MEMOIR OF NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D. MEMOIR OF NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D. MINISTER 'OF BARONY PARISH, GLASGOW; ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S CHAPLAINS; DEAN OF THE CHAPEL ROYAL ; DEAN OF THE MOST ANCIENT AND MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE THISTLE BY HIS BROTHER THE REV. DONALD MACLEOD, B.A. ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S CHAPLAINS, EDITOR OF " GOOD WORDS," ETC. TWO VOLUMES. I. LONDON DALDY, ISBISTER & CO. 56, LUDGATE HILL 1876 [Eighth Thousand'] LONDON : PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROADt TO HIS MOTHER, NOW IN HER NINETY-FIRST YEAR, IN AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE OF ATT. THAT HER CHILDREN AND HER CHILDREN'S CHILDREN OWE TO HER INFLUENCE. A PEEFACE. "TT7HEN asked, two years ago, to compile a Memoir * * of my brother, I did not accept the task with- out considerable hesitation. Besides the charge of a city parish, heavy responsibilities of another nature had devolved upon me, so that it seemed impossible to undertake additional labour. I felt also that, in some respects, a near relative was not well qualified to fill satisfactorily the office of biographer. These objec- tions were, however, overruled by friends on whose judgment I relied. If aifection should have rendered it difficult to be always impartial, I may be allowed, on the other hand, to derive some comfort from the reflection that a lifelong intercourse, as frank and confidential as could exist between two brothers, gave me oppor- tunities for knowing his thoughts and opinions, which few others, and certainly no stranger, could have possessed. Dr. Macleod was a man whom it is almost im- possible to portray. His power was in many ways viii PREFACE. inseparable from his presence. The sympathy, the humour, the tenderness depended so much for their full expression on look, voice, and manner, that all who knew him will recognise the necessary inadequacy of verbal description. ' Quantum mutatus ab illo ' must more especially be the verdict upon any attempt to record instances of his wit or pathos. I must, however, claim for this biography the merit of truthfulness. In whatever respects it may fail, it cannot, I think, be charged with conscious conceal- ment or exaggeration of fact or sentiment. Faults of another kind will, I trust, be forgiven for the sake of the great reverence and love I bore him. I beg gratefully to acknowledge the aid rendered by many friends. The pages of the Memoir indicate that my obligations to Principal Shairp, Dr. Watson, and my brother-in-law, Dr. Clerk, have been great; but there were many others to whom I am indebted for much assistance, and to whom I tender my best thanks. Among these I may mention the Dean of Westminster, Mr. Service, J. A. Campbell, Esq., LL.D., Alex. H. Japp, Esq., A. B. McGrigor, Esq., and Dr. W. C. Smith. I need scarcely add that Mrs. Norman Macleod, by her constant advice and her careful arrangement of her husband's papers, gave me invaluable help. It may be well to state here that all the illustra- tions are from etchings by Dr. Macleod, with the ex- ception of the view of Aros by Mr. Eeid, the sketch PREFACE. ix of the Back Study by Mr. Ealston, and of the Monu- ment at Campsie by Mr. Catterns. In conclusion, I must express regret that the appearance of this book has been delayed so long. It can be said in apology, that no available time has been lost during the two years I have been engaged in writing it. Now that it is completed, no one can be more sensi- ble than I am of its imperfections. It will, however, be to me a source of inexpressible gratitude, if, in spite of its many deficiencies, it should convey to those who did not know Norman Macleod, some sense, how- ever inadequate, of the depth of his goodness, of his rich humanity, his childlike faith, catholicity, and devotion. 1, WOODLANDS TEEEACE, GLASGOW, January, 1876. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAP. PAGE I. PARENTAGE 1 II. BOYHOOD ... 13 in. EARLY COLLEGE DAYS 27 IV. WEIMAR 45 V. APRIL, 1835 NOVEMBER, 1836. .. . . .63 VI. 1836 7 86 VII. EARLY MINISTRY IN LOUDOUN 114 Vin. THE DISRUPTION CONTROVERSY 170 IX. DALKEITH, DECEMBER, 1843 JUNE, 1845 . . .211 X. 1845. NORTH AMERICA 234 XI. EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, AND TOUR IN PRUSSIAN PO- LAND AND SILESIA 253 XH. LAST YEARS AT DALKEITH. 1848 1851 . . . 274 APPENDIX A. REMINISCENCES WRITTEN BY HIS FATHER IN OLD AGE 331 B. A CRACK ABOOT THE KIRK FOR KINTRA FOLK. 340 CHAPTEE I. PARENTAGE. AT the end of last century there were two families residing on opposite shores of the Sound of Mull, in Argyllshire, their houses fronting one another across the blue strait wh/ch winds in from the Atlantic. From the windows of the Manse of Mr. Macleod, the minister of Morven, on the mainland, could be seen the dark ruins of the old castle of Aros, in the island of Mull, frowning from its rocky eminence over the Bay of Salen, and behind the castle appeared the house of Mr. Maxwell, the chamberlain of the Duke of Argyll, and 'tacksman'* of Aros. These were the homes where the father and mother of Norman Macleod were then enjoying their happy youth. This memoir must begin with a sketch of these families, and of the early life of that youthful pair ; for on few men had early influences a more permanent hold than on Norman Macleod. What he was to the last, in some of the most conspicuous features of his character, could be easily traced to the early asso- * There are few now remaining of the class called ' Gentlemen Tacksmen,' who ranked between laird and farmer, and once formed the bone and sinew of the Highlands. VOL. I. B 2 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. ciations which clustered round Morven and Mull. The Highlands of those days no longer exist, but he inhaled in his childhood the aroma of an olden time, and learned from both father and mother so much of its healthy and kindly spirit, as left about his life, to the last moment, a fragrance of the romance of which it was full. Except to those immediately concerned, genealogies are uninteresting, and those of Highland families, with their endless ramifications, eminently unprofitable. It will be sufficient to state that I have before me a family ' tree,' such as used to be so common in the Highlands in which are the names of the Came- rons of Glendessary, scions of Lochiel ; of the Camp- bells of Ensay and of Saddell; of the MacNeils of Crear ; of the MacNeils of Drumdrissaig ; and of the Campbells of Duntroon names once well known in their own country, although now, alas ! in some instances only found there on moss-grown tombstones. Not far from Dunvegan Castle, in Skye, a roofless house, its garden weed-grown and abandoned to utter solitude, marks the place where lived Donald Macleod, the tacksman of Swordale, who married Anne Campbell, a sister of Campbell of Glensaddell. He was the great-grandfather of Norman, who used to re- peat with grateful memory the tradition of ' Swordale, having been a good man, and the first in his neigh- bourhood to introduce regular family worship.' The eldest son of this good man, and the grandfather of the subject of this memoir, was called Norman. He was educated for the Church, and in the year 1774 was ordained minister of the parish of Morven, in PARENTAGE. 3 Argyllshire, that 'Highland parish' so affectionately described in the ( Reminiscences.' * The house of Fiunary, as the Manse was called, has given place to a better and more ornamental dwelling. Pleasant woods now cover the green bank beside the bright burn where stood the square house of orthodox Manse architecture a porch in the centre and a wing at each end and where grew up the happiest of families in the most loving of homes. Norman thus describes Morven : "A long ridge of hill, rising some two thousand feet above the sea, its brown sides, up to a certain height, chequered with green strips and patches of cultivation, brown heather, thatched cottages, with white walls ; here and there a mansion, whose chimneys are seen above the trees which shelter it ; these are the chief features along its sea-board of many miles. But how different is the whole scene when one lands ! New beauties reveal them- selves, and every object seems to change its size, appear- ance, and relative position. A rocky wall of wondrous beauty, the rampart of the old upraised beach which girdles Scotland, runs along the shore ; the natural wild- wood of ash, oak, and birch, with the hazel-copse, clothes the lower hills, and shelters the herds of wandering cattle ; lonely sequestered bays are everywhere scooped out into beautiful harbours ; points and promontories seem to grow out of the land ; and huge dykes of whinstone fashion to themselves the most picturesque outlines ; clear streams everywhere hasten on to the sea ; small glens, perfect gems of beauty, open up entrances into deep dark pools, hemmed in by steep banks, hanging with rowan-trees, ivy, honeysuckle, and ferns ; while on the Mil- sides scattered cottages, small farms, and shepherds' huts, the signs of culture and industry, give life to the whole scene." * " Keminiscences of a Highland Parish," by Norman Macleod, D.D. Strahan and Co. 1868. B 2 4 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. This minister of Morven was in many ways a re- markable man. Noble-looking and eloquent, a good scholar, and true pastor, he lived as a patriarch among his people. He had a small stipend, and, as its usual concomitant, a large family. Sixteen children were born in the manse, and a number of families a shepherd, a boatman, a ploughman, were settled on the glebe with others who had come there in their need, and were not turned away. Never was a simpler or more loving household. The minister delighted to make all around him happy. His piety was earnest, healthy and genial. If the boys had their classics and the girls their needlework, there was no grudging of their enjoyments. The open seas and hills, boats and dogs, shepherds and fisher- men, the green height of Fingal's Hill, the water- fall roaring in the dark gorge, had lessons as full of meaning for their after-life as any that books could impart. The boys were trained from childhood to be manly, and many an hour taken from study was devoted to education of another kind hunting otters or badgers in their dens, with terriers whose qualities were discussed in every cottage on the glebe ; shoot- ing grouse, and stalking the wary black-cock (for no game laws were then enforced in Morven) ; fishing through the summer nights; or sailing out in the 1 Sound ' with old Bory, the boatman, when the wind was high, and the Roe had to struggle, close-hauled, against the cross-sea and angry tide. In the winter evenings old and young gathered round the fireside, where songs and laughter mingled with graver occu- pations, and not unfreguently the minister would tune PARENTAGE 5 his violin, and, striking up some swinging reel or blythe strathspey, would call on the lads to lay aside their books, and the girls their sewing, and set them, to dance with a will to his own hearty music. Family worship, generally conducted in Gaelic, for the sake of such servants as knew little English, ended the day. Norman's grandmother was one of the tenderest and wisest of ministers' wives. The unconscious centre of the every-day life of the household, her husband and children leaned on her at all times, but especially in times of sickness or sorrow ; for if there were days of joy, there were also many days, not the less blessed, of great sadness too, and of mournful partings, when one young form after another had to be laid in the old churchyard. The period when his father* was a boy in Morven was remarkable in many ways. The country was closely inhabited by an intensely Highland people. The hills and retired glens, where now are spectral gables of roofless houses, or green mounds concealing old homesteads, watched by some ancient tree standing like a solitary mourner by the dead were then tenanted by a happy and romantic peasantry. It is impossible now, even in imagination, to re-people the Highlands with those who then gave the country the savour of a kindly and enthusiastic clan-life " The flocks of the stranger the long glens are roamin', Where a thousand bien homesteads smoked bonny at gloamin' ; The wee crofts run wild wi' the bracken and heather, And the gables stand ruinous, bare to the weather." * The late Norman Macleod, D.D., Minister of St. Columba, Glasgow, and Dean of the Chapel Royal. 