In har'st, whan the kirn-supper joys mak us cheerie,
'Mang the lave o' the lasses I preed yer sweet mou';
Dear save us! how queer I felt whan I cam' near ye—
My breast thrill'd in rapture, I couldna tell how.
When we dance at the gloamin', it 's you I aye pitch on;
And gin ye gang by me, how dowie I be!
There 's something, dear lassie, about ye bewitching,
That tells me my happiness centres in thee.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
James Montgomery, the spiritual character of whose writings has gained him the honourable designation of the Christian Poet, was born at Irvine, in the county of Ayr, on the 4th of November 1771. His father, John Montgomery, was a missionary of the Moravian Brethren, and in this capacity came to Irvine from Ireland, only a few days before the birth of James, his eldest son. In his fourth year he returned to Ireland with his parents, and received the rudiments of his education from the village schoolmaster of Grace Hill, a settlement of the Moravian Brethren in the county of Antrim. In October 1777, in his seventh year, he was placed by his father in the seminary of the Moravian settlement of Fulneck, near Leeds; and on the departure of his parents to the West Indies, in 1783, he was committed to the care of the Brethren, with the view of his being trained for their Church. He was not destined to see his parents again. His mother died at Barbadoes, in November 1790, and his father after an interval of eight months.
In consequence of his indolent habits, which were incorrigible, young Montgomery was removed from the seminary at Fulneck, and placed in the shop of a baker at Mirfield, in the vicinity. He was then in his sixteenth year; and having already afforded evidence of a refined taste, both in poetry and music, though careless of the ordinary routine of scholastic instruction, his new occupation was altogether uncongenial to his feelings. He, however, remained about eighteen months in the baker's service, but at length made a hasty escape from Mirfield, with only three shillings and sixpence in his pocket, and seemingly without any scheme except that of relieving himself from an irksome employment. But an accidental circumstance speedily enabled him to obtain an engagement with a shopkeeper in Wath, now a station on the railway between London and Leeds; and in procuring this employment, he was indebted to the recommendation of his former master, whose service he had unceremoniously quitted. But this new situation had few advantages over the old, and he relinquished it in about a year to try his fortune in the metropolis. He had previously sent a manuscript volume of poetry to Harrison, the bookseller of Paternoster Row, who, while declining to publish it, commended the author's talents, and so far promoted his views as now to receive him into his establishment. But Montgomery's aspirations had no reference to serving behind a counter; he only accepted a place in the bookseller's establishment that he might have an opportunity of leisurely feeling his way as an author. His literary efforts, however, still proved fruitless. He composed essays and tales, and wrote a romance in the manner of Fielding, but none of his productions could find a publisher. Mortified by his failures, he quitted London in eight months, and returned to the shop of his former employer at Wath. After the interval of another year, he proceeded to Sheffield, to occupy a situation under Mr Joseph Gales, a bookseller, and the proprietor of the Register newspaper.
Montgomery was now in his twenty-first year, and fortune at length began, though with many lowering intervals, to smile upon his youthful aspirations. Though he occupied a subordinate post in Mr Gales' establishment, his literary services were accepted for the Register, in which he published many of his earlier compositions, both in prose and verse. This journal had advocated sentiments of an ultra-liberal order, and commanding a wide circulation and a powerful influence among the operatives in Sheffield, had been narrowly inspected by the authorities. At length the proprietor fell into the snare of sympathising in the transactions of the French revolutionists; he was prosecuted for sedition, and deemed himself only safe from compulsory exile by a voluntary exit to America. This event took place about two years after Montgomery's first connexion with Sheffield, and he had now reverted to his former condition of abject dependence unless for a fortunate occurrence. This was no less than his being appointed joint-proprietor and editor of the newspaper by a wealthy individual, who, noticing the abilities of the young shopman, purchased the copyright with the view of placing the management entirely in his hands.
The first number of the newspaper under the poet's care, the name being changed to that of The Sheffield Iris, appeared in July 1794; and though the principles of the journal were moderate and conciliatory in comparison with the democratic sentiments espoused by the former publisher, the jealous eye of the authorities rested on its new conductor. He did not escape their vigilance; for the simple offence of printing for a ballad-vender some verses of a song celebrating the fall of the Bastile, he was libelled as "a wicked, malicious, seditious, and evil-disposed person;" and being tried before the Doncaster Quarter Sessions, in January 1795, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment in the Castle of York. He was condemned to a second imprisonment of six months in the autumn of the same year, for inserting in his paper an account of a riot in the place, in which he was considered to have cast aspersions on a colonel of volunteers. The calm mind of the poet did not sink under these persecutions, and some of his best lyrics were composed during the period of his latter confinement. During his first detention he wrote a series of interesting essays for his newspaper. His "Prison Amusements," a series of beautiful pieces, appeared in 1797. In 1805, he published his poem, "The Ocean;" in 1806, "The Wanderer in Switzerland;" in 1808, "The West Indies;" and in 1812, "The World before the Flood." In 1819 he published "Greenland, a Poem, in Five Cantos;" and in 1825 appeared "The Pelican Island, and other Poems." Of all those productions, "The Wanderer in Switzerland" attained the widest circulation; and, notwithstanding an unfavourable and injudicious criticism in the Edinburgh Review, at once procured an honourable place for the author among his contemporaries. He became sole proprietor of the Iris in one year after his being connected with it, and he continued to conduct this paper till September 1825, when he retired from public duty. He subsequently contributed articles for different periodicals; but he chiefly devoted himself to the moral and religious improvement of his fellow-townsmen. A pension of £150 on the civil list was conferred upon him as an acknowledgment of his services in behalf of literature and of philanthropy; a well-merited public boon which for many years he was spared to enjoy. He died at his residence, The Mount, Sheffield, on the 30th of April 1854, in the eighty-second year of his age. He bequeathed handsome legacies to various public charities. His Poetical Works, in a collected form, were published in 1850 by the Messrs Longman, in one octavo volume; and in 1853 he gave to the world his last work, being "Original Hymns, for Public, Private, and Social Devotion." Copious memoirs of his life are now in the course of publication.
As a poet, Montgomery is conspicuous for the smoothness of his versification, and for the fervent piety pervading all his compositions. As a man, he was gentle and conciliatory, and was remarkable as a generous promoter of benevolent institutions. The general tendency of his poems was thus indicated by himself, in the course of an address which he made at a public dinner, given him at Sheffield, in November 1825, immediately after the toast of his health being proposed by the chairman, Lord Viscount Milton, now Earl Fitzwilliam:—
"I sang of war—but it was the war of freedom, in which death was preferred to chains. I sang the abolition of the slave trade, that most glorious decree of the British Legislature at any period since the Revolution, by the first Parliament in which you, my Lord, sat as the representative of Yorkshire. Oh, how should I rejoice to sing the abolition of slavery itself by some Parliament of which your Lordship shall yet be a member! This greater act of righteous legislation is surely not too remote to be expected even in our own day. Renouncing the slave trade was only 'ceasing to do evil;' extinguishing slavery will be 'learning to do well.' Again, I sang of love—the love of country, the love of my own country; for,
'Next to heaven above,
Land of my fathers! thee I love;
And, rail thy slanderers as they will,
With all thy faults I love thee still.'