The Biography of Two Famous Songs

EXCURSIONS into Ballad-Land are not now regarded as altogether literary trifling. We have found out that, as proverbs embody a nation’s practical experience, songs express audibly its heart and its imagination. When Addison devoted two numbers of the Spectator — 70 and 74 — to an old song, he did it with an air of patronage, and was evidently afraid the plaything might tumble his ruffles; but editors are now literary radicals, and a popular song is as likely to catch their ear as an historical essay, or the sections of a new law. Without being inclined to indorse altogether the hackneyed aspiration about law-makers and song-makers, it is undeniable that learned men have made songs which, in their widespread and enduring influence, have moulded national character and national events.

When the Rev. John Skinner wrote Tullochgorum, had he any idea that this one song would link his name with that of Burns and Auld Lang Syne, in perennial honor and affection ? Yet Robert Chambers says, “ Certainly, no song has taken a deeper hold on the affections of the people, or attained a wider celebrity. It is sung at our social gatherings, printed in every ‘ collection,’ and there are few Scotch people who cannot quote some of its sparkling, pithy lines.” For instance, when speaking of the tunes of other countries, what Scotchman will not answer, —

Burns called Tullochgorum “ the best Scotch song Scotland ever saw;” and as a social song it stands to-day with Auld Lang Syne. But unlike Auld Lang Syne, the words will not, except in rare cases, recall the name of the man who wrote them. The memory of Burns is inseparable from his works, but very few have heard of the Rev. John Skinner. He was born in 1721, at Balfour, Aberdeenshire, where his father was school-master, and he very early gave indications of great ability. At twelve years of age he was a fine Latin scholar, and at thirteen competed successfully for one of the most valuable bursaries in Marischal College. When scarcely out of his minority he was happily married, and in charge of a small Episcopalian congregation at Longside, in his native county. This was his only church : in it he ministered for sixtyfive years, and before old age compelled him to sever the tie he had the unusual experience of serving under a bishop who was in an ecclesiastical sense his father, but in a natural sense his son.

Soon after receiving his preferment there came that “ news from Moidart ” which roused the clans in every glen and misty island : —

John Skinner’s whole heart was with the Stuart rising, and after the fatal field of Culloden he suffered severely. The Episcopalians, being almost universally Jacobites, were subjected to very cruel oppressions, and the clergy were special objects of resentment. Their houses were plundered, their churches destroyed, and their lives in constant danger. In 1746 a law was passed making it illegal for them to officiate to more than four persons, beside the members of their own household ; and two years later they were forbidden even “ to exercise the function of a chaplain in any family.” The penalty for infringing these enactments was imprisonment for the first offense, and exile from Britain for the second. Mr. Skinner evaded the law in its letter for several years ; his little congregation gathered around his cottage, and he read the services of the church to them through an open window. But he was finally apprehended in the discharge of this duty and suffered a six months’ imprisonment.

Yet, though he loved the creed of his adoption, he had not an atom of bigotry in his nature. One day, while passing a Dissenting chapel, a psalm was being sung, and he reverently lifted his hat and walked on uncovered. The friend who was with him said in amazement, “ John Skinner ! Don’t you know those people are anti-burghers ? ” " Ah ! ”

he replied ; “ but they are singing to the glory of God, and I respect and love any of my fellow creatures who are so engaged.”

At that time the rural population were not only bigoted, they were also very ignorant. On one occasion, when a farmer was spending an evening with Mr. Skinner, the conversation turned upon the motion of the earth.

“ It’s the sun gaes roun’ the earth, and the earth ne’er gaes oot o’ the pairt,” said the farmer ; “ forbye, doesna the Scriptures say the Lord commanded the sun to stan’ still ? ”

“ Just so,” replied the minister : “ it is very true that the sun was commanded to stand still ; and there he stands still, for he never was commanded to take the road again,” — a mode of reasoning far more satisfactory to the man than the most accurate scientific demonstration would have been.

Though Mr. Skinner’s salary was never more than forty pounds a year, and his manse but a thatched cottage, he was a man of eminence, both as a scholar and a theologian. He assisted Dr. Gleig, who had then the management of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in the preparation of many articles for that work; and he wrote an elaborate Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, besides many polemical papers and tracts ; but it is the song of Tullochgorum that keeps the very memory of these things alive.