6 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. There were many men then alive in Morven who had been out with ' bonny Prince Charlie,' and the chivalry of the younger generation was kept aglow by the great French war and the embodiment of the ' Argyll Fen- cibles.' Among such influences as these Norman's father grew up and became thoroughly imbued with their spirit. Full of geniality, of wit, and poetry fired with a passionate love of his country wielding her ancient language with rare freshness and eloquence he carried into the work of that sacred ministry to which his life was devoted a broad and healthy human sympathy, and to his latest day seemed to breathe the air imbibed in his youth on the hills of Morven.* As the incidents of his life were closely intertwined with those of his son, nothing need here be said of his public career. He was a remarkably handsome man, with a broad forehead, an open countenance full of benevolence, and hair which, from an early age, was snowy white. His voice was rich and of winning sweetness, and when addressing a public audience, whether speaking to his own flock in the name of Christ, or pleading with strangers on behalf of his beloved Highlands, few could resist the per- suasive tenderness of his appeals. He was in many ways the prototype of Norman. His tact and common sense were as remarkable as his pathos and humour. He left the discipline of the children almost entirely to their mother. She was their wise and loving in- structor at home, and their constant correspondent in later life ; while he rejoiced in sharing their com- panionship, entering into their fun, and obtaining the * See Appendix A. PARENTAGE. 7 frankest confidence of affection. He seldom if ever lectured them formally on religious subjects, but spread around him a cheerful, kindly, and truly re- ligious atmosphere, which they unconsciously imbibed. 1 Were I asked what there was in my father's teach- ing and training which did us all so much good,' Norman wrote at the time of his father's death, *I would say, both in regard to him and my beloved mother, that it was love and truth. They were both so real and human ; no cranks, twists, crotchets, isms or systems of any kind, but loving, sympathising giving a genuine blowing-up when it was needed, but passing by trifles, failures, infirmities, without making a fuss. The liberty they gave was as wise as the restraints they imposed. Their home was happy intensely happy. Christianity was a thing taken for granted, not forced with scowl and frown. I never heard my father speak of Calvinism, Arminian- ism, Presbyterianism or Episcopacy, or exaggerate doctrinal differences in my life. I had to study all these questions after I left home. I thank God for his free, loving, sympathising and honest heart. He might have made me a slave to any ' ism.' He left me free to love Christ and Christians.' The ancestor of Mr. Maxwell, Norman's maternal grandfather, was a refugee, who, in the time of the ' Troubles,' under Claverhouse, had fled to Kintyre. He was, according to tradition, a younger son of the Maxwells of Newark, and once lay concealed for several weeks in the woods of Saddell, until, being pursued, he escaped to the south end of the penin- sula; again discovered, and hotly chased, he rushed 8 LIFE OF NORMAN MA CLEOD. into a house where the fanner was carding wool. Immediately apprehending the cause of this sudden intrusion, the man quickly gave the fugitive his own apron and the * cards,' so that when the soldiers looked into the kitchen, they passed on without suspecting the industrious youth, who sat 1 combing the fleece ' by the peat hearth. This young Maxwell settled afterwards in the neigh- bourhood, and his descendants removing to the half- lowland town of Campbeltown, made good mar- riages and prospered in the world. Mr. Maxwell, of Aros, had been educated as a lawyer, and became Sheriff Substitute of his native district; but receiv- ing the appointment of Chamberlain to the Duke of Argyll, he settled in Mull, to take charge of the large ducal estates in that island. He was an ex- cellent scholar, and full of kindly humour. If the grandfather at Morven valued Gaelic poetry, no less did the other take delight in the ancient Border ballads of the Low Country and in the songs of Burns, and read with keen interest the contemporary literature of an age which culminated in Walter Scott. He drew a marked distinction between 'office hours' and the time for amusement. Strict and punctual in his own habits, he attended carefully to the work of the tutor, and the studies of his family ; but, when lessons were over, he entered with a young heart into their enjoyments. In summer the house was continually filled with guests travellers on their way to Staffa, with letters of introduction from the South, and remaining sometimes for days beneath the hospitable roof. Many of these were persons whose PARENTAGE. 9 names are famous, such as Sheridan, Peel, and Sir Walter Scott. Such society added greatly to the brightness of the household, and shed a beneficial influence over the after-life of the children. Agnes Maxwell, Norman's mother, was brought up with her uncle and aunt MacNeil at Drumdrissaig, on the western coast of Knapdale, until she was twelve years of age. She there passed her early youth, surrounded by old but wise and sympathetic people ; and, being left much to the companionship of nature, wandering by herself along the glorious shore which looks across to islands washed by the Atlantic surf, her mind, naturally receptive of poetic impressions, awoke to the sense of the beautiful in outward things. She not only grew up a deeply affectionate girl, but she also learned to feel and think for herself. Her own words give a vivid picture of the healthy training of her childhood : " My aunt Mary was a woman of strong sense and judgment, very accomplished and cheerful, and while most exacting as to obedience and good conduct, was exceedingly loving to me while I was with her. She gave me all my instruction, religious and secular ; and used in the evenings to take her guitar and hum over to me old Scotch songs and ballads, till I not only picked up a great number, but acquired a taste for them which I have never lost. From the windows there was a charming view of the hills of Jura and of the sea, and I still recall the delight with which I used to watch the splendid sunsets over the distant point of Islay. I never knew what it was to miss a companion ; for it is extraordinary what a variety of amusements and manifold resources children find out for themselves. I fear that some of the fine young ladies of the present day, attended by their nursery-maids, would have thought me a demi-savage had they seen me helping io LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. the dairymaid to bring in the cows, or standing in a burn fishing for eels under the stones, climbing rocks, or run- ning a madcap race against the wind. Our next neighbour was a Captain Maclachan, who had a flock of goats, and of all delightful things the best was to be allowed to go with Jeanie, the goat-lassie, to call them from the hills, and see them milked." Her picture of the habits of the people at that time is curious and interesting : " There was none of the ceremony and formality among neighbours that exist now ; visitors came without any previous notice, nor did their arrival make much altera- tion in the arrangements of the house. Neither Christ- mas nor New- Year's Day was allowed to pass without due observance. Invitations were issued to all the neighbour- ing families ; old John Shaw the ' Fiddler ' was summoned from Castle Sweyn to assist at the festivities ; and I remember the amusement I had at seeing my old uncle, who did not in the least care for dancing, toiling with all his might at reels and country dances, until the ball was ended by the 'Country Bumpkin.' On Twelfth-Day a great ' shinty ' match was held on one of the fields, when perhaps two hundred hearty young and middle-aged men assembled to the music of the bagpipes, and played the match of the year with a fury which only the presence of the ' laird ' prevented sometimes from passing into more serious combat. The ' shinty ' was always followed by a servants' ball, when it was not uncommon for the country lasses to dress in coloured petticoats, green being the favourite hue, and in a nice white calico ' bed-gown/ con- fined at the waist. Their hair, falling over their shoul- ders, was held back by a long comb, which was usually the gift of a young man to his sweetheart. I never understood that there was intoxication at these festivities, for, indeed, the people of the district were very regular in their habits, so that I cannot recollect more than two persons noted for being addicted to excess. There was only one woman in the neighbourhood who took tea, and PARENTAGE. n the fact being considered a piece of disgraceful extrava- gance, was whispered about with much more sense of shame than would now be caused by the drinking of whisky. The parish clergyman was a frail old man, who preached very seldom, and, when doing so, wore a white cotton night-cap. I remember his once putting his hand on my head and blessing me, as he came down from the pulpit. There was not a seat in the whole church except the family pews of the heritors and minister. Some of the people supported themselves on the communion table, which ran from end to end of the building, while others brought in a stone or a turf, on which they ensconced themselves. And yet, in spite of this extraordinary absence of religious instruction and of pastoral superin- tendence, the people were moral and sober. " I well recollect my aunt weeping bitterly as she read aloud to us the account of the execution of Louis XVI., while I sat on a stool at her feet and had it explained to me. Then came the raising of the volunteers, the playing of pipes in the remotest glen, and the drilling of recruits in the per- petual ' goose-step.' My uncle was made a captain, and, to my intense amusement, I managed regularly to hide myself in the barn to watch the old gentleman being put through his exercises by the sergeant. A fit of uncontrollable laughter at last betrayed my lurking-place." When she returned to Aros, after the usual ' finish- ing' of an Edinburgh school, her home became doubly sweet to her by the merriment of a household of brothers and sisters, the tenderness of a mother who loved every living thing, and, above all, by the com- panionship of her father, who delighted in her sweet rendering of his favourite Scotch music, and shared with her all his own stores of old romance. All this tended to form that character which, ripening into purest Christian life, has been as a living gospel to her children and her children's children. 12 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. I have dwelt thus at length on the early days of these parents, not merely from the natural desire to speak of those we love, but because almost every page of this memoir, down to its latest, will bear witness to how much Norman owed to that father and mother. VIEW OP AHOS. CHAPTEE II. BOYHOOD. "YTORMAN was born at Campbeltown on June 3, U( 1812. His father had been ordained four years previously to the pastoral charge of that large parish, and had been married to Agnes Maxwell in 1811. Campbeltown lies at the head of a loch which runs for two miles into the long promontory of Kintyre, and not far from its southern termination. The loch forms a splendid harbour. The high island of Davar, thrown out like a sentinel from the hills, and con- nected with the shore on one side by a natural mole of gravel, protects it from every wind ; while, from its position near the stormy Mull, whose precipices breast the full swing of the Atlantic, it affords a secure haven to ships that have rounded that dreaded headland. The external aspect of the town is very much like that of any other Scotch seaport a central cluster of streets, with one or two plain churches lifting their square shoulders above the other houses ; a quay ; a lean steeple ; the chim- neys of some distilleries ; thinner rows of white- washed houses stretching round the 'Lochend,' and breaking up into detached villas buried in woods 1 4- LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. and shrubberies. The bay of Campbeltown is, how- ever, both picturesque and lively. Cultured fields clothe the slopes of hills, whose tops are purple with heather, and beyond which ranges of higher moun- tains lift their rough heads. There are fine glimpses, too, of coast scenery, especially to the south, where the headlands of Kilkerrau fall steeply into the sea. But the bay forms the true scene of interest, as it is the rendezvous of hundreds of fishing-smacks and wher- ries. There is continual movement on its waters the napping and filling of the brown sails, the shouts of the men, and the 'whirr' of the chain-cable as an anchor is dropped, keep the port constantly astir. Larger vessels are also perpetually coming and going storm-stayed merchant ships, smaller craft engaged in coast traffic, graceful yachts, and Eevenue cruisers. Four or five miles off, on the western side of the low isthmus which crosses Kintyre from the head of Campbeltown loch, lies another bay, in marked contrast to this sheltered harbour. There the long crescent of Machrihanish, girdled by sands wind-tossed into fantastic hillocks, re- ceives the full weight of the Atlantic. Woe to the luckless vessel caught within those relentless jaws ! Even in calm there is a weird suggestiveness in the ceaseless moaning of that surf, like the breathing of a wild beast, and in that line of tawny yellow rimmed by creaming foam, and broken with the black ribs of some old wreck sticking up here and there from the shallows. But during storm, earth, sea, and sky are mingled in a driving cloud of salt spin-drift and sand, and the prolonged roar of the surge is carried BOYHOOD. 