Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Edward Bannerman Ramsay

E >> Edward Bannerman Ramsay >> Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34

COLONEL TERROT to DEAN RAMSAY.--Without date, but of the
year 1872.

Very Rev. and dear Sir--There is one little incorrect
deduction in your kind memoir, or at least a deduction which
may be made from what you say of my father deriving his
intellect from his mother---that my grandfather was inferior
in such respects. From deep feeling and devotion to his
memory, my grandmother never spoke of her husband to us, but
from others I have heard that he was a bright, handsome and
talented young man, who, with the very imperfect education
given at that time to officers in the army, and employed in
active service in America at the age of fourteen, was yet
distinguished for ability, especially in mathematics and
engineering matters, so that he was employed by those in
command of the siege, and was actually riding with the
engineer who was in charge of the sieging operations when a
cannon-ball struck and killed him. He was in an English
infantry regiment, and not in the Indian service, except that
the regiment was serving in India at the time. He met my
grandmother in the ship which took them to India. She was
going to a maternal uncle, Colonel Hughes, who was
considerably displeased on her announcing at Madras that she
was engaged to a poor young officer who had offered to her
during the voyage. But the young couple being determined, he
gave his consent, and continued kind to his niece, and my
father was born in his house, and at his father's request
called Hughes after him. My grandfather was twenty-five and
his bride eighteen at their marriage, and she was a widow
before she was twenty, from which time till she died at
eighty-five she was a widow indeed, making her son the chief
object of her life, living in and for him.

His uncle William, whom he succeeded at Haddington, was never
married, and was exceedingly attached to my father. He was a
singular man; in his early days very gay and handsome, and
living in some matters, I know not what, so incorrectly, that
on offering himself for holy orders, the then Bishop of
Durham wrote to him mentioning something he had heard, and
telling him if it was true he was not fitly prepared for
taking orders. My uncle acknowledged the accusation as far as
it was true, and thanked the Bishop for his letter, and
abstained from coming forward at that time, but took the
admonition so to heart that it led to an entire conversion of
heart and life. He then came forward in a very different
state to receive ordination, and was through his whole life a
most zealous and devoted man, a friend of Milner and
Wilberforce. An old lady, Mrs. Logan of Seafield, told me
that once when Mrs. Siddons was acting, uncle William walked
twenty miles to see her and persuade her not to go, and,
whether by arguments or eloquence, he succeeded. Though kind
and gentle he was a strong Calvinist, and by his zeal and
energy in preaching such doctrines, injured himself in a
worldly point of view. He was always poor, and often gave
away all the little he had, and lived from hand to mouth. He
was very much admired and beloved by ladies, which perhaps
prevented his marrying. He was very happy and useful among
the sailors, and died at his sister's, Mrs. Jackson, at
Woolwich. She, as Elizabeth Terrot, had been a beauty, and
was to the last a fine, happy, spirited, contented and joking
old lady, very fond of my father, to whom she left all she
had. She was bright, unselfish and amusing, even on her
deathbed incapable of despondency or gloom.

Excuse my troubling you with these details; and believe me to
be truly grateful for your graceful tribute to our dear
father. I send a few lines for your private eye, written by
my sister Mary, expressing what she felt on last seeing him,
and it expresses, too, exactly what I felt that last Good
Friday as he sat in that chair in which he had so long
suffered. I never saw him there again, With deep respect,
gratefully yours, S.A. TERROT.

LINES by MISS MARY TERROT, now MRS. MALCOLM.

I.

Sad, silent, broken down, longing for rest,
His noble head bent meekly on his breast,
Bent to the bitter storm that o'er it swept;
I looked my last, and surely, then I thought,
Surely the conflict's o'er, the battle's fought;
To see him thus, the Saviour might have wept.

II.

His rest was near--his everlasting rest;
No more I saw him weary and oppressed.
_There_ in the majesty of death he lay
For ever comforted: I could not weep;
He slept, dear father! his last blessed sleep,
Bright in the dawn of the eternal day.

III.

And thou, whose hand _his_, groping, sought at last,
The faithful hand that he might hold it fast!
Once more, when parting on the eternal shore,
It may be, when thy heart and hand shall fail,
Entering the shadows of death's awful vale
His hand shall grasp thine, groping then no more.

DEAN STANLEY to DEAN RAMSAY.

