MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

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THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1762

Malcolm Laing was born on his family’s rural estate of Strynzia, near in the Islands north of Scotland, to Robert Laing and Barbara Blaw Laing. An inaccurate historical plaque now marks a building in Kirkwall, that possibly had been that estate’s town house.

Malcolm would be educated at the grammar school in Kirkwall before attending the University of Edinburgh. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1780

October 20, Friday: Samuel Laing was born to Robert Laing and Barbara Blaw Laing in Kirkwall St Ola, Orkney, Scotland.

The Great Hurricane of 1780, also known as Hurricane San Calixto, the Great Hurricane of the Antilles, and the 1780 Disaster, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, faded away southeast of Newfoundland. Barbados had endured winds possibly exceeding 200 miles per hour, and Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Saint Eustatius had each suffered thousands of deaths. Since this was the period of the American Revolution, British and French fleets were contesting for control of the Caribbean, and were heavily impacted. The hurricane had passed near Puerto Rico and over Santo Domingo, the eastern portion of Hispaniola, creating heavy damage near the coastlines, before ultimately turning toward the northeast. This hurricane alone had produced a greater number of human mortalities than would occur during any other entire decade of Atlantic storms.

Former Brigadier-General Benedict Arnold, turned Loyalist, issued a proclamation to his former colleagues: To the Officers and Soldiers of the Continental Army who have the real Interest of their Country at Heart, and who are determined to be no longer the Tools and Dupes of Congress, or of France. HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

HAVING reason to believe that the principles I have avowed, in my address to the public of the 7th instant, animated the greatest part of this continent, I rejoice in the opportunity I have of inviting you to join His Majesty’s Arms. His Excellency Sir Henry Clinton has authorized me to raise a corps of cavalry and infantry, who bring in horses, arms, or accoutrements, are to be paid their value, or have liberty to sell them: To every non-commissioned officer and private a bounty of Three Guineas will be given, and as the Commander in Chief is pleased to allow me to nominate the officers, I shall with infinite satisfaction embrace this opportunity of advancing men whose valour I have witnessed, and whose principles are favourable to an union with Britain, and true American Liberty. The rank they obtain in the King’s service will hear a proportion to their former rank, and the number of men they bring with them.... Great as this encouragement must appear to such as have suffered every distress of want of pay, hunger and nakedness, from the neglect, contempt, and corruption of Congress, they are nothing to the motives which I expect will influence the brave and generous minds I hope to have the honour to command. I wish to lead a chosen band of Americans to the attainment of peace, liberty, and safety (that first object in taking the field) and with them to share in the glory of rescuing our native country from the grasping, hand of France, as well as from the ambitious and interested views of a desperate party among ourselves, who, in listening to French overtures, and rejecting those from Great-Britain, have brought the colonies to the very brink of destruction. Friends, fellow soldiers, and citizens, arouse, and judge for yourselves, — reflect on what you have lost, — consider to what you are reduced, and by your courage repel the ruin that still threatens you. Your country once was happy, and had the proffered peace been embraced, your last two years of misery had been spent in peace and plenty, and repairing the desolations of a quarrel that would have set the interest of Great-Britain and America in its true light, and cemented their friendship; whereas, you are now the prey of avarice, the scorn of your enemies, and the pity of your friends. You were promised Liberty by the leaders of your affairs; but is there an individual in the enjoyment of it, saving your oppressors? Who among you dare speak, or write what he thinks, against the tyranny which has robbed you of your property, imprisons your persons, drags you to the field of battle, and is daily deluging your country with your blood? You are flattered with independency as preferable to a redress of grievances, and for that shadow, instead of real felicity, are funk into all the wretchedness of poverty by the rapacity of your own rulers. Already are you disqualified to support the pride of character they taught you to aim at, and must inevitably shortly belong to one or other of the great powers their folly HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