15 far inland. When the noise of ' the bay ' is heard by the comfortable burgesses, booming over their town like a distant cannonade, they are reminded how wild the night is far out on the ocean. To be ( roaring like the bay ' is their strongest description of a bawling child or a shouting scold. As the Highlands gave Norman his strong Celtic passion, so Campbeltown inspired him with sym- pathy for the sea and sailors, besides creating a world of associations which never left him. It was a curious little town, and had a wonderful variety of character in its society and customs. No fewer than seven large Eevenue cruisers had their headquarters at Campbeltown, and were commanded by naval officers who, in the good old days, received a pay which would startle modern economists. These cut- ters were powerful vessels, generally manned by a double crew, and each having a smaller craft acting as tender. Nor were they without occupation, for smuggling was then a trade made not a little profitable by the high duties imposed on salt, spirits, and tea.* The officers and men of the cutters made Campbel- town their home, and villas, generally built opposite the buoy which marked the anchorage of their respec- tive cruisers, were occupied by the families of the dif- ferent commanders. The element thus introduced into * Many stories are told of these smuggling days. Once an old woman, -whose ' habit and repute ' were notorious, was being tried by the Sheriff. When the charge had been fairly proved, and it fell to the good lawyer to pronounce sentence, an unusual admixture of mercy with fidgetiness seemed to possess him, for, evading the manifest conclusion, he thus addressed the prisoner ' I daresay, my poor woman, it's not very often you have fallen into this fault.' 'Deed no, shirra,' she readily replied, ' I haena made a drap since yon wee keg I sent yoursel.' 1 6 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. the society of the town had many important effects. It not only gave cheerfulness to its tone, but added a certain savour of the sea to its interests. The merits of each cutter and officer were matters with which every man and woman but more especially every schoolboy was familiar, and how old Jack Ful- larton had * carried on ' till all seemed going by the board, on a coast bristling with sunken rocks ; or how Captain Beatson had been caught off the Mull in the great January gale, and with what skill he had weathered the wild headland were questions which every inhabitant, old and young, had repeatedly dis- cussed. Campbeltown was the headquarters of other sorts and conditions both of men and women. There were retired half-pay officers of both the services ; officers of his Majesty's Excise appointed to watch the distilleries, among whom were such magnates as the collector and supervisor ; there was the old sheriff with his queue and top-boots; the duke's chamberlain, and the usual proportion of doctors, writers, and bankers. There were, moreover, those without whom all the teas, and suppers, and society of the town would have been flavourless the elderly maiden ladies, who found that their ' annuities ' could not be spent in a cheerier or more congenial spot than this kindly sea- port. These ladies were aunts or cousins to half the lairds in Argyllshire, and were often great characters. A society like this, thrown together in a town utterly unconnected with the rest of the world except by a mail-gig, which had to travel some sixty miles before reaching any settlement larger than a 'clachan,' and BOYHOOD. 17 by a sailing packet, whose weekly departure was an- nounced by the bellman in the following manner, 1 All ye who may desire a passage, know that the Caledonia cutter will sail ;' was sure to be self-supporting in all the necessaries of life, among which the 'half-pays' and maiden ladies included amusements. So-called tea-parties, followed by com- fortable suppers, were the common forms of enter- tainment; and these reunions being enlivened by backgammon and whist for the older folks, and a dance for the younger, were not without their inno- cent excitements. Sometimes there was also such a supreme event as a county or a militia ball ; or still better, when some sloop-of-war ran in to refit, the resources of the hospitable town were cheerfully expended in giving a grand picnic to the officers, followed by the unfailing dance and supper in the evening. The ecclesiastical relationships of the place were not less primitive and genial than the social. When Norman's father went there, he soon attracted a very large and devoted congregation. He was decidedly 'evangelical,? but free from all narrowness, and had a word of cheerful kindliness for all. All sects and parties loved him, and his fellow townsmen were the more disposed to listen to his earnest appeals in public and private, when they knew how manly and simple he was in daily life. Not only did he in this way secure the attachment of his own flock, but, when on one occasion he was asked to accept another and a better living, the dissenting congrega- tion of the place heartily joined with his own in VOL. i. c i8 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. making up his very small stipend to a sum equal to what had been offered to him. The Eoman Catholic priest was among his friends. Few weeks ever passed without old Mr. Cattanach coming to take tea at the Manse, and in all his little difficulties he looked to the young parish minister for advice. These Highland priests were very different men from those now furnished by Maynooth. They were usually educated in France, and imbibing Gallican rather than Ultramontane ideas, felt themselves to be Britons, not aliens, and identified themselves with the interests of the people around them. ISTor was the friendly relationship which existed in Campbeltown an ex- ceptional instance of good-feeling ; for whenever the priest of the district went to that part of the parish in Morven which was near the Manse, he made it his home, and I am not aware that any evil ever accrued to religion in consequence. The house where Norman Macleod was born was in the Kirk Street, but the family afterwards lived in the old Manse, and finally in Southpark. He seems from childhood to have had many of the character- istics which distinguished him through life being affectionate, bright, humourous, and talkative. His mother, and that aunt who was the friend of his earliest as well as of his latest years, remember many incidents illustrative of his extreme lovingness and ceaseless merriment. Another, of his own age, re- lates, as one of her earliest memories, how she used to sit among the group of children round the nursery fire, listening to the stories and talk of this one child * whose tongue never lay.' When a boy he was BOYHOOD. 19 sent to the Burgh school, where all the families of the place, high and low, met and mingled ; and where, if he did not receive that thorough classical grounding the want of which he used always to lament, justly blaming the harsh and inefficient master who had failed to impart it he gained an in- sight into character which served not only to give him sympathy with all ranks of life, but afforded a fund of amusing memories which never lost their freshness. Several of his boyish companions re- mained his familiar friends in after-life, and not a few of them are portrayed in his l Old Lieutenant.' Among the numerous souvenirs he used to keep, and which were found after his death in his 'Sanctum' in Glasgow, were little books and other trifles he had got when a boy from these early associates. Ships and sailors were the great objects of his interest, and, contrary to the wishes of his anxious mother, many a happy hour was spent on board the vessels which lay at the pier climbing the shrouds, reaching the cross-trees without passing through the lubber's hole, or in making himself acquainted with every stay, halyard, and spar from truck to keelson. His boy companions were hardy fellows, fond of adventure, and so thoroughly left to form their own acquaintances that there was not a character in the place fool or fiddler, soldier or sailor whose pecu- liarities or stories they had not learned. Norman, even as a boy, seems thoroughly to have appreciated this many-sided life. The maiden ladies and the ' half-pays,' the picnics and supper parties, the rough sports of the schoolyard, or the glorious Saturday c 2 20 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. expeditions by the shore and headlands, were keenly enjoyed by him. He quickly caught up the spirit of all outward things in nature or character, and his power of mimicry and sense of the ludicrous were even then as marked as his affectionateness. Once, when he was unwell and about six years old, it became necessary to apply leeches. These he named after various characters in the town the sheriff, the provost, &c. ; and while they were on his chest he kept up an unceasing dialogue with them, scolding one or praising the other, as each did its curative work well or ill, and all in the exact voice and manner of the various persons they were meant to represent. When Mackay the actor, afterwards so famous for his personification of Bailie Nicol Jarvie, returned to Campbeltown where he had once been a drummer-boy to astonish its inhabitants by the per- formances of a clever little company in an improvised theatre, it was like the opening up of a new world to Norman. An attic was fitted up, and an audience of aunts and cousins invited to witness how well he and his companions could * do Mackay's company.' He had from the first a strong tendency to throw a romantic colouring into common life, and such a desire to have sway over others that he was never so much himself as when he had some one to influence, and with whom he might share the ceaseless flow of his own ideas and imaginations. Schoolboy expedi- tions became under him fanciful and heroic enter- prises, in which some ideal part was assigned by him to each of his companions. A sail to some creek a mile away became a voyage of discovery or a chase BOYHOOD. 