These yards are fat wi’ ither fruit
Than when the friars
Grew apples red for their wine-presses—
And stole frae ruddier dames caresses,
Else men are liars.”
It is not historical to call or think of Claverhouse himself as the original of “Bonnie Dundee.” The city is greater than the man, for Sir Walter Scott borrowed the hint for his refrain from an old song which refers solely to the town. Like the phrases “William the Silent,” “Mad Anthony Wayne,” and other names which catch the popular ear, the whole literary line of suggestion is posthumous and anachronistic. Once having heard a good story, “the public” is like a child who wants the first fairy tale to be told over and over again, in exactly the same phrase. To do otherwise offends vanity and savors of that very dreadful “higher criticism” which is so terrible to tradition-mongers.
Wonderful improvements have taken place in the city of Dundee since I first saw it, in the early nineties, when the place was full of things unsavory and unsightly. But these have been cleared away, along with some old edifices that had historic associations, such as the castle, the mint, and the convents. All of these measures of abolition have greatly improved the public health and the appearance of the city.
Some old-time Dundee politics were amazingly similar to the style sufficiently fashionable in America—some time back. The local poet in his “Wakeful Griffins” (the “Waukrife Wyverns”) pictures the reality as the two of them, with their knotted tails, “hung ower the wa’” and discussed municipal affairs:—
“O lang and lang I’ve lookit doon
On bonnie, dirty Dundee toon,