it does not appear altogether out of place. Thus, Professor Blackie airs his familiar views upon and against " Westendism," the gregarious follies of society generally, and those dreary amusements which are not pleasures ; but although he does this at considerable length, his declamation does not appear out of place in a work which deals with a species of poetry that is in itself a protest in favour of Nature and against ccinventionality. Unfortunately, a more serious objection has to be made to this book than that it contains certain appearances of Professor Blackie in his favourite character of Scotch buffo-Socrates. It is not free from inaccuracies, and of a kind that are not excusable. Among songs of "Love, Courtship, and Marriage," Professor Blackie properly includes "Of a' the airts the wind can blaw," which was written by Burns shortly after his settlement on his farm at Ellisland, and which he
• Scottish Sang its Wealth. Wisdom, and Social Significance. By John Stuart Blackie, Emeritus Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. 1889.
-describes as "a song of pure and placid enjoyment." But why does he give us among the "beautiful lines" written by the poet, the addition made to the original song by an enthu- siastic rather than wise admirer whom it would be cruel to name ? Does Professor Blackie actually believe Burns capable of writing,— "bring the lassie back to me, That's aye sae neat an' clean "?
Surely Burns's sense of the comic would have prevented him from recording among the charms of Bonnie Jean the fact that she did not neglect her morning ablutions. It seems to us, too, that Professor Blackie alludes at least once too often to the fact that Burns had not vouchsafed to him the crowning moral grace of self-command. -Surely it was sufficient to say, once for all, on p. 50, that "it was not poetry that killed Robert Burns ; it was untempereil passion:" That is not enough, however, for Professor Blackie, who must needs write at p.111 that Robert Nicoll, " like Burns, came to a premature end, not like Burns, however, by unreined strength ;" and, on p. 367, that James Ballantine was, "if not as a poet, certainly in character, superior to the great Coryplueus of our national quire." To dwell too much on the weaknesses of Burns's nature, is only less objectionable than the minimising or ignoring of them which is indulged in by his more fervid and foolish worshippers.
The value of Professor Blackie's new volume lies not so much in the originality of the ideas which justify its existence, as in the elaborate and loving fashion in which he has worked out certain ideas that he has adopted and adapted. Putting to one aide his analysis of the various passions which are the excuse for the appearance and popular recognition of poets in any well-regulated commonwealth— Professor Blackie's style as an analyst is popular rather than scientific—the "significance of Scottish song" comes in effect to this, that it flows straight from the heart of a whole people. This doctrine is not a new one. The representation of Burns and minor Scotch poets as being less individual forces than 4Eolian harps rendered vocal by the various winds of Scotch mood and passion, pathos and humour, is a familiar one. It is, indeed, familiar rather than accurate. What is best and most assured of immortality in Burns is not what is peculiarly Scotch, but what is of universal interest ; is not the rapture of "Scotia! my dear, my native soil," or "Wallace's un- daunted soul," or "Edina! Scotland's darling seat," but the Aristophanic riot of "The Jolly Beggars," the archness of "Tam Glen "—that Iliad of coquetry in a nutshell—the gospel of proud circumspection taught in "Conceal yersel' as weel's ye can frae critical dissection," "Know, prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom's root," and "Gather gear by ev'ry wile that's justified by honour "—for "the glorious privilege of being independent." But if the theory that the strength of Scotch poetry is to be found in its representa- tive or national character be accepted—and, putting Burns to one side, it holds true of every Northern poet except Scott, who was not specially strong in mere song—it must be allowed that Professor Blackie has applied it and worked it out as it -never has been applied or worked out before. He has been
• singularly fortunate or judicious—it would not be easy to say which—in the classification. of Scotch songs that he has 'adopted. He arranges them under chapters on "Songs of Love, Courtship, and Marriage," "Patriotic Songs, War-Songs, and Jaeobite Ballads," "-Songs of Character and Incident in Daily Life," " Drinking-Songs, Convivial Songs," "Sea-Songs, Naval Songs, and Boat-Songs," and "Songs of Thought and Senti- ment." Some of these chapters are rather weak, and padded out with their author's philosophy, which, though breezily Wordsworthian (not Goethean, as he seems to think), is not profoundly original. Scotland is not strong in sea-songs, and Professor Blackie ought to have said so in fewer words. Then, although he is undoubtedly the chartered libertine of digression, he takes too much advantage of the privilege accorded to him in his chapter on convivial and drinking songs. But he is seen at his best—which must, moreover, be allowed to be very good—in the 'first three of the chapters whose titles we have given. In these he shows, with a cleverness which is perhaps unconscious, how Scotch patriotism, passion, and pawkiness are inextricably bound up together. The story of the evolution of Northern nationality as a sentiment has never been better told than in the chapter which begins with "patriotic," and ends with Jacobite, ballads. Professor Blackie's
portraits of the Stuart Kings in this chapter are good. But is he justified in describing Charles I. as not only "a dignified gentleman," but a "good Christian "?
In a work so comprehensive in its scope as this—though not at all bulky in size—Professor Blackie has been able to -do ample justice to certain minor Scotch singers. The English reader will here come across names which are unfamiliar to him,—such as Latto, Hew Ainslie, Ballantine, and Sir Douglas McLagan. The last, still alive, has evidently a happy turn for writing skits ; but surely there is no good reason for Pro- fessor Blackie's giving prominence to " Lizzie," a poem of domestic happiness, from the same pen :— "Winter winds may round us blaw, Our heads be 'white winter snaw, But warmth o' love, in spite them a', Shall cheer our wintry hour, Lizzie."
Surely this is "John Anderson, my jo "—and water. On the other hand, could not Professor Blackie have stretched a point, and included in his volume certain of the verses of William Thom, William Motherwell, and others—such as Motherwell's "Jeanie Morrison," unequal though it is—as deserving to be set to music ?
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