The Crown of Wild Olive
curliewurlies and opensteek hems about it--a' solid,
weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as lang as the
warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it. It had amaist a
douncome lang syne at the Reformation, when they pu'd doun
the kirks of St. Andrews and Perth, and thereawa', to
cleanse them o' Papery, and idolatry, and image-worship, and
surplices, and sic-like rags o' the muckle hure that sitteth
on seven hills, as if ane wasna braid eneugh for her auld
hinder end. Sae the commons o' Renfrew, and o' the Barony,
and the Gorbals, and a' about, they behoved to come into
Glasgow ae fair morning, to try their hand on purging the
High Kirk o' Popish nicknackets. But the townsmen o'
Glasgow, they were feared their auld edifice might slip the
girths in gaun through siccan rough physic, sae they rang
the common bell, and assembled the train-bands wi' took o'
drum. By good luck, the worthy James Rabat was Dean o' Guild
that year--(and a gude mason he was himsell, made him the
keener to keep up the auld bigging), and the trades
assembled, and offered downright battle to the commons,
rather than their kirk should coup the crans, as others had
done elsewhere. It wasna for luve o' Paperie--na, na!--nane
could ever say that o' the trades o' Glasgow--Sae they sune
came to an agreement to take a' the idolatrous statues of
sants (sorrow be on them!) out o' their neuks--And sae the
bits o' stane idols were broken in pieces by Scripture
warrant, and flung into the Molendinar burn, and the auld
kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the flaes are kaimed aff
her, and a'body was alike pleased. And I hae heard wise folk
say, that if the same had been done in ilka kirk in
Scotland, the Reform wad just hae been as pure as it is e'en
now, and we wad hae mair Christian-like kirks; for I hae
been sae lang in England, that naething will drived out o'
my head, that the dog-kennel at Osbaldistone-Hall is better
than mony a house o' God in Scotland.
Now this sentence is in the first place a piece of Scottish history of
quite inestimable and concentrated value. Andrew's temperament
is the type of a vast class of Scottish--shall we call it
'_sow_-thistlian'--mind, which necessarily takes the view of either Pope
or saint that the thistle in Lebanon took of the cedar or lilies in
Lebanon; and the entire force of the passions which, in the Scottish
revolution, foretold and forearmed the French one, is told in this one
paragraph; the coarseness of it, observe, being admitted, not for the
sake of the laugh, any more than an onion in broth merely for its
flavour, but for the meat of it; the inherent constancy of that
coarseness being a fact in this order of mind, and an essential part of
the history to be told.
Secondly, observe that this speech, in the religious passion of it, such
as there may be, is entirely sincere. Andrew is a thief, a liar, a
coward, and, in the Fair service from which he takes his name, a
hypocrite; but in the form of prejudice, which is all that his mind is
capable of in the place of religion, he is entirely sincere. He does not
in the least pretend detestation of image worship to please his master,
or any one else; he honestly scorns the 'carnal morality[171] as dowd
and fusionless as rue-leaves at Yule' of the sermon in the upper
cathedral; and when wrapt in critical attention to the 'real savour o'
doctrine' in the crypt, so completely forgets the hypocrisy of his fair
service as to return his master's attempt to disturb him with hard
punches of the elbow.
Thirdly. He is a man of no mean sagacity, quite up to the average
standard of Scottish common sense, not a low one; and, though incapable
of understanding any manner of lofty thought or passion, is a shrewd
measurer of weaknesses, and not without a spark or two of kindly
feeling. See first his sketch of his master's character to Mr.
Hammorgaw, beginning: 'He's no a'thegither sae void o' sense, neither;'
and then the close of the dialogue: 'But the lad's no a bad lad after
a', and he needs some carefu' body to look after him.'
Fourthly. He is a good workman; knows his own business well, and can
judge of other craft, if sound, or otherwise.
All these four qualities of him must be known before we can understand
this single speech. Keeping them in mind, I take it up, word by word.
You observe, in the outset, Scott makes no attempt whatever to indicate
accents or modes of pronunciation by changed spelling, unless the word
becomes a quite definitely new and scarcely writeable one. The Scottish
way of pronouncing 'James,' for instance, is entirely peculiar, and
extremely pleasant to the ear. But it is so, just because it does _not_
change the word into Jeems, nor into Jims, nor into Jawms. A modern
writer of dialects would think it amusing to use one or other of these
ugly spellings. But Scott writes the name in pure English, knowing that
a Scots reader will speak it rightly, and an English one be wise in
letting it alone. On the other hand he writes 'weel' for 'well,' because
that word is complete in its change, and may be very closely expressed
by the double _e_. The ambiguous '_u_'s in 'gude' and 'sune' are
admitted, because far liker the sound than the double _o_ would be, and
that in 'hure,' for grace' sake, to soften the word;--so also 'flaes'
for 'fleas.' 'Mony' for 'many' is again positively right in sound, and
'neuk' differs from our 'nook' in sense, and is not the same word at
all, as we shall presently see.
Secondly, observe, not a word is corrupted in any indecent haste,
slowness, slovenliness, or incapacity of pronunciation. There is no
lisping, drawling, slobbering, or snuffling: the speech is as clear as
a bell and as keen as an arrow: and its elisions and contractions are
either melodious, ('na,' for 'not,'--'pu'd,' for 'pulled,') or as normal
as in a Latin verse. The long words are delivered without the slightest
bungling; and 'bigging' finished to its last _g_.
