THE SCOTS CANADIAN Issue XLIV Newsletter of the Scottish Studies Society: ISSN No. 1491-2759 Fall 2016 "Forget not your past, for in the future it may help you grow" James M Barrie

Dear Fellow Members, single most important factor that The above quote by Scots author James seemed to have Barrie reminds me of a history teacher I had motivated these at school who always started the class by students to take up telling us, “Those who cannot remember the history, it was their past are condemned to repeat it!” And he hope that in some said this so often that I was convinced he way it might just be must be originator of this particular pearl of possible for us to be wisdom. If truth be known, he said it so able to figure out Scottish Diaspora Tapestry World Tour guide Jenny Bruce (left) in often I’m sure he was convinced that he how our collective Toronto with Patricia Liddell Russell in front of the tapestry panel actually originated the phrase. It was only past mistakes might depicting her father Eric Liddell, the 1924 Paris Olympics gold much later that I learned the quote was be avoided by future medal winner of "Chariots of Fire" fame. Patricia lives in Oakville, attributed to Spanish philosopher, essayist, generations. Ontario. Following exhibitions in Victoria, Winnipeg, Wisconsin poet and novelist George Santayana (1863 – And so I think my and Toronto, the tapestry continues on its North American journey 1952). old history teacher and between now and December will be on display in Anyway, I remember when I first visited got it right. Not only Charlottetown, New Glasgow NS, Montreal and Ottawa. the Scottish Studies Department at the can we learn from University of Guelph back in the early 1990s, history – we must I brought along a video camera and learn from history! And that is why we at the But there’s also a third definition and it’s a interviewed some of the graduate students Foundation support the program at the more of a personal one for me. If you were while I was there. If I were to summarize the University of Guelph. to ask me to define what our Foundation is At the Fall Colloquium last September, and where it is, my answer would be: “Look which celebrated the Foundation’s 30th around!” anniversary, the Foundation received much Our Foundation is people like you. People praise from everyone, and as the president, I like you all across this country. People like was very honoured and grateful for that. But you in the UK. People like you in the USA. just exactly what is this Foundation or just as People like you in Australia. valid, where is it? People like you who have a passion for Well there are a couple of simple history. People like you who are proud of definitions we can look at: the contributions that our Scots forebears First: A foundation is a stone or concrete made to this great country. People like you HE COTTISH TUDIES T S S structure that supports a building from who are proud of the role that Scots played FOUNDATION underneath. Well, we don’t have a building in the enlightenment. People like you who so that’s not quite it. But the idea of it is still wonder how such a small nation could have P.O. Box 45069 valid. You see, for a foundation to be played such a large role in the industrial 2482 Yonge Street effective – to do its job properly – it has to revolution and in the global move to Toronto, Ontario be strong and must be able to withstand the modernity. People like you who treasure the Canada M4P 3E3 challenges that will inevitably occur over culture and traditions of our glorious Scots heritage and desire to see it passed on to Charitable registration time. future generations. No. 119253490 RR0001 The second definition is: An organization So in thanking the Foundation it is you, www.scottishstudies.com that is created and supported with money that and indeed all our members, who are being people give in order to do something that thanked. You are the strength of our Membership Secretary: helps society. OK … that one fits much foundation – the very rock upon which we Catherine McKenzie Jansen better. And indeed, it is through the totally rely. [email protected] generosity of all our members and supporters So to each and every one of you, thanks who have donated and continue to donate again for all your support and encouragement Newsletter Editor: with contributions large and small to ensure and best wishes to you and your family. David Hunter that our Foundation has the strength to keep [email protected] the Scottish tradition alive at the academic Sincerely, level here in Canada. David Hunter

solution to this – all too often the image of Scottish Diaspora Tapestry Scotland is portrayed only in terms of bagpipes and tartan and while that has a arrives in Canada place, we should never forget that Scots engineering was at the epicenter of the From the lone shieling industrial revolution and the global move to of the misty island modernity. And I was so glad to see Bruce Mountains divide us, McCowan carrying on this tradition – using and the waste of seas. his engineering expertise to come up with Yet still the blood is strong, this ingenious solution – not only was it the heart is Highland, totally practical but I couldn’t help thinking And we in dreams that it was a metaphor for the major issues behold the Hebrides. facing our world today. Just think about it – whereas others would have built a wall – St. These emotive lines, written almost 200 Andrew’s built a bridge. Now just how years ago in tribute to our early pioneers, are quintessentially Canadian is that? Scottish Diaspora Tapestry World Tour guide Jenny Bruce with engineer Bruce from the Canadian Boat Song and David Hunter McCowan encapsulate the strong connection that the people of the Scots diaspora throughout all parts of the world have with their homeland. focusing especially on urban history, It is a connection that I was fortunate to Familiar Faces at Fall women's history, and the history of crime. see when the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry Graeme Morton joined the University of exhibit came to the St. Andrew's Presbyterian Colloquium Dundee in August 2013. In 2004 Professor Church in Scarborough, Ontario last Thanks to the efforts of Scottish Studies Morton was appointed to the inaugural September. A tapestry created and brought Scottish Studies Foundation Chair at the to us as a result of a multiplicity of dedicated Chair Dr. James Fraser and his team, this year's Fall Colloquium commemorated the University of Guelph in Canada. As Director skill, effort, creativity and patience by people of the Centre for Scottish Studies, he all over the world for people from all over 30th anniversary of the Scottish Studies Foundation and its relationship with the promoted graduate research and writing and the world living here in Canada to see and attended the odd Burns Supper or two. learn about the global legacy of Scots and Guelph Centre for Scottish Studies. We were delighted that Ted Cowan and Graeme Coinciding with his appointment as Chair of their culture. Modern History at the University of Dundee At the Foundation, through our contacts in Morton travelled over three thousand miles from Scotland to be there; Katie McCullough in August 2013 he was appointed Adjunct Scotland, we had been following the Professor of History at the University of evolution of the tapestry since its inception came more than two thousand miles from Vancouver. Together with James Fraser and Guelph. Graeme presented a paper entitled A and it was gratifying to finally have it here in Million Times Better: The Scottish Studies Canada. Elizabeth Ewan from the University of Guelph they formed an impressive lineup of Foundation and the Spirit of Enlightenment. At the exhibit in Scarborough I was also Katie McCullough is Director of the delighted to see the tapestry panels displayed speakers. Ted Cowan was the former Director of the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser by means of a unique and ingenious method University. Born and raised in Victoria, designed by professional engineer Bruce University of Glasgow's Dumfries Campus and Professor of Scottish History and B.C., she completed her undergraduate McCowan who came up with the idea of degree in history at the University of Victoria building a wooden model of Thomas Literature. From 1979 to 1983, Ted was Professor of history and chair of Scottish and them pursued an MA in history and a Telford's Menai Bridge, arguably the world's PhD in modern Scottish history at the first modern suspension bridge spanning the Studies at the University of Guelph. Ted delivered this year's Jill McKenzie Memorial University of Guelph where she was very Severn River between Wales and England. active with the Centre for Scottish Studies It was so appropriate to see an engineering Lecture which he titled Caledonian Canada: Building the and in the local Scottish community. Katie's Foundations. paper was entitled Scottish Studies in Elizabeth Ewan is Canada: Notes from the Pacific Northwest. University Research James Fraser holds the position of Scottish Chair and Professor Studies Foundation Chair at the University of of Medieval and Guelph. Prior to that, James was a Senior Early Modern Lecturer in Early Scottish History at the Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of University of Guelph From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795 and gave a (Edinburgh University Press, 2009); The presentation on The Roman Conquest of Scotland: the Battle of Scottish Collection in Mons Graupius AD 84 (Tempus Publishing, the Library of the 2005); and The Battle of Dunnichen 685 University of Guelph. (Tempus Publishing, 2002). James presented With a PhD in a paper explaining how the Scottish Studies History from the Program evolved and its relationship with the University of Foundation. At the Scarborough exhibit, three hundred and five panels of the Edinburgh (1985), Scottish Diaspora Tapestry cover Bruce McCowan’s 36-foot model Ewan is an expert in of the Menai Suspension Bridge which was designed and built by medieval and early Scottish civil engineer Thomas Telford modern Scotland,

2 The Scots Canadian Well, one good thing The Picnic anyway is, there will be no whisky drinking to Manitoba 1882 spoil everyone's fun. We won't have that By Nellie McClung (1873-1951) trouble for a while for there's no whisky in the rank Burnett, who was a natural leader, country and if everyone began to talk of a picnic early in the felt as I do, there never F summer of '82, and he thought we would be any. I've seen should hold it at Millford beside the river. too many nice times There could be tables set in the shade of the spoiled with it. poplar trees, seats constructed, and a clearing Drunken men fighting made, which would make a permanent picnic and swearing in the ground. street, and their women A committee was formed and a program of crying and trying to sports arranged. There was to be a baseball separate them. It was game, married men versus single men; a awful sometimes in pony race, an ox race, a slow ox race, and Chatsworth – no fun foot races. I was hoping there would be a for anyone, just bad race for girls under ten or that girls might times." enter with the boys. But the whole question The picnic day was of girls competing in races was frowned on. the loveliest sort of a Skirts would fly upward and legs would day – bright and show and it was not nice for little girls, or big warm, yet cooled by a Nellie McClung ones either, to show their legs. I wanted to gentle wind, and the know why but I was hushed up. Still, I kept prairie on July the first with its sweet brier me. But there were people there who on practicing and tried hard to keep my skirts roses in massed bloom was a sight to enjoyed them and that made me wonder. down as I ran. I could see it was a hard thing remember. The buds were deep crimson and Bob Naismith did not like his bit either, but to do. In fact I could see my dress, which the blossoms graded in colour