ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. B. 1784. D. 1842.
To this list we must add the names of Lady Nairne and Lady Anne Lindsay. To the former we are indebted for "The Land o' the Leal," "The Laird o' Cockpen," and "The Auld Hoose;" to the latter for "Auld Robin Gray:" and our wonder is, how those who could write so charmingly should have written so little.
I have no intention of discussing the general question of Scottish poetry--of defending or eulogising, or of apologising for anything belonging to it. There are songs in broad Scottish dialect of which the beauty and the power will never be lost. Words of Burns, Allan Ramsay, and Lady Nairne, must ever speak to hearts that are true to nature. I am desirous of bringing before my readers at this time the name of a Scottish poet, which, though in Mr. Laing's list, I fear is become rather a reminiscence. It is fifty years since his poetical pieces were published in a collected form. I am desirous of giving a special notice of a true-hearted Scotsman, and a genuine Scottish poet, under both characters. I look with a tender regard to the memory of the Rev. JOHN SKINNER of Langside. He has written little in quantity, but it is all charming. He was a good Christian minister. He was a man of learning--a man of liberal and generous feeling. In addition to all this, he has upon me the claim of having been a Scottish Episcopalian divine, and I am always rejoiced to see among learned men of our church sympathies with liberalism, besides what is patristic and theological. John Skinner's name and family are much mixed up with our church. 'Tullochgorum' was father of Primus John Skinner, and grandfather of Primus W. Skinner and of the Rev. John Skinner of Forfar. The youngest brother of Tullochgorum was James Skinner, W.S., who died at ninety-one, and was grandfather of W. Skinner, W.S., Edinburgh. The Rev. J. Skinner was born in Birse, a wild part of Aberdeenshire, 1721. His father was parochial schoolmaster at Gight for nearly fifty years. He worked hard under the care of his father, who was a good Latin scholar. He gained a bursary at Aberdeen, where he studied. When he left college he became schoolmaster at Monymusk, where he wrote some pieces that attracted attention, and Sir Archibald Grant took him into the house, and allowed him the full use of a very fine library. He made good use of this opportunity, and indeed became a fair scholar and theologian. Skinner had been brought up a Presbyterian, but at Monymusk found reasons for changing his views. In June 1740 he became tutor to the only son of Mrs. Sinclair in Shetland. Returning to Aberdeenshire in 1741, he completed his studies for the ministry, was ordained by Bishop Dunbar, and in 1742 became pastor of Langside. He worked for this little congregation for nearly sixty-five years, and they were happy and united under his pastoral charge. One very interesting incident took place during his ministry, which bears upon our general question of reminiscences and changes. John Skinner was in his own person an example of that persecution for political opinion referred to in Professor Macgregor's account of the large prayer-book in the library at Panmure. After the '45, Episcopalians were treated with suspicion and severity. The severe laws passed against Jacobites were put in force, and poor Skinner fined.
However, better and more peaceful times came round, and all that John Skinner had undergone did not sour his temper or make him severe or misanthropical. As a pastor he seems to have had tact, as well as good temper, in the management of his flock, if we may judge from the following anecdote:--Talking with an obstinate self-confident farmer, when the conversation happened to turn on the subject of the motion of the earth, the farmer would not be convinced that the earth moved at all. "Hoot, minister," the man roared out; "d'ye see the earth never gaes oot o' the pairt, and it maun be that the sun gaes round: we a' ken he rises i' the east and sets i' the west." Then, as if to silence all argument, he added triumphantly, "As if the sun didna gae round the earth, when it is said in Scripture that the Lord commanded the sun to stand still!" Mr. Skinner, finding it was no use to argue further, quietly answered, "Ay, it's vera true; the sun was commanded to stand still, and there he stands still, for Joshua never tauld him to tak the road again." I have said John Skinner wrote little Scottish poetry, but what he wrote was rarely good. His prose works extended over three volumes when they were collected by his son, the Bishop of Aberdeen, but we have no concern with them. His poetical pieces, by which his name will never die in Scotland, are the "Reel of Tullochgorum" and the "Ewie with the Crooked Horn," charming Scottish songs,--one the perfection of the lively, the other of the pathetic. It is quite enough to say of "Tullochgorum" (by which the old man is now always designated), what was said of it by Robert Burns, as "the first of songs," and as the best Scotch song Scotland ever saw.
I have brought in the following anecdote, exactly as it appeared in the Scotsman of October 4, 1859, because it introduces his name.
"The late Rev. John Skinner, author of 'Annals of Scottish Episcopacy,' was his grandson. He was first appointed to a charge in Montrose, from whence he was removed to Banff, and ultimately to Forfar. After he had left Montrose, it reached his ears that an ill-natured insinuation was circulating there that he had been induced to leave this town by the temptation of a better income and of fat pork, which, it would appear, was plentiful in the locality of his new incumbency. Indignant at such an aspersion, he wrote a letter, directed to his maligners, vindicating himself sharply from it, which he showed to his grandfather, John Skinner of Langside, for his approval. The old gentleman objected to it as too lengthy, and proposed the following pithy substitute:--
"'Had Skinner been of carnal mind,
As strangely ye suppose,
Or had he even been fond of swine,
He'd ne'er have left Montrose.'"