Tullochgorum had a kindly, pleasant origin. There was a meeting of clergymen at Ellon, a small village in Aberdeenshire ; and several of them were entertained by a lady named Montgomery. After dinner an eager political dispute arose. There were men there who still drank “ the health of the King over the water; ” and the Whig clergy, who clung to the House of Hanover, did not have much brotherly affection for them. The argument waxed hotter and hotter, and Mrs. Montgomery, to put an end to it, asked Mr. Skinner for a song ; expressing her surprise that he had never written words for the fine old reel of Tullochgorum.”

“ It’s aften ye hae written a sang to pleasure ye ’re ain lasses, Mr. Skinner ; noo, then, ye ’ll just gie me ane to the reel o’ Tullochgorum.” The request was almost immediately gratified, and the first verse of the song aptly recalls the circumstances of the composition. It was published in the Scot’s Magazine in 1776, some time after its production. Burns was then a lad of seventeen years old, and likely enough saw it immediately afterwards ; for it took the popular heart by storm, and was speedily scattered over the whole land in those penny broadsheets which constituted the popular literature of the day.

TULLOCHGORUM.

When Burns paid his visit to the North in 1787, he met Bishop Skinner, the bard’s son, in Aberdeen. During the conversation Burns asked the bishop, “ Didna your father write also The Ewie wi’ the Crookit Horn ? ” “ Yes,” was the reply. “ Oh! an’ I had the loun that did it,” Burns continued, in a rapture of praise, “only to tell him how I love his truly Scottish muse! ” When he subsequently remarked that he had been at Gordon Castle and Peterhead, the bishop said, “ Then you were within four Scot’s miles of Tullochgorum’s dwelling.” Burns was very much disappointed at not having known this, and Mr. Skinner was equally sorry to have missed seeing the famous plowman poet. But he at once wrote to Burns, and proposed a correspondence ; the epistle being in verse, which recalls Burns’s own style ; —

The closing verses of this letter are dignified by a fine touch of devotion, well becoming the message of an old poet to a young one:—

A strong attachment and an interesting correspondence followed, and in a letter dated October 25, 1787, Skinner says, “ 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 favorite tunes, and so extorted those effusions which have made a public appearance beyond my expectations; at the same time that I hope there is nothing to be found in them unbecoming the cloth, which I would always wish to see respected.”

Skinner looked forward to a long and honored career for his peasant-poet friend, and had written to him thus : —

Yet Burns had been lying eleven years in Dumfries churchyard when Skinner died. They were “ a noble twain ” in their warm and disinterested affection, and Burns bears this honorable testimony to his friend: " He is one of the worthiest of mankind.” It is this fact which illumines the whole life of the simple parish priest. The district in which he lived was one of the most desolate in Scotland: a great moor, unbroken by tree, or shrub, or house. But there was always light and warmth and welcome in the minister’s cottage. “ What a consolation have I! ” the good man used to say: “ my taper never burns in vain ; for should it fail to cheer myself and family, it seldom fails to cheer and guide some solitary traveler ; ” and indeed he could not go to rest with comfort while there was the chance of any human creature crossing the lonely moor.

Undoubtedly, John Skinner was a happy man, in spite of his poverty, for it is of himself he writes in the Stipendless Parson and the Old Man’s Song; the latter, in spite of its odd metre, a worthy companion to “ John Anderson, my jo, John.” The following three stanzas are from it: —

His wife, however, went first. They had lived together in a rare felicity for fifty-eight years, and Skinner was nearly eighty when she left him. But he bore the loss with characteristic serenity and hopefulness, and when Ferguson of Pitfour wrote to ask “ what he could do to make him comfortable ” answered, —

“Now in my eightieth year, my thread near spun,
My race through poverty and labor run,
Wishing to be by all my flock beloved,
And for long service by my Judge approved,
Death at my door, and heaven in my eye,
From rich or great, what comfort now need I ? ”

Seven years after this event, his son, Bishop of Aberdeen, pressed him to come and spend his last days with him ; and he accepted this invitation with a frank pleasure, writing thus : “ I cordially embrace your proposal, and am making preparations to be with you, God willing, next week. ... I wish much to see once more my children’s grandchildren, and peace upon Israel.

Then he resigned the flock he had lovingly tended for nearly sixty-live years, and removed to Aberdeen. On the twelfth day afterwards, being then eighty-six years old, he fell asleep, without a struggle or a sigh, in the arms of his beloved son.

