In the crowd I could distinguish a number, who, from their substantial blue garments, their broad bonnets, their lank uncut hair, their great staves, and their shoes dirty, as from a long journey, seemed to be true whigs of the covenant, who looked upon the descendant of Brunswick as a chosen one of Heaven’s appointment, whose ancestors had been the means of preventing that civil and religious slavery which had threatened them in 1715 and 1745.
As seemed to be the case with all parts of the ceremony which were left to the awkward and inexperienced official men of the Athens, the King’s accommodation, or at least his attendance in church, was by no means what it ought to have been. He had brought a hundred pounds to give to the poor, and he had some difficulty in getting it disposed of; and, delighted with the unassisted vocal music, which was really very good, he wished to join in the psalm, but he was unacquainted with the book, and there was nobody to point out the place for him. Still, judging from appearance as well as from all that I could hear afterwards, the King was better pleased with the stillness and solemnity of the Sunday than he had been with the shows of the other days. One reason of this no doubt was, that, on the Sunday, the King was not so belumbered by the aspiring loyalists thrusting themselves not only between him and the people, but between him and his own ease, comfort, and pleasure, as they had done in all those acts of the drama, of which themselves formed a leading or conspicuous part; and, as he had formerly expressed his high approbation of the appearance, and, which sounded more strange in the ears of a southern visitor, of the cleanliness of the Scottish people, he had an equal opportunity of complimenting them upon their decorum.
After the King had paraded, and dined, and heard sermon, there remained no further lion of Athens to afflict him but the theatre; which was arranged for his reception, as well as an Athenian theatre could be expected to be arranged for such a purpose, on the evening of Friday, the 27th of August.
The people of the Athens never have been able, and probably never will be able, to support a respectable theatrical establishment. The genius of the Scottish people generally is not theatrical. There are still many sects of religionists among them by whom the stage is denounced as a “tabernacle of Satan.” This is by no means confined to the provinces, or to the more austere or fanatical classes of dissenters; for, at the time when “I, and the King,” visited the Athens, her celebrated, and most deservedly-celebrated preacher, of the presbyterian establishment, was denouncing the sinfulness of stage-plays, both from the pulpit and the press; and though some of the courtly persons whom fashion had induced to became churchwardens or elders of his congregation, threatened to rebuke or leave him, because, in the true spirit of John Knox, he had preached a homily on kingly duties, in which there was not much of flattery, while the King was in the Athens, yet they let him denounce the theatre as he pleased.
The more aspiring cast of the Athenians lay claim to very superlative taste in theatrical matters, as indeed they do in every thing; and hence, they pretend that they do not patronise the theatre, because they cannot find a company of players, who come at all up to their standard of histrionic perfection; and they appeal for proof to the fact, that when any of the grand stars or comets of the London boards come to them for a night or two, they throng the theatre with their persons, and threaten to break it down with their plaudits. All this, however, proves nothing, but that they are unable to support a theatre, and that the crowding to see a strange actor for a night or two arises not from taste but from curiosity. The fact is, that, though England has produced the very best dramatic poet that ever lived, and some of the best dramatic performers, yet that the drama, as a matter of sentiment and feeling, and, as it were, of constitutional necessity, does not tally with the spirit even of the English people; and, as the Scotch have all the business habits of the English, together with a much greater degree of starchedness of character, and incapability of purse, the theatre cannot possibly flourish among them.
The London theatres, excepting in the case of occasional and accidental runs upon a particular piece, or a particular actor, are uniformly miserable speculations for the proprietors; and it will be found, that even the poor support which the theatres in London get, is given them, not by the people of London so much as by that vast concourse of strangers who feel at a loss how to spend their evenings. Before the people, either of the Athens, or of any other part of the British dominions, can become theatrical, they must have a little more relaxation from hard labour than they can at present command. The national debt, and the immense public establishments, are the real causes why there are not only no Shakspeares now, but why the heroes of the old Shakspeare have given place to the wooden or real horses of a more buffooning race. The people must not only work, but work hard, during the live-long day; and when they have an hour which they can snatch from the abridged civilities of social life, for the purpose of looking at a theatrical exhibition, they very naturally prefer that which costs them no labour of thought, and which makes them laugh, to that which would impose upon them fatigue of the mind in addition to fatigue of the body. To say, therefore, that the Athens does not support the theatre, because she cannot find a corps dramatique that comes up to her taste, has no surer a foundation than any other of those airy structures which she builds as the monuments of her glory. None of the fine arts, as a matter of abstract study and speculation, and apart from its contributing to the general comforts of life, can ever prosper in such a state of society as that of England at the present day; and if they languish in the British metropolis, where there is the greatest abundance both of money and of idle people, what must they do among a people who are comparatively so poor and so plodding as those of the Athens? If a London merchant, who goes to his place of business at one, and leaves it at three, does not encourage the drama, and the other fine arts; what can be expected from an Athenian special pleader, who drudges at Stair and Erskine, and thumbs Morison’s Dictionary of Decisions, from grey dawn to dark midnight, except during the hours that he is occupied in gossiping in the large hall of the parliament-house, or wrangling in the little courts, and less niches? It is true, that Mr. Clark, now Lord Eldin, could adorn his brief with drawings, even in those places,—that the Unknown, who is only a copying machine in his official capacity, can spin a chapter, or correct a proof sheet,—and that Jeffery has sometimes been caught writing an article for the Edinburgh Review, during the time that some long-winded proser was darkening the case on the other side; but still all this is done more as matter of business than of pleasure; and would, in almost all cases, be let alone, were it not for the fee that it produces.
