THE AUTHOR OF " TTJLLOCHGORUM."

THIS is not the first biography that has appeared of the modest, scholarly, genial, but withal sagacious, Episcopalian divine, who found time, in the midst of varied labours and in spite of an almost life-long fight with poverty, to write what Burns has styled " the best Scotch song Scotland ever saw." The pious affection of his son, Bishop John Skinner—himself a worthy and even in some respects remarkable man—raised a cairn to his memory in the publication of his miscellaneous works accompanied with a memoir two years after his death, in 1809. In 1859, also, Mr. H. G. Reid, then of Peterhead, now of Middles- borough, published an edition of Skinner's songs and poems, with a biography. But this new work will be warmly welcomed by all who appreciate this fine, old Christian Horatian who con- . trim(' to be happy and even gay on the scantiest stock of Falernian, and who, when his little experiment in the way of a Sabine farm came to grief, wisely made merry over his misfortune. The Rev. Mr. Walker, its author, does justice, not only to the man, but to the singular struggle of Episcopalianism in the North of Scotland, in which Deau Skinner took a courageous part. He presents, as he says, "the spectacle of a poor, disestablished, and disendowed Church engaged in a death-struggle with a great and powerful State, each encroaching more or less on the proviuce of the other ; the State refusing full toleration to religion, and the Church refusing full toleration to politics ; the State requiring. forcel prayer,' and the Church forbidding free-will prayers." Commendably free from provincialism, this biography may be found by lay readers a trifle too professional. Mr. Walker enters at uunecessary length into Skinner's exegetical writings, his views on the Schekinah, the Shem-al, Jehovah Tzebh6th, the Roes and Hinds of the Field, and the like. It is no doubt remarkable that a man of Skinner's strong sense should have embraced the fanciful system of Biblical interpretation broached by John Hutchinson —who, by the way, must not be confounded with his contem- porary, Francis Hutcheson, of " moral sense" celebrity. Mr. Walker very happily compares the Hutchinsouians,- who held that certain "capital words" of the Hebrew Bible, considered in their root-meaning, and apart from the modern and authoritative apparatus of vowel points, contained a * The Life and Timex of the Rev. John Skinner, M A., of Linehart, Longside, Dean abandoned Presbyterianism for Episcopalianism, knowing per of Aberdeen, Author of " Tullechoorum," de. By the Rev. William Walker, M.A.,

key to "all religion and all philosophy," to the alchemists. But the less said about an eminent man's Cock Lane ghost, the better. No doubt, as Mr. Walker points out, Hutchinson- ianism exercised a powerful influence on Skinner's life and. pursuits, and through him on the views of most of the Northern Episcopal Clergy of the latter half of the last century. But how many readers of this biography can be affected by, or even interested in, Hutchinsonianism now ? We have noticed one or two clerical and printer's errors in this volume ; and one of the latter, the description (p.37) of Skinner's poverty immediately

after marriage as res a ugusta (lonti, would have tickled the fancy of the author of The Stipendless Parson, whose own creed and practice are thus expressed :- " In what little dealings he's forced to transact, He determines with plainness and candour to act, And the great point on which his ambition is set, ]s to leave at the last neither riches nor debt."

But, on the whole, Mr. Walker's biography of Skinner is an admirable one, and as carefully executed as it is admirable. He is attached to his hero, and, indeed, proud of him. He demurs to Professor Geddes's description of him as "a far-off

second to Burns,"—a description 'which is indeed to be objected to as involving a fundamentally unsound view of Skinner's position and speciality as a Scotch poet. At the same time, Mr. Walker does not overrate Skinner, nor is he guilty of the-

bad taste of depreciating Skinner's contemporaries, in order to do justice to his own favourite. Mr. Walker has also shown much discrimination in giving anecdotes of Skinner. There- must be thousands of stories afloat about so genuine a humourist, who lived nearly threescore years and ten in .one place, and who liked conviviality in moderation. Yet Mr. Walker has published only stories that are either thoroughly verifiable, or, which is the next best thing, are thoroughly good in Themselves.

