|
JOHN BLACKIE and a young
German called Thilemas started on September 2, knapsacks on back, dressed in
white Italian summer suits, which could be washed when occasion offered, and
without a care in the world other than heavy hearts at leaving Rome. Some of
this heaviness can be traced to a romantic sentiment which had grown upon
our hero for a certain clever and amiable Clotilda, to whom he had given
lessons in English during the spring and summer, and whom he celebrated in
abounding verse as the pattern of female dignity and charm. He had presented
his verses on the subject to his family, however, and not to the lady
herself, so that but for the sorrow that he must leave his gentle friend
with little hope of seeing her again, he was free from fetters.
The two pedestrians made
their way by Perugia and Chiusi to Florence, taking nine days to walk the
two hundred and fifty miles, at the rate of from twenty-five to thirty miles
a-day. They stopped at the wayside inns for food and rest, and made the
towns their stages for the night. The peasants whom they met could not
understand the portent of two persons who scoured the country on foot, and
sometimes they were refused admittance on the ground that only brigands and
escaped malefactors pursued such courses. But they had much enjoyment of the
tramp, and turned aside to view the antiquities which bordered their route.
On September 11 they reached Florence, and made a halt of ten days to visit
its galleries and buildings. The Tuscan country pleased them much, and they
picked up what information they could about its well-cultivated valleys.
John Blackie wrote to his
father from Florence in a tone of the most pronounced Radicalism, handling
both the land question and the Irish question with vigour. He described the
condition of the peasant farmers of Tuscany, who, paying a rent of three
pauls an acre, were stimulated to industry by the certainty of becoming
rich; and he contrasted their advantages with the. state of heavily rented
farmers in Scotland, who have not merely to find the rent in the soil, but
to do so in a climate so uncertain and often so destructive of their outlay.
From Florence they walked by
Bologna to Venice, with which John Blackie renewed his acquaintance. Their
whole march from Rome had not cost them more than two shillings a- day,
which he records with some pride; but in Venice they met a Bosnian in charge
of a return coach to Munich, who, being willing to pocket some trifle by
securing passengers for the journey, offered to take them the whole way,
with bed and board at the stages, for twelve forms each. As the journey
lasted six days, they gladly accepted his terms, and travelled through the
Tyrol and by Innsprlick to their destination in comfort.
The two friends parted
company at Munich, as Mr Thilemas lived there; but after a few days spent in
visiting the pictures and antiquities, John Blackie made the acquaintance of
a German student bound for the University of Bonn, and willing to make the
way with him on foot through Augsburg, Wurtzburg, and Frankfort.
Mr Bunsen had advised him to
remain the coming winter at Bonn, if he could get permission from his father
to study there, and had furnished him with an introduction to Professor
Brandes. But on his arrival he found a letter from Mr Blackie sharply
reprimanding him for his dilatory return, and desiring to know on what
earliest possible day he would be in London. This letter acted as a reminder
that his years of liberty were coming to a close, and that his father would
have a right to expect from him a return of evident profit for all the
outlay and indulgence which had made them possible. The thought dejected him
greatly, and for a time he lost sight of all that he had gained, and dwelt
somewhat hopelessly upon the fear that, in spite of every advantage, he had
acquired nothing of practical value. This self-distrust makes itself evident
in his reply to the letter. He promised to leave Bonn in ten days, explained
that what he had lost in time he had gained in pocket by making his journeys
on foot, relinquished all new demands on his father's indulgence, attempted
to summarise his gains from the two years and a half of absence, but
admitted that his very gains might have led him to conclusions which would
not only frustrate his father's hopes for him, but would possibly paralyse
his own power to deal in any practical way with the circumstances which form
the very conditions of independence. Answering a stern comment on his
scepticism, he concluded :-
My scepticism is not
final. I have cleared the ground, perhaps, from flowers as well as
weeds; it is no matter,— the flowers will grow so much the better
afterwards.
His stay at Bonn was thus
restricted to a mere visit; but he had the advantage of making the
acquaintance of Professor Brandes, an acquaintance which ripened in
after-years to friendship.
Mr Blackie took what was then
the long journey from Aberdeen to London to meet his son, who arrived in
London about the beginning of November, still clad in his white summer
clothes. To have him properly clad would be the excellent banker's first
care, as it was essential to the due carrying out of the paternal purpose in
London. Eager as he was to see his son once more, he would hardly have
undertaken the troublesome journey merely to forestall their meeting by a
week. He came to introduce him to such of the London notabilities as he
knew, and to secure their interest in his further success. These in- eluded
Joseph Hume; Lord Brougham, who was a cousin of Dr Forsyth, the minister of
Beihelvie; John Gibson Lockhart, connected by marriage with the Blackie
family; Willian Jerdan, a Kelso man and lifelong friend of Mr Blackie's, and
at this time editor of the 'Literary Gazette'; and last, but greatest,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
With Lord Brougham they
breakfasted, dined with Lockhart and Jerdan, and spent an hour with
Coleridge. The great poet and thinker was then old and infirm, his body was
bent and his face sad. He told the young enthusiast for German philosophy
that he had thrown all such speculation overboard, and found perfect
satisfaction for every inquiry in the first chapter of the Gospel of St
John.
