IF there be nothing by which the Athens really profits so much as her law, there is nothing of which she is so ready, or so willing to boast, as her literature. That is, as it were, her Benjamin—her youngest-born child—the darling of her dotage, so to speak; and it is loved and lauded in proportion to the lateness of its appearance.
In the whole literature of Scotland there is, indeed, a wonderful hiatus,—an interruption, for which it would be impossible to account, if one were not to look at her political and religious history. Previous to the Reformation, the bards of Scotland sung as sweetly, and her monks were as full and fabulous in their chronicles as those of any other part of the world; and that dawn of intellect—that day-spring of the mind, shone as warmly and as well upon the bleak hills of Caledonia, as upon the green pastures of more fertile lands. The classical elegance, and the keen and searching satire of Buchannan, the stern and stubborn eloquence of Knox, and the polished but manly sentences of Melville, will bear a comparison with any thing that appeared contemporaneously in other countries: but after them, there comes a dreary and desolate blank; and while other nations are rapidly running the career of knowledge, adding book to book, and illustrious name to illustrious name, Scotland appears not in the catalogue, except in a manner which is even more melancholy than if she appeared not at all. How is this to be accounted for? In theory it would be impossible: with the facts before one, it becomes the easiest thing in the world.
No sooner had the morning of the Reformation shone upon Scotland, than her horizon was obscured by the clouds of civil war; and scarcely were her men prepared for taking up the pen for the information and amusement of their fellows, when they were obliged to draw the sword for their defence; and that energy which in happier times would have trimmed the lamp of science, and tuned the harp of song, was obliged to struggle night and day, if so be that it could preserve but a spark of liberty, or even keep the life. That despotism and debauchery, which Mary the Regent and Mary the Queen attempted, through their French connexions, and by means of their French mercenaries, to introduce into Scotland, was of itself sufficient to render the intellectual improvement of the country stationary for an age; and though the resistance with which it met tended not only to preserve but to strengthen the free spirit of the people, it forbade the cultivation of the arts of peace. The conduct of James, all shuffling and pedantic as it was, did not, while he remained in Scotland, tend to make matters improve; and upon his removal to England, Scotland may be said to have been given up to that delegated despotism of influence, which, under various forms and names, has continued to afflict her to the present day, and must so continue till an uniformity of civil and political law be established over the whole island. From the beginning of the troubles under Charles, to the Revolution in 1688, the state of Scotland was such as to leave literature entirely out of the question. The great body of the people—at least of that part of them who otherwise might have studied, or rewarded the study of literature, were not only driven from all places congenial for literary purposes, but even from the fastnesses of the mountains, and the caves of the rocks; and though a Scotchman was occasionally returning from foreign parts to let his countrymen know what the rest of the world were doing, terror and oppression were too general for promoting any imitation. At that time, too, one half the extent of Scotland was in a state of the most abject ignorance: the feudal law, in the Highlands, was in full exercise; and when all the chiefs could not read, it was not to be expected that there would be much taste for literature among their vassals. Thus, it was not till the termination of the second rebellion in favour of the Stuarts, in 1745, that the people of Scotland generally began to have a literary taste. A sure foundation for such a taste had, indeed, been previously laid, in the provision that within every parish in Scotland there should not only be a school, but a school so regulated as that the poorest, as well as the most opulent, might reap the benefit of it; but up to this period, and indeed for some time after, the literature of those schools was confined to the catechisms of the church and the reading of the Bible; and if any literary work found its way into a Scotch farm-house or cottage, if large, it was a treatise on mystic or polemical divinity, and if small, it was a legendary ballad, or a sermon by some pious divine, whose style was not the most classical, or his language the most easily understood.
It is not, indeed, fifty years since there was any thing like a regular bookseller, or a printing-press employed for literary purposes, in the Athens. Before that time, there were persons who sold Bibles, and catechisms, and ballads, and penny almanacks, in divers nooks about Libberton Wynd and the Lucken Booths; and there were printers who, when a process before the Court of Session became too voluminous, or when the parties could not afford to pay for as many written copies as were necessary, put the eloquence of the advocates, and the wisdom of the judges, into types. An occasional parson, too, would become so far enamoured of his own powers of holding forth, as to have a sermon, or homily, upon some question of the catechism, or point of the confession of faith, printed and published; but previous to the year 1780, it was very rare indeed to find an Athenian bibliopole speculating in any literary work, the price of which was to be more than sixpence; and as for paying a man for literary labour, the Athenians would as soon have thought of paying a Lapland witch for procuring foul weather.