My dear Dean--Many thanks for your very interesting memoir of
Bishop Terrot. His remark about _humdrum_ and _humbug_ is
worthy of the best days of Sydney Smith, and so is a hit
about table-turning[10]. I once heard him preach, and still
remember with pleasure the unexpected delight it gave to my
dear mother and myself. We did not know in the least what was
coming, either from the man or the text, and it was
excellent.--Yours sincerely,

A.P. STANLEY.

Deanery, Westminster, 1872.

Right Hon. W.E. GLADSTONE to DEAN RAMSAY.

Hawarden, May 26, 1872

My dear Friend--I have read with much interest your graceful
and kindly memoir of Bishop Terrot, which you were so good as
to send me.

He had always appeared to me as a very real and notable, and
therefore interesting man, though for some reason not
apparent a man _manque_, a man who ought to have been more
notable than he was. I quite understand and follow you in
placing him with, or rather in the class of, Whately and
Paley, but he fell short of the robust activity of the first,
and of that wonderful clearness of the other, which is actual
brightness.

Your account of the question of Lordship is to me new and
interesting. I have never called the Scottish Bishops by that
title. I should be content to follow the stream, but then we
must deal equally, and there is the case of the Anglo-Roman
bishop to meet, especially now that the Ecclesiastical Titles
Bill has been repealed; but only on Friday I addressed one of
the very best among them "Right Rev. Bishop M----."

You will, I am sure, allow me the license of private judgment
in the two expositions about the church in p. 5. You praise
both, but the second the more highly. To me the first seems
excellent, and the second, strange to say, wanting in his
usual clearness and consecutiveness. For having in head (1)
most truly said that Christ "instituted a society _and_
revealed a doctrine," he then proceeds as if he had quite
forgotten the first half of the proposition, and conceived of
the society only as (so to speak) embedded in the doctrine.
Also, I complain of his depriving you of the character of
[Greek: iegeus], which indeed I am rather inclined to claim
for myself, as "He hath made us kings and priests" ([Greek:
hiegeis]).

I hope you are gradually maturing the idea of your promised
summer expedition to the south, and that before long I shall
hear from you on the subject of it.

Will you remember me kindly to Miss Cochrane, and believe me,
ever affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

The Dean was greatly affected by a terrible calamity, which happened in
his house in Ainslie Place, where, in June of 1866, his niece Lucy
Cochrane, one of his family, was burnt to death; out of many letters of
condolence which he received at the time, I have only space to insert
three--one from the Rev. Dr. Hannah, then head of Glenalmond College, an
accomplished scholar, to whom our Dean was much attached, and upon whom
he drew very freely in any questions of more recondite scholarship,
another from the Rev. D.T.K. Drummond, and the third from the Premier:--

Rev. Dr. J. HANNAH to DEAN RAMSAY.

Trinity College, Glenalmond, N.B.

June 15, 1866.

Dear Mr. Dean--I _must_ write one line, though I know you
will be overwhelmed with letters, to say how deeply
distressed and shocked we are at the news in this morning's
paper, and how profoundly we sympathize with you under this
fearful affliction. I thought instantly of Mr. Keble's lovely
poem in the Lyra Innocentium:--

"Sweet maiden, for so calm a life,
Too bitter seemed thine end."

And it applies closely, I am sure, in the consolations it
suggests; that

"He who willed her tender frame
Should rear the martyr's robe of flame,"

has prepared for her a garland in Heaven,

"Tinged faintly with such golden light
As crowns His martyr train."

But if blessed for her, it will be a sore trial for the
survivors. We feel so keenly for her poor sisters, who seem
to have to bear the brunt of so many sorrows. May God support
them and you! So prays in hearty sympathy, yours ever
sincerely,

J. HANNAH.

Rev. D.T.K. DRUMMOND to DEAN RAMSAY.

St. Fillans, Crieff, 16th June.

My dear Friend--This morning's paper brought us the sad, sad
intelligence of the frightful calamity which has befallen
your household.

My heart aches when I think of the overwhelming sorrow this
great affliction must bring to your kind and loving heart.
Long friendship and unbroken esteem must be my apology for
intruding on you at this early stage of your bereavement. I
cannot but express my deep and heart-felt sympathy with you
in it, and my earnest prayer that God the Holy Spirit may
sanctify and comfort by his own grace and presence all on
whom this great sorrow has fallen.