I take the important words now in their places.
_Brave._ The old English sense of the word in 'to go brave' retained,
expressing Andrew's sincere and respectful admiration. Had he meant to
insinuate a hint of the church's being too fine, he would have said
'braw.'
_Kirk._ This is of course just as pure and unprovincial a word as
'Kirche,' or 'eglise.'
_Whigmaleerie._ I cannot get at the root of this word, but it is one
showing that the speaker is not bound by classic rules, but will use any
syllables that enrich his meaning. 'Nipperty-tipperty' (of his master's
'poetry-nonsense') is another word of the same class. 'Curlieurlie' is
of course just as pure as Shakespeare's 'Hurly-burly.' But see first
suggestion of the idea to Scott at Blair-Adam (L. vi. 264).
_Opensteek hems._ More description, or better, of the later Gothic
cannot be put into four syllables. 'Steek,' melodious for stitch, has a
combined sense of closing or fastening. And note that the later Gothic,
being precisely what Scott knew best (in Melrose) and liked best, it is,
here as elsewhere, quite as much himself[172] as Frank, that he is
laughing at, when he laughs _with_ Andrew, whose 'opensteek hems' are
only a ruder metaphor for his own 'willow-wreaths changed to stone.'
_Gunpowther._ '-Ther' is a lingering vestige of the French '-dre.'
_Syne._ One of the melodious and mysterious Scottish words which have
partly the sound of wind and stream in them, and partly the range of
softened idea which is like a distance of blue hills over border land
('far in the distant Cheviot's blue'). Perhaps even the least
sympathetic 'Englisher' might recognise this, if he heard 'Old Long
Since' vocally substituted for the Scottish words to the air. I do not
know the root; but the word's proper meaning is not 'since,' but before
or after an interval of some duration, 'as weel sune as syne.' 'But
first on Sawnie gies a ca', Syne, bauldly in she enters.'
_Behoved_ (_to come_). A rich word, with peculiar idiom, always used
more or less ironically of anything done under a partly mistaken and
partly pretended notion of duty.
_Siccan._ Far prettier, and fuller in meaning than 'such.' It contains
an added sense of wonder; and means properly 'so great' or 'so unusual.'
_Took_ (_o' drum_). Classical 'tuck' from Italian 'toccata,' the
preluding 'touch' or flourish, on any instrument (but see Johnson under
word 'tucket,' quoting _Othello_). The deeper Scottish vowels are used
here to mark the deeper sound of the bass drum, as in more solemn
warning.
_Bigging._ The only word in all the sentence of which the Scottish form
is less melodious than the English, 'and what for no,' seeing that
Scottish architecture is mostly little beyond Bessie Bell's and Mary
Gray's? 'They biggit a bow're by yon burnside, and theekit it ow're wi
rashes.' But it is pure Anglo-Saxon in roots; see glossary to
Fairbairn's edition of the Douglas _Virgil_, 1710.
_Coup._ Another of the much-embracing words; short for 'upset,' but with
a sense of awkwardness as the inherent cause of fall; compare Richie
Moniplies (also for sense of 'behoved'): 'Ae auld hirplin deevil of a
potter behoved just to step in my way, and offer me a pig (earthern
pot--etym. dub.), as he said "just to put my Scotch ointment in;" and I
gave him a push, as but natural, and the tottering deevil coupit owre
amang his own pigs, and damaged a score of them.' So also Dandie Dinmont
in the postchaise: ''Od! I hope they'll no coup us.'
_The Crans._ Idiomatic; root unknown to me, but it means in this use,
full, total, and without recovery.
_Molendinar._ From 'molendinum,' the grinding-place. I do not know if
actually the local name,[173] or Scott's invention. Compare Sir
Piercie's 'Molinaras.' But at all events used here with bye-sense of
degradation of the formerly idle saints to grind at the mill.
_Crouse._ Courageous, softened with a sense of comfort.
_Ilka._ Again a word with azure distance, including the whole sense of
'each' and 'every.' The reader must carefully and reverently distinguish
these comprehensive words, which gather two or more perfectly understood
meanings into one _chord_ of meaning, and are harmonies more than words,
from the above-noted blunders between two half-hit meanings, struck as a
bad piano-player strikes the edge of another note. In English we have
fewer of these combined thoughts; so that Shakespeare rather plays with
the distinct lights of his words, than melts them into one. So again
Bishop Douglas spells, and doubtless spoke, the word 'rose,'
differently, according to his purpose; if as the chief or governing
ruler of flowers, 'rois,' but if only in her own beauty, rose.
_Christian-like._ The sense of the decency and order proper to
Christianity is stronger in Scotland than in any other country, and the
word 'Christian' more distinctly opposed to 'beast.' Hence the
back-handed cut at the English for their over-pious care of dogs.
I am a little surprised myself at the length to which this examination
of one small piece of Sir Walter's first-rate work has carried us, but
here I must end for this time, trusting, if the Editor of the
_Nineteenth Century_ permit me, yet to trespass, perhaps more than once,
on his readers' patience; but, at all events, to examine in a following
paper the technical characteristics of Scott's own style, both in prose
and verse, together with Byron's, as opposed to our fashionably recent
dialects and rhythms; the essential virtues of language, in both the
masters of the old school, hinging ultimately, little as it might be
thought, on certain unalterable views of theirs concerning the code