Miserable, however, as is the support which the theatre of the Athens receives, and must continue to receive, the King was constrained to visit it; however, from the smallness of the house and the number of those who had legal admission as immediately belonging to his retinue, or his household, he could be for a long time gazed upon by the chosen, without any great admixture of the mere vulgar. The play was nothing; but there was something rather novel in the by-acting. The great chief of Glengarry, who has made himself conspicuous in many ways and upon many occasions, and who has proved his descent from Ronald, the elder of the two Vikings, who came robbing and remained royal in the Hebudæ, being thus, not only “every inch a king,” as well as George the Fourth, but a king of a much older and a more legitimate dynasty, stood up for the royal prerogative of wearing his bonnet, and keeping his seat, while the band was playing, and the audience shouting, “God save the King.” For this, he was complained of somewhat angrily, and, in my opinion, very unjustly; for, if they played and sung “God save the King,” in honour of George Augustus Frederick Guelph, King of Great Britain and Hanover, then they stinted others of their due, and showed a partiality not to be borne, when they did not strike up “God save the Chief,” in honour of Alexander Ronaldson Macdonell, of Glengarry and Clanronald, heir to the titles, the virtues, and the valour, of Donald of the Isles. This was omitted, however, and so after this dramatic scene, the Monarch of these realms staid not another hour in the Athens; but merely rested a day in the neighbourhood, and then took his departure, in manner as shall be set forth in another section.
THE NATIONAL MONUMENT.
“Si monumentum queriris, Circumspice.”
Though the laying of the foundation-stone of the “National Monument of Scotland,” is to be regarded as a mere interlude in the royal acting, and of course as a mere parenthesis in my outline of the same, yet it merits a few sentences, not only on account of the curiosity of the thing itself, but because it throws some light upon the vanity of Scottish official men in general, and upon those of the Athens in particular.
To some people, the idea of building a national monument for Scotland, or in other words, a monument for the Scottish nation, may seem a work not of supererogation merely, but of folly; because the Scottish nation, so far from running any risk of becoming extinct and being forgotten, is in a very lively and flourishing state; and there are no people that, wherever they may go, cherish so carefully and proclaim so loudly, the praise of their country, as the Scotch. But this monument was intended to answer two very nice purposes,—the one for the glory of the loaf-and-fish politicians of Scotland, and the other for that of the Athens. So long as the country was in a state of distress, and it was doubtful whether the politics of the old or new system would ultimately triumph upon the Continent of Europe, a very large proportion of the leading men of Scotland, and of the Athens, joined the people in being Whigs. As such, they had no immediate share in the good things of the state; but they hoped that the wheel of hostilities would revolve, bring the party into office, and so feed them in proportion to the extent of their fasting and longing. Independently of their intrinsic value, Whig politics are a much better theme for declamation than Tory. In that faith, one can talk long and largely about the majesty and rights of the people, and when not in office, one can promise as largely as one pleases; while the most judicious plan for the Tory is to pocket his reward, and thank God; or if he boasts any thing it must be only to the choice few, and when the inspiration of a dinner looses his tongue. Under all those circumstances, the Tories of the Athens, though they had all the substantial things their own way, were confined to the actual enjoyers of office and emolument; and the tongues and pens of their opponents were so hard upon them that they had begun to be afraid to hold even their wonted meetings. Thus it became necessary that they should do something which should either win the hearts or dazzle the eyes of their countrymen. The former was without the compass of their speculations; so they set about the latter; and after floundering a long time from one scheme to another, they at last hit upon this wise one of the monument.