With regard to the literature of the Athens, it is worthy of remark that the time of George the Third corresponded with that of Anne in England; and that when the style of writing south of the Tweed was changing to another, if not to a better model, the wits of the Athens were imitating the Tatlers and Spectators.
The era of the French revolution was a remarkable one in the literature, if not particularly of the Athens, at least of the rest of Scotland; and the reading of the pamphlets of that time, which probably the people would have been as well without, led to the establishment of subscription libraries throughout the country, and made those readers, and in some measure critics, in general literature, whose whole course of study had previously been theological. But until very recently, the periodical literature of the Athens was hardly deserving the name. The Athenian newspapers were always dull and spiritless, and while the politics of the Athens remain what they are, there is no chance that they shall become better. In the provincial parts of Scotland, I met with several journals written with great taste, spirit, and liberality; but in the Athens, there is only one worth naming,—the “Scotsman;” and that, whether through fear of the party or from what other cause, I know not, I found not to be such as I would have expected. I found it a sensible production, certainly, and as much superior to the others as can well be imagined; but it is by no means what would be expected from people pretending to so much intellect, and freedom, as the party by whom it was supported.
If the “Scotsman” had appeared in London, it would not have produced almost any sensation. It would have been allowed to take its place far down in the list of weekly journals; but in the Athens, I was told that it excited no small degree of alarm among the official men. Just about that time, a blow had been given to that bank influence by which they had been in the habit of crushing every opponent to their measures, whom they could not get indicted and brought to trial; and this, together with the strong and general feeling against them that was at that time spread over the country, and the appearance of a free journal, even at the very seat of their power, which dared not merely to dispute their principles, but even to expose their practice, was enough to alarm those who were not accustomed to any opposition, and whose hands were understood to be not over and above clean. When the early numbers of the “Scotsman” were distributed over the city, spies were appointed to dog the messengers, and take a note of those at whose houses copies were delivered; and it was generally believed that the lists were transcribed for the edification both of the crown lawyers and of the Athenian magistrates.
But the greatest and most extraordinary step that ever was taken in the periodical literature of the Athens, or indeed of any country, was the appearance of the Edinburgh Review,—a work, the boldness, spirit, and originality of which were at the time altogether unprecedented, and which never yet have been, and probably never will be, equalled. The Edinburgh Review was happy both in the time and the manner of its appearance. Periodical literature had been quite stagnant in the Athens from the time of the Loungers and Mirrors; and they had become too trifling for the awakened and agitated spirit of the age. In London there were some reviews, but the best of them were in the hands of religious sectaries, who puzzled themselves and plagued their readers with questions which nobody could solve, and nobody would have taken the trouble to solve, even if they could. The whole of them were either tame or timid; and folks continued to buy them rather with a view of keeping their sets unbroken till chance should introduce amendment, than from any desire to read them. The war which had just terminated had been expensive, and excepting those for whom offices had been obtained, there was nobody with whom it had ever been popular; and the war that was beginning, or begun, had not much to recommend it. There was, indeed, much to say against the conduct of the Continental courts, and even against that of the English administration; people were well prepared and anxious to hear it; and there was no publication of the day of sufficient interest in any way to divide or divert the attention. The Review came like thunder; and to give it the more effect, it came like thunder when the air is still, and when men are listening.
Great, however, as was the talent displayed in the Review, and wide and wonderful as was the sensation which it produced upon its very first appearance, the Athens had little merit in it, except the mere name. The publisher, though he subsequently rose as high in that trade as any English publisher of the time, was then but a young man, not much known, and not much recognised or esteemed by the Athenians; the editor was also a young man, recently returned from England; and the most spirited contributors to the very early numbers, had by no means had their minds formed upon the Athenian model. The effect which the Review produced was also not perhaps so great in the Athens as in London; and it was only when it had taken its place in the literary world, and the acknowledgment of it was an honour, that the Athenians began to identify it with themselves, and at no time was the identification general,—nor could the whole talent of the Athens, even when in its best days, have supported the Review for a single year.