21 after pirates. A ramble over the hills took the shape of an expedition against the French. The great event of his boyhood was his being sent to Morven. He had been frequently there as a young child, but his father, anxious that his son should know Gaelic, and, if possible, be a High- land minister, determined to board him with old Mr. Cameron, the parish schoolmaster in Morven, and so, when about twelve years of age, he was sent first to the Manse, and then to the school- master's house. His grandfather had died a few months before, but he had many memories of the old man derived from previous visits, and the impressions of the venerable minister, then in extreme age, were never lost. He was, for example, in church on that Communion Sunday when his grandfather, blind with age, was led by the hand up to the communion-table by his servant ' Rory,' to address his people for the last time. This grandfather had been minister there for fifty years, and the faithful servant who now took his hand had been with him since he had entered the Manse. It was then that touching episode occurred described in the ' Highland Parish,' when the old man having in his blindness turned himself the wrong way, ' Rory,' perceiving the mistake, went back and gently placed him with his face to the congregation. This picture of the aged pastor, with snowy hair falling on his shoulders, bidding solemn farewell to a flock that, with the loyalty of the High- land race, regarded him as a father, was a scene which deeply touched the imagination of the child in the Manse seat. One, who was herself present, 22 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. remembers another occasion when his grandfather, taking him on his knee, presented him with a half- crown an enormous sum in the eyes of the child and then gave him his blessing. Norman, dragging himself off, rushed away to the window-curtain, in which he tightly rolled himself; when disentangled, his cheeks were suffused with tears. The goodness of the old man had proved too much for his generous nature. With these and many other loving recollections he now returned, as a boy of twelve, to be made a l true Highlander' of, as his father called it. It was indeed as the opening of a new life when, leaving the little county town, and the grammar-school, and the lowland playmates in Campbeltown, he landed on the rocky shore below the Manse of Morven. The very air was different. The puffs cf peat-reek from the cottages were to him redolent of Highland warmth and romantic childish associations. There was not a boatman from old ' Eory ' down to the betarred fisher-boy, not a shepherd, or herd, or cottar, not a dairymaid or henwife, but gave him a welcome, and tried to make his life happier. The Manse, full of kind aunts and uncles, seemed to him a paradise which the demon of selfishness had never entered. And then there was the wakening sense of the grand in scenery, nourished almost unconsciously by the presence of those silent mountains, with their endless ridges of brown heather ; or by the dark glen roaring with cataracts that fell into fairy pools, fringed with plumage of ferns, and screened by netted roof of hazel and oak ; or by many an hour spent upon the shore- BOYHOOD. 23 land, with, its infinite variety of breaking surge and rocky bays, rich in seaweeds and darting fish. But, above all, there was the elastic joy of an open-air life, with the excitement of fishing and boating, and such stirring events as sheep-shearing or a ' harvest- home,' with the fun of a hearty house, whose laughter was kept ever alive by such wits as Callum, the fool, or bare-footed Lachlan. His life in the dwelling of Samuel Cameron, the worthy schoolmaster and catechist of the parish, was not less full of romance. The house was not a large one a thatched cottage with a but and a ben, and a little room between, formed the accommodation ; but every evening, except when the boys were fishing codling from the rocks, or playing * shinty ' in the autumn twilight, there gathered round the heartn, heaped high with glowing peat, a happy group, who, with Gaelic songs and stories, and tunes played on the sweet l trump ' or Jew's harp, made the little kitchen bright as a drawing-room ; for there was a culture in the very peasantry of the Highlands, not to say in the house of such a schoolmaster as good Mr. Cameron, such as few countries could boast of. There was an innate high breeding, and a store of tradition and poetry, of song and anecdote, which gave a peculiar flavour to their common life ; so that the long evenings in this snug cottage, when the spinning-wheel was humming, the women teazing and carding wool, the boys dressing flies or shaping boats, were also enlivened by wondrous stories of old times, or by ' lilts ' full of a weird and plaintive beauty, like the wild note of a sea-bird, or by a * Port-a-Beal,' or * a "Walking 24 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. Song,' to the tune of which all joined hands as they sent the merry chorus round. Norman had here an insight into the best side of the Highland character, and into many Highland customs now long passed away. Every week he used to go to the Manse from Friday till Monday, and then came such grand expedi- tions as a walk to the summit of Ben Shian, with its unrivalled view of mountain and loch ; or, still better, when whole nights were spent fishing at the rocky islands in the Sound. " Oh, the excitement of getting among a great play of fish, which made the water foam for half-a-mile round, and attracted flocks of screaming birds, which seemed mad with gluttony, and while six or seven rods had all their lines tight, and their ends bent to cracking with the sport. And then the fun and frolic when we landed for the night on the lee of the island, and the ' sky-larking/ as sailors call it, began among the rocks, pelting one another with clods or wreck, till, Avearied out, we all lay down to sleep in some sheltered nook, and all was silent but the beating waves, the eerie cry of sea-birds, and the splash of some sea-monster in pursuit of its prey. What glorious remi- niscences have I, too, of those scenes, and especially of early morn as watched from these green islands ! It seems to me as if I had never beheld a true sunrise since ; yet how many have I witnessed ! I left the sleeping crews, and ascended the top of the rock immediately before day- break, and what a sight it was to behold the golden crowns which the sun placed on the brows of the mountain monarchs who first did him homage, what heavenly dawnings of light on peak and ' scaur ' contrasted with the darkness of the lower valleys ! What gems of glory in the eastern sky, changing the cold grey clouds of early morning into bars of gold and radiant gems of beauty ! and what a flood of light suddenly burst upon the dancing waves as the sun rose above the horizon, and revealed the silent sails of passing ships ! and what a delight to hear BOYHOOD. 25 and see the first break of the fish upon the waters ! With what pleasure I descended and gave the cheer which made all the sleepers awake and scramble to the boats, and, in a few minutes, resume the work of hauling in our dozens. Then home with a will for breakfast, each striving to be first on the sandy shore." * This was good education for the affections, sym- pathies, and imagination. Other influences of a very different nature might afterwards be experienced, but VIEW TKOM THE HILL HEHIXD FIUXARY. the foundation of his character was laid in the boy- hood spent in Campbeltown, Mull, and Morven. Its associations never left him, and the memory of those hours, whose sunshine of love had brightened his early life, made him in no small measure the loving, genial man he always was. "What he had found so full of good for himself, he afterwards tried to bestow on * " Highland Parish. 26 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. others ; and not only in his dealing with his own chil- dren, but in the tone of his teaching and in the ministry of his public life, can easily be traced the power of his first sympathies : " Oh, sunshine of youth, let it shine on ! Let love flow out fresh and full, unchecked by any rule but what love creates, and pour itself down without stint into the young heart. Make the days of boyhood happy ; for other days of labour and sorrow must come, when the blessing of those dear eyes and clasping hands and sweet caress- ings, will, next to the love of God from whom they flow, save the man from losing faith in the human heart, help to deliver him from the curse of selfishness, and be an Eden in the memory when he is driven forth into the wilderness of life." * * " Highland Parish." CHAPTER III. EAELY COLLEGE DAYS. TIST the year 1825 his father was translated from -*- Campbeltown to the parish of Campsie, in Stir- lingshire, where he remained till 1835. The change was, in many respects, great from Campbeltown and the Highlands to a half-agricultural, half-manufac- turing Lowland district, in which the extremes of political feeling between stiffest Toryism and hottest Eadicalism were running high. The parish was large and thickly peopled, and its natural features were in a manner symbolical of its social charac- teristics. The long line of the Fell, its green sides dotted with old thorns, rises into mountain solitude, from a valley whose wooded haughs are blurred with the smoke of manufacturing villages. The con- trast is sharply presented. Sheep-walks, lonely as the Cheviots, look down on unsightly mounds of chemical refuse, and on clusters of smoking chimneys; and streams which a mile away are clear as morning, are dyed black as ink before they have escaped from print-work and bleaching-green. The Manse was on the borderland of mountain and plain, for it was placed at the opening of Campsie Glen, famous for its picturesque series of thundering waterfalls and 28 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. rocky pools. Behind the Manse lay the clachan and the old parish church, now in ruin. This was a busy period in his father's life, for, besides taking the pastoral charge of the large parish, he wrote, during the ten years of his ministry in Campsie, the greater part of the Gaelic Dictionary, which bears his name along with that of Dr. Dewar. He was editor and chief contributor to a monthly Gaelic magazine, which acquired unrivalled popularity in the Highlands ; * and he also translated, at the request of the Synod of Ulster, a metrical version of the Psalms into Irish Gaelic, for the use of the Irish Presbyterian Church. Besides these literary labours, he took the chief part in establishing the education scheme of the Church of Scotland, the special sphere of which lay in the Highlands. While these public labours taxed his energy, his increasing family, and the concomitant res angusta domi, gave no little anxiety to himself and his partner in life. The Manse maintained the traditions of Highland hospitality, and the ingenuity with which guests were accommodated was equalled only by the skill with which a very limited income was made to cover the expenses of housekeeping, and the many requirements of a family of eleven children. Norman was sent for a year to the parish school, taught, as many such schools then were, by a licentiate of the Church an excellent scholar, and a man of great simplicity and culture. There is little to record of his schooldays, or of his first years at college. His career at the Univer- sity of Glasgow, where he took his curriculum of * The ' Teachdaire Gaelltachd.' EARLY COLLEGE DAYS. 29 Arts, was not distinguished by the number of prizes he carried off, for he gave himself rather to the study of general literature and of science than the subjects proper to the classes he attended. Logic, admirably taught by Professor Buchanan, was in- deed the only class in Arts which kindled his enthu- siasm, and it was also the only one in which he obtained academical honours. He was frequently dressed sailor-fashion, and loved to affect the sailor in his speech as well as dress. His chosen com- panions seem to have been lads of precocious literary power some of them considerably older than himself whose attainments first inspired him with a passion for books, and especially for poetry. His favourite authors were Shakespear and Wordsworth, the first acquaintance with whose works was as the discovery of a new world. He was, besides, passionately fond of natural science, and spent most of his spare hours in the Museum studying ornithology. There is little in his journals or letters to indicate the impression which these college years made on him ; but one of the favourite subjects of conversation in his later days was the curious life he then led ; the strange characters it gave him for acquaintance ; the conceits, absurdities, enthusiasms in which it abounded; the social gatherings and suppers, which were its worst dissipations the long, speculative talks, lasting far into the night, in which its glory and blessedness culminated and the hard, although unsystematic, studies to which it was the introduction. The loss of accurate scholarship which the desul- toriness of this kind of training entailed might not 30 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. have been sufficiently compensated by other advan- tages; nevertheless, contact with men, insight into character, the culture of poetic tastes, of original thought, and of an eye for nature, were perhaps no mean substitutes for skill in Latin verse and ac- quaintance with the Greek particles. He was, besides, very far from being idle. He read much and thought freshly, and even at a very early period in his University career he seems to have contemplated join- ing a fellow- student in the publication of a volume of tales and poetry. His moral life was at the same time pure, and his religious convictions, though not so strong as they afterwards became, were yet such as prevented him from yielding to the many temptations to which one of his temperament and abounding, as he did, in animal spirits was greatly exposed. Next to the grace of God, his affection for home and its associa- tions kept him steady. A short journey from Glas- gow brought him out on many a Saturday during the session to spend Sunday at Campsie, and the loving welcomes he there received and the thou- sand influences of the Manse life served to keep his heart fresh and pure. These visits sometimes gave no little concern to his father and mother, for coming as he did in a full burst of buoyant excitement after the restraint of study, the noisy fun and the ceaseless mimicry in which he indulged, disturbing the very quiet of the Sabbath, made them afraid that he would never be sedate enough for being a minister. Both father and mother, who could scarcely repress their own laughter at his jokes, wrote to him very gravely on the dangerous tendencies which were manifesting EARLY COLLEGE DAYS. 31 themselves in him. But they might as well have asked him to cease to be, and, had they told the secret truth, they would scarcely have wished him different from what he was.