THE OCCASIONAL.

By LEIGH HUNT.

No. III. A Sccrrnsu EPISCOPAL MirturrEs, Poon AN-n Cols-rmyrEo.—Sybarites of the dinner-table, and Paupers wanting Homes—Interesting Self-knowledge—Four Lineal Cbietemporaries—Sir Walter Scott's Opinion of extempore Dances and superfluous Diners.

I am sorry not to have an entirely new subject for the " Occasional " of this week ; but at the same time, with that privilege of regretting and rejoicing in two successive moments which is allowed to writers in jour- nals, where editors are " sorry to say" in one paragraph and "happy to state" in the next, readers have given so kindly a welcome even to col- lateral persons and things mentioned in the article of last week, that I feel myself encouraged to indulge an inclination to say a few more words respecting them.

Let me be permitted one other word before I proceed, in order to hail in common with everybody else the poem that was recited in honour of Burns at the Crystal Palace. Unlike Prize Poems in general, which possess but a poor repute, owing to the conventionalisms with which they abound in the Universities, Miss Craig's production contains poetry truly so called, and of the rarest imaginative kind. It needs no testimony from individuals; but they may be allowed, for the sake of their thankfulness, to express their pleasure.

As the Reverend Mr. Skinner, spoken of in the "Occasional" of last week, has made an agreeable impression upon readers, I complete such an account of him as I can gather from Burns's biographers.

The following is one of the memorandums in a diary which the poet kept of a tour in the South of Scotland— "Come to Aberdeen—meet with Mr. Chalmers, printer, a facetious fellow —Mr. Ross, a fine fellow, like Professor Tytler—Mr. Marshall, one of the

to minores—Mr. Sheriffs, author of 'Jamie and Bess,' a little decrepit

y, with some abilities—Bishop Skinuerl a nonjuror, son of the au- thor of' Tullochgorum '; a man whose mild, venerable manner, is the most marked of any in so young a man—Professor Gordon a good-natured, jolly-looking Professor—Aberdeen a lazy town."—Cludsbers's Life and Works of BUMS. Volume II., p. 134. Upon this note some remarks are made by Mr. Chambers, which be- sides their being worth the attention of the persons whom he so pro-

perly admonishes, acquire a new and present interest in another direction, owing to what has been said in the Times and other papers, of the dis- tresses of the working clergy.

"It was at the printing-office (he observes) of Mr. Chalmers, that Burns met the mild, composed-looking man, who bore the title of Bishop Skinner. To the Ayrshire poet this was an interesting person, not so much on account of the office he bore in the cavalier Episcopal Church of Scotland, as because he was the son of one who had written popular songs in the vernacular language. Burns, being made aware of the pa- rentage of the worthy bishop, entered into conversation with him regard- ing his father; and on learning that he lived at Linshart, near Longmay,

a village to the west of Peterhead, which he had now thrown far into his

rear, expressed great regret for his ignorance of the old poet's locality, as he said he would have gladly gone twenty miles out of his way to see him. Such was the importance which he attached to the song of " Tut- lochgorum." It is a pity that he did not see the venerable Skinner at his cottage parsonage, for it would have been a lesson of religious con-

tentment that could scarcely have failed to touch and improve his spirit. He would have found the old parson living in what was literally a cot- tage,—what is called in Scotland a butt and a ben,—with earthen floors and grateless fireplaces, not enjoying an income equal to that of a fore-

man in a common workshop, yet cheerful, and even mirthful, and the centre of a family circle in which would have been found many eleganecs and accomplishments. It would be well for more than unendowed poets to see how independent is the truest lnxury of life, the refinement and joy of an elevated and cheerful nature, upon the external accidents of fortune."

Poets, endowed or unendowed, would have reason to be ashamed of themselves, if as far as themselves and their idealisms were concerned they could not make out their case in the humblest of tenements, pro-

vided it be clean and neat, not in a squalid or otherwise vile neighbour-

hood, and gifted with a tree and a bit of grass, to represent all trees and all grass to their imaginations. Mr. Skinner, a temperate and honest man with a cheerful blood, and rich in a family circle that loved him, and for whose future welfare he appears to have had no cause to be anxious, lived, there can be no doubt, like a very prince of men in his little cottage, even though the designation of "a butt and a ben" means no more than a house mainly consisting of one outer and one inner room ; that is to say, of a country kitchen and a parlour; in the former of which are turn-up or otherwise moveable beds with partitions at dis- cretion for the family, and in the latter another bed for the lord and master and his wife: Probably there is a bit of closet or garret beside; but the floor, we see, was unboarded, and the fire-places had no grates.

