Mr. Carruthers, who resided in the little town of Inverness, sometimes called by its inhabitants the “Capital of the Highlands,” was often blamed by his intimate friends for hiding his great abilities in so small a sphere, and not launching boldly forth upon the great sea of London, which they considered a more suitable arena for the exercise of his talents and the acquirement of fame and fortune by the pursuits of literature. But he was not to be persuaded. He loved quiet; he loved the grand and solemn scenery of his beautiful native country, and perhaps if all the truth were told, he preferred to be a great man in a provincial town, than a comparatively small one in a mighty metropolis. In Inverness he shone as a star of the first magnitude. In London, though his light might have been as great, it might have failed to attract equal recognition. In addition to all these considerations, the atmosphere of great cities did not agree with his health, and the fine, free, fresh invigorating air of the sea and the mountains was necessary to his physical well-being. This he enjoyed to the full in Inverness. The editing of the weekly journal, which supplied him with even greater pecuniary results than were necessary to supply the moderate wants of himself and his household, left him abundant leisure for other and congenial work. He soon made his mark in literature, and became noted not only for the vigor and elegance of his style, but for his remarkable accuracy of statement, even in the minutest details of his literary and historical work. He edited, with copious and accurate notes, an edition of Pope, and of Johnson and Boswell’s “Tour to the Hebrides,” and greatly added to the value of those interesting books by notes descriptive and anecdotical of all the places and persons mentioned in them. He also contributed largely to the valuable “Cyclopædia of English Literature” edited by Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh; besides contributing essays and criticisms to many popular serials and reviews, published in London and Edinburgh. He was one of the most admirable story tellers of his time, or indeed of any time, had a most retentive and abundantly furnished memory, and never missed the point of a joke, or overlaid it with inappropriate or unnecessary words or phrases. His fund of Scottish anecdotes—brimful of wit and humor—was apparently inexhaustible, and his stories followed each other with such rapidity as to suggest to the mind of the listener the beautiful lines of Samuel Rogers:
Couched in the hidden chambers of the brain Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain, Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise, Each stamps its image as the other flies.
The good things for which Mr. Carruthers was famous were not derived from books, but from actual intercourse with men, and if collected, would have formed a finer and more diverting repertory of Scottish wit and humor, than has ever been given to the world. He was often urged to prepare them for publication, and as often promised to undertake the work, but always postponed it until he had more leisure than he possessed at the time of promising. But that day unfortunately never came. If it had come, the now celebrated work of Dean Ramsay on the same subject would have been eclipsed, or altogether superseded in the literary market.
His local knowledge, and the fascination of his conversation were so great, that every person of any note in the literary or political world who visited Inverness, came armed with a letter of introduction to Mr. Carruthers, or made themselves known to him during their stay in the Highlands. The first time that I travelled so far North, through the magnificent chain of freshwater lochs that are connected with each other by the Caledonian Canal, a leading citizen of Inverness, who was a fellow-passenger on the trip, seeing I was a stranger, took the pains to point out to me all the objects of interest on the way, and to name the mountains, the straths, the glens, and the waterfalls on either side. On our arrival at Inverness, he directed my attention to several mountains and eminences visible from the boat when nearing the pier. “That,” said he, “is Ben Wyvis, the highest mountain in Ross-shire; that is ‘Tom-na-hurich,’ or the hill of the fairies; that is Craig Phadrig, once a vitrified fort of the original Celtic inhabitants; and that,” pointing to a gentleman in the foremost rank of the spectators on the landing-place, “is Mr. Carruthers, the editor of the Courier!”
Mr. Carruthers used to relate with much glee that he escorted the great Sir Robert Peel to the battle-field of Culloden, and pointed out to him the graves of the highland warriors who had been slain in that fatal encounter. Seeing a shepherd watching his flocks feeding on the scant herbage of the Moor, he stepped aside to inform the man of the celebrity of his companion. The information fell upon inattentive ears. “Did you never hear of Sir Robert Peel?” inquired Mr. Carruthers. “Never dud!” (did), replied the shepherd. “Is it possible you never heard of him. He was once Prime Minister of England.” “Well!” replied the shepherd, “he seems to be a very respectable man!”
On another occasion, he escorted Mr. Serjeant Talfourd and his friend Mr. John Forster, who was also the intimate friend of Mr. Charles Dickens, over the same scene, and was fond of telling the story that the same or some other shepherd shouted suddenly to another of the same occupation at a short distance on the Moor, “Ian! Ian!” Serjeant Talfourd, who was the author of the once celebrated tragedy of “Ion,”—with a bland smile of triumph or satisfaction on his face, turned to Mr. Forster, laid his hand upon his breast, and said, “Forster, this is fame.” He did not know that Ian was the Gaelic for John, and that the man was merely calling to his friend by his Christian name.
Among the odd experiences of the little town in which he passed his days, Mr. Carruthers related that a gentleman, who had made a large fortune in India, retired to pass the evening of his life in his native place. Finding the time hanging heavy on his hands, and being of an active mind, he established a newspaper, sometime about the year 1840. He grew tired of it after two or three years, and discontinued it in a day without a word of notice or explanation. With equal suddenness he resumed its publication in 1850, and addressed his readers, in his first editorial, “Since the publication of our last paper, nothing of importance has occurred in the political world.” Nothing had occurred of more importance than the French Revolution of 1848—the dethronement and flight of King Louis Philippe—and convulsions in almost every country in Europe, Great Britain excepted.
Mr. Carruthers, who had received the degree of Doctor of Laws a few years previously, died in 1878, full of years and honors, regretted and esteemed by all the North of Scotland, and by a wide circle of friends and admirers in every part of the world where English literature is appreciated; and Scotsmen retain a fond affection for their native country, and the men whose lives and genius reflect honor upon it.
II. Patric Park, Sculptor.
I am glad to be able in these pages to render tribute, however feeble, to one of the great but unappreciated geniuses of his time; a man of powerful intellect as well as powerful frame, a true artist of heroic mould and thought, who dwarfed the poor pigmies of the day in which his lot was cast by conceptions too grand to find a market: Patric Park, sculptor, who concealed under a somewhat rude and rough exterior as tender a heart as ever beat in a human bosom. Had he been an ancient Greek, his name might have become immortal. Had he been a modern Frenchman, the art in which he excelled would have brought him not only bread, but fortune. But as he was only a portrayer of the heroic in the very prosaic country in which his lot was cast, it was as much as he could do to pay his way by the scanty rewards of an art which few people appreciated, or even understood, and to waste upon the marble busts of rich men, who had a fancy for that style of portraiture, the talents, or rather the genius, which, had encouragement come, might have produced epics in stone to have rivalled the masterpieces of antiquity.