The story of the poet-parson of Linshart is well worth telling in any case. It is all the more deserving of record that Skinner's is one of those morally successful but essentially anonymous lives, of which only rather special circumstances enable the world to know anything whatever. In one of his charming letters to Burns, he tells the true story of his poetical celebrity thus:— "While I was young, I dabbled a good deal in these things ; but on getting the black gown, I gave it pretty much over, till my daughters grew up, who, being all tolerably good singers, plagued me for words to some of their favourite tunes, and so extorted those effusions which have made a public appearance beyond my expectations, and contrary to my intentions." This is typical of the man. Scotch and English verses were " squeezed out of him," to use his own phrase, by his daughters, or by brother-parsons. He wrote Latin poetry which some authorities have declared to be second only to Buchanan's, to. amuse himself, or, as when his wife died at the age of eighty, to give expression to his feelings. It was owing to circumstances, including his own sufferings, that he became an ecclesiastical

historian. From the beginning to the end of his long life of eighty-five years, John Skinner figures as the impersonation of courage and consistency. He was born in 1721, in a wildr mountain parish about thirty miles from Aberdeen. His father

was a Presbyterian schoolmaster, of the good old northern school of " dominies " that looked upon it as their chief business to train boys for the Aberdeen Colleges, and at one time it seemed likely that he would follow in his father's steps. He was educated at Marischal College, and did a little schoolmastering after leaving it. It was at this time, too, that he " dabbled " in

verse-making. The most ambitious of his efforts *ere imitations of Pope, then all the rage. But he also wrote in Scotch, of, it must be allowed, an archaic and even unintelligible kind. The best poetical relic of this period of Skinner's life which Mr. Walker gives us consists of two lines :- " Say, Mercury, thou pretty little goddy,

Since e'er thy speckled wings bore up thy body."

" Pretty little goddy " is very nearly as good an example of the quaint, peculiarly northern diminutive, as the ultra-Carlylian peasant's contemptuous description of the governing class in Scotland as " wee hits o' Scotch peerikies," or the lines of the Catholic priest Geddes, a contemporary of Skinner, beginning,— " There was a wee wifeikie, wan comin' free the fair, Had gotten a little drappikie, which bred ber meikle care."

Skinner, however, for some reason which is not quite clear, —" The parish school, with the parish church in the distance, .vanished from his prospect at once and for ever. There was nothing to look to now but a tutorship in a family, to be followed in due time by the charge of an Episcopal congregation, fur- nishing congenial labour, but only a bare subsistence." Skinner became a tutor in Shetland, and married the daughter of the single Episcopal clergyman there. Nothing could have seemed more imprudent than such a marriage, but it brought

Skinner the greatest happiness of his life. It even brought him promotion. The Bishop of Aberdeen, thinking that a man who was able to endure poverty was one worth giving a charge to in a troubled time, appointed him to the vacant charge of Longside, in 1742, and there he remained for sixty-five years, living in a thatched cottage named Linshart. Skinner's character was soon tested. The Rebellion of 1745 led to a persecution of the Episcopalian Clergy, then largely Jacobites, which was partly political and partly Presbyterian. Skinner was no Jacobite, but he suffered with and fought with tongue and pen for his brethren. His chapel was burned. His house was, in his absence, and while his wife was in child- 'bed, entered into and plundered by soldiers. Finally, having lampooned his chief enemy, a fanatical "lady of rank," and her tool, a legal officer, he was in 1753 thrown into Aber- deen prison for evading the tyrannical Penal Act of 1748, which

.prohibited the Episcopalian Clergy from performing public

worship in any house but their own, their audiences being limited to four persons beyond their families. Six months in gaol seems to have taught Skinner caution. At all events, when he came out of prison he was not openly persecuted ; and evasions of the Penal Acts became more and more common. He was still under a cloud, however ; and, with an increasing family, his struggle to make both ends meet out of his poor professional pittance was keen. But he had a heart and a wit above all misfortune. He threw himself with vigour, but without bitterness, into the Episcopalian controversies of the time, such as the forgotten one about " The Usages." He wrote for the Encyclow(lia Br ilaniiira. He became 'known as a writer of good verses in three languages, almost in spite of himself. He was famed as a delightful companion at dinner ; the frugal hospitality of Linshart became the proverb of the country-side. He developed into the solicitor and doctor, as well as the preacher of his flock. He bad the wisdom never to strain for more than a competence, and be never attained more. When he was in his eightieth year, a landed gentleman of his acquaintance desired to be permitted to add to his comfort. His reply was a rhymed epistle, with these lines as the ley-note :- " Death at my door, and Heaven in my eye, From rich or great, what comfort now need I?"