Not the less merrily did the flames of the fire rush up the chimney, while the good pastor distributed his pleasant sayings, and the daughters

were heard singing as they went about, and the future Bishop, in a cor-. ner, thought his Robinson Crusoe or his Seven Champions of Christendomv pleasanter reading thaibliis' lesson in Corderius.

But in some respects, and those of the highest importance, the compa- rative poverty of Scotland had given it advantages over England.

Schoolmasters and other tutors had been willing to teach at cheaper

rates : intellect acquired a popular value for its own sake, apart from the Possession of money; temperance, in quarters.where the gloomy creed

of John Knox, carried to a pitch of fanaticism, had not saddened even that source of enjoyment, sharpened the animal spirits, and helped to give rise to a stalwart race of men ; the songs of Scotland, many of them the production of persona in the humblest walks of life, are the liveliest of the three kingdoms; in a word, "respectability," or the being worth. looking at a second time, (for that is what that most respected word means) was not confined, as in England, to the individual who passed you with a pocket twice as well lined as your own: the real man was, in a very great degree, "the man for a'that," before Burns rose to glorify him ; nor with all Scotland's consideration for thrift, and its willingness to in-

crease its "suer" by the help of England itself, did there, perhaps, exist in his neighbourhood a person to whom all descriptions of people took off their hats and caps with a more zealous respect, than the Reverend Mr. Skinner, master of "the butt and the ben" with no floor to it, but with wit at will in his brain, and wisdom in his heart.

Compare this gentleman and his family, happy under no " appearances" at all, with the hard-working English clergyman obliged to keep up a certain amount of them at the expense of the tardily sustenance, hasting hither and thither on the day of rest upon services which ought to be discharged by his richer employers, and looked upon with an evil eye by butcher and baker, because the coming week's bills cast doubtful sha- dows of competency on his face.

But we may imagine Skinner shrinking from this comparison, as too painful to him. Compare him then, on the other hand (and how he

would laugh !) with those distressed individuals of hundreds and thou- sands a year a piece, who have been detailing of late in the Bows news- paper the calamitous shortcomings of their side-dishes, the worse super-

fluities of their joints, and the worse than all eternal recurrences of their fish and fowl, creams, custards, and jellies ; things that to the imagina- tions of the Ilouseless Poor who are recorded in the accompanying co- lumns, must sound like dishes of Paradise ! .And how would Skinner's laugh cease, when his eye turned to those !

Did the Times put the records together, in order to shame these Sy- barites of the dinner-table ? The juxtaposition must have reminded many- a reader of the tremendous couplet in the poet-

" Homeless, beside a thousand homes they stood ; And near a thousand tables, pined and wanted food."