In the expression of this sympathy my dear wife cordially
unites with yours most affectionately and truly,

D.T.K. DRUMMOND.

Right Hon. W.E. GLADSTONE to DEAN RAMSAY.

11 Carlton H. Terrace,

June 16, 1866.

My dear Dean Ramsay--I cannot refrain from writing to you a
word of sympathy under the grievous calamity with which your
peaceful and united household has in the providence of God
been visited. I have only heard of it in a very partial
account to-day; but I deeply lament alike the extinction of a
young and promising life, the loss your affectionate heart
has sustained, and the circumstances of horror with which it
has been accompanied. I need not say how this concern extends
to your brother the Admiral also. I shall hope to hear of you
through some common friend. I cannot ask you to write, but
beg you to believe me always affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

Very few of the Dean's own letters have been preserved, but the
following will show him as a correspondent:--

DEAN RAMSAY to Dr. ALEXANDER.

23 Ainslie Place, Feb. 3, 1865

Dear Dr. Lindsay Alexander--I am not aware of having an
undue predominance of modesty in my nature, but really I have
been surprised, I may truly say much amazed, at the
dedication of the volume which I received this evening. Need
I add that, on more calmly considering the matter, I am
deeply gratified. From Dr. Lindsay Alexander such a
compliment can be no ordinary gratification. "Laudari a
laudatis" has always been a distinction coveted by those who
value the opinion of the wise and good.

I thank you most cordially for the delicacy with which you
refer to the "most stedfast adherence to conviction" of one
who has long been convinced that no differences in matter of
polity or forms of worship ought to violate that "unity of
spirit," or sever that "bond of peace," in which we should
ever seek to join all those whom we believe sincerely to hold
the truth as it is in Jesus.--I am always, with sincere
regard, yours truly and obliged,

E.B. RAMSAY.

DEAN RAMSAY to Mrs. CLERK, Kingston Deverell.

23 Ainslie Place,

Edinburgh, March 14, 1865.

Dearest Stuart--I take great blame and sorrow to myself for
having left your kind letter to me on my birthday so long
unanswered. It was indeed a charming letter, and how it took
me back to the days of "Auld lang Syne!" They were happy
days, and good days, and the savour of them is pleasant. Do
you know (you don't know) next Christmas day is forty-two
years since I left Frome, and forty-nine years since I went
to Frome? Well! they were enjoyable days, and rational days,
and kind-hearted days. What jokes we used to have! O dear!
How many are gone whom we loved and honoured! I often think
of my appearing at Frome, falling like a stranger from the
clouds, and finding myself taken to all your hearts, and made
like one of yourselves. Do you know Mrs. Watkins is alive and
clever, and that I constantly correspond with her? You
recollect little Mary Watkins at Berkely. She is now a
grandmother and has three or four grandchildren!--ay, time
passes on. It does. I have had a favoured course in Scotland;
I have been thirty-seven years in St. John's, and met only
with kindness and respect. I have done much for my church,
and that is acknowledged by every one. My Catechism is in a
tenth edition--my Scottish Book in an eleventh; 3000 copies
were sold the first week of the cheap or people's edition. I
meet with much attention from all denominations. A very able
man here, Dr. Lindsay Alexander, an Indpendent, has just
dedicated a book (a good one) to Dean Ramsay, with a
flattering dedication. But I don't expect to hold on _much_
longer. I feel changed, and at times not equal to much
exertion. It was a terrible change for me to lose my
companion of twenty-nine years, and I have never, of course,
recovered that loss. It is a great point for a person like me
to have three nieces, quite devoted to care of me and to make
me happy: cheerful, animated, and intelligent, pretty
also--one of them an excellent musician, and _organist_ to
our amateur choir for week days in the chapel. By the by we
have a glorious organ. How I have gone on about my miserable
self--quite egotistical. "If I may be allowed the language"
(the late Capt. Balne). But I thought you would like it.
Good-bye. Love to Malcolm _Kenmore_. When do your boys come?
Your ever loving and affectionate old friend,

E.B. RAMSAY.

DEAN RAMSAY to Mrs. CLERK.

23 Ainslie Place,

Edinburgh, 12th Feb. 1868.

Many thanks for writing about our beloved Bessie, my very
dear Stuart. She is indeed much endeared to all the friends,
and I am a friend of more than 50 years! God's will be done.
We have come to that age when we must know our time is
becoming very uncertain.

