DOI Heft:
January 18, 1862
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16869#0037
January 18, 1862.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
d'J
BLACKIE ON HIS BREED.
vT Friday night last week a
lecture on the nationality
and character of a peculiar
people was delivered at the
Glasgow Athena um by
Professor Blackie. The
peculiar people on which a
Blackie would be best
qualified to lecture may be
supposed to he negroes |
rather than Jews, or any
other branch of the human
family. Such a conjecture,
however, is worthy only of
a creature the most con-
temptible of mankind in
Professor Blackie’s sight
—a Cockney. The name of
Blackie, by the readers
of Pwich, is of course asso-
ciated with that nationality
which flourishes North of
the Tweed. The nationality
and character on which he
lectured were the Scotch,
or Scottish, to speak by the Caledonian card. The perusal of the sub-
joined extracts from the Professor’s discourse will suggest the question, j
since he delivered it after dinner, How much toddy nad auld Blackie j
had ? There is much spirit in its very commencement; Blackie thus !
opening with a flourish of bagpipes :—
“ Professor Blackie, who on rising was warmly received, said it gave him great
pleasure to toe allowed to speak on the subject of Scottish nationality in what he
held to toe the Capital of Scotland, so far at least as Scottish life and national feeling
were concerned. He did not speaic merely as a flaming, blazing, smoking Scotch
patriot, but as a thinker, and as a philosopher; and whatever the Cockneys might
say against Scotland, they did not and could not deny that one Scotchman had as
much thinking and speculation in his noddle as twenty or a hundred Englishmen.”
The following sample of eloquence is rather in the style of a
New York stump-orator than in that of one of Her Majesty’s
subjects —•
“ He always called himself a Scot, and not an Englishman, while abroad. On the
Continent the English had such a very had character, apart from their pride,
formality, insolence, and conceit—(he appealed to any gentleman who knew any-
thing whether that was true or uot)—apart from their gross ignorance and stupidity
—he knew that they had such a bad character, and were so much hated, that he
always found that he had got the right hand of his host when he Said : ‘ I am a Scot
—a countryman of Burns and Walter Scott.’ ”
Although Professor Blackie says that—
“ The practical tendency of his lecture was to show that they ought to encourage
young men at school, college, and elsewhere to grow up as Scotchmen, in pride and
joy as Scotchmen—glorying with an intelligent glory as Scotchmen—”
he reduces the Scot to a level below that at which he was estimated
by Hr. Johnson, or is classed by that special object of the Professor’s
indignation, Mr. Buckle. Lord Monboddo only ascribed tails to
aboriginal Scots, in common with the rest of mankind. See what
Professor Blackie says of that race to which he glories in be-
longing :—
“ He had found eight points in which, so far as he could discern, the peculiarit y
of the animal Scotium Scotus consisted. These weie—1st, the S«ot was essentiall y
a working animal; 2nd, an enterprising and adventurous animal; 3rd, a thinking
and philosophic animal; 4th, a practical and utilitarian animal; 5 th, a sure and a
cautious animal; 6th, he was an earnest, serious, devout, and religious animal ;
7th, a fervid impassioned animal, perfervidum ingeidum Scotorum ; and Sth, a
humorous, amusable, and amusing animal—he was a jolly, happy animal, and not
at all the grim kind of creature made of iron that Mr. Buckle seemed to
think.”
So, after all, the Scot is au animal • a religious animal, for one thing.
Well, certainly it may be said that Calvinism was the religion of a brute.
What kind of animal is the Scot ? A despicable Cockney might be
disposed to reply that, if Professor Blackie is a specimen of the
breed, the Scot is an animal ordained by nature to graze on the prickly
herbage of the Laud of Thistles.
OUR DEAR BROTHER JONATHAN.
So Professor Blackie by bis own account spealcs as a thinker and
| a philosopher, and as a flaming, blazing, smoking Scotch patriot too.