from that to Mr. Burnett told us bananas were an acquired was well below my knees, was an pure white, according to their age. Orange taste, and explained what that was. "One impediment, and when I took it off I could lilies were just beginning their season, and grew to like them," he said, whereupon Bob run more easily. I suggested that I would being scarce were much prized by the young and I with this encouragement made another wear only my drawers (we did not know the hunters. The strawberries had been killed assault on the Saskatoon berries. word bloomers). I had two new pairs, held with the frost in June, and having no fruit had But in the barrel of supplies from Brandon firmly on my "waist" with four reliable sent forth a great crop of leaves. Saskatoon was a wooden pail of chocolates, bell- buttons. My suggestion was not well berries were reddening on their branches but shaped, black grocery chocolates, thinly received. Then I wanted a pair of drawers would not be ready for a couple of weeks yet, coated with this new delicious substance, and made like my dress, for that would look though their unripe state did not keep us from filled with white cream candy which was better than white ones with lace. Lizzie trying to eat them; but their tastelessness soft, but not sticky. Two of these were our thought this a good idea, but Mother could dulled our enthusiasm. portion, and having eaten one, and found it to not be moved. There was a stone wall here Down by the river the tables were set, and be like something one would dream of, but that baffled me. Why shouldn't I run with the benches from the boarding-house brought never taste, I tried to keep my second one to boys? Why was it wrong for girls' legs to be down for seats. There were raisin-buns and help me to meet some of life's vicissitudes. I seen? I was given to understand that this was cinnamon rolls curled like snail shells, might be crossed in love as the years rolled a subject which must not be spoken of. doughnuts, and cookies (ginger and on, or lose my character or my money, and I Mother was very concerned about food for molasses), railroad cake; lettuce cut up in knew this piece of magic held tightly in my the day. "Don't I wish I could make half a sour cream, mustard, and sugar; cold sliced hand would comfort me for one moment at dozen good juicy pies!" she said. "There's ham, home cured; and Mother had made half least though all the world went wrong. But nothing a man likes as well as a pie, but with a dozen vinegar pies, using her own recipe. looking at my treasure I discovered it was no fruit, no eggs, no pumpkins, it's hard. The filling of a pie is rather a delicate matter melting and spreading and oozing out Still, I am going to think out something. . . . when you have no fresh fruit or eggs, but she between my fingers. So, to save it I had to made her filling of molasses and butter eat it. But made it last as long as I could, and

thickened with breadcrumbs and sharpened licked my fingers so hard I almost took the Little did nine-year-old Nellie McClung and flavoured with vinegar and cinnamon. skin off them in pursuit of the last drop of realize that an idyllic riverside community Her one regret was that she had not the white this unbelievable sweetness. picnic would trigger a sense that things of an egg to make a frosting, but we had no The seats from off the wagons were set were just not right with the conventions of hens that year. around the place where the baseball game the day and that running in races was not The great surprise of the day was the box was played. The ball was a home made yarn the only thing that girls were not allowed of oranges that came from Rapid City, and a ball, and the bat a barrel stave sharpened at to do. It set her on a path to become one great bunch of bananas just as it came off the one end, but it was a lovely game, and every of Canada's most famous champions of tree, held up before us by John Brown, the one got runs. womens’ rights. storekeeper. There were not enough to give There were enough provisions for supper, one to each person, but we all had a piece, so we stayed on and ate again, and were and what a disappointment that first taste of a sorry to see the sun going down in the west. banana was It tasted like white flannel to There would be chores to do, cows to milk,

The Scots Canadian 3 and pigs to feed when we got home, but no pies that will melt in their mouths. Step up feminism. Thus, when the First World War one cared. It was so good to get together. I the oxen, George, the sun is down, and 'twill ended and the Great Depression deepened, believe my special joy in the day was to see be nearly dark before we are home, and the McClung's concern for people and her my mother so happy. She had on her brown cows will be at the bars, wondering where inability to keep quiet propelled her into poplin dress, and because of the bright sun, everyone is." political activism. As she watched the wore a wide straw hat instead of her bonnet. Then the conversation turned to Mrs. Depression deepen with its "destruction of Under the trees, at the table, she took off her Dack, the woman who came west because of youth....sadder than the war," she publicly hat, and her pretty brown hair curling over her numerous relatives. Mother thought it criticized the government for not rushing in her ears made her look as young as any of the was a queer way for her to talk of her with employment relief projects like home- women. It was so good to see her talking relatives, and maybe she was extravagant too and road-building and water conservation. and laughing, and making light of the – certainly her hat with its plumes looked In 1921, when the United Farmers of hardships of the long winter. I suppose she very dressy. . . . Anyway it would have been Alberta (UFA) comprised the majority was the oldest woman at the picnic, though better for her to let Mr. Dack do the talking government, McClung was elected as a she was not yet fifty, but a new country when