Skinner lived to see the penal laws against his Church relaxed, and his favourite son Bishop of Aberdeen. In the house, and in the arms, of that son, surrounded by " three generations of his house," he passed gently away, on June 16th, 1807, at the ripe age of eighty.five. He was laid in the churchyard of Long- side, by the side of her who bad been his partner for fifty-eight years.

Skinner's correspondence with Burns was one of the most in- teresting episodes in his life, perhaps in the lives of both. It began in 1787. 'Burns had been rambling in the North, had been at Gordon Castle, and, without knowing it, had passed within four miles of " Tullochgorum's " residence. But in Aberdeen, and in the office of Mr. Chalmers, a printer, Burns met his son, the Bishop, who, with a naivete which is a remarkable comment on the habits of the time, writes to his father,—" There was no help, but I must step into the inn hard by and drink a glass with him and the printer. Our time was short, as he was just setting off for the south ; but we had fifty amid sangs ' through hand, and spent an hour or so most agreeably." The Bishop, who described Burns as "a genteel- looking man, of good address, that talks with .much propriety, as if he had received an academical education," duly trans- mitted to his father the junior poet's encomiums on " The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn." To these Skinner responded in a rhymed letter, which Burns acknowledged as " the finest poetical compliment he ever got." It is more than that. It is, in a nutshell, one of the best criticisms on Barns that has ever been published. From both a literary and a religious point of view nothing better than this on "The Cotter's Satur- day Night" has ever been said, though, unfortunately, Seotch- men only will thoroughly understand it :—

"A piece so finished and so ticht, There's nane o's a'

Could preachment timmer cleaner dicbt,

In kirk or ha'."

The question of the morality of Burns's poetry is thus disposed of with a kindly man-of-the-worldliness :-

"You've naething said that looks like blan'er To fowk o sense."

There is a world of meaning in the word " blun'er" as used here, and especially as coming from a man like Skinner, who could speak his mind on questions of morality freely enough when neces- sary, as when he told a friend of whose conduct he disapproved, and who apologised for shaking hands with his glove on,—" It's maybe the honester leather o' the twa." In the prose correspond- ence which followed between the poets, Skinner's letters look decidedly better than Burns's ; perhaps poor Burns was too " passion-driven " at the time to write well. Skinner never sank the moralist in the writer of unconsidered trifles, and so urged Burns, while not neglecting Scotch song, not to " sheath his own proper and piercing weapon," and on this ground :- " One lesson of virtue and morality, delivered in your amusing style and from such as you, will operate more than dozens would from such as me, who shall be told it is our employment, and be never more minded ; whereas, from a pen like yours, as being one of the many, what comes will be regarded." Then, again, was ever kind hint conveyed more artistically or with less of " the preaching cant " than in these words, with which Skinner closes one of his letters,—" Wishing you from my poet-pen all success, and in my other character all happiness and heavenly direction, I remain, with esteem, your sincere friend P" Skinner is known to the world mainly by his " Tullochgornm" and his "Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn," and surely it is not neces- sary at this time of day to recommend the manly philosophy of the one, the gentle pathos of the other, or the unaffected directness of both, that went to the heart and the head of Burns. We are rather glad to find Mr. Walker calling an overwhelming host of witnesses to prove that Skinner's Ewie, so tragically done to death, was a real Ewie, and not a whiskey-still captured by an exciseman, as was wickedly believed when it first'appeared, and as even Professor Minto seems to have believed in 1880, when writing on Scotch minor song-writers for Mr. T. H. Ward's English Poets. Our present purpose has been to deal with Skinner chiefly as a man ; his best poems are to be found in every Scotch collection. Next to " Tullochgorum " and " The Ewie " comes "John o' Badenyon," a very good example of the Christian Horatianism, which we have already referred to as Skinner's differentia as a Scotch poet. Less known is his " Lizzie Liberty," a political poem, describing the courtship of "that black-eyed wanton witch" by " Dutch Mynheer," "John Bull," and "Donald Scot." Skinner's pawky humour, practical Conservatism, and directness of style all come out in his recom- mendation to Donald Scot :—

"Now Donald tak' a frieu's advice,

I ken fie well ye fain wad hae her ; As ye are happy, sae be wise, And he'd ye wi' a smackie free her.

Ye're wooin' at her, fain wad hae her,

Coortin' her, will maybe get her,—

Bonny Lizzie Liberty, there's ow'r mony wooin' at her."