Just about the time that Skinner wrote the song of Tullochgormn, the University of Aberdeen took a most unusual step. It sought out a priest of the Church of Rome, and voluntarily conferred on him the degree of LL. D. This man, selected from the papal ranks by a Presbyterian body as worthy of honor, was Alexander Geddes ; and he was the first Roman Catholic on whom it had been bestowed by this seat of learning since the Reformation. The honor — for such it was undoubtedly regarded— was not given in recognition of any special or splendid literary or theological attainments, but simply for a catholicity so broad and grand and genial that even the stern, narrow, covenanting spirit of that day acknowledged and admired it. Loyal to the Church of Rome and her traditions, he had the kindliest feeling towards all men, no matter by what religious name they were known ; and he not only held pleasant social intercourse with Protestant ministers, but not seldom had been present at their worship. This conduct did not commend itself to his superiors. He was ordered to renounce all heretics, or resign his charge. He gave up his charge, though he remained in full allegiance to his order. It was to mark its sympathy with the priest in this crisis of his life that the University of Aberdeen gave him a degree. But in other respects the man was well worthy of it. He was a fine Hebrew, Greek, and Latin scholar, and had also an intimate and practical knowledge of French, German, Spanish, and Low Dutch ; while in biblical history his attainments were wide and far-reaching. There was probably another reason why the Senatus of Aberdeen espoused his cause : he was a Scotsman, and a Scot of that part of the country from which the great northern university draws most of its students.

Dr. Geddes was born in Banffshire, and he inherited his singularly broad religious sympathies; for although his father and mother were Catholics, they sent him to a school where the Shorter Catechism was a text-book, Reasons, and Reasons Annexed included; and also permitted him to read the Protestant version of the Scriptures. He studied subsequently at the Roman Catholic school of Sculan, which was situated in such a deep and dismal glen that the sun was not visible there for many months in the year. “ Pray be so kind,” Geddes wrote to a friend, “ as to make particular inquiries after the health of the sun ; fail not to present my compliments, and tell him I still hope some day to renew my personal acquaintance with him.”

In his twenty-seventh year he became chaplain to the Earl of Traquare. He was handsome, polished, and clever, and a young relative of the earl’s fell deeply in love with the fascinating priest. Her love was ardently returned, but his vows and his honor alike forbade the affection, and after a bitter struggle with himself he bade farewell to love and Traquare, and, hiding himself among the libraries of Paris, strove to forget, amid abstruse learning, one fair, haunting face.

After many years he returned to Scotland, and built up a noble church, but his utter want of sectarian policy again brought on him the censure of his bishop; and as he persistently refused to believe that all stones would be rejected save those fashioned by Rome, he was again suspended. Then the Earl of Traquare, remembering the noble conduct of the young priest years before, became his warm friend, and procured him the office of priest to the Austrian embassy. The duties of this position were so light that he began at once a task which he had long contemplated, — a translation of the Bible for English Catholics. When the first volume appeared, Protestants and Catholics alike condemned it; not for any inaccuracy, but for the author’s own critical remarks, he having raised the same doubts and questions that in more recent times are associated with Bishop Colenso’s name. In the second volume he was no more prudent, and the work was a financial failure ; but so thoroughly was the man loved and respected that the clergy of the time — Protestant and Catholic alike — contributed a sum of money sufficient to free him from pecuniary annoyance and obligation.

He died in 1802, and biographical notices of that date speak highly of his polemical and theological works, and say that, in addition, he wrote “ some indifferent songs.” Posterity has reversed this judgment. His learned writings are forgotten, his translation of the Bible is a curiosity, and the “ indifferent ” poems are the link between Dr. Geddes and all future lovers of Scotch song. Indeed, if he had written nothing but that most touching of all Jacobite songs, “ Oh ! send Lewie Gordon hame,” he would never be forgotten.

The Pretender was of course “ the lad we daurna name,” and Lewie Gordon was the third son of the Duke of Gordon. In the rising of 1745, the head of the house remained faithful to the house of Hanover ; but young Louis went with the clans, and after Culloden had to flee the country. All the Gordons sympathized with them, and his sister, the Countess of Aberdeen, a very beautiful woman, stopped the Duke of Cumberland on the highway to reproach him with his brutality. “ Who are you ? ” he asked, bluntly enough. She lifted her head defiantly, and answered not, I am Countess of Aberdeen, but “ I am the sister of Lord Louis Gordon.”

The exquisite words were set to a fine old air, once sung in the Roman church as a Sanctus, and which may yet be found in Whittaker’s Church Music as a hymn harmonized for four voices. But never did words and music fit each other more perfectly ; almost any lover of Scotch song and Scotch music would declare that they must have come from one and the same inspiration. Perhaps it was so, because in this case the musician’s lyre was the musician’s heart, and from the sorrow and disappointment of life came the touching little song,—

Amelia Barr.