In literary history Allan Ramsay achieved two great triumphs. He contributed thus early to the naturalistic reaction of the eighteenth century against the slavery to classicism. As an editor, he furnished the connecting link between the “Makars,” as verse-writers were called in the Scotland of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the poets Fergusson (1751–74) and Burns (1759–96). Ramsay did much to revive interest in vernacular literature. He certainly stimulated an ignorant public to fresh enjoyment.
This reaction in Scotland was followed by one in England, for which the publication of Bishop Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” furnished a sure foundation. Scotland honored herself when she honored her poet Ramsay. Happy is the nation that appreciates her sons who bid her people look within to find enduring treasure. To Ramsay, the prophet’s words apply: “And they that be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations and thou shalt be called ... the restorer of paths to dwell in.”
The second Allan Ramsay (1713–84), an accomplished scholar and gentleman, was the son of the poet. Being carefully educated by his father and sent to Rome to study art, he became an able portrait-painter. Through introduction to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III, he rose rapidly into favor. To him we are indebted for the portrait of that King George, with whose physiognomy, more than with that of almost any other sovereign of England, our fathers became very familiar during the time of their eight years’ disagreement with His Majesty and his ministers.
CHAPTER XXII
KIRK, SCHOOL, AND FREEDOM
A visit to St. Andrews, the home of golf and of ancient and modern Scottish culture, compels thought. I have met Scotsmen who thought and devoutly believed that there was nothing among all the lands of earth equal to Scotland, and in Scotland nothing greater than the Kirk. Yet this stout insistence has come not alone from believers in “the old gospel,” so called, but with equal vehemence and cool conviction from men saturated with the philosophy of common sense, even from those fearing not to be called “freethinkers.” The real Scotland, like the true United States described in Whittier’s verse, seems to fear neither “the puny sceptic’s hands” nor “the bigot’s blinded rule.” At least, her history teaches this.
The first heralds of the new dawn, whose advent awakened Scotland from her mediæval slumber of intellect, were the Lollards of Kyle, who were among our own spiritual ancestors. They made a great excitement in western Scotland in the early part of the fifteenth century. Their coming was as refreshing as when a window is opened in a stuffy room, letting in God’s fresh air. The articles of which the Lollards were accused, as Knox found them stated in the Register of Glasgow, make us love these people, for their faith and belief were very much like what is held by the mass of the people who live and think in northern Europe and in the United States of America to-day. Some things to which they held are still retained by Christians who are as wide apart as are Quakers and Catholics.
Those who cut down the forest are often surprised at the new and different timber which springs up from the soil. After John Knox, David Hume! But if the Puritans and reformers had not been intolerant, they would not have been men of their own age. It is to the glory of these narrow-minded but high-souled men that they believed in education. They could not well conceive that any other belief was as good as their own. Yet theirs was not the spirit of Mahomet, who gave choice of acceptance of sword or creed; for these men, who had a conviction themselves of the truth, demanded from others the same knowledge, by experience and enlightenment, of these doctrines which they believed. Hence they were earnest for both elementary training and the higher erudition.
If living to-day, the spiritual pioneers and reformers would no doubt be surprised at the visible harvest. Yet it was their opening of dark places to the light, through the cultivation of the mental soil, that made the intellectual landscape which we see to-day. The Indians call the plantain the “white man’s footstep,” because they note that the cutting-down of the dark forests and opening the soil to the sunlight have given the weeds also their opportunity; so that, far more numerously than in the twilight of the woods, or even in the little clearings for the corn and pumpkins, the highways and fields are to-day populous with what we call “weeds.” Yet how vastly greater is the crop of what makes food for man! This is the story, also, of intellectual culture in every age and land. Perhaps it always will be thus. The best of all practical philosophy on this subject is that taught by the greatest of teachers—“let both grow together.” Persecutors, bigots, and tyrants have acted in a different spirit, with appalling results.
The Reformation was more of a success in Scotland than in England, even as men are of more value than edifices of brick and stone, and the people of more value than courts. It culminated, in the lower part of the island, in the divine right of kings and the celestial origin of the Established Church, for Elizabeth was advised by Spain and was strong enough to prevent any open change. But north of the Tweed the people were more generally educated and elevated to a higher place. Hence, in Scotland there was no such tempest raised as there was in the next century, in England, when one king was decapitated and another sent out of the kingdom. Scotland saved herself from stupid kings and a multitude of horrors by previously giving her people the rudiments of knowledge. We in America have never had, from English writers, either fair play or full truth about the Scots, nor is the Scotsman’s part in the making of the United States generally appreciated. The Scotch Puritans not only exercised a marked and lasting influence upon their brethren in England, but upon those beyond sea. Next to the Hollanders, who taught us Americans pretty much all we know of Federal Government, was the influence of Scotsmen in the development of the American nation.
The Normans gave to England her universities, her cathedrals, and her legal system, but Scotland never shared in the benefits of the Norman invasion as did England. One may almost say that in place of the nobler and creative side of the Norman genius was Presbyterianism; that is, representative and responsible government in the Church, the actual rule being by lay elders chosen by the congregation. Much of this republicanism in things religious was the work of one man, the greatest in a country prolific of great men as Scotland has been. John Knox’s power was resistless, because he trusted in God and in the common man.