there were so many strange men Liberal. She served five years and joined belongs not to age but to youth, and Mother present. hands with United Farmers' cabinet minister seemed to advise all the younger women, and I couldn't see why, but I knew enough not Irene Parlby on many pieces of social become a mother to all of them in their to say so.  legislation. However, she was profoundly family cares. disappointed when her pleas for temperance At the supper the men began to tell why legislation were ignored. "We believed we they came to the North-West (Easterners still could shape the world nearer to our heart's called it that), and in almost every case it was Nellie McClung desire if we had a dry Canada," she wrote to get land for their boys. One woman spoke Canadian feminist, politician, author, and later. up and said she wanted to come because she social activist McClung was defeated when she sought and her husband had too many relatives in re-election in Calgary in 1926. She never Paisley, and they couldn't buy a fanning mill ellie McClung took on numerous returned to politics, but devoted the next or a neck-yoke or a blackpot without the roles throughout her lifetime. Known years to her family, community service, relatives knowing, and they would be sure to N as a teacher, temperance leader, writing, and travelling. In 1939, she was get a "dig" about it from some of them, and suffragist, lecturer, politician, historian, wife, appointed to the Canadian delegation of the she dare not buy herself a hat even though it mother, and activist, McClung was also a League of Nations. was with the butter and egg money, for some famous writer, authoring numerous essays, By then, she was involved in another first of Jimmy's relatives would say that Jimmy articles and fifteen books. An active – making "persons" out of women. When would die in the poorhouse because of her journalist and founder of several clubs, she Emily Murphy was appointed the first female extravagance. was the Liberal member of the Alberta judge in Edmonton in 1916, she was told on Everyone laughed and there was more fun Legislature for Edmonton from 1921 to her first day in court that she had no right to about relatives and their inquisitiveness. 1926. be on the Bench – because women were not And I remember one man said he hoped The daughter of a Scottish Presbyterian "persons" under the British North America coppers would never come into use in mother, characterized by her stern Act of 1867. As the law stood, women could Manitoba, for they had been a curse in seriousness, and a good-natured Irish vote and run for office, but they were Ontario. Mr. Hall, the minister, then spoke Methodist father, Nellie Letitia Mooney was ineligible for the Senate because the word up and he hoped they wouldn't either; they born in Chatsworth, Ontario, on October 20, "persons" in the British North America Act were hard on the churches, but they served 1873. Even at a young age, her independent was interpreted to refer only to men. During one good purpose: they made it possible for spirit set her apart, and her gift for dramatic the following decade, Judge Emily Murphy, Scottish people to be generous. I knew my impersonation was getting her into trouble. with McClung and three other prominent mother wouldn't like that, but she laughed One of the earliest uses to which she put this prairie women, fought battles through the with the others. talent, was impersonating her mother's two Canadian Supreme Court right up to the Coming home as we did at last, in the aunts – much to her mother's displeasure. Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in purple prairie twilight, we were very tired Her mother-in-law introduced McClung to Britain. On October 18, 1929, they won their and happy, with the pleasant evening sounds the Woman's Christian Temperance Union battle and women received the right to sit in around us, drowsy birds softly twittering, the (WCTU) and stimulated her interest in the Senate. distant rumble of wagons, dogs barking, women's rights when she canvassed McClung's life of achievement was cattle lowing, the western sky still barred unsuccessfully in the 1890s for suffrage impressive: first female member of the CBC with crimson, and bright edged clouds above petition signatures. Mrs. McClung also Board of Governors (1936), Canadian us; we were sure that no neighbourhood had encouraged Nellie to write a short story for a delegate to the League of Nations (1938), ever had a happier picnic. magazine contest. The story became the public lecturer, and proponent of the "We have good neighbours, John," Mother basis for McClung's first novel, Sowing Canadian Authors' Association. At the close said. "Friendly, jolly people. What a Seeds in Danny, which in turn became a of her eventful life she wrote: "In Canada we blessing! I thought I'd never find neighbours national bestseller. Mrs. McClung also are developing a pattern of life and I know like the Lowerys, the Congers, the Charltons, pushed Nellie into her lecture career, by something about one block of that pattern....I and the Littles and the Blacks and Carsons, helping to organize her first speaking helped make it...." and Kingsburys, and Hemstocks; but these engagement at a Winnipeg church. It was at Nellie McClung died, at 78, in Victoria, will be just as good to live with – and it's the WCTU that Nellie first learned the art of British Columbia on September 1, 1951. Her just as Mr. Hall said, picnics give us a chance public speaking: "I saw faces brighten, gravestone reads simply: "Loved & to get acquainted. . . . It did my heart good to glisten, and felt the atmosphere crackle with Remembered" and is shared with her see Frank Burnett and George Motherwell a new power." husband. On the 100th anniversary of her bite into the vinegar pie. In another year McClung's understanding of human nature birth, an eight-cent stamp was issued in a we'll have hens and I'll make some lemon affected her views on temperance issues and belated tribute. 