and wickedness have drawn into conflict. Happy for you that you may still become the fellow-subjects of Great-Britain, if you nobly disdain to be the vassals of France. What is America now but a land of widows, orphans, and beggars? — and should the parent nation cease her exertions to deliver you, what security remains to you even for the enjoyment of the consolations of that religion for which your fathers braved the ocean, the heathen, and the wilderness? Do you know that the eye which guides this pen lately saw your mean and profligate Congress at mass for the soul of a Roman Catholic in Purgatory, and participating in the rites of a Church, against whose antichristian corruptions your pious ancestors would have witnessed with their blood. As to you who have been soldiers in the continental army, can you at this day want evidence that the funds of your country are exhausted, or that the managers have applied them to their own private uses? In either case you surely can no longer continue in their service with honour or advantage; yet you have hitherto been their supporters of that cruelty, which, with an equal indifference to your, as well as to the labour and blood of others, is devouring a country, which, from the moment you quit their colours, will be redeemed from their tyranny. But what need of arguments to such as feel infinitely more misery than tongue can express. I therefore only add my promise of the most affectionate welcome and attention to all who are disposed to join me in the measures necessary to close the scene of our afflictions, which, intolerable as they are, must continue to increase until we have the wisdom (shewn of late by Ireland) in being contented with the liberality of the Country, who still offers her protection, with the immediate restoration of our ancient privileges....

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

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MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1785

July 9, Saturday: Malcolm Laing was called to the Scottish bar.

At York in Yorkshire, Nancy Yeats or Yates, a 17-year-old milliner, was sentenced initially to be hanged, but then that was reduced to transportation for 7 years, for burglary with a value of 100 shillings. At Worcester in Worcestershire, Sarah Bellamy, a 15-year-old servant or weaver, was sentenced to transportation for 7 years, for having stolen a purse containing cash and promissory notes with a value of 630 shillings. After a period of confinement the two convicts would be taken from Portsmouth on May 13, 1787 at the age of 19, with 99 other such women, aboard the Lady Penrhyn on its “maiden” voyage. This vessel was also conveying the first horses that would arrive in Australia, a stallion, three mares, two fillies, and a colt. Both of these women would be pregnant upon the vessel’s arrival at Port Jackson, Botany Bay, Australia on January 26, 1788.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

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THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1793

When Dr. Robert Henry, D.D., a historian, had on account of tremors and debility been unable to continue his work, his executors had asked Malcolm Laing to complete his multi-volume THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN: FROM THE FIRST INVASION OF IT BY THE ROMANS UNDER JULIUS CAESAR. WRITTEN ON A NEW PLAN. In this year Volume VI was published.1

HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN The Reverend Dr. Henry’s investigations had not extended to a period at which the work could be terminated, so Laing needed to create from scratch two terminating chapters. He also annexed a prosecutorial dissertation on the alleged crimes of Richard III.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

1. Volume I had appeared in 1771, Volume II in 1774, Volume III in 1777, Volume IV in 1781, and Volume V in 1785. The Reverend Henry would decease on November 24, 1799 at the age of 73. A full 2d edition would appear in 1788. HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1800

It was at about this point that we began to import goat-fleece shawls from Kashmir, imprinted with a motif which is commonly referred to as “the pine-cone.” The material of which these shawls were knitted would become known here as “cashmere.” The pattern utilized, which the historian of textiles Martin Hardingham believes was originally “the cashew fruit and seed pot which has been a symbol of fertility for thousands of years,” would commonly be used on shawls manufactured in the town of Paisley in Scotland, and thus this pattern would become known here as “paisley.”

Posthumous publication of Robert Burns’s MERRY MUSES OF CALEDONIA, found in a drawer.

Malcolm Laing’s THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, FROM THE UNION OF THE CROWNS ON THE ACCESSION OF KING JAMES VI. TO THE THRONE OF ENGLAND, TO THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. WITH TWO DISSERTATIONS, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL, ON THE GOWRIE CONSPIRACY [BY PINKERTON], AND ON THE SUPPOSED AUTHENTICITY OF ’S POEMS (London: Printed by A. Strahan, Printers Street, for T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, in the Strand; and Manners and Miller, Edinburgh).2 THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND

His exacting prosecutorial case against Queen Anne as guilty of causing the death of her competitor, although unpleasant, has been said to have been sufficient to convict her of the crime of murder in any legal jurisdiction in the land.

His dissection of the historical evidence for the Ossian materials, also displeasant, would cause, under the superintendence of Henry Mackenzie in 1805, “The Report of the Committee of the Highland Society, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the Poems of Ossian,” and again, the verdict of history would be in his favor.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

2. Laing was not the first scholar to detect Ossian as a forgery. That honor goes to Dr. Samuel Johnson, who had issued his declaration about these materials as early as the 1770s. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1804

Walter Scott took a lease on the property of Ashiestiel, on the River Tweed near Selkirk. From this point until the purchase of “Abbotsford” in 1811, the guy would be spending more than half his time there.