* And so he passed the four years of his study of 'the Arts,' with happy summers interspersed, sometimes in the Highlands, sometimes in Campsie, until, in 1831, he went to Edinburgh to study theology. Dr. Chalmers was then professor, and JSTorman listened with delight and wonder to lectures, which were delivered with thrilling, almost terrible, earnest- ness. The Professor's noble enthusiasm kindled a * There -were some most original characters then in Campsie, who afforded much amusement to Norman ; but his great friend was old Bell, the author of ' Bell's Geography,' and editor of ' Rollin's Ancient History.' This man had been a weaver, but, im- pelled by a powerful intellect and literary taste, he devoted himself to study. He lived with his wife in a mere hut, and sat surrounded by books, a Kilmarnock night-cap on his head, and conversing with an emphasis and an originality, not unworthy of Johnson, on every subject literary, political, theological. Some of his sayings are worth recording. There was a hawker in the parish, a keen controversialist, ever talking of his own perfect assurance of salva- tion, but withal very greedy and worldlj-. "Humph!" grunted old Bell, when asked his opinion of him ; " I never saw a man so sure o' goin' to heaven, and sae sweart (unwilling) 1o gang till't." He used to utter aloud in church his dissent to any doctrine he disliked, or sometimes his impatience expressed itself by his long black stick being twirled gradually up through his fingers till it reached well over his head. On one occasion, a young preacher having chosen as his text, "There shall be no more sea," proceeded to show the advantages of such a condition of things. Higher and higher rose Bell's stick as his favourite principles of geography were being assailed under every 4 head,' till at last it came down with a dash on the pavement, accom- panied by a loud ' Bah ! the fule ! ' When he was dying, an excel- lent young man, whose religious zeal was greater than his ability, volunteered to pray with him. Bell grunted assent; but as the prayer assumed throughout that the old man was a reprobate, he could scarcely restrain himself to the Amen, before he burst out, " I'm saying, my man, nae doubt ye mean well ; but ye'd better gang hame and learn to pray for yoursel' afore ye pray for other folk." "When Norman remonstrated with him afterwards for his rudeness, Bell said, " Maybe ye're richt; but, sure as death, Norman, I canna thole [bear] a fule ! " 32 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. responsive glow in the young hearts which gathered to listen to him, and the kindly interest he took in their personal welfare inspired them with affection as well as admiration. Dr. Welsh, a man of kindred spirit and powerful intellect, then taught Church History. Such influences did not fail to waken in Norman loftier conceptions of the career to which he looked forward. As might have been expected, Chalmers had a pecu- liar power over him, for professor and student had many similar natural characteristics. The large- heartedness of the teacher, his missionary zeal, and the continual play of human tenderness pervaded by the holy light of divine love, roused the sympathies of the scholar. He heartily loved him. And Chal- mers also valued the character of the student, for when asked by a wealthy English proprietor to re- commend for his only son a tutor in whose character and sense he might have thorough reliance, Chalmers at once named Norman. This connection became of great importance to him. The gentleman alluded to- was the late Henry Preston, Esq., of Moreby Hall, then High Sheriff of Yorkshire. For the next three years Norman acted as tutor to his son ; and whether resid- ing at Moreby or travelling on the Continent, the simple-hearted old squire treated him with the utmost confidence and affection. In the autumn of 1833 he went for a few weeks to Moreby, but returned shortly afterwards with his pupil to Edinburgh, and was thus able to attend his theological classes, while he also superintended the studies of young Mr. Preston. During his second session at Edinburgh, besides the usual classes, he attended Professor Jamieson's lee- EARLY COLLEGE DAYS, 33 tures on geology, and studied drawing and music. His brother-in-law, the Rev. A. Clerk, LL.D., who was then his fellow-student, contributes the following re- miniscence : " It was in the social circle Norman displayed the wondrous versatility, originality, and brilliancy of his mind. With a few of his chosen companions round him he made the evening instructive and delightful. He fre- quently, by an intuitive glance, revealed more of the heart of a subject than others with more extensive and accurate scholarship could attain through their acquirements in philosophy or history. He was often disposed to start the wildest paradoxes, which he would defend by the most plausible analogies, and, if forced to retreat from his position, he would do so under a shower of ludicrous retorts and fanciful images. He was ever ready with the most apt quotations from Shakespear, Wordsworth, Cole- ridge, and Keats, or with some telling story ; or, brimming over with fun, he would improvise crambo rhymes, some- times most pointed, always ludicrous ; or, bursting into song, throw more nature into its expression than I almost ever heard from any singer. The sparkling effer- vescence of his mind often astonished, and always charmed and stirred, the thoughts, feelings, and enthusiasm of his companions." It was at this time he experienced the first great sorrow of his life. His brother James, his junior by three years, was a lad of fine promise. Like Norman in many things, he was his opposite in others, and the unlikeness as well as similarity of their tastes served only to draw them nearer to each other. Clever, pure-minded, and affectionate, he was also what Nor- man never was orderly, fond of practical work, and mechanics. Norman was rollicking in his fun, James quietly humourous. He was the delegated manager 'of glebe and garden, and of so sweet and winning a VOL. i. D 34 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. nature, that when he died the tokens of sorrow dis- played by many in the parish were a surprise, as well as a consolation, to his parents. Hitherto Norman had given little expression to the religious convictions which had been increasing with his growth since childhood. Now, however, he broke silence. In the sick-room, with none but their mother present, the two brothers opened their hearts to one another ; and, on the last evening they were ever to spend together, the elder asked if he might pray with the younger. This was the first time he had ever prayed aloud in the presence of others, and with a full heart he poured out his supplications for himself and his dying brother. When he left the room, James, calling his mother, put his arms round her neck, and said. f I am so thankful, mother. Norman will be a good man.' This was a turning-point in Norman's life; not, indeed, such a crisis as is usually called con- version ; not that the scene in the sick-room marked his first religious decision ; but the solemnity of the circumstances, the frank avowal of his faith, and the tremendous deepening which his feelings received by the death which occurred a few days afterwards, formed an epoch from which he ever afterwards dated the commencement of earnest Christian life. The anniversary of his brother's death was always kept sacred by him. Other critical times arrived, other turning-points no less important were passed ; but, as in many other instances, this first death in the family, with the impressions it conveyed of the reality of eternity and of the grandeur of the life in Christ, was to him ' the beginning of days.' EARLY COLLEGE DAYS. 35 At the close of the winter session he returned, with Mr. Preston, to Moreby, and in the following May he and his pupil started for the Continent. To his MOTHER, written by him when, a mere boy : CAMPSIE MANSE* Friday. " I know how very difficult it is to ease the yearnings of a mother's heart when far from her beloved offspring ; yet I am sure, when she hears that 'all are well,' the wan and wrinkled face of anxiety will give way to the bloom of youth that makes you look at all times so beautiful. The garret windows being nailed, none of the children have fallen over, and the garden door being locked, none have died of gooseberry or cherry fevers. " But the children are the least of my thoughts ; no, no, let them all die if the housekeeping succeeds ; this is the point. The Principal'* and Mr. Gordon came here to-night, and don't go off till Monday ! I and Betty are dying of lamb fevers with the very thoughts of preparing dinners out of nothing ; these two nights I have been smothered alive by salmon and legs of roasted lamb crammed down my throat by Jessy and Betty. Oh, my dear mamma, it is only now that a fond mother is missed, when dangers and misfortunes assail us. If you but saw me without clothes to cover, or shoes to put on my feet, all worn away with cooking. I am quite crusty. " But I will not mar your enjoyments or hurt your feelings by relating more of this melancholy tale. "Betty, my worthy housekeeper, has told me to-day that she has forty-five young birds and ducks. I think a sixth is to be added in the laundry if it be so, I intend to get a share of Donald Achalene'sf bed in the asylum." * Principal Baird, of Edinburgh, t A Highland character. D 2 36 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. From his MOTHEK, when he was a student in Glasgow : " While younger, and under the immediate eye of your father and myself, I could watch every little tendency of your disposition, and endeavour as much as I could to give it the right bias ; but now, my beloved child, you are seldom with me, you are exposed to many temptations, and oh, if you knew the many anxious thoughts this gives rise to ! Not, my dear, that I fear anything wrong in principle, in the common acceptation of the word ; but how many shades are there between Avhat is glaringly and broadly wrong to the generality of observers, and the thousand acts and thoughts and words that must be watched and cor- rected and repented of and abandoned, in order to become a Christian ! Avoid whatever you have found hurtful, be it ever so delightful to your taste, and persevere in whatever you have found useful towards promoting piety and heavenly-mindedness. You must not look on this as a mother's dry lecture to her son ; no, it is the warm affec- tion of a heart that truly loves you as scarce another can do, and which prays and watches for your eternal interest." From his FATHER : CAMPSIE, February 23, 1829. " I rejoice to see your companions, if you would conduct yourself with calmness and seriousness on the Sabbath day, and cease your buffoonery of manner in tone of voice and distortions of countenance, which are not only offensive, but grievous. You carry this nonsense by much too far, and I beg of you, my dear Norman, to check it. Imitation and acting a fool is a poor field to shine in ; it may procure the laugh of some, but cannot fail to secure the contempt of others. I was much pleased with the manner of the Stewart boys their steady, grave, sedate manner formed a very striking contrast to the continual mimicking and nonsense at which you aim. I implore of you, by the tenderness of a father, and by the authority of one, to desist from it in time, and to despise it, and to assume