A SCOTTISH HABIT

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19813, 28 December 1929, Page 11

A SCOTTISH HABIT

(By "An Englishman' 1 in the ••Saturday Kcview." . The Scots are some of the best people in the world and the best uf friends, especially in a tight place. But they ha\e the defects of their splendid qualities. Johnson disliked ami derided them: l.ainb found them ill-suited to "minds lather suggestive that comprehensive." Swift found them "tc.iieusly careful n..t to omit the minutest lin-um-stanec of time and place." It was a man of Edinburgh who advertised not ••Fresh Eggs." but "Eggs as Fresh as Possible. 1 ' and it was another Scoter rather fear others---who. when Lamb wished to meet Burns instead of his son. started up at once to explain that "thi.t was impossible because he was dead."

It may. of course, be argued th;,t Englishmen are naturally jealous of neighbours who play so successful a part in the world, and. in fact, wherever a man can stttlc. Hut the common habit which occasionally distresses me was first, perhaps, suggested by a memory of Lamb's analysis pi' Scottish character in "imperfect Sympathies." He complains that flic Scot "has his riches always about him. The twilight of dubiety never falls upon him. You cannot make excursions with him, for he sets you tight." He sets you right. when you may he right all the time and think'it not worth while to proclaim your knowledge. The excellent standard of Scottish education is well beyond the English average, and no one can praise too highly the resolution that has secured it in great difficulties. Hut the Scot knows his advantage in this way, and he has little need for the boon the American preacher prayed for, "O Lord! give us self-complacency, that most precious nf all Thy gifts." He is so sure of himself that he sometimes displays a tenden.-y to patronise his company, lie deeply resents patronage himself', but he readily hands it out to others. His information is as ready as Minerva sprung from the brain of Jove; it is yours without asking, whether you want it or not. When, years ago. I was in Aberdeen market busy over the one. bookstall, the proprietor, a tali figure in a well-worn coat, who irresistibly reminded me of Scott's honk-searcher, "Snuffy Davie," saw me fingering a copy of the "Arabian Nights." At once he provided the warning, "I I Mali it proper to tell ye that the stories in that book are not true." As an ignorant Southron, I was duly grateful. Two famous patroniscrs of literature exhibit this distressing gift in :i flourishing form. Macaulay, "grandson," says Mr Alec 'Wilson in his excellent life of Carlyle. "of a Highland minister, and really very much like -i Highland minister himself. though preaching in a very different element and with a stipend immensely en larged," bullied his readers with what every schoolboy knows. He began lecturing at the breakfast table, lie was, in his cocksure view, always right, always knocking down people with facts. Yet he could go through a Parliamentary career without perceiving the greatness of Disraeli, and looking back over the poetry of his time he could ignore Tennyson and select Henry Taylor as the only man destined for immortality. That was hardly an advertisement for one surprised at the ignor ance of others, especially as Tennyson was, like himself, a Cambridge man. Macaulay was learned enough to showoff. All' his knowledge and good souse were in his shop-window; but it would have been more gracious if the reader or listener had had the chance to discover him for himself occasionally. The whole of the "Edinburgh" was a mass of condescending patronage, with Jeffrey at the top. Jeffrey, with no taste for poetry, was pleased to sentence it like a hanging judge. Authors in general were let off with a warning by their superior critics. The "Quarterly" was little better; a critic like Thomas McNicoll lectured poets on being poetical and not sufficiently moral. The other prize exhibit of patronage in literature was C-arlyb», patronising Boswell. Scott, and a host of men of letters at least as good as himselfFor him Newman. Iveots, and Lamb were poor creatures with brains to seek. Yet one could find many gaps in his own equipment. He is the patronising Srot in excelsis, groaning over a world of fools. If ever a Scot was modest, it was Sir Walter, and he shows that the habit I have mentioned i* no invention of the Southron. He has hit off the national propensity where to-day it still functions* freely, in those Scottish gardeners -who do so much for us nnd .sometimes permit their flowers to be picked. Their prototype stands depicted for all time in Andrew FnirseTviee. Ho nearly destroys bis maste-'s happiness with his offieious muddling, but he is always lecturing him as one less provided With discretion. Riehio Moniplies in "Nigel," like Andrew, refuses to leave the master who would be rid of him. He is always lecturing too; always unabashed about his blundering, tioth he and Andrew aro young, hut they seem like wearisome adults delivering in mature age the tedious advice of a Polonins. Scott himself says in "Rob Rov" that the Scots "are more remarkahje for the exercise of their intellectual ix>wers than for the keenness of their feelings." That is a hard saying; I would not be so illiberal. Rut I do occasionally feel restive when I am patronised, consoled, or morally confuted. One may discern the fund of good sense, yet dread the latent lecturer. One mav need a preceptor with natural gifts for exposition, yet find it not altvavs easy to listen to him. Johnson told Boswell that he could not trace the cause of his antipathy to the Scotch: but »as it not the old story of two of a trade 0 He was fl horn lecturer and moralist at large and rould hardly appreciate » nation conspicuous for the same crifts.