A week of metropolitan bustle
was enough for Mr Blackie, and they turned their faces homeward at its end.
It was a memorable homecoming after two years and a half of absence. Mrs
Blackie, Aunt Manie, and his sisters were much excited. As the travellers
drove up, Helen, twelve years old and timid, for whom the brother had grown
to be of mythical proportions, hid herself behind the window-curtains. Even
the stolid James was moved by expectancy. His welcome home was all that he
could desire; his words and looks and gestures were devoured by admiring
eyes; the long hair—badge of his Germanism—was noted without censure; and
his bubbling effervescence of fun and laughter evoked happy smiles at the
full fireside.
He stayed at home for six
months, during which time his father and he had many conversations about his
future. With the admirable good sense which distinguished him, Mr Blackie
accepted without demur his son's attitude towards the Church, and
magnanimity as well as good sense dictated his acceptance; for all the
advantages at home and abroad which he had gladly afforded him from the
first indication of his theological impulse, were intended to fit him for a
distinguished career in the Scottish Church.
And now his son returned on
his hands, endowed with new and varied acquirements, it is true, but also
with new and varied aims, and the studies which he had pursued to deepen his
theological insight and to strengthen his grasp of theological doctrine had
only served to bewilder the one and to paralyse the other. The finer polish,
too, which was meant to adorn the doctrine of Scottish Calvinism had
diverted his unsettled mind into secular directions; and here was this
youngster of twenty-two aspiring to lofty academical posts because he must
needs be enamoured of the learned and industrious lives and influence of
veteran Gottingen professors.
But Mr Blackie made a shrewd
reckoning of his son's gains and gifts. True, he was a youngster, and what
he had learned in Scotland he had promptly unlearned in Germany: but here he
was, as expert in the use of German and Italian as were the native scholars
of either land; a fluent Latinist; a student of Greek, successful in the
verbal understanding of the language, and eager for further mastery of its
difficulties—with fresh theories, too, to propound upon its accentuation and
vocalisation; an archeologist, or at least with the accredited makings of an
archeologist about him; well read in the literature of the languages which
he had acquired, and with his appreciation of German literature so roused by
its masterpieces that one of his liveliest aims was to make them known in
Scotland by translation and commentary. Perhaps an overdose of Germanism
disturbed the equipoise of these attainments; but Mr Blackie, critical and
exacting as he was, could not but admit that his son had made full and
varied use of his opportunities, and that when, with maturing, his gifts
became practicable, he might occupy for their exercise a larger sphere than
the cramped confines of a Moderate pulpit. To find him, too, a pronounced
Radical, as the term went in those days, eager for reform in Church and
State, in School and University, panting to set all things to rights, from
an accent in Greek to a point in the dire dogma of perdition, was as
sunshine to the father, in whose Liberal politics John had taken little or
no interest before he went abroad. He had returned a politician, hot for
reform bills and the emancipation of nations. That, too, was a gain. So was
his industry, which never flagged. His honesty was bred iii the bone, and
akin to his father's.
But all these excellences
would neither create nor empty a chair of Humanity or Greek because he had
set his heart upon it. Years and his youth must pass before the Areopagus
which presides over academical honours could regard him as chastened to the
type which it admired, and it was impossible for him to stay at home and
attend the ' psychological moment." Some profession must be adopted which
would keep a fine edge on his wits, would permit him to maintain and
increase his acquirements, and would in time open the way to independence by
its own merits, should the door of scholastic preferment remain barred. Mr
Blackie considered the matter carefully, and ended by proposing to his son
that for three years, dating from the spring of 1832, he should study law in
Edinburgh with a view to the Scottish Bar, and should receive during that
time an allowance of £100 a-year. As there were many children to be provided
for, and as Mr Blackie's income lay within the limits of comfort rather than
of luxury, the arrangement was most generous, and John, though little
inclined towards the law, was too grateful for his release from the Church
to object to it. It was but reasonable that his father should solve a
problem which he himself had darkened with a multitude of heterogeneous
purposes.
So, this matter settled, he
fell to serious study, not of Erskine and Bell, but of German and Greek. In
the former he tackled Goethe's 'Faust,' in the latter he made himself
conversant with the plays of Euripides. We know already that one of the
purposes stimulated by his immersion in German influences was to make the
German masterpieces better known in Scotland. At that time little influence
had penetrated from the literary revival in Germany to either Edinburgh or
Aberdeen. The former had its own nucleus of culture, our great romanticist
Walter Scott at the core, and minds were vivid enough and amply furnished
with exercise. The stir and movement at home neutralised the inrush from
without, and the names of Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, and Lessing were little
more than names to Scottish ears. Thomas Carlyle had begun to drive them
home into the minds of his countrymen, but to John Stuart Blackie belongs
some share of the credit which Carlyle received in fee for putting into home
circulation the coinage of that lettered dynasty of Germany. But while he
stayed at home, this work was at its elementary stage.
