The Scottish Works
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SCS STfss. 9 t ffbe Scottish geyt Qociet^ The Scottish Works OF ALEXANDER ROSS, M.A. Schoolmaster at Lochlee The Scottish Works OF ALEXANDER ROSS, M.A. Schoolmaster at Lochlee CONSISTING OF Helenore, or The Fortunate Shepherdess; Songs ; The Fortunate Shepherd, or The Orphan Edited, with Notes, Glossary and Life By MARGARET WATTIE, B.Litt. (Mrs ’Espinasse) LECTURER IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, HULL Printed for Societg bg WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS LTD. EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCM XXXVIII TKINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE Vii INTRODUCTION— LIFE ix HELENORE XXvi INEDITED WORKS xxxii EARLIER EDITIONS XXXvi LANGUAGE xliv PHONOLOGY xlviii ACCIDENCE AND SYNTAX liii BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixi HELENORE, OR THE FORTUNATE SHEPHERDESS . I SONGS 141 APPENDIX l6l THE FORTUNATE SHEPHERD, OR THE ORPHAN . 171 NOTES 207 GLOSSARY 225 PREFACE. I am deeply indebted first and foremost to Sir William Craigie, who has interested himself in the fortunes of this book almost since its beginnings, has provided interpreta- tions of several difficulties, and has patiently replied to a string of questions about Scottish vowel-changes and etymologies; next, to Mr F. C. Diack, whom I have frequently consulted about north-eastern Scottish idiom and about Gaelic derivations ; to my father. Dr J. M. Wattie, for assistance in details too numerous to mention ; to the inhabitants of Ross’s Tarfside, especially Mr James Crowe ; to Mr William Grant for permission to look through unpublished material of the Scottish National Dictionary ; to Mrs Cope and all others whom I have harassed with letters about one point or another ; and to Dr R. F. Patterson, the General Editor, for his supervising care. INTRODUCTION. LIFE. The outline of Ross’s life is given by his grandson, the Rev. Alexander Thomson, in his 1812 edition of Helenore. This account ought to be valuable, coming as it does from one to whom Ross familiarly referred as “ my grandson Sandy Thomson ”, and who spent eight years of his boyhood in Ross’s house. With Longmuir,1 however, we must deplore its occasional inaccuracies, and the absence of intimate detail, of “ many particulars that might have been easily supplied.” Longmuir gives some additional information in 1866, but there is still much that we should like to know and that we cannot now discover. As far as possible I have checked the statements of Thomson and Longmuir ; and wherever these statements are in conflict with other evidence, as too often they are, I have mentioned the fact in a footnote. Ross was bom in the parish of Kincardine-O’Neil, Aberdeenshire, on 13th April 1699, son of Andrew Ross, farmer.2 In the present state of our information it is 1 See List of Editions, p. xliii below. 2 The beginning of Ross’s life, like the end, is wrapped in a tangle of conflicting statements. The date of his birth is given as above by Thomson, followed by Longmuir. The entry in the Register of Admis- sions of Notaries, however, reads : “ 23rd July, 1730. Mr Alexander X INTRODUCTION. impossible to trace his family further back. There are nearly three hundred Rosses in the Aberdeenshire Poll Book of 1696, of whom, incidentally, twenty-seven are Alexander. And coming down to one generation and one place, we find that at the Kincardine-O’Neil school along with our Alexander there were no fewer than three other Rosses, one of them also Alexander. All four were bursary winners and graduates of Marischal College. The two namesakes met again in later life, Alexander Ross the second becoming minister of Lochlee some twenty-five years after the poet went there as school- master. In 1714 he entered Marischal College with a bursary, and graduated M.A. in 1718. For a time he was tutor in the family of Sir William Forbes of Craigievar. Sir William is said to have encouraged him to go in for divinity, offering him a settlement in the Church; but Ross, like Beattie in similar circumstances, did not think fit to advance his worldly position in such a way. He continued to teach, now as parochial schoolmaster, Ross, son of Andrew Ross, subtenant in Torfins, aged 27 years or thereby.” “ Thereby ” can hardly be stretched to mean " anything up to 31.” My assumption that the information given in an entry is based on the petitioner’s own statement is kindly corroborated by the Curator of Historical Records, who adds that the Petitions for 1730 are unfortunately wanting. If he was born in 1702 or 3, as the entry suggests, then he went up to the university at the age of 11 or 12, since he was admitted in 1714 (Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis (New Spalding Club), vol. ii., p. 295). This seems too young. We are driven to conclude that either Ross did not know his own age, or his family did not know it, and invented a suitable one. Longmuir gives his birthplace as Baremuir, ‘ Fasti ’ as Stranduff. I do not know the authority for either statement. There is no place called Baremuir in the Poll Book of Aberdeenshire for 1696 (Spalding Club). In this book the tenant of Stranduff in 1696 is John Hunter. But Andrew Ross could have come in after 1696. The Register of Admissions of Notaries calls Andrew Ross merely " subtenant in Tor- fins.” There is an Andrew Ross in the Poll Book (i. 104) at Achinsley on Easter Beltie, near Torphins—a weaver, however, whereas Thomson says Andrew Ross was " a respectable farmer.” LIFE. XI first at Aboyne 1 and then at Laurencekirk, and married in 1726 Jean Catanach from Logie Coldstone. Of his Laurencekirk experiences little is known except his friendship with Beattie’s father, a friendship which had the happy result of ensuring Beattie’s active support when, later on, Ross came to think of publishing some of his work. While he was schoolmaster at Aboyne, Ross was also clerk to the court of the lordship of Aboyne, and would thus have become acquainted with most of the tenants. Among these were two brothers, Charles and John Garden, who were small lairds, the one of Bellastreen in Glentanar, the other of Migstrath in Birse. About 1722 these two lairds sold their Deeside properties and went to Glenesk in Angus as factors for their relative, Garden of Troup, who had taken a lease of the Glenesk forfeited estates. In 1732 or 3, almost certainly owing to his acquaintance with these Gardens of Deeside, Ross was offered the school at Lochlee in Glenesk by Garden of Troup.2 Thither he went, and there he remained for the rest of his life—half a century—teaching his small school, bring- ing up four children (three others died in infancy), reading and writing copiously, and, if “ sequestered from the polite world ”, making the glen his world. It would have been difficult for a country school- master anywhere in Scotland not to be interested in the life of the parish, since he customarily touched it at so 1 A letter from Rev. John Pirie of Lochlee to Campbell says that Ross was parochial schoolmaster at Birse about 1733 (Campbell, p. 285). In Dinnie’s ‘ Birse ’ (p. 58) the schoolmaster was “ by the year 1726 Mr Alexander Ross, who was succeeded on the 17th May, 1730, by Francis Adam.” A receipt given by Ross in 1722 begins “ I Mr Alexr Ross Schoolmaster at Aboyn ”, and ends " as witness my hand at Charleston ”—i.e., Aboyne. (Private communication.) 2 It is just possible that Garden of Troup knew Ross through the Forbeses of Craigievar. Jervise (Epitaphs and Inscriptions, i. 87) states that, according to Burke, Alexander Garden of Troup married into that family. Xll INTRODUCTION. many points. The schoolmaster was one of the impor- tant and useful people in every district, filling several offices besides that of teacher. This practice was a neces- sity, since a man could not live on the small fees of small schools, plus a small salary. Ross himself was reader and precentor, session clerk and notary public, as well as master of a school consisting only of five or six families. Such, at least, is Thomson’s estimate of its size ; though if this were true, it is hard to see why Ross should have left the town of Laurencekirk, where the school must have been reasonably large, for such an outpost of educa- tion as Lochlee.1 Some reasons for his action may be suggested, given that he was not ambitious—a fact amply proven by the conduct of his life. Glenesk is within a day’s walk of his own Deeside by any of several passes through the hills. In fact, Upper Deeside and the north of Angus are the same country of glens and folding heather hills ; the people are the same sort of people ; their speech is closely similar. There was plenty of trafficking and migration between Deeside and Glenesk. For example, the favourite enter- tainer of Lochlee in winter-time was John Cameron, the fiddler from Glenmuick on Deeside ; Ross’s eldest daughter married the schoolmaster of Glenmuick; and besides Ross there were several Deeside people settled in Glenesk : the Gardens, Alexander Ross the minister, and possibly the Jollys of Gleneffock. 1 There is this, however, to be said : according to Thomson his emoluments over and above school fees consisted of a salary of about roo merks ; 5 or 6 acres of good arable ground ; pasture for two horses, two or three cows, and a hundred sheep ; and six bolls of oatmeal. Longmuir reckons them at about ^18, over and above fees, with 6 acres of land and six bolls of oatmeal.