CRITICISM––INTERNAL EVIDENCE.
The reader must have often remarked, in catalogues of the writings of great authors––such as Dr. Johnson, and the Rev. John Cumming, of the Scotch Church, London––that while some of the pieces are described as acknowledged, the genuineness of others is determined merely by internal evidence. We know, for instance, that the Doctor wrote the English Dictionary, not only because no other man in the world at the time could have written it, but also because he affixed his name to the title-page. We know, too, that he wrote some of the best of Lord Chatham’s earlier speeches, just because he said so, and pointed out the very garret in Fleet Street in which they had been written. But it is from other data we conclude that, during his period of obscurity and distress, he wrote prefaces for the Gentleman’s Magazine, for some six or seven years together,––data derived exclusively from a discriminating criticism; and his claim to the authorship of Taylor’s Sermons rests solely on the vigorous character of the thinking displayed in these compositions, and the marked peculiarities of their style. Now, in exactly the same way in which we know that Johnson wrote the speeches and the Dictionary, do we know that the Rev. John Cumming drew up an introductory essay to the liturgy of a Church that never knew of a liturgy, and that he occasionally contributes tales to morocco annuals, wonderful enough to excite the astonishment of ordinary readers. To these compositions he affixes his name,––a thing very few men would have the courage to do; and thus are we assured 152 of their authorship. But there are other compositions to which he does not affix his name, and it is from internal evidence alone that these can be adjudged to him: it is from internal evidence alone, for instance, that we can conclude him to be the author of the article on the Scottish Church question which has appeared in Fraser’s Magazine for the present month.
May we crave leave to direct the attention of the reader for a very few minutes to the grounds on which we decide? It is of importance, as Johnson says of Pope, that no part of so great a writer should be suffered to be lost, and a little harmless criticism may have the effect of sharpening the faculties.
There is a class of Scottish ministers in the present day, who, though they detest show and coxcombry, have yet a very decided leaning to the picturesque ceremonies of the Episcopal Church. They never weary of apologizing to our southern neighbours for what they term the baldness of our Presbyterian ritual, or in complaining of it to ourselves. It was no later than last Sunday that Dr. Muir sorrowed in his lecture over the ‘stinted arrangement in the Presbyterian service, that admits of no audible response from the people;’ and all his genteeler hearers, sympathizing with the worthy man, felt how pleasant a thing it would be were the congregation permitted to do for him in the church what the Rev. Mr. Macfarlane, erst of Stockbridge, does for him in the presbytery. Corporal Trim began one of his stories on one occasion, by declaring ‘that there was once an unfortunate king of Bohemia;’ and when Uncle Toby, interrupting him with a sigh, exclaimed, ‘Ah, Corporal Trim, and was he unfortunate?’ ‘Yes, your honour,’ readily replied Trim; ‘he had a great love of ships and seaports, and yet, as your honour knows, there was ne’er a ship nor a seaport in all his dominions.’ Now this semi-Episcopalian class are unfortunate after the manner of the 153 king of Bohemia. The objects of their desire lie far beyond the Presbyterian territories. They are restricted to one pulpit, they are limited to one dress; they have actually to read and preach from the same footboard; they are prohibited the glories of white muslin; liturgy have they none. No audible responses arise from the congregation; the precentor is silent, save when he sings; their churches are organless; and though they set themselves painfully to establish their claim to the succession apostolical, the Hon. Mr. Percevals of the Church which they love and admire see no proof in their evidence, and look down upon them as the mere preaching laymen of a sectarian corporation.
Thrice unfortunate men! What were the unhappinesses of the king of Bohemia, compared with the sorrows of these humble but rejected followers of Episcopacy!
Now, among this highly respectable but unhappy class, the Rev. John Cumming, of the Scotch Church, London, stands pre-eminent. So grieved was Queen Mary of England by the loss of Calais, that she alleged the very name of the place would be found written on her heart after her death. The words that have the best chance of being found inscribed on the heart of the Rev. Mr. Cumming are, bishop, liturgy, apostolical succession, burial service, organ, and surplice. The ideas attached to these vocables pervade his whole style, and form from their continual recurrence a characteristic portion of it. They tumble up and down in his mind like the pieces of painted glass in a kaleidoscope, and present themselves in new combinations at every turn. His last acknowledged composition was a wonderful tale which appeared in the Protestant Annual for the present year, and––strange subject for such a writer––it purported to be a Tale of the Covenant. Honest Peter Walker had told the same story, that of John Brown of Priesthill, about a century and a half ago; but there had been much left for Mr. Cumming to discover in it of which 154 the poor pedlar does not seem to have had the most distant conception.
Little did Peter know that John Brown’s favourite minister ‘held the sacred and apostolical succession of the Scottish priesthood.’ Little would he have thought of apologizing to the English reader for ‘the antique and ballad verses’ of our metrical version of the Psalms. Indeed, so devoid was he of learning, that he could scarce have valued at a sufficiently high rate the doctrines of Oxford; and so little gifted with taste, that he would have probably failed to appreciate the sublimities of Brady and Tate. Nor could Peter have known that the ‘liturgy of the heart’ was in the Covenanter’s cottage, and that the ‘litany’ of the spirit breathed from his evening devotions. But it is all known to the Rev. Mr. Cumming. He knows, too, that there were sufferings and privations endured by the persecuted Presbyterians of those days, of which writers of less ingenuity have no adequate conception; that they were forced to the wild hill-sides, where they could have no ‘organs,’ and compelled to bury their dead without the solemnities of the funeral service. Unhappy Covenanters! It is only now that your descendants are beginning to learn the extent of your miseries. Would that it had been your lot to live in the days of the Rev. John Cumming of the Scottish Church, London!
He would assuredly have procured for you the music-box of some wandering Italian, and gone away with you to the wilds to mingle exquisite melody with your devotions, qualifying with the sweetness of his tones the ‘antique and ballad’ rudeness of your psalms; nor would he have failed to furnish you with a liturgy, by means of which you could have interred your dead in decency. Had such been the arrangement, no after writer could have remarked, as the Rev. Mr. Cumming does now, that no ‘pealing organ’ mingled ‘its harmony of bass, tenor, treble, and soprano’ 155 when you sung, or have recorded the atrocious fact, that not only was John Brown of Priesthill shot by Claverhouse, but actually buried by his friends without the funeral service. And how striking and affecting an incident would it not form in the history of the persecution, could it now be told, that when surprised by the dragoons, the good Mr. Cumming fled over hill and hollow with the box on his back, turning the handle as he went, and urging his limbs to their utmost speed, lest the Episcopalian soldiery should bring him back and make him a bishop!
It is partly from the more than semi-Episcopalian character of this gentleman’s opinions, partly from the inimitable felicities of his style, and partly from one or two peculiar incidents in his history which lead to a particular tone of remark, that we infer him to be the writer of the article in Fraser.