a more manly, sedate manner. EARLY COLLEGE DAYS. 37 " I hope you will take in good part, as becomes you, all I have stated, and evince to me that you do so when I have the happiness, my dear boy, to see you. I rejoice to see everybody happy ; but there is a manner that gains on a person if indulged in, which must be guarded against, and none more dangerous than that buffoonery which, by making others laugh, causes us to think ourselves very clever. You, even already, seldom use your own voice or gestures or look all is put on and mimicked ; this 'must cease, and the sooner the better. After this I shall say no more on the subject. I leave it to your own good sense to correct this. " Ever your dutiful Father." To his AUNT JANE : February, 1831. " I read your letter over and over, and chuckled over its coruscations of wit and brilliancy ; swallowed, and finally digested all the advices. In fact, it brought me back to Fiunary once more to Fiunary with all its pleasures and its many enjoyments. I could, with a little effort of fancy, picture myself sitting with J. in the garret, giving way to my mimicking propensities to please her, in what- ever character she chose, or one of the social circle round a happy tea-table, or taking an intellectual walk along the beach ; and no sooner is this imaginary train set a-going than many a happy day spent among the rocks, and in the woods, hills, or glens, rises ghost-like before me, till my too pleasing dream is broken by a dire reality the college bell summoning poor wretches from their warm beds to trudge through snow and sleet to hear a crude lecture on philosophy, and reminding me that I have so much to do that I cannot expect to see my dream realised for another year. There is no use in fighting against fate, though I long for the day that I shall escape from prison, and ' visit those blessed solitudes from toils and towns remote.' " 38 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. From his MOTHEK : CAMPSIE, November 27. " It gives me pleasure to observe the warm and genuine feelings and confessions of an affectionate disposition freely spoken. Yes, my dear Norman, long may I find you frankly owning your thoughts and feelings ; this is tho true way to a parent's heart, and the true and only com- fortable footing for parent and child the only way in which a parent can really be of use ; and never will you repent trusting yourself to me. Wonderful would be the fault that, when candidly acknowledged, I could not excuse, or at least try to help you to remedy. In all I said I wished to cure you of an ugly habit of arguing that has crept in on you, before it becomes a confirmed habit, and leads you (just for argument's sake) to maintain wrong views ; from first beginning to argue you will by- and-by think these views right." To his AUNT JANE : June, 1832. " Where, in the name of wonder, did you light on that lovely poem, Jane ? Talk no more to me of the powers of music to lull the angry feelings or to excite the more gentle ones. Poetry, poetry, for ever ! " We have had four cases of cholera here, and two- deaths. My father was down at the Torrance every day, and had no small trouble between keeping down rows, coffining the bodies, and quelling all those disgraceful and riotous feelings that have been too much the attendants of this sad complaint. " All the children are half ill with chicken-pox ; Polly's face is like a rock with limpets. Limpets ! How that word does conjure up a thousand associations ! the fish- ing rock, the rising tide waving the tangle to and fro at my feet ! Out comes a fine cod, see how he smells the bait ! I am already sure of him ; I know the bait is good, and the hook of the best Limerick. He sniffs it, and away he slowly sails, gently moving his tail from side to side as he goes off. But he repents, and turns back EARLY COLLEGE DAYS. 39 casts a longing look at the large bait ; slowly his jaws open, and in the most dignified manner close on the meal, and now the line strains, the rod bends, I see something white turning in the water, my eyes fill till I hear ' Whack ' on the rock, and there he lies as red as as what's the man's name, at Savarie John Scallag's father ? as red as he. Pardon me, Jane ; this night is oppressively hot, it is perfect summer. They are turning the almost dry hay on the glebe a calm sleeps on the woods and hills, and this, too, vividly recalls the Sound of Mull, as I fancy it to be on such an evening. I am at this moment in fancy walking up the road to Fiunary with a gadd of fish, knowing that thanks and a good tea await me. " I confess that when I indulge in such fancies I invo- luntarily wish myself away from my books to feast and revel in the loveliness of the Salachan shore, or ' Clach na Criche ; ' but, as I told you before, I wish to have some summer to look back to as one usefully employed." Letter to his BROTHER JAMES. (Inside of this letter was found placed a lock of JAMES'S hair) : MOREBY HALL, October, 1833. " I went on Sabbath to church. There was no organ ; but what think you ? a flute, violin, and bass fiddle, with some bad singing. However, I liked the service much. Monday was a great day at York, all the town and country were there, it being the time at which, once every three or four years, Lord Yernon, the Arch- bishop of York, confirms the children of this part of the diocese. The scene was beyond all description. Fancy upwards of three thousand children under fifteen, the females dressed in white, with ladies and gentlemen, all assembled in that glorious minster the thousand stained glass windows throwing a dazzling light of various hues on the white mass the great organ booming like thunder through the never-ending arches ! The ceremony is intensely simple ; they come in forties and fifties, and surround the bishop, who repeats the vows and lays his hand successively on each head. I could not help com- 40 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. paring this with a sacramental occasion in the Highlands,* where there is no minster but the wide heaven, and no organ but the roar of the eternal sea, the church with its lonely churchyard and primitive congregation, and think of my Scotch pride ! I thought the latter scene more grand and more impressive. I ascended to-day to the top of the great tower in the minster, two hundred and seventy steps ! But such a view ! I gazed from instinct towards the North for a while not that I expected to see anything ; but there was nothing but masses of wood." Extracts from his JOURNAL : "Edinburgh, Tuesday, 1st Nov., 1833. " Began to read on crystallography and geology (Lyell). I wish, above all things, to know mineralogy and geology thoroughly. I must attend chemistry, anatomy, and botany. To acquire accurate knowledge is no joke. " Tuesday, 3rd Dec. There are certain days and times in a man's existence which are eras in his little history, and which greatly influence his future life. This day has been to me one of much pain ; and oh ! when the grief has passed away (and shall it ever be so ?) may its influence still remain ! I heard my own dear brother James was so ill that he cannot, in all human probability, recover. How strange that I who, when in health and strength, and with everything to cheer, and little to depress the heart, thought not of God, the great Giver of all good, should now, when my beloved brother is sinking into the grave, my best and dearest of mothers sore at heart for her child, raise my voice, and I hope my heart, to Him who has been despised and rejected by me. My mother has been my best earthly friend, and God knows the heart- felt, profound veneration I have for her character. And now, God of my Fathers, this 3rd day of December, solely and entirely under Thy guidance, I commence again to fight the good fight. I acknowledge Thy hand in mak- ing my dear brother's illness the means; through, and only * It is a common custom in the Highlands to celebrate the Com- munion in the open air during summer. EARLY COLLEGE DAYS. 41 for the sake of the great Redeemer Jesus Christ do I look for an answer to my most earnest prayer. Amen. " Thursday. It is past twelve. The wind blows loud, and the rain falls. I am alone in body, but my mind is in iny brother's room, where, I am sure, my dear mother is now watching her bciy with a heavy heart. May God be with them both ! " Saturday. I heard the waits last night play ' The Last Rose of Summer' beautifully. It went to my heart ; I thought of my poor James. The week is past, the most memorable, it may be, in my existence. " Monday, IQth Dec. I saw James, Wednesday morn- ing. Such a shadow ! Still the same firm mind, with the same dependence upon his Saviour. I shall never, I hope, come to that state in which I can forget all the kindness which God has shown me for the last six days ! I had many earnest conversations with dear James. " Alas, this day I parted from one I loved as devotedly as a brother can be loved ! Thank God and Christ, we shall meet. I went to his bedside : ' I am going away, James, my boy ; but I trust to see you for a day during the holi- days.' ' Norman, dear, if I'm spared I'll see you. But what is this to end in ?' I hardly knew what to say. ' I know your firmness of mind. But, James, it is but the husk, the mere shell.' ' I am very weak.' ' Yes, Jamie ; but I shall be weak, and all weak. I part without sorrow, for I know you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' ' I have, Norman, got clearer views since we met. I know on whom I can lean.' "Friday evening, 2,0th Dec. It is all past. My dear brother is now with his own Saviour. I do heartily thank God for His kindness to him ; for his patience, his man- liness, his love to his Redeemer. May I follow his footsteps ! May I join with James in the universal song ! I know not, my own brother, whether you now see me or not. If you know my heart, you will know my love for you, and that in passing through this pilgrimage, I shall never forget you who accompanied me so far. ' Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.' 4* LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. From his MOTHER : February 7, 1834. " Now, write me everything as you would to your own heart, and do not hide even passing uneasy feelings, for fear of making me uneasy. Believe me, I will just give everything its own value, and from ' the heart to the heart' is all, you know, I care for." From his JOURNAL : " Friday. Went in the evening with Uncle Neil to a meeting of the Shakespear Club Yandenhoff, Ball, MacKay, &c. A very pleasant evening ; fine singing ; two scenes I won't forget : the noble feeling of Yandenhoff when his daughter's health was drunk, and Ball's acclamations (! !) interrupting a very humbugging, stupid speech, proposing the memory of Lord Byron. There is blarney all the world over. I plainly see the stage, as it now is, and the Church are at complete antipodes. " Sunday. Not two months dead my dearest brother and yet how changed am I ! I thank God with my whole heart and soul that He has not forsaken me. I seem a merry, thoughtless being. But I spend many a thinking and pleasant hour in that sick-room. That pale face, all intel- ligence and love the black hair the warm and gallant heart of him I loved as well as a brother can be loved shall never be forgotten." To his MOTHER : YORK, March 9, 1834. "In an old, snug garret, in the city of York, upon Good Friday, with the minster clock chiming twelve of the night, do I sit down to have a long chat with you, my dearest mother. " I intend upon Sabbath to take the sacrament at Moreby. I have reflected on the step, and while I see no objection, I can see every reason in showing forth the Lord's death with Christian brethren of the same calling ; as to me, individually, it signifies little whether I take it kneeling at an altar, or sitting at a table." EARLY COLLEGE DAYS. 43 To his AUNT : SIGN HILL, April 12, 1834. " One peep of Loch Aline or of Glen Dhu is worth all in Yorkshire. Their living is certainly splendid ; but, believe me, I shall never eat any of their ragouts, or drink their champagne, with the same relish as I ate the cake and drank the milk beside my wee bed when I returned from fishing. If only the white can had not been broken ! " To his MOTHER : Near MOREBY, April 15, 1834. " The house is full, and I am now sleeping at the farm, a quarter of a mile from the house. We have very pleasant people Lady Vavasour and her son and daughter. They have been abroad for six or seven years in different parts of the Continent. She and I are great friends. We get letters from her for the Court of Weimar, and she has been drilling me how to speak