A CENTURY OF SCOTTISH HISTORY.*
IF Sir Henry Craik had given to his most solid, interesting, and valuable book some such title as "The Foundations of Modern Scotland" he would have indicated its object more clearly than he has done by describing it as "A Century of Scottish History," and would have saved himself and it from a good deal of facile and minute criticism. These volumes stand midway between monographs on such episodes in that century of Scottish development which they cover as the Rising of 1745 and the Disruption of 1843 on the one hand, and the " comprehensive " narratives of writers like Stan- hope, Scott, and Hill Burton, while they do not overflow with de- tail—and prejudice—like "Jupiter" Carlyle's Autobiography, Ramsay's Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, and Cockburn's JournaL It is really a series of estimates of the various contents of the caldron from which, after a con- siderable period of seething, there emerged the Scotland whose notable features Englishmen of middle age are tolerably familiar with, — Jacobitism, Moderatism, Episcopalianism, Dissent, Toryism, Whiggery, distinctively Scottish philosophy and literature, the economics of Adam Smith on the one hand, and of Thomas Chalmers on the other. But then the word " history " occurs in Sir Henry's title-page, and he deals with his subject—or rather subjects—chronologically. So it would be the easiest thing in the world to point out how, in his anxiety to secure breadth of view, he has sacrificed many a favourite national narrowness, how he has ignored this " re- vival " or that "heresy hunt," how he has omitted to mention a great printer, or banished a minor poet to a footnote.
Undoubtedly these volumes, regarded even from what we imagine to be its author's standpoint, exhibit a certain weak- ness both in sense of proportion and in spirit of criticism. Considering the limited amount of space at his disposal, Sir Henry gives at least- twice as many pages as were necessary to the leading events which elapsed between the Union of Scotland with England and the Rising of '45. We could well have been spared the somewhat elaborate accounts we have here of the Massacre of Glencoe, of Mar's abortive rising in 1715, and even of the '45 itself. All that was necessary in this connection —in addition of course, to such excellent historical portraits as those of the Young Pretender, Lord Lovat, and above all, Duncan Forbes of Culloden—was a brief narrative justifying such a sound piece of historical characterisation as this which sums up the fatal initial blundering of the Scottish Jacobites : "The failure of the resistance to the Union marked a distinct downward progress in the fortunes of the Jacobites; and it was an accident only, and not an essential, that the battle was fought not in the field, but in the Parliament House. Armed resistance • A Century of Scottish Lastory, from the Days Before the VS to those Within Lining Memory. By Sir Henry entik, H.C.B., 3L.L, LL.D. 2 vols. London : William Blackwood and Sons. fl6s.] VMS, indeed, contemplated and came very near to being iealised ; and had the issue of arms been appealed to, it would have been on a larger scale than in any of the subsequent attempts. But the abandonment of any plan of armed resistance in 1707 proved rather the comparative strength of the Jacobite party than their weakness. Down to 1707 they might well hope that by weight of numbers and by fervour of national dislike to the Union they would yet reverse the Revolution and retrieve the fortunes of the exiled house ; after the Union the hope was gone and nothing remained to them but armed rebellion. Had the narrow majority of two which affirmed the incorporating against the federal Union been reversed, the anti-union party would have become as clearly identified with the Jacobites in appearance as they were in fact ; and within the borders of Scotland their numbers would have been too overwhelming to force them to have recourse to arms. The preponderating strength of their fighting power would have enabled them to leave that power in abeyance. For a time they would have held secure authority north of the Tweed. The ulti- mate issue would doubtless have been conquest by England ; but such a strain on English resources as conquest would have implied might have changed the position of England in Europe, and had portentous results on European history far beyond the shores of Britain."
It is also a matter for slight regret that Sir Henry has done im- perfect justice to some of the men who took a leading part in the revolution effected by . Scottish industrialism even although he does remind us that Glasgow, which with its suburbs will be found, after the next Census, to contain a population of a million, was in 1750 a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants, and points out that in 1840 Scotland was still a poor country. "The whole of her educational expenditure must have been well within fifty thousand pounds a year. At the close of the century that annual expenditure was considerably above the capital sum of which fifty thousand pounds represents the annual interest." Further, Sir Henry is hardly just to the moral and social influences of Presbyterian Dissent, and his decided—may we say bureau- cratic P—conservatism tempts him to indulge in special, though undoubtedly clever, pleading in favour of the infamous trial of Thomas Muir, presided over by the infamous Braxfield, which was one of the greatest blots even on the Dundas regime in Scotland.