4 The Scots Canadian and confronted me with many difficulties. It James Barke – would have been simple to have invented pleasing fictions. But facts are chiels that winna ding [facts are fellows who will not be a very individual man shaken]. The historical novelist must be By Ian Hunter historically accurate. The creative artist who cannot thus discipline himself rules himself ames Barke (1905-1958) was born at out of court.” Torwoodlee, near Galashiels, in Scottish The Wind that Shakes the Barley opens JBorder country, the fourth child of James when William Burnes, late of Clochnahill, Bark (1862–1937), dairyman, and his wife, first met Agnes Broun of Maybole, and they Jane (b. 1866), a dairymaid, daughter of planned a new life together in the “auld clay Thomas Gibb, ploughman. The family biggin” that William had fashioned by his moved in 1907 to Tulliallan, Fife, which own hand on the road leading south from the Barke, remembering his happy rural town of Ayr. This is now, of course, the childhood, considered to be in effect “the famous “Burns’ Cottage” maintained by the land of my birth.” In 1918 they moved National Trust, which annually attracts again, to Glasgow. Barke was educated at visitors from all over the world. Tulliallan parish school and Hamilton One of James Barke’s gifts is portraiture; Crescent public school, Glasgow. He trained has any biographer better captured the core as an engineer and worked for a Glasgow of William Burnes? “There was no shipbuilding and engineering firm, becoming meanness or hypocrisy about him and manager of its brickworks, while beginning nothing of the canting moral humbuggery of his writing career. The recurrent theme of the Presbyterian bigots. Yet he was his early fiction is the sadness and bitterness essentially and fundamentally Protestant. He The first of James Barke’s five-volume cycle of the empty valleys and glens, and of the stood alone before his God, inexorable and of novels on the life of Robert Burns men and women who had left, some moving unbending even as his God was. Justice to cities, some emigrating. measured all his actions as he hoped for firing the insecure young man’s self- His first novel, The World his Pillow, was mercy. But laughter never broke the line of confidence. It was Brown who encouraged published in 1933, the same year he married his purposeful lips. He had never – and with Burns to send his verses to a publisher. Agnes (Nan) Coats; they had two sons. some reason – known anything in life to Barke’s second volume, The Song in the Over his lifetime, he wrote about a dozen arouse laughter. And having no sense of Green Thorn Tree, covers a critically novels, including a five-volume cycle of humour saved him many a subtle heartache.” important but comparatively brief period of novels on the life of Robert Burns, a giant Barke spends considerable time on the the poet’s life: from the death of his father in enterprise which balanced his talent as a relationship between father and son; William, February 1784 until that memorable novelist with his own research into Burns's so anxious to provide a proper education for November day in 1786, when mounted on a life and times. his sons, Robert and Gilbert; Robert, aware borrowed pony and clutching his Kilmarnock Barke’s most successful novel was The of his father’s unimpeachable integrity and edition, Burns made his way from the Land O’ the Leal. Published in 1939, this rectitude, yet chafing under the restrictions comparative obscurity of Ayrshire to the ambitious book tells the story of Scotland thereby imposed. bright lights and literary salons of Edinburgh. over three generations of one family, Barke opened my eyes to the influence of This is the period of the poet’s volcanic spanning 1840 to 1940. The reviews were two individuals whom most biographers eruption into verse and song; a period of generous: one reviewer compared Barke to scant. First, Annie Rankine, daughter of lusty expense of spirit in a waste of shame; Sir Walter Scott; the Times Literary Burns’ Lochlie friend, John Rankine of the time of his wooing of the Mauchline Supplement called The Land O’ the Leal: “A Adamhill; it was this Annie who, “wi’ sma’ belles; that brief romantic interlude with memorable piece of work – from first to last persuasion …agreed to see me through the Highland Mary Campbell; and, of course, the it deals with the living stuff of experience.” barley, O.” Of their subsequent amours beginning of the long courtship of the The book had several re-printings and Burns wrote: mason’s daughter, Jean Armour. emboldened by this success, Barke set out on Barke’s Preface to Volume 2 shows that he what he considered his life’s work: a cycle of “I hae been blithe wi’ Comrades dear; was worried about the Mariolaters of the historically accurate novels that would tell I hae been merry drinking, O; Burns Federation who, a few years earlier, the story of Robert Burns. I hae been joyfu’ gath’rin’ gear; had practically crucified Catherine Carswell Volume 1: The Wind that Shakes the I hae been happy thinking, O: for daring to portray Mary Campbell as a Barley, appeared in 1946. A note to readers But a’ the pleasures e’er I saw, flesh and blood woman rather than an ersatz states: “This is a novel; and