to her ' Imperial Highness ' the Grand Duchess, sister to the late Emperor of Kussia." From his JOURNAL : April, Monday. Upon Easter Sunday I partook of the sacrament in York minster, and although the formulas are of course different from ours, yet, 'as there is no virtue in them, or in them that administer them,' I found God was present with me to bestow much comfort. "During the next week all was gaiety. A party or ball every night. The next week we spent at Sion Hill and, between fishing, riding, seeing the railroad, and, above all, Fountain Abbey, I must say I was very happy. "I start to-morrow morning for London. But what hangs heavy on my mind is the deep sense of responsibility I am under : I have not only the superintendence of my pupil, but I am about to be placed in hard trial in a thou- sand circumstances which are eminently calculated to draw my mind off from God. But my only confidence is in 44 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. Him. Thou who hast brought me to this Thou who didst make me what I am when I had no strength of my own to Thy loving and merciful hands I commend my- self, wholly trusting that I may, through the aid of Thy Holy Spirit, be every day more sanctified in my affections, and ever constant in the performance of my duty. " CHAPTER IT. WEIMAR. WEIMAR, the capital of the little Duchy of Saxe- Weimar, was chosen by Norman Macleod and young Preston as headquarters during their residence on the Continent. It was at that time a desirable place for those who wished to see German life as well as to study German language and literature. Not that the external features of the town are possessed of interest, for the Palace, with its sur- rounding park, and the Round Tower, containing its excellent free library, do not redeem Weimar from an aspect of quiet dulness. Yet it was anything but dull in those days. The people prided themselves on the memory of their great citizens Goethe, then recently departed, Herder, Schiller, and Wieland and kept up the tradition of literary culture derived from that golden age of their history; while the Grand Duke, with his court, sustained its reputation for hospitality and for gaiety of the old-fashioned order. The town could also boast of a good theatre, an excellent opera, and music ad libitum in public gardens and cafes. The Grand Duke was of a most amiable disposition, and the Duchess, sister of the 46 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. Bussian Emperor, was a woman of brilliancy and culture, and of great kindness of heart. There was an early dinner at the Palace every Sunday, followed by an evening reception for all foreigners who had been introduced; and various balls and state cere- monies, scattered at short intervals throughout the year, averted the normal stagnation of the place, and made it a cheerful and pleasant residence. 'With a five-and-twenty years' experience since those happy days of which I write,' says Thackeray, who had lived in Weimar a year or two previous to the time we are speaking of, ' and an acquaintance with an unusual variety of human kind, I think I have never seen a society more simple, charitable, courteous, gentlemanlike, than that of the dear little Saxon city where the good Schiller and the great Goethe lived and lie buried.' * The change was certainly great from Dr. Chalmers and the Divinity Hall, from the simple habits of the Manse, and from the traditionary beliefs, bigotries, and customs some true, some false which hedged the religious life of Scotland, to this Weimar, with its rampant worldliness and rationalism. It was, never- theless, an excellent school for the young Scotchman, who at every turn found some insular prejudice trampled on, or the strength tried of some abiding principle. The most remarkable man at Weimar, and the great friend of all English travellers, was Dr. Weis- senborn. He was a cultivated scholar, and com- bined the strangest eccentricities of character and * Letter to G. H. Lewes in the " Story of the Life of Goethe." WEIMAR. 47 belief with, the gentlest and most unselfish of natures. He was a confirmed valetudinarian. ' My side ' had become a distinct personality to him, whose demands were discussed as if it were an exacting member of his household rather than a part of his body ; yet "Weimar would have lost half its charm but for old Weissenborn, with his weak side, his dog Waltina, his chameleon (fruitful source of many a theory on the * Kosmos '), his collection of eggs, and innumerable oddities of mind and body. All the English who went to Weimar loved l the Doctor : ' and no father or brother could have taken a greater interest than he did in promoting their happiness and in directing their studies. l Thou wert my instructor, good old Weissenborn,' writes Thackeray lovingly. i And these eyes beheld the great master himself in dear little "Weimar town.' * Norman entered on this new life with great zest. It doubtless had its dangers. But although he often swung freely with the current, yet his grasp of cen- tral truth, and his own hearty Christian convictions, so held him at anchor that, through the grace of God, he rode safely through many temptations, and was able to exercise an influence for good over the group of young men from England or Scotland who were residing that year at Weimar. The very fact that he entered with them into all their innocent enjoyments and gaieties gave him greater power to restrain them in other things. He may, indeed, have often given too great a rein to that 'liberty' which was so congenial to his natural temperament, but it is marvellous that the * " Roundabout Papers, De Finibus." 48 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. reaction was not greater in one who, brought up in a strict school, was suddenly thrown into the vortex of fashionable life. He was passionately fond of music, sang well to the guitar, sketched cleverly, was as keen a waltzer as any attache in Weimar, and threw himself with a vivid sense of enjoyment into the gaieties of the little capital. His father and mother frequently warned him against going too far in all this; and he often reproached himself for what he deemed hio want of self-restraint when in society. Nevertheless, the experience he gained in Weimar became of immense practical importance to him. His own healthy nature repelled the evil, while he gained an insight into the ways of the world. In what was new to him he saw much that was good ; much that in his own country was called unlawful, whose right use he felt ought to be vindicated ; and he also per- ceived the essential wickedness of much more in the 1 utter rottenness' (as he used to call it) f of what the world terms life.' Weimar also brought him another influence which told with indirect, rather than direct, power on his character. It was his fate, in common with many others, to come under the fascination of the great court beauty, the Baroness Melanie von S . Thackeray used often to describe her extraordinary charms 'the kind old Hof-Marschall Yon S (who had two of the loveliest daughters eyes ever looked upon).' * And she could have been no ordi- nary woman who had the genius thus to evoke, as by a spell, a poetic and ideal life in the young minds she * Letter to G. H. Lewes in the " Story of the Life of Goethe." MEIMAR. 49 attracted to her. "With Norman she became a kind of romance. She touched his imagination rather than his affections, and awakened a world of aesthetic feel- ings which long afterwards breathed, like a subtle essence, through the common atmosphere of his life. When working against vice and poverty in his parish in Ayrshire, during the heats of the Disruption con- troversy, amid prosaic cares as well as in the enjoy- ment of poetry and art and song, Melanie haunted him as the sweet embodiment of happy memories, the spirit of gracefulness and charm and culture; and thus, for many a day, the halo of the old associations, in which the real Melanie was etherealised, served to cast a delicate light of fancy over the rough details of practical daily work. When he and Preston returned to Moreby, Norman had become in many ways a new man. His views were widened, his opinions matured, his human sym- pathies vastly enriched, and while all that was of the essence of his early faith had become doubly precious, he had gained increased catholicity of sentiment, along with knowledge of the world. To A. CLERK : WEIJIAB, Nay 30, 1834. " . . . . Let us pass Frankfort ; half-way to this we visited Eisenach. The approach to the town is through the loveliest scenery of wooded and broken knolls. On the top of the highest stands "Wartzburg, where Luther was held in friendly captivity to brood over the fate of his country amidst the solitude of a German forest. Would to God there was a second Luther ! Germany is in a VOL. I. E So LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. most extraordinary state. The clergyman here (Elilir) i* the head of the rationalist school ; of religion there is none, and most of the clergy merely follow it as a power in the hands of the State. I am credibly informed by competent judges that ninety-nine out of a hundred are infidels. If you but heard a rationalist talk on religion ! I had a talk with one yesterday. He believed in Hume on miracles, and, moreover, said that he thought it of no conse- quence for our faith in Scripture whether miracles were true or not ; in short, he believed in the Scriptures, and yet said they were ' pious frauds.' Devils and all are to be saved at last (tell this for his comfort). If you wish to adore your own Church, country, and profession, come abroad. Here once lived and died Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland. The souls of the men still cast a halo on the town, brighter than most in Germany. There are many clever fellows here ; a splendid library, open free to all ; a glorious park, likewise open, in which the nightingale never ceases to sing. I am in a very nice family. The lady is a countess by right, and yet they have boarders. Such is German society ! They often dine at the Grand Duke's. The music glorious. Every third night an opera, with best boxes for two shillings. The Grand Duke supports it, and so it is good. The great amusement of the people on Sunday is going to gardens to take coffee, wine, &c., or to play at nine-pins ; a band of music, of course ; smoking everywhere. The postilion who drives the Eilwagen smokes a pipe the whole way. A man would commit suicide were you to deprive him of his pipe. " The country is a mighty field without a hedge. A steeple here and there surrounded by houses ; no farm- steadings, no gentlemen's houses ; corn, rye, and grass ; ugly bullocks, ugly cows drawing ugly ploughs, followed by ugly women or men ; low, undulating pine hills. " It is odd the inclination I have here to speak Gaelic. Often have I come out with words. A German asked me something, when I answered plump outright, ' Diabhaull fhios agam!' As another instance of German reason, I may mention that my friend, Dr. Weissenborn, told me gravely to-day that he believed mattei in motion to be the WEIMAR. 