Malcolm Laing prepared a revised second, 4-volume edition of his THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, FROM THE UNION OF THE CROWNS, ON THE ACCESSION OF KING JAMES VI TO THE THRONE OF ENGLAND, TO THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. WITH TWO DISSERTATIONS, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL, ON THE GOWRIE CONSPIRACY [BY PINKERTON], AND ON THE SUPPOSED AUTHENTICITY OF OSSIAN’S POEMS (his merciless attack on the authenticity of the Ossian materials was creating no little indignation, Highlanders in particular being “loud in their wail”). His first two volumes concentrated on the “Dissertation on the participation of Mary Queen of Scots in the Murder of Darnley,” making a strong case against Queen Mary. During this year he also edited THE LIFE AND HISTORIE OF JAMES VI. THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1805

The Highland Society of Scotland declared “Ossian” to have been a forgery.

Malcolm Laing’s 2-volume POEMS OF OSSIAN, CONTAINING THE POETICAL WORKS OF IN PROSE AND VERSE, WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS (Malcolm had never been among the deceived and this was his, and Dr. Johnson’s, and Shaw’s “victory lap”).

Walter Scott’s THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. When a 3d edition of the Lay would become possible, Messrs. Longman would offer £500 for the copyright and would tack on another £100 in compensation for the loss of a horse which had unexpectedly died under the author while he was out riding with one of the publishers.

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

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THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

September 10, Tuesday: Adam Gurowski was born in the palatinate of Kalisz, Poland, a son of Count Ladislas Gurowski (a follower of Kosciusko, the count had forfeited the greater part of his estates after the failure of the insurrection of 1794).

Austria attacked Bavaria, Napoléon’s ally.

Malcolm Laing got married with Margaret Dempster Carnegie, daughter of Thomas Carnegie and Mary Gardyne (the couple would produce no children).

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

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MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1807

Malcolm Laing began to represent Orkney and Shetland in Parliament, as a Liberal politician focusing on the improvement of agriculture.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

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THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1808

By this point Dr. Thomas Brown had twice failed in efforts to be appointed as a professor at the University of Edinburgh. When Professor Dugald Stewart fell ill, however, he was appointed to take over his classes during the 1808/1809 school year.

Malcolm Laing left the mainland, returning to his estate on the island of Orkney. Victim of a “nervous weakness,” he would never leave the bounds of the estate despite the fact that he would continue as a Member of Parliament until 1812.

Elizabeth Hamilton’s THE COTTAGERS OF GLENBURNIE: A TALE FOR THE FARMER’S INGLE-NOOK. BY ELIZABETH HAMILTON, AUTHOR OF THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION, MEMOIRS OF MODERN PHILOSOPHERS, &C. &C. &C. (Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for Manners and Miller, and S. Cheyne; T. Cadell and W. Davies, Strand, and William Miller, Albemarle-Street, London).

During this year Professor Robert Hamilton1 again served as librarian for Marischal College and University. TWO OR THREE ROBERT HAMILTONS HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1814

Walter Scott toured the Orkney, Shetland, and Hebridean islands with Robert Lewis Stevenson’s grandfather and a group of other lighthouse commissioners.

Sir Walter visited Malcolm Laing at his estate on Orkney: “Our old acquaintance, though an invalid, received us kindly; he looks very poorly, and cannot walk without assistance, but seems to retain all the quick, earnest, and vivacious intelligence of his character and manner.”

Robert Jamieson, Henry William Weber, and Walter Scott’s ILLUSTRATIONS OF NORTHERN ANTIQUITIES: FROM THE EARLIER TEUTONIC AND SCANDINAVIAN ROMANCES; BEING AN ABSTRACT OF THE BOOK OF HEROES, AND NIBELUNGEN LAY; WITH TRANSLATIONS OF METRICAL TALES, FROM THE OLD GERMAN, DANISH, SWEDISH, AND ICELANDIC LANGUAGES; WITH NOTES AND DISSERTATIONS (Edinburgh: Printed by J. Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London; and John Ballantyne and Co., Edinburgh). NORTHERN ANTIQUITIES HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1815

The James Macpherson “translation” of the bard Ossian, which had already as of the 1770s been challenged as an evident forgery by Dr. Samuel Johnson, and had already been declared a forgery by the Highland Society of Scotland as of 1805, was continuing to be mined by poets and artists in all the major European languages as a source of inspiration and subject matter. Napoléon Bonaparte was fond of referring to Ossian as “the Northern Homer,” and had the painter François Gérard decorate his palace at Malmaison “in the style of Ossian,” and for his bedroom in the Quirinale in Rome, had the painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres do a “Dream of Ossian” on the ceiling.3 JAMES MACPHERSON

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

3. What, no mirror over the bed? This Ingres ceiling painting is now at the Musée Ingres in Montauban. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1818

November 6, Friday: Malcolm Laing died on his Orkney estate and his property would be inherited by his brother Samuel.