There is only one thing, dearest Stuart, that I _can_
say--my best wishes, best affections, best prayers, are with
her who now lies on a sick bed. _She_ has not to begin the
inquiry into the love and support of a gracious Redeemer. She
may say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."

May God be merciful and gracious to support you all on this
deeply interesting occasion, is the earnest prayer of your
affectionate old friend, E. B. RAMSAY.

DEAN RAMSAY to Mrs. CLEKK.

23 Ainslie Place,

Edinburgh, 3d June 1870.

My dear Stuart--I had such a kind letter from you some time
ago, about visiting you, and I did not answer it--wrong,
very! and I am sorry I put it off. Should I come to England
this summer I should look on it as a _last_ visit, and would
make an effort to see old Frome again. Do you know it is
fifty-four years since I first appeared at Rodden!

I preach still, and my voice and articulation don't fail; but
otherwise I am changed, and walk I cannot at all. St. John's
goes on as usual--nice people, many, and all are very kind.
We have lately had the interior renewed, and some changes in
the arrangement, which are great improvement. It is much
admired, "a great ornament to our ponds and ditches,"--Dr.
Woodward. However, dear Stuart, I have not yet said
distinctly enough what I meant to say at the beginning--that
should I come south I would make an effort to come to
K. Deverell.

Miss Walker has left fully L200,000 to our church. I am at
present (as Dean) the only Episcopal trustee, with four
official trustees--all Presbyterians.

The Bishops seem the most _go-ahead_ people in the church
just now. New sectioning and revision of Scripture,
translation, all come from them: both of much importance. I
wish they could get rid of the so-called Athanasian Creed. I
cannot bear it. Nothing on earth could ever induce me to
repeat the first part and the last part. Love to yourself,
husband, and all yours.--Your affectionate

E.B. RAMSAY.

DEAN STANLEY to DEAN RAMSAY.

Broomhall, Dunfermline,

7th August 1870.

My dear and venerable Brother Dean--It was very ungrateful of
me not to have thanked you before for your most kind
vindication of my act in Westminster Abbey. I had read your
letter with the greatest pleasure, and must now thank you for
letting me have a separate copy of it. I certainly have no
reason to be dissatisfied with my defenders. All the bishops
who have spoken on the subject (with the single exception of
the Bishop of Winchester) have approved the step--so I
believe have a vast majority of English churchmen.

How any one could expect that I should make a distinction
between confirmed and unconfirmed communicants, which would
render any administration in the abbey impossible, or that I
should distinguish between the different shades of orthodoxy
in the different nonconformist communions, I cannot conceive.
I am sure that I acted as a good churchman. I humbly hope
that I acted as He who first instituted the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper would have wished.

You are very kind to have taken so much interest in my
essays, and what you say of the Athanasian Creed is deeply
instructive. You will be glad to hear--what will become
public in a few days--that of the 29 Royal Commissioners, 18
at least--including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Bishops of St. David's and Carlisle and the two Regius
Professors of Divinity--have declared themselves against
continuing the use of it.

I found your note here when we arrived last night to assist
at the coming of age of young Lord Elgin. We were obliged to
pass rapidly through Edinburgh, in order to reach this by
nightfall. In case I am able to come over this week to
Edinburgh, should I find you at home, and at what hour?

It would probably be on Thursday that I could most easily
come.--Yours sincerely,

A.P. STANLEY.

DEAN RAMSAY to Rev. MALCOLM CLERK,

Kingston Deverell, Warminster, Wilts.

23 Ainslie Place, Edin., Sept. 5 [1872].

My dear Malcolm Clerk--Many thanks for your remarks touching
the Athanasian Creed. I agree quite, and am satisfied we gain
nothing by retaining it, and lose much. You ask if I could
help to get facsimiles; I am not likely--not in my line I
fear. Should anything turn up I will look after it. One of
the propositions to which unlimited faith must be given, is
drawn from an analogy, which expresses the most obscure of
all questions in physics--i.e. the union of mind and matter,
the what constitutes one mortal being--all very well to use
in explanation or illustration, but as a positive article of
faith in itself, monstrous. Then the Filioque to be insisted
on as eternal death to deny!