51 same as spirit ; and that as animals arose from our bodies, so we may be mere productions of the planets." To his MOTHER : WEIMAR, June 4, 1834. " Yesterday happened to be my birthday twenty-two is not to be laughed at ; it is a good, whacking age ' a stoot lad at that age, faith ! and proud may you be for having such a lad this day.' This evening last year I was at home from Edinburgh. The winter months are past; their effects are felt have a substantial existence, and must be felt for ever. A knowledge of the world either spoils a man, or makes him more perfect. I feel it has done me good in a thousand ways. I have been made to look upon man as man. I see mankind like so many dif- ferent birds in the same atmosphere, alike governed and elevated by the same feathers. This a clergyman should know ; to feel it is invaluable. "... How are they all at Mull and Morven ? Many a time I shut my eyes, and, while whistling a Highland tune, carry myself back to fishing at the rock or walking about the old castle at Aros ; at other times I am in the glen or on the hill. Although it is really nonsense (as I believe there are few periods in our lives really happier than others), I often think those days must have been paradise I was so perfectly unshackled : while, at the same time, I remember well my many wishes to go abroad. Every person has his ideal. That was mine ; a plain Manse is my only one now." From his MOTHER : CAMPSIE, June 30. " You ought not even to witness the profanation of the Sabbath wherever you are. In the first place, you are bound to set an example to your pupil ; in the next place, it is the Christian Sabbath, wherever you are, and to be kept sacred in thought and deed before the Lord." - 2 52 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. From his JOUKNAL : " Scotland is, in sooth, in a strange state. But in all this 'noise and uproar,' there are signs of activity and life that men at least wish good, and this is some- thing. I must say I have much confidence in the sound sense and morality of the people of Scotland. It is absurd to measure them by the turbulent effervescence of ranting radical town fools, who make theories and speak them, but do no more. There is a douceness (to use a phrase of our own) about the mass and staple bulk of farmers and gentlemen that will not permit violent and bad changes. " But how different is the case in Germany ! There is an apathy, a seeming total indifference, as to what religion is established by law. The men of the upper classes are speculators, and take from Christianity as it suits their separate tastes. They seem to have no idea of obligation. True, the lower classes are not so drunken as ours, just because they have nothing to drink, and their tastes lie in other directions. Not one of them, I believe, is regulated by its moral tendency. In other vices they are worse much worse. May Germany have another Luther ! "13$- July, Tuesday night. I have to-day received a letter from my mother announcing that my old and dear friend Duncan Campbell is dead ! I reverence his memory. He was a friend worthy of the warmest attachment and deepest regard. We were at school together. For many years, I may say, I lost sight of him, until in 1829, in the moral philosophy class in Glasgow, Ave met as students. From that hour an intimate and close friendship commenced, shared with a third, James Stuart. We were called ' the three inseparables,' or ' the trio.' That winter we were literally every day six or seven hours out of the twenty-four in one another's company. A more simple, amiable, and deeply delicate heart there never lived : generous, unselfish, and noble ; one of the few who retain in college life the purity which nature stamps. He is gone before me. His memory is associated with happy days. I am far from WEIMAR. 53 his re.sting-place, but I need never seek it, as I may exclaim in the beautiful words of the translated Persian poet " Dicebant mihi sodales si Sepulchrmn amici visitarem, Curas meas aliquantulutn fore levatas Dixi autem. an ideo aliud prseter hoc pectus habet Sepul- clirum." * "July 17th. To-day I walked with the doctor to the Gottes-acker (the churchyard). I hate the style of foreign burying-grounds. The deeper feelings of our heart, and especially grief, are far removed from the rank, overgrown bushes or from the flowers that are associated with neat beds in a lady's garden. No ; simplicity is unalterably con- nected with deep passion. " Upon Saturday, Halley, the two Millers, Preston, and I, had good fun on the Ettersberge playing ' I spy ! ' and drinking Wurtzburg. Well, we enjoyed ourselves much, and not the less as it reminded us all of school- boy days. " 27th July. And now this day on which I write is a Sabbath later. I have read my Bible, my only good book. I have then read over my letters again, as I receive plea- sure from refreshing my mind with expressions of love and affection. " Tell me, is it weakness or childishness to have home and friends ever present to your eye ? Honestly, I think I am neither the one nor the other, and yet at times I feel as if a single change by death would make the world quite different to me. I am sometimes frightened to think upon what a small point in this respect hang my pleasure and my pain. In truth, the Continent is a horrid place for the total want of means no good books, no sermons, no church ; I mean for me. " I would renew my confidence and trust in Him who has said, ' Ask and ye shall receive ; I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.' The past is still the same." * This College friend was the original from which he drew the character of ' Curly ' in " The Old Lieutenant." 54 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. SONNET ON HEARING OF COLERIDGE S DEATH (IN WEIMAR). Oft have I watch'd, in meditative mood, A sunbeam travel over hill and dale : Now searching the deep valley, now it fell, With gorgeous colouring, on some ancient wood, Or gleam' d on mountain tarn ; its silver flood Bathed every cottage in the lowly vale ; The brook, once dark amidst the willows grey, Danced in its beams, and beauties, dimly seen, Were lighted into being by that ray : The glory ceas'd as if it ne'er had been, But in the heart it cannot pass away There it is immortal ! Coleridge, friend of truth, Thus do I think of thee, with feelings keen And passions strong, thou sunbeam of my youth ! To A. CLERK : WEIMAR, October 12, 1834. " I have just returned to Weimar after a fine tour. Look at the map, and draw your pencil from Weimar through Cobourg, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Munich, Innsbruck, Saltzburg, Linz, down the Danube to Vienna ; back to Briinn, Prague, Dresden, Leipsic, Weimar ; and you have our course. And you may well suppose I saw much to interest and amuse me. The three Galleries of Munich, Dresden, and Vienna are glorious ; I feasted upon them. I was there every hour, so that many of the greatest works of art are engraved in my memory. The Tyrol is mag- nificent beyond words : the eye is charmed, and the heart filled still more, with an overflowing sense of the beautiful. In religion the people there are as yet in the Middle Ages. Fancy a sacred drama acted in one of the love- liest scenes of nature before about six thousand people, and representing the Crucifixion !* * This must refer to the Ammergau. Play. WEIMAR. 55 " Vienna is a strange place Greek, Jew, and Gen- tile ; I know not which is worst ; I do not like the place ; fine music, good eating, fine sights, and a nasty people. I hate Austria tyranny and despotism ! Slaves and serfs from Hungary and Moravia walk under the nose of the ' Father ' of his people ! They, poor souls, eat and drink while Metternich picks their brains and pockets. There is no danger of revolution there ! They are ignor- ant and stupid. You may be sure I visited the fields of Wagram and Aspern. When in Briinn where I staid a week I saw 40,000 men encamped. A splendid sham fight took place, lasting two days, with everything like a real battle except the wounds taking of villages, ^ c . and this upon the mighty field of Austerlitz. Was that not worth seeing ? And how fine, how strange, in the still, cool evening, to ride along that great camp stretching over a flat plain for three or four miles, the watch-fires scattered over it, and each regiment with its band playing such music as I never heard ! " At Prague I saw a Jewish synagogue. It almost made me weep. Such levity and absurdity I never saw. The spirit had fled ! " To his MOTHER : WEDIAB,, October 28, 1834. -::- -* -5:- -n- I have made my debut as a courtier ! ! The court days are Thursday and Sunday. Every Sunday fortnight you are invited to dinner in full court dress. Hem ! I am nervous on approaching the subject. Imprimis a cocked- ihat ! under it appeareth a full, rosy, respectable-looking face, in which great sense, fine taste, the thorough gentle- man, and a certain spice of a something which an acute observer would call royal, are all exquisitely blended ! A cravat of white supporteth the said head. Next comes a coat which, having the cut, has even more of the modesty, of the Quaker about it. The sword (! !) which dangles beside it, however, assures you it is not a Jonathan. Now, the whole frame down to the knees is goodly round and 56 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. plump. I say to the knees, for there two small buckles mark the ending of the breeches and the commencement of two handsome legs clothed in silk stockings. Buckled shoes support the whole figure, which, with the exception of. white kid-gloves, is ' black as night.' The hour of dinner is three ; you sally forth to the Palace, gathering, in going, like a snowball, every Englishman in town. You move among servants to the first of a finely-lighted suite of rooms. Ladies and gentlemen are scattered about chatting (most of the gentlemen in military uniforms). You mingle with the groups, bowing here and chatting there, and every now and then viewing yourself in one of the fine mirrors which adorn the walls (' stool lad, faith ! ' *) The rooms become more crowded ; a bustle is heard ; the Grand Duke and his Duchess enter, sliding along between two rows of people, who return their bows and becks. The Duke chats round the circle. If you are to be introduced, a lord or master-in-waiting watches an oppor- tunity and leads you up, announcing your name, and, after making your most profound salaam, a few questions are put as How do you like Weimar ? How long do you intend staying ? and the Duke bows and passes on. I speak nothing but German at court. Is that not bold? but I get on uncommonly well. You are generally addressed every time you go. The dinner is very good ; sixty people or so sit down. You leave after dinner, and return again in the evening. There is nothing done but conversation, though some play cards. You may retire when you like. I do so as soon as I can, as this is not the way I like to spend Sunday evening. Every night we have some prince or other ; the brother of the King of Prussia was there last time. How much more have I felt at a small party at Craigbarnet! But thanks to these and the worthy woman t who gave them, that society comes now so easy to me. * This expression was one which occurred in one of his Highland stories, and was a favourite quotation, being always given with the full native accent. f Mrs. Stirling, Craigbarnet, Campsie. WEIMAR. 57 " If you but heard that best of men, the honest Doctor, and me planning how to keep all the young fellows in order ! and when ten or so meet it is no easy task. It has, however, been done. Winter has almost begun, we had snow yesterday. I have a good stove and abundance of wood, so with a good easy-chair called in German Grossvaterstuhl, I am in great comfort. But now this throws me back to ' our ain fireside,' and then I long to be among you all to get my heart out, for except on paper it has very little exercise. I am studying hard Greek and Latin every day. I read (this is for my father, as you are not a German blue) Horace and Cicero de Officiis day about with Preston, the Greek Testament every morning. Ask my father to write to me. He lias a ' vast of news ' to tell me, about Church, Irish, and Gaelic matters, all of which give me much interest. " By-the-bye, mother, give me your advice. Now, don't be sleepy, I am nearly done. What would your well- known economical head suggest as to my court dress ? First of all ascertain whether there may not be in some of the old family chests a relic of the only sprig of no- bility in your blood Maxwell of Newark's sire. I think old Aunty Bax, if she were bribed or searched, could turn out an old cocked hat or sword. If this scent fail, we must try the Scandinavian side. But my idea is, all such relics perished during the Crusades ! Donald Gregory would give some information. If no such thing exists, then my determination is fixed, that a room in the Manse be kept called the court-room, in which my clothes be pre- served for my descendants : I mean and have no doubt by your looks you have hit on the same idea that this does not take place until I have worn them first as moderator. " I think of taking drawing and singing lessons time about. I think I have a taste for both, and my idea is that it is a man's duty as well as pleasure to enlarge every innocent field of enjoyment which God has put in his way. 58 LIFE OF NORMAN MACLEOD. " Oh dear, I almost thought myself at home ; but the stove is nearly out, and it is still Deutschland. " I am, your rising To his MOTHER.: WEIMAR, November 19, 1834. " Here I sit on a wet, nasty evening Sunday. All are at court but myself. A Sunday evening here is detestable. If I can spend it by myself, good and well ; if not ! No church, no sermon, no quiet, no books but German." To an old FELLOW STUDENT : WEIMAB, December 2, 1834. "I have just received your long-wished-for epistle. Within the last half-hour I have speculated more upon your condition (on what the Germans call your Inneres, or inward being) than I have ever done before. In Heaven's name, why that doleful ending of a merry letter ? Can it be a joke ? ' One that was ' '