since a novel is Tho three times doubl’d fairly, O, saint. In a prefatory note Barke wrote: “I devised for entertainment it should be read That happy night was worth them a’, would like to assure the worshippers of for pleasure, or not at all.” Fiction, Barke Amang the rigs wi’ Annie, O.” Highland Mary (those peculiars of Burns explained, allowed him “a profounder hagiology) that my treatment of her has been spiritual and artistic truth” in portraying Another individual whom Barke brings to determined by years of sifting through and Burns than would either history or life is the sailor, Richard Brown, whom mulling over all available internal and biography. Nevertheless he insisted upon the Burns first met in 1781 during his brief external evidence. I am far from claiming accuracy of his work: “The reader may care sojourn in Irvine where he had gone to learn infallibility; but I unhesitatingly claim to to know how far this fictional life of Burns the flax-dressing trade. Brown was six years respect her memory, both for herself and for adheres to historical fact. It does so much older than Burns, and considerably more her association with Burns, as deeply as more firmly than biographies. This experienced in the ways of women. Brown anyone.” adherence to truth has cost me many pains encouraged Burns to consider himself a poet,

The Scots Canadian 5 What intrigued me most in Volume 2 was demonstrates a keen understanding of the of Jean that Burns wrote lyrics to an old Barke’s portrayal of the Mauchline “Holy Edinburgh literati who made such a fuss and Highland tune: Of A’ the Airts The Wind Can Fair,” the subject of one of Burn’s early and fawned assiduously over the ploughman poet Blaw; it was Jean whom Burns liked best to justly famous satires. I had not previously from Ayrshire, so that the reader learns hear sing it: realized that a “holy fair” was an annual much. Also, Barke devotes about a third of preaching carnival, complete with midway, this volume to two periods generally ignored Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw in which visiting divines displayed their in the standard biographies: namely the I dearly like the West, wares by extempore preaching marathons. poet’s two tours of country, first to the For there the bonnie lassie lives, Rural folk flocked into the town for these Lowlands with his lawyer-friend, Robert The lassie I lo’e best, diverting spectacles, a boon to pickpockets Ainslie, the second to the rugged Highlands There wild woods grow, and rivers row, and young boys seeking adventure, a boon in company with the Latin-master and school And monie a hill between, particularly to licensed houses, like Poosie teacher, William Nichol. Because these But day and night my fancy’s flight Nancie’s and to local whores seeking ready formative excursions tend to be overlooked Is ever wi’ my Jean. cash. or minimized in conventional biographies, Barke writes: “At the main entrance to the Barke is able to say much here that is The fourth novel, The Crest of the Broken kirkyard a preaching-tent was erected. The original and revealing about the poet’s Wave, opens in the year 1788, when Burns tent was a simple structure of wood and impetuous and generous nature. Awed by was 28; it deals with the three years (until canvas and merely gave the preacher the rugged, desolate beauty of the Highlands, 1791) when Burns lived and tried to farm at protection from the elements and served as a Burns wrote a poem that concludes: Ellisland, another period often scanted in rostrum. …the douce who liked their biographies. These are the years when Burns theology strongly laced with the astringency settled in with his now wife, Jean Armour; of Auld Licht doctrine were well served Here, to the wrongs of Fate half when he wrote his longest poem, Tam O’ …[The preacher] had a rare edge to his reconciled Shanter, all 225 lines of which are said to tongue and he used it to slashing effect. He Misfortune’s lightened steps might have been composed in a single day as the lingered long and luridly on the terrible wander wild; bard strolled along the Nith River. Tam damnation that awaited the sinners and And Disappointment in these lonely o’Shanter is a comic masterpiece of story- backsliders; and he painted the burning lake bounds, telling, but it also is tinged with melancholy: and the boiling brimstone in singeing simile Find balm to soothe her bitter rankling and malodorous metaphor: tidings, indeed, of wounds; But pleasures are like poppies spread: salvation. …His tidings were of thundering Here heart-struck Grief might You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; and universal damnation for all but the elect heavenward stretch her scan, Or like the snow falls in the river, – and even they were brushed aside with And injured Worth forget and pardon A moment white – then melts for ever. scant courtesy.” Man. Barke imagines Burns being more The momentous year 1789 was when interested in the wooing than in the Back in Edinburgh, Burns met James Burns finally obtained an excise commission preaching, saying to a friend: “It’s a Johnson whose glorious idea it was to collect – “Common gouger, searcher of auld wives wonderful business; the sublime and the and publish the ancient