People hold such views. A writer in the _Guardian_ (Mr.
Poyntz) maintains that God looks with more favour upon a man
living in SIN than upon one who has seceded ever so small
from orthodoxy. Something must be done, were it only to stop
the perpetual, as we call it in Scottish phrase,
_blethering_!

I am always glad to hear of your boys. My love to Stuart, and
same to thyself.--Thine affectionate fourscore old friend,

E.B. RAMSAY.

I am preparing a twenty-second edition of _Reminiscences_. Who would
have thought it? No man.

I have not hitherto made any mention of the Dean's most popular book,
the _Reminiscences_. I cannot write but with respect of a work in which
he was very much interested, and where he showed his knowledge of his
countrymen so well. As a critic, I must say that his style is peculiarly
unepigrammatic; and yet what collector of epigrams or epigrammatic
stories has ever done what the Dean has done for Scotland? It seems as
if the wilful excluding of point was acceptable, otherwise how to
explain the popularity of that book? All over the world, wherever Scotch
men and Scotch language have made their way--and that embraces wide
regions--the stories of the _Reminiscences_, and Dean Ramsay's name as
its author, are known and loved as much as the most popular author of
this generation. In accounting for the marvellous success of the little
book, it should not be forgotten that the anecdotes are not only true to
nature, but actually true, and that the author loved enthusiastically
Scotland, and everything Scotch. But while there were so many things to
endear it to the peasantry of Scotland, it was not admired by them
alone. I insert a few letters to show what impression it made on those
whom one would expect to find critical, if not jealous. Dickens, the
king of story-tellers; Dr. Guthrie, the most picturesque of preachers;
Bishop Wordsworth, Dean Stanley, themselves masters of style--how
eagerly they received the simple stories of Scotland told
without ornament.

BISHOP WORDSWORTH to DEAN RAMSAY.

The Feu House, Perth, January 12, 1872.

My dear Dean--Your kind, welcome and most elegant present
reached me yesterday--in bed; to which, and to my sofa, I
have been confined for some days by a severe attack of brow
ague; and being thus disabled for more serious employment, I
allowed my thoughts to run upon the lines which you will find
over leaf. Please to accept them as being _well intended_;
though (like many other good intentions) I am afraid they
give only too true evidence of the source from which they
come--viz., _disordered head._--Yours very sincerely,

C. WORDSWORTH,

_Bp. of St. Andrews_.

Ad virum venerabilem, optimum, dilectissimum, EDVARDUM
B. RAMSAY, S.T.P., Edinburgi Decanum, accepto
ejus libro cui titulus _Reminiscences_, etc.; vicesimum
jam lautiusque et amplius edito.

Editio accessit vicesima! plaudite quiequid
Scotia festivi fert lepidique ferax!
Non vixit frustra qui frontem utcunque severam,
Noverit innocuis explicuisse jocis:
Non frustra vixit qui tot monumenta priorum
Salsa pia vetuit sedulitate mori:
Non frustra vixit qui quali nos sit amore
Vivendum, exemplo praecipiensque docet:
Nec merces te indigna manet: juvenesque senesque
Gaudebunt nomen concelebrare tuum;
Condiet appositum dum fercula nostra salinum,
Praebebitque suas mensa secunda nuces;
Dum stantis rhedae aurigam tua pagina fallet,
Contentum in sella taedia longa pati!
Quid, quod et ipsa sibi devinctum Scotia nutrix
Te perget gremio grata fovere senem;
Officiumque pium simili pietate rependens,
Saecula nulla sinet non[11] meminisse Tui.

The TRANSLATION is from the pen of DEAN STANLEY:--

Hail, Twentieth Edition! From Orkney to Tweed,
Let the wits of all Scotland come running to read.
Not in vain hath he lived, who by innocent mirth
Hath lightened the frowns and the furrows of earth:
Not in vain hath he _lived_, who will never let _die_
The humours of good times for ever gone by:
Not in vain hath he _lived_, who hath laboured to give
In himself the best proof how by love we may _live_.
Rejoice, our dear Dean, thy reward to behold
In united rejoicing of young and of old;
Remembered, so long as our boards shall not lack
A bright grain of salt or a hard nut to crack;
So long as the cabman aloft on his seat,
Broods deep o'er thy page as he waits in the street!
Yea, Scotland herself, with affectionate care,
Shall nurse an old age so beloved and so rare;
And still gratefully seek in her heart to enshrine
One more _Reminiscence_, and that shall be Thine.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34