But we are bound to thinkthe best of the junction, in the paper which so ad- mirably brought the misery forward, and which has roused so practical and promising a real in its behalf. The word "promising "is written advisedly; because prompt and considerable as the zeal has been, many a subscription remains to be looked for, and of a higher figure. Recurrers indeed to first principles (which are the principles that Bishops teach, and that evangelical rich men echo,) can never see notices of the struggles of the working elergy, much less of females and children famishing and cough- ing out of doors on winter nights, without thinking that the whole of the bench of bishops, with all the saintly rich among the laity on either side of them, High Church and Low Church, ought to rise up with one accord in a frantic agony of pity, and exclaim, "Let us build homes and supply tables for these miserable people instantly, and not have a super- fluous farthing more." It would not be amiss just now, if the House of Peers were to build a House for the Homeless, bigger than twenty of those which already exist, put together. Nor, in spite of the infinite hums and hawing& that await all unusual propositions till the thing itself be done, and answers them with its Leing visible matter of fact, does there appear to be any reason why such a thing might not be set about immediately, and the most shocking of all turnings away from doors be put an end to. But, meantime, I am not one of those who would abolish a House of Lords, be it only for the sake of good manners, and of the existence of something to be looked up to, which is not mere money; precious points in this world; vastly worthy of reten- tion; and more preservative than it enters into the heads of most people to conceive, of the first principle of goodness itself; which is conside- rateness for the feelings of others. But the instinctive conclusions of the world on the kindly side are wiser than what it supposes to be its knowledge on the other side ; just as the best things in all creeds are those in which the hearts of none of them differ : and hence, in the one case, the deference which is paid to the understood refinements of rank, (shocked where it does not find them,) and, in the other case, the wil- lingness of any creed to hear another speak, as long as it does not touch upon dogmas which are instinctively though not knowingly felt to be irreconcileable with right feeling, and which therefore do but exasperate the determination to maintain them. Nor again, is it possible to read all that terrible yet beautiful heap of advertisements in the daily papers respecting Refuges and Reliefs for the Poor, without hailing the progress of benevolence among all ranks and classes of men, and all descriptions, of belief.

To return to the good clergyman, to whom a digression of this kind,' originating with him, not unsuitably returns,—he was as much of a gen- tleman in his intercourse, as if he had never trod but upon Turkey car- pets, or taken no dinners but such as would content Times correspondents.

"When he learned (says Mr. Chambers,) from his son tho bishop, or, as he called him, his chill (that is chiel, or child,) that Burns had passed near his residence and missed seeing him, though anxious to do so, he felt a regret corresponding to that of the Ayrshire Bard, for, though now near seventy, his poetical and social affections were as vivid as ever." He consequently wrote to him, both in prose and verse, and in return for the grateful enthusiasm of Burns, who was then in the flower of his repute, he says, "Your acknowledgment of my poor but just enco- miums on your surprising genius, and your opinion of my rhyming ex- cursions, are both, I think, by far too high. The difference between our two tracks of education and ways of life is entirely in your favour, and gives you the preference every manner of way. I know a classical edu- cation will not create a versifying taste, but it mightily improves and assists it; and though, where both these meet, there may sometimes be ground for approbation, yet where taste appears single, as it were, and neither cramped nor supported by acquisition, I will always sustain the justice of its prior claim to applause. A small portion of taste this way I have had almost from childhood, especially in the old Scottish dialect; and it is as old a thing as I remember, my fondness for Christ-kirk o' the Green, which I had by heart ere I was twelve years of age, and which some years ago I attempted to turn into Latin verse. 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 good singers, plagued me for words to some of their favourite tunes, and so extorted these effusiona, which have made a public appear- ance beyond my expectations and contrary to my intentions ; at the same time that I hope there is nothing to be found in them uncharacteristic or unbecoming the cloth, which I would always wish to see respected."

And at the close of the letter he says, "Meantime, while you are thus publicly, I may say, employed, do not sheathe your own proper and piercing weapon. From what I have seen of yours already, I am in- clined to hope for much good. One lesson of virtue and morality, de- livered in your amusing style, and from such as you, will operate more than dozens would do from such as me, who shall be told it is our em- ployment, and be never more minded ; whereas, from a pen like yours, as being one of the many, what comes will be admired. Admiration will produce regard, and regard will leave an impression ; especially when example goes along. New binna. saying I'm ill bred, Else, by my troth, l'll no be glad ; For, cadgers,t ye have heard it said,

And sic-like fry, Mann aye be harland$ in their trade, And say maim I.'

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, John Skinner."

Alas ! Burns had already found occasion to teach lessons of more far- sighted ethics and even profoundur Christian charity than the good clergyman himself could have ventured upon; and it is greatly to the latter's credit that he could praise the poet notwithstanding, and advise him to moralize still. But had all Scottish pastors resembled John Skinner, in good sense and ungloomy piety, and had Burns's patrons known how to put him in his proper social position after tempting him from the one to which he was born, neither he nor his country at large would alike, though from different causes, have been driven into conso- lations which left the indignant poet angry with himself, and have put the nation in a place on the list of statistics, where neither its poetry, nor its bravery, nor its scholarship, nor its philosophy, nor anything great and flood belonging to it, ought to have found it. The poet, however, has ceased to suffer ; the world receives great and lasting good from the sweet voice which he has left singing in its air ; and Scotland will as surely, and at no great distance of time, outlive the present eclipse of its animal spirits, as the bigotry which produced it is dying out, and a more "jocund day" ataatcling, in consequence, upon its "misty mountain tops."