His choice of Euripides for
reading in Greek was founded on the simplicity and luminousness of that
dramatist's style in comparison with that of his greater predecessor's, whom
John Blackie preferred when he grew familiar with both. But at this time he
liked to master the story as he read, without the incessant stumbling over
obscure passages which wearies the attention, and so he climbed less
painfully the ascent which led to further toil. This gradual method he
advocated in after-life, both on the ground of personal experience, and
because mature Grecians amongst the Germans lent their authority to its
support. Many years later he wrote :-
In the learning of
languages fluency ought to he acquired first, then accuracy; the whole
must be comprehended and felt with a living power before the details are
minutely criticised. We read and love Shakespeare before we concern
ourselves with his various readings; and I cannot see why it should be
otherwise with books written in Greek or Latin.
As it is the method of nature
that the child shall pick up a store of words, and shall excellently arrange
them by ear and intuition, before he can construe and analyse his own
arrangement, the gradual method of acquiring any language, ancient or
modern, is obviously the right one; but pedagogues were then too remote from
nature to refresh themselves with her pure wisdom.
Two friends belong
particularly to this time, and both were of special assistance to him in his
study of Greek, while one of them rendered him a service of far more vital
value. Both gentlemen lived at Banchory : one was Dr Adams of Banchory
House, and the other was the Rev. William Anderson, then Established Church
minister of the place. The first was a man so devoted to Greek that he held
all modern literature in mean esteem, and accused even Shakespeare of
plagiarising from classics which the great dramatist could not have read. He
could repeat long odes of Pindar without a pause, and put a solemnity into
these recitations which savoured of the pulpit. Indeed Greek was his
religion, for in so far as he had imbibed modern culture at all, it was
culture of the school of Voltaire. There is no doubt that he was the finest
Greek scholar in Scotland, although his life of retirement, and his
hostility to creeds and churches, withheld from public recognition and
usefulness both his attainments and his influence. John Blackie's ardour
pleased him, and he had long felt the same contempt for the Greek of
Scottish Universities which the younger man had brought red-hot from the
Continent, so that the two fell into a sympathetic intimacy, which served to
cherish the vigorous saplings of scholastic ambition and educational reform
planted by Gottingen and watered at Rome.
It is clear, however, that
the Voltairianism which Dr Adams professed was beneficial in rousing to a
militant attitude that dormant faith in the spiritual life which had
latterly lain low in John Blackie's mind. It had been smothered by the
conclusions of critical research, those premature conclusions of an
incomplete research; but these had only succeeded in extinguishing dogmas of
men, which ranked then, as they rank still, in divers creeds devised by
divers Churches, on the same level as the Word which was from the beginning.
In confirming his hold of the
latter, the minister of Banchory proved of timely value. Mr Anderson, who
belonged rather to the Evangelical than to the Moderate party of the Church
of Scotland, was both a scholar and a man of wide culture at a time when
general culture was rare in Scotland. He took an interest in philology, and
welcomed at first approach the light which Sansent threw upon that study,
and his talk was full of matters hitherto outside John Blackie's ken. Eager
to learn, the latter was attracted into an intimacy with the minister, whose
" fine harmony of intellectual and moral gifts" gave him a wholesome
ascendancy, and he proved able to convince his young friend of many a crude
conclusion, as well as to recognise his power and promise. It was this quiet
candour, at once sympathetic and critical, which gave him influence over the
fervid mind accustomed to snubs from the Moderates and Evangelicals. Upon
these parties plunged in the blinding fray John Blackie was apt to retort
with derisive laughter, for their polemics testified to neither wisdom nor
charity. But Mr Anderson took no part in the controversy, and kept his even
way, doing his proper work at Banchory, an Evangelical in heart and life,
and when the great split of 1843 filled the air with its rancours, leaving
the Church for a chair in the College at Agram.
Only one incident, initiating
a new departure for John Blackie, occurred during his six months' stay at
home. This was the visit of Lord Brougham to Belhelvie and Aberdeen in the
spring of 1832. The Blackies met him on several occasions, and at a banquet
given by the Aberdonians in his honour, John Blackie was put forward to make
one of the after-dinner speeches. The subject allotted to him was the part
which Lord Brougham was taking in spreading intelligence among the people.
It was his first public speech, but no further record of its matter remains.
Of its manner he wrote in the " Notes " :-
I recollect only that it
was fervid and hasty and violent. The words came rushing through my
throat like a number of disorderly persons pushing through the narrow
entrance to the pit on a benefit night at the theatre. I was fluent,
however, and did not stick. One sentence begat another in a rough, hasty
sort of way. No doubt the violent hurry which I displayed was partly
from fervour of temperament, but partly also from the embarrassment
which I felt at opening my mouth before a large audience of persons much
my superior in years and experience.
|