A memorial tablet would be placed on the wall of the north nave of St.Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, which in the 17th Century had been being used for internments and would come to contain a number of curiosities: “DEPTH, TRUTH, AND INDEPENDENCE AS AN HISTORIAN WERE,” SAYS LORD COCKBURN, “THE LEAST OF HIS MERITS, FOR HE WAS A FIRM, WARM-HEARTED, HONEST MAN, WHOSE INSTRUCTIVE AND AGREEABLE COMPANIONSHIP WAS ONLY MADE THE MORE INTERESTING BY A HARD, PEREMPTORY, CELTIC MANNER AND ACCENT.”

In Albany, New York James Hamilton, an Irishman, was hanged for having, while inebriated on Sunday, HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

July 14, 1818, shot down his company commander Benjamin Birdsall of the 6th US Rifle Regiment.

At Harvard College, the Sophomore class met under a tree near Hollis Hall to plot a response to college discipline after their food riot of the previous Sunday supper in University Hall. When authority showed up to disperse this assembly, it was mocked. The number of suspensions would go up from 7 to 12, and in addition, 3 students would be “rusticated.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1836

Samuel Laing’s JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY DURING THE YEARS 1834, 1835, AND 1836: MADE WITH A VIEW TO ENQUIRE INTO THE MORAL AND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THAT COUNTRY, AND THE CONDITION OF ITS INHABITANTS (Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, Paternoster-Row). A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1837

Carl Rafn presented the Vinland sagas in historical context in ANTIQUITATES AMERICANAE. Vinland, he demonstrated to his own satisfaction, had been Newport, Rhode Island. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT

A 2d edition of Samuel Laing’s 1836 JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY DURING THE YEARS 1834, 1835, & 1836; MADE WITH A VIEW TO ENQUIRE INTO THE MORAL AND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THAT COUNTRY ... AND THE CONDITION OF ITS INHABITANTS.... (London: Printed for Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, but refer to page 192).

VIEW THE PAGE IMAGES PEOPLE OF WALDEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

WALDEN: As for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of life, though there are instances of men having done without it for long periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says that “The Laplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow ——–in a degree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in any woollen clothing.” He had seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, “They are not hardier than other people.” But, probably, man did not live long enough on the earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a house, the domestic comforts, which phrase may have originally signified the satisfactions of the house more than of the family; though these must be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the house is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season chiefly, and two thirds of the year, except for a parasol, is unnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, it was formerly almost solely a covering at night. In the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the symbol of a day’s march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified that so many times they had camped. Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare and out of doors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and warm weather, by daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to say nothing of the torrid sun, would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he had not made haste to clothe himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve, according to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted a home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.

SAMUEL LAING HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1839

Samuel Laing’s A TOUR IN SWEDEN IN 1838, strongly critical of the Swedish-Norwegian union and suggesting that Norway ought to seek its independence. This would cause the Swedish-Norwegian ambassador in London, M. Björnstierna, to respond in 1840 with ON THE MORAL STATE AND POLITICAL UNION OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1841

Patrick MacGregor, M.A.’s blank verse version, THE GENUINE REMAINS OF OSSIAN, LITERALLY TRANSLATED; WITH A PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION, saw publication in London (Published under the patronage of the Highland Society of London. Smith, Elder, & Co., Cornhill; William Tait, Prince’s Street, Edinburgh), to clear up all the doubts that had been raised as to the authenticity of such ancient materials. Henry Thoreau would rely upon page 193 of this, and not upon the 1761 original edition of “Ossian” material by James Macpherson, in his WALDEN chapter on “Solitude,” for the poem “Croma”:4

GENUINE REMAINS OF OSSIAN PEOPLE OF WALDEN WALDEN: “Mourning untimely consumes the sad; Few are their days in the land of the living, Beautiful daughter of Toscar.”

OSSIAN

4. Thoreau would insert copied materials into his first Commonplace Book. HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1843

Fall: Henry Thoreau studied the “Ossian” of James Macpherson. In particular he read the comments on Malcolm Laing’s analysis that were printed in Patrick MacGregor’s volume of 1841 and made entries in his 1st Commonplace Book.