I cannot part with Mr. Skinner without adding a pleasant genealogical circumstance which, is related of him and his family; namely, that seine time before his death, which took place in the year 1808, there was one day seen assembled, in one and the same room, a quaternity of John Skinners, all in direct descent ; to wit, our venerable friend himself, the John Skinner ; his son, John Skinner, Bishop of Aberdeen ; the Bishop's son, John Skinner, afterwards Bishop of the same place ; and the second Bishop's infant son, John Skinner, who, it is to be hoped, is still living, in the enjoyment of the family name and honours. A young gentleman, who once saw the late Bishop, informs me that he had attained to proper episcopal dimensions The good prelate had not lived in "a butt and a ben."

I must add furthermore, in reference to the unsophisticate family dances, a revival of which I ventured to recommend in last week's "Occasional," and which, I am happy to say, have already gained active well-wishers both in the quarters I spoke of, and as far as Edinburgh also, that I have since met with a passage in Walter Scott, which implies a similar good will to such domesticities on the part of the great novelist. It includes, too, some capital seasonable hints (coupled, howsoever, with a warning) to disconsolate feasters like those in the Times; and though the frequency of the honest dancing is slyly attributed to the possible sug- gestions of claret, no harm is meant by the attributor, nor did any, as he subsequently tells us, ensue. The men, he owns, "have since gained much on the score of sobriety " ; but the women he considered then, as they remained afterwards, patterns of domestic affections. The whole passage to which I allude, is as follows. It is in the volume of his "Miscellaneous Prose Works" entitled "Provincial Antiquities." Ile is giving a "General Account of Edinburgh," and has been speaking of the remarkable increase of that city, as it was then progressing ; namely, in the years 1825 and '6.

"If we consider (says he) the effect which this unparalleled int rca,e of the capital has had upon manners, we will find the aged regretting the more restricted, select, and yet easy society, in which they snored some thirty years since, when familiee met frequently with lees form and expense, and upon very brief notice, to enjoy a social and domestic meal of plain cookery, with a glass of good port wine or claret, which was sometimes allowed to circulate too often, and too long. The tea-table, and the card-party, how- ever, claimed their rights sooner or later; and, perhaps, the young ladies might thank the claret for the frequent proposal of rolling aside the carpet, and dancing to the pianoforte. And certainly he who has witnessed and partaken of pleasures attainable upon such easy terms, may be allowed to murmur at modern parties, where, with much more form and more expence, the same cheerful results are not equally secured. When, after a mouth's invitation, he meets a large party of twenty or thirty people, probably little known to him and to each other, who are entertained with French cookery, and a variety of expensive wines offered in succession, while circumstances often betray that the landlord is making an effort beyond his usual habits ; when the company protract a dull effort at conversation, under the reserve imposed by their being strangers to each other, and reunite with the ladies, sober enough it is true, but dull enough also, to drink cold coffee, he expects at least to finish the evening with the dance and song, or the lively talk around the fire, or the comfortable old-fashioned rubber. But these are no part of modern manners. No sooner is the dinner ended, than each guest sets forth on a nocturnal cruise from one crowded party to another ; and ends by elbowing, it may be, in King Street, about three o'clock in the morning, the very same folk whom he elbowed at ten o'clock at night in Charlotte Square, and who, like himself, have spent the whole night in the streets, and in going in or out of lighted apartments." Vol. VII. p. 238-

This is the life still led during the sewn by visiting men in London. The late Mr. Rogers led it, when he was upwards of ninety ; going from house to house at late hours night after night, bowing and muttering a few polite words to the lady of the house, and interchanging a pinch of snuff and a word or two with the old acquaintances among whom he made his way.

It is very pleasant occasionally, and the words are sometimes worth hearing; but those of Sir Walter Scott are more so.

• Be not. + Hucksters. Haulier.