But this book has great and outstanding excellences. Sir Henry Craik writes a clear, flowing style which is neither dull; ultra-academic, nor rhetorical, and which seems admir- ably to suit his treatment of his period under such titles as "Parties in Scotland aaer the Rebellion," "Scottish Nationality and English Jealousy," "Social and Economic Changes," "Henry Erskine and the Younger Whigs." He has supplied the best picture that has yet appeared of the un- doubtedly brilliant society of historians and philosophers, critics and eccentrics, that gave Edinburgh distinction in the days of Hume, Robertson, and Dugald Stewart. The book is, however, of very great, indeed of supreme, importance, because in it for the first time in literature the growth of Scottish parties and of modern Scottish nationality is carefully traced. It shows how Jacobitism was in large measure inspired by genuine Scottish discontent, and how therefore it did not terminate with the Revolution as did English Jacobitism, but on the contrary really began with that event. Above all things, it shows how Scottish Moderatism, of recent years so much despised and assailed as the creed— or rather the creedlessness—of free-living clergymen who talked free thought and loose morality in their cups, was, in the first instance at all events, a beneficent social force; how, reaching after a high standard of social comfort, a strict maintenance of law, and a proud independence of intellect, it was superior to anything that the" predominant partner " could then exhibit. Sir Henry Craik demonstrates the true secret of the influence of such a man as Principal Robertson. His work will, therefore, be very valuable as a historical corrective, particularly in Scotland.
Sir Henry Craik shows much good sense as well as dialectic skill in dealing with the one-man power of Dundas, and the rise of the Whigs of the Henry Erskine type. He has some- thing to say for Dundas, but he says it with moderation :—
" Both Pitt and Dundas had, in their younger days, been ready to welcome reform. How such plans had been broken and such hopes dispelled in England is an episode in the larger history of the Empire. But it is certainly to be regretted that the abandonment of reform for England carried with it the same tesult for Scotland. There the anomalies were even more glaring and absurd—at say rate they were more matters of common know- ledge. It would have been a bold—perhaps almost a reckless —course for Builder' to have continued to embrace within the tenets of the Tory party a fixed aim of reform, and to have based the principles of the party upon the hopes of the realisation of
that reform as soon as foreign trout:ilea were settled, and as soon as the dangers of sedition and anarchy were dispelled. The influence of the Crown, the dead weight of the English Tories, tsould probably have made such a scheme impossible. But this we may safely say, that it would have deserved success, and that in all probability it would have given a different aspect to
the fortunes of the Tory party in Scotland for the whole of the next century. Nor would there have been in swab a scheme anything either inconsistent with the traditions which had been- inspired by the met clear-sighted amongst the Tory leaders of the past, and with the priaciples of Du.ndas himself, or alien to the sampatlaies of the best section of the Tory party at the mement. The ideals of Swift and Bolingbroke bad shown how Tory principles could be identified with the advocacy of popul.r riglits, with the redress of anomalies, with a broadening of the basis upon which loyalty rested. A la,er day was to revive these ideals. At one time it seemed as if Pitt and Dundas might have anticipated that later day. Had they been able to do so, the history of Scotland since their day might have been very different, and her political position might have been reversed. But the d-ad weight of the less intelligent section of their party was too heavy for them. Fate made them the leaders of a Toryism which had its generous, its romantic, its patriotic side; but which was dominated by the bard and dull resistance to all change which was the natural instinct of a narrow, a selfish, and a privileged class."
Sir Henry area has little but contempt for the early Edinburgh Reviewers, whom he describes as "dapper critics wrapt up in the conviction of their own infallibility." We prefer, on the whole, Bagehot's good-natured criticism of them, as when he says of Jeffrey "He was neither a pathetic writer nor a profound writer ; but he was a quick
eyed, bustling, blank-haired, sagacious, agreeable man of the world. He had his day, and was entitled to his day : but a gentle oblivion must now cover his already subsiding reputa- tion." Sir Henry Craik's treatment of the " Disruption " and of the events which led up to it will not satisfy a considerable number of his countrymen, for he is not a sympathiser with ultra-Evangelical pretensions. He admires Chalmers, how- ever, and his characterisation of the great, but in many respects conservative, "tribune of the people" is an excellent specimen of his style as a writer and of his temper as a reasoner "There was a vigorous solidarity in Chalmers's opinions even when they seemed to bring him into contact with diverse parties. With his Evangelical fervour, he retained something of the old spirit of the Moderates. He distrusted above all that spirit which supplemented individual effort and independence by formal or mechanical aids. With the Whigs, he opposed the Corn Laws ; but it was not because, like them, he thought the Corn Laws un- just in their aim, or unduly favourable to the agricultural interest, but because he thought them an attempt to do by legislative means what should have been left to the operation of natural laws. With the Tories, he opposed Parliamentary reform, but not because he feared that Parliamentary reform would destroy privilege; rather because he thought that political weight should follow and should not precede worth and education, and because he did not choose that the Constitution should be at the mercy of an unjudging mob. He was no worshipuer of rank ; but he looked upon hereditary distinctions as landmarks in the nation's history, and as the expression of her traditions. No man assailed more vigorously a craven fear of authority, but no one in Scotland had his enthusiasm more stirred by the visit of George IV., which seemed to revive something of the old spirit of Scottish loyalty. The democratic spirit was strong in him, but he was repelled by the impiety as well as by the iconoclasm of the political agitator, and strove to dissociate his own efforts at social reform from any sympathy with the violence of refozming zeal. There was no more devoted Scotsman, no more keen Presbyterian ; but his whole spirit was attracted by the learned dignity and by the ornate ritual of the Anglican Establishment. He was the ardent supporter of her rich endowments, and he owned with her a sympathy to parallel which we must go back to the days of Robertson and Carlyle."
Readers of Sir Henry Craik's estimate of Chalmers should compare it with Mr. Leslie Stephen's in his English Utilitarians.
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