Scots songs, songs of clarty ale-barrels,” as he put it; and the year ridiculous hand in hand.” Later Burns would the common folk of centuries past – and who of the French Revolution, the event that immortalize this “bellyfu’ o’ brimstone” in now had found, in Burns, a lyricist capable of really opens the modern era and one that The Holy Fair, concluding the poem: supplying words equal to the music! Thus Burns loudly but anonymously encouraged began their collaboration on what would from afar; it was also the year when he How mony hearts this day converts eventually become six volumes of the Scots fathered his last bastard child, with Anna O’ sinners and o’ lasses! Musical Museum, a project that occupied, Parks, she of the golden locks at the Globe Their hearts o’ stane, gin night are gane, along with much else, the remaining years of Hotel in Dumfries – a child that Jean As saft as ony flesh is. the poet’s life. This was also the time of graciously accepted into her home and raised There’s some are fu’ o’ love divine; Burns’ first meeting with the Edinburgh as her own: There’s some are fu’ o’ brandy; grass widow, Agnes Maclehose, whom And mony jobs that day begun Burns called Clarinda, and whose abusive Yestreen I had a pint o’ wine, May end in houghmagandie! husband was far away in Jamaica; this was A place where body saw na’; one of the most intense love affairs of Burns’ Yestreen lay on this breast of mine The third volume of the quintet, The tempestuous life, culminating in that The gowden locks of Anna. Wonder of All the Gay World, published in unmatched song of parting Ae Fond Kiss. 1949, is the longest, most prolix volume – at When, after months of frustration, Burns In this volume Barke writes of three years nearly 700 pages, or double the length of the finally prised his money for the sale (and of struggle, of the poet’s frequent and others – yet it covers that comparatively brief copyright) of his Edinburgh edition of the debilitating illnesses, and times of poetic span (November 1786 to March 1788) when Kilmarnock poems from the skinflint printer, genius. Burns is here displayed, as his friend the poet’s star blazed above the Edinburgh William Creech, he returned to Ayrshire, to Alexander Cunningham described him: “Not literary firmament, illuminating all who came his family, and to Jean who had now borne one man but a dozen men – and all of them within its orbit. This volume displays both him four children and three had died. remarkable.” the strengths and limitations of James Burns next acquired the lease of a farm at The Well of the Silent Harp, published in Barke’s methodology; the author fills in, at Ellisland, situated on the Nith River near 1954, completed the quintet. This book considerable length, detailed conversations Dumfries, and there he duly went to build a covers the last five years (1791-1796) of the that the reader knows might well have house, a hovel really, in order to provide a poet’s life, with Jean and now four bairns happened, but the content of which, he roof over the heads of Jean and the one huddled together in two small and crowded knows equally, is forever lost. Even so, the surviving bairn, his son Robert. It was while rooms in Dumfries, on a street insalubriously wealth of detail is informative, and Barke he was living alone at Ellisland and thinking but accurately called by locals “the stinking

6 The Scots Canadian vennel” because of a nasty open sewer that Grieve (the poet Hugh MacDiarmid) gave the scientific developments. Although here is no ran down the middle of the street and funeral oration. Barke was survived by his historic data showing that Hutton and Burns emptied into the Nith River as rainfall and wife. ever met, both men were well-known figures drainage permitted. Why, oh why, one asks, Of Barke’s assessment of his own in Edinburgh society towards the end of the did the gentry of Scotland allow their achievement I quote from the preface to the century. national poet to live in such squalor? That is final volume: “My portrait of Robert Burns is Hutton (1726-1797) was a Scottish a question to which no one has provided a unashamedly romantic and idealistic; but it is chemist and geologist, often referred to as the convincing answer. more solidly related to historical fact than founder of modern geology. He was By January 1796 the poet was frail and any other portrait. This is not to say that it is fascinated by the earth's history and ailing; rheumatism, aches and pains, the best portrait. Time has settled the hash of determined that rocks and minerals derived debilitating fevers; as Burns wrote to a innumerable portraitists of Robert Burns; and from a series of volcanic action and floods. friend, “I have drunk deep of the cup of it would be foolish of me to look for Hutton’s controversial and innovative affliction.” At his doctor’s suggestion he partiality where none has ever been granted. book Theory of the Earth (1785) was an tried sea bathing in the ice cold waters of the All I claim is that I have done the best I can attempt to retrace earth's history and the Solway Firth and that prescription almost for my generation. …The last word has not quote "We find no vestige of a beginning, no certainly hastened his death. A