The Highland madman is described by his pedantic patron, to be “a poor simpleton, neither fatuus nec naturaliter idiota, as is expressed in the brieves of furiosity, but simply a cracked-brained knave, who could execute any commission that jumped with his own humour, and made his folly a plea for avoiding every other.” This entirely agrees with the character of Jock, who is thought by many to possess much good common sense, and whose talents of music and mimicry point him out as at least ingenious. Yet to us it appears, that all Jock’s qualifications, ingenious as they may be, are nothing but indications of a weak mind. His great musical and mimetic powers, his talent and willingness of errand-going, his cunning and his excessive devotion to the humours and fancies of the fair sex, are mere caricatures of the same dispositions and talents in other men, and point out all such qualifications, when found in the best and wisest characters, as marks of fatuity and weakness. Where, for instance, was the perfection of musical genius ever found accompanied with a good understanding? Are not porters and chairman the smallest-minded among mankind? Is not cunning the lowest of the human faculties, and always found most active in the illiberal mind? And what lady’s man, what cavaliere serviente, what squire of dames, what man of drawing-rooms and boudoirs, ever yet exhibited the least trace of greatness or nobility of intellect? Jock, who has all these qualifications in himself, may be considered as outweighing at least four other men who severally possess them.
Like Davie Gellatley, Jock “is in good earnest the half-crazed simpleton which he appears to be, and incapable of any steady exertion. He has just so much wild wit as saves him from the imputation of insanity, warm affections, a prodigious memory, and an ear for music.” This latter quality is a point of resemblance which puts all question of their identity past the possibility of doubt. Davie it must be well remembered by the readers of “Waverley,” is there represented as constantly singing wild scraps of ancient songs and ballads, which, by a beautiful fiction of the author, he is said to have received in legacy from a poetical brother who died in a decline some years before. His conversation was in general carried on by means of these, to the great annoyance of young Waverley, and such as, like him, did not comprehend the strange metaphorical meaning of his replies and allusions. Now, Jock’s principal talent and means of subsistence are vested in his singular and minstrel-like powers of song, there being few of our national melodies of which he cannot chaunt forth a verse, as the occasion may suggest to his memory. He never fails to be a welcome guest with all the farmers he may chance to visit,[2] on account of his faculties of entertaining them with the tender or warlike ditties of the Border, or the more smart and vulgar songs of the modern world. It is to be remarked, that his style of singing, like the styles of all other great geniuses in the fine arts, is entirely his own. Sometimes his voice soars to the ecstasy of the highest, and sometimes descends to the melancholious grunt of the lowest pitch; while ever and anon he throws certain wild and beautiful variations into both the words and the music, ad libitum, which altogether stamp his performances with a character of the most perfect originality. He generally sings very much through his nose, especially in humorous songs; and, from his making a curious hiss, or twang, on setting off into a melody, one might almost think that he employs his notorious buck-teeth in the capacity of what musicians term a pitchfork.
Jock, by means of his singing powers, was one of the first who circulated the rising fame of his countryman, the Ettrick Shepherd, many of whose early songs he committed to memory, and sung publicly over all the country round. One beginning, “Oh Shepherd, the weather is misty and changing,” and the well known lyric of “Love is like a dizziness,” besides being the first poetical efforts of their ingenious and wonderful author, were the earliest of Jock Gray’s favourite songs, and perhaps became the chief means of setting him up in the trade of a wandering minstrel. We have seen him standing upon a dees stane in the street of Peebles, entertaining upwards of a hundred people with the latter ludicrous ditty; and many a well-told penny has he made it squeeze from the iron purses of the inhabitants of that worthy town, “albeit unused to the opening mood.”
In singing the “Ewe-buchts, Marion,” it is remarkable that he adds a chorus which is not found in any printed edition of the song:
“Come round about the Merry-knowes, my Marion,
Come round about the Merry-knowes wi’ me;
Come round about the Merry-knowes, my Marion,
For Whitsled is lying lea.”
Whitsled is a farm in the parish of Ashkirk, county of Selkirk, lying upon the water of Ale; and Merry-knowes is the name of a particular spot in the farm. This circumstance is certainly important enough to deserve the attention of those who make Scottish song a study and object of collection; as the verse, if authentic, would go far to prove the locality of the “Ewe-buchts.”
In addition to his talent as a musician, Jock can also boast of a supplementary one, by means of which, whenever memory fails in his songs, he can supply, currente voce, all incidental deficiencies. He is not only a wit and a musician, but also a poet! He has composed several songs, which by no means want admirers in the country, though the most of them scarcely deserve the praise of even mediocrity. Indeed his poetical talents are of no higher order than what the author of an excellent article in the “Edinburgh Annual Register” happily terms “wonderfully well considering”; and seem to be admired by his rustic friends only on the benevolent principle of “where little has been given, let little be required.”