JAMES MACPHERSON PEOPLE OF GENUINE REMAINS OF OSSIAN WALDEN

WALDEN: “Mourning untimely consumes the sad; Few are their days in the land of the living, Beautiful daughter of Toscar.”

OSSIAN HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1851

Samuel Laing’s JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY DURING THE YEARS 1834, 1835, & 1836; MADE WITH A VIEW TO ENQUIRE INTO THE MORAL AND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THAT COUNTRY AND THE CONDITION OF ITS INHABITANTS (new London edition, printed for Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, refer to page 192). VIEW THE PAGE IMAGES HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

WALDEN: As for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now PEOPLE OF a necessary of life, though there are instances of men having done WALDEN without it for long periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says that “The Laplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow ——–in a degree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in any woollen clothing.” He had seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, “They are not hardier than other people.” But, probably, man did not live long enough on the earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a house, the domestic comforts, which phrase may have originally signified the satisfactions of the house more than of the family; though these must be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the house is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season chiefly, and two thirds of the year, except for a parasol, is unnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, it was formerly almost solely a covering at night. In the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the symbol of a day’s march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified that so many times they had camped. Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare and out of doors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and warm weather, by daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to say nothing of the torrid sun, would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he had not made haste to clothe himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve, according to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted a home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.

SAMUEL LAING HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

Winter: Henry Thoreau studied Samuel Laing’s CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF NORWAY. THE HEIMSKRINGLA THE HEIMSKRINGLA THE HEIMSKRINGLA HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

1868

April 23, SaturdaySamuel Laing died in Edinburgh, Scotland. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

1895

During Henry Thoreau’s lifetime there had been a bunch of white people running around loose who had been impressed with the then-available Ossianic materials for all the wrong reasons, having to do with the development of white racial pride (the general overarching mythology of “white is better for various reasons, and not only has triumphed over color but will continue to triumph, and not only will continue to triumph, but will be right and righteous in this triumph.”) This was all at the level of Conan-the-Barbarian on TV nowadays. The situation was reminiscent of Africanism today, with people running around suggesting that the ancient Greeks stole everything they ever created from the black Egyptians who actually had been responsible for all cultural and civilizationist materials. Although there had been early exposés such as those by Dr. Johnson (1775), Shaw (1782), and Malcolm Laing (1805), it really was not until this year that Celtic scholarship itself, through Stern, seriously attacked the pseudo-originals of Ossian produced by Macpherson, as inventions which had been deceiving various personages such as Thomas Jefferson during the late years of the 18th Century and Thoreau and Emerson during the early years of the 19th. Be aware that during Thoreau’s florut there were a number of admirers of Ossian such as Chateaubriand and Lord Byron who were well aware of the attacks by Dr. Johnson, Shaw, and Laing but nevertheless appreciated these materials as reconstructed poetry.5

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

5. Stern also produced evidence that there were some authentic Gaelic traditions embedded in at least the English version of the Ossian materials. Derick Thomson has more recently added to these legitimate historical sources, particularly in 1952 in his THE GAELIC SOURCES OF MACPHERSON’S OSSIAN. And even more recently, Donald Meek, Professor of Celtic at Aberdeen, has made himself the acknowledged authority on the authentic Gaelic Ossianic ballad. There is a new edition of THE BOOK OF THE DEAN OF LISMORE forthcoming from him. This was in fact Macpherson’s prize manuscript find, and it does contain ballads attributed to an “Oisean” [sic]. This had been compiled between 1512 and 1542 from both manuscript and oral sources and the existence of such materials does demonstrate that the ridicule coming from Johnson was premature and exaggerated. Despite what Johnson says, Macpherson never claimed that more than a small part of his Ossian was derived from manuscript sources. Macpherson’s introductory dissertations emphasized his own role in piecing together what had come to him in fragmented form. It was natural therefore that many of the admirers of this took it for granted that the epics were an example of creative reconstruction. Cesarotti for instance used the term “collage.” To some extent this is still a tenable view. Shaw credits Macpherson with having written some of the best Gaelic verse he has ever encountered, and Laing considered Macpherson to be a poetic genius second only to Gray. Even if we could reach a consensus on what Macpherson actually did with his limited sources, there is no prospect of our ever coming to agreement on what to term it, so we have had to move on from these ultimately sterile debates over authenticity. For instance, Robert Crawford is presently encouraging us to consider Macpherson to have been something of a precursor of modernism. HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: March 13, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE LAING BROTHERS MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

MALCOLM AND SAMUEL LAING THE LAING BROTHERS

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.