seventeen- been written about Burns – nor will it ever prospect of an end" is taken from this book. year-old serving girl, Jenny Lewars, came to be.” The first line of Morgan’s sonnet refers to nurse him in his final days; to her he wrote Hutton as "that true son of fire," – a term his last song: Ian Hunter is Professor Emeritus in the often given to the devil – fire being Faculty of Law at Western University. He is associated with destruction, but also creation O wert thou in the cauld blast the author of “Robert Burns: A Tribute” – the beginning of everything. Also, in the On yonder lea, on yonder lea; (Elmwood Press, 2003). enlightenment, when reason was seen as one My plaidie to the angry airt – of the most precious virtues, someone I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee. renowned for deductive reasoning was also Or did Misfortune’s bitter storms On 'Theory of the Earth' called "a son of fire," a term which also Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, By Guusje Groote appears in the poem The Marriage of Heaven Thy bield should be my bosom, and Hell by William Blake (1757-1827) a To share it a’, to share it a’. n his Sonnets from Scotland, poet Edwin contemporary of Hutton and Burns. Morgan began to envisage a series of In Morgan’s sonnet, after the first few Burns died on July 21, 1796. He was only I alternative Scotlands, both past and lines in which the reader is introduced to 37 years old. Barke writes: “And the news future, that symbolized the persistence and Hutton and the “age of reason,” Morgan reached Mossgiel; and the news spread out in vitality of the culture. One of them brings turns to Burns and these lines from A Red, a more widening circle from Dumfries. It together Scotland's greatest geologist, James Red Rose: reached Edinburgh; it reached down into Hutton, and greatest poet, Robert Burns, by England; it reached the north of Scotland; it way of Burns' evocative folk lyric, A Red, And I will luve thee still, my dear reached Ireland. And wherever it reached, Red Rose, with its strange temporal Till a' the seas gang dry. men stood still and wondered at the perspective: “Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, suddenness with which the immortal singer Dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun.” And the rocks melt wi' the sun! had been silenced…” And I will luve thee still, my dear, James Barke’s five novels sold well in James Hutton that true son of fire who While the sands o' life shall run. hardcover, in paperback, and occasionally in said to Burns: boxed sets. They were re-issued as late as Aye, man, the rocks melt wi’ the sun Burns expresses his love by comparing it to 2009 in a boxed set from Black and White was sure the age of reason's time was the beauty of nature, but in Morgan's sonnet, publishers in Edinburgh. The books remain done. the lines lose their value of conveying eternal readily available (some 700 copies were What but imagination could have read love. Morgan only used those lines that are available on Abebooks when last I checked). granite boulders back to their molten connected with nature, and in the sonnet the Writing about Barke, author Moira roots? lines come to carry a completely different Burgess listed his interests as "Scotland, And how far back was back, and how far meaning. Morgan changes Burns' romantic piobaireachd (bagpipe music) and anything on would basalt still be basalt, iron iron? lines into Hutton's scientific thoughts: “Aye, controversial." Would second seas re-drown the fossil man, the rocks melt wi the sun.” A friend wrote: “He was a man full of brutes? Morgan presents Hutton and Burns as humanity, a very individual man. His novels "We find no vestige of a beginning, no typical examples of the Age of Reason. He are like him.” He was a committed socialist prospect of an end." stresses their mutual interests and questions and his fourth novel, Major Operation in man's position and function in the (1936), argued the case for socialism at some The final lines quote Hutton's conclusion to universe. length, while providing a striking his account of the earth's geological Although Hutton represents the scientific impressionistic description of Glasgow in the processes in Theory of the Earth (1785), but part of society and Burns stands more for the depression years. in the context of the political failures of the literary innovations, they have a lot in After an unsuccessful hotel-keeping 1970s and 1980s, their assertion became a common. Morgan shows how both, Hutton venture in Ayrshire, Barke returned to live in reaffirmation of the value of the nation’s and Burns, set an example for the “age of Glasgow in 1955. He had been in poor history to which Burns continued to be reason,” as did Blake, who always saw unity health for some years and died, following a central and that refused to acknowledge the in contrasts.  heart attack, in Glasgow Royal Infirmary on “prospect of an end.” March 20, 1958. A private cremation four James Hutton and Robert Burns both lived days later was followed by committal at New in the Age of Reason, the eighteenth century. Kilpatrick cemetery, Bearsden, where C. M. This era saw many philosophical and

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