Shall we say that he confutes his countryman Macbeth, who asserts that
; no man can be temperate and furious in a moment ? Well, the tem-
! perance is doubtful. The patriot must have been drinking as well as
smoking. The Professor was nae fou, certainly, nae that fou, but surely
| had just a drappie in his ee when he propounded the above comparative
estimate of Scottish and English brains. In the ensuing passage, con-
ceived in the same potent spirit, there is a certain haziness, moreover,
that reminds one of the mist, not of the sky, but of the vision, through
I which the lecturer, under circumstances of moonshine, would perhaps
j have been able to ken the horn of the moon, or rather perhaps the horns
of the moons :—
“ He did not see any advantage at all, either for practical use, or as a principle
l on which the world was to be constituted, of having all men alike—of converting
j Irishmen and Scotchmen into Englishmen—that the Cockney brain, capable of only
j one paltry idea, should find nothing to dispute its absolute despotism, or trouble
! its small circle of conception out and beyond itself.”
The obscurity of the concluding sentence relative to the Cockney
brain might be thought due to a drappie which had just a wee obfuscated
the ee, at any rate ot the mind.
Professor Blackie perhaps was inadequately reported by the paper
i from which we quote him. Surely he lectured in his mother tongue,
and did not hark or yelp like one of the “ Englified puppies ” denounced
i hereinunder:—
u He did not know what the young gentlemen in Glasgow thought of themselves,
I tut he knew there were many in Edinburgh, who, like the editor of the Cov/rant,
were ‘ Englified ’ puppies—they had no Scottish ideas, and knew nothing of the
j Scottish language ; even the servant girls were now forgetting to speak Scotch.'’
According to Blackie, Scotland lias a language of her own, second
to no other of the Germanic tongues:—
“ The Scotch dialect was one that had its own characteristics, its own distinctly
marked peculiarities, its own capacities, and its own beauties, as much as the
Doric language in which Pindar wrote, as distinguished from tke dialect in which
Herodotus wrote.”
The language in which Shaksfeare wrote was riot that wherein he
ought to haye written at least the particular tragedy above alluded to.
Macbeth, of course, should have been composed in broad Scotch.
Could Professor Blackie recast that work in the national mould F
It may, however, be respectfully questioned whether broad Scotch,
hue as it may be, is very much finer than broad Hampshire. The
clowns of North and South Britain may, in. respect of speech, be con-
sidered to stand at opposite extremes of latitude.
This delightful ebullition of fervent brotherly love has most fittingly
appeared in a Philadelphia paper :—
“ It may be, in view of all these grave considerations and the sad necessities of
the case, that, in order to avoid a war which could only end in our discomfiture, the
Administration may be compelled to concede the demands of England, and perhaps
release Messrs. Mason and Slidell. God forbid !—but in a crisis like this we must
adapt ourselves to stern circumstances, and yield every feeling of pride to maintain
our existence. If this contingency should ever arise—and I am only speculating
upon a disagreeable possibility—-then let us swear, not only to ourselves but our
children who come after us, to repay this greedy, insolent, and cowardly Power
with the retribution of a just and fearful vengeance. If England in our time of
distress makes herself our foe, and offers to be our assassin, we will treat her as a
foe when we can do so untrammeled and unmonaced by another enemy.”
“ Greedy, insolent, and cowardly,” these are nice fraternal terms;
and what a truly loving spirit is evinced by swearing “ fearful ven-
geance ” upon the “ assassin,” and handing to posterity the keeping
of the oath!
No whit less affectionate in feeling is what follows
“ If we do concede the demands of England, however, it will only be because \vu
desire to crush this rebellion, as a duty we owe to mankind. It will be because
wc prefer to master the great evil, and do not wish to he alienated from our duty by
an international and comparatively unimportant quarrel; it will be because we
prefer national salvation to the gratification of any feeling of national pride. It
will be a great act of self-denial. But when we come from this rebellion it will be
with a magnificent army, educated and organised, and with the sense of this wrong
weighing upon them. It will he with a navy competent to meet any navy upon
the globe. It will be for us then to remember how England was our enemy in the
day of our misfortune, and to make that remembrance a dark and fearful page of
her history, and an eternal memory in our own."
That these are the opinions ot most people in America nobody ou
this side the Atlantic will believe. But that there are roughs and
rowdies in the States, who as they have nothing they can lose by war
are always full of bluster and warlike in their talk, this may any one in
England very easily conceive. Of course it is to please them that such
stuff as we have quoted is stuck in Yankee newspapers; and our sole
surprise is that the journals which admit it find it pays them so to do.
The rowdies as a rule are not overflushed with wealth, and can ill
afford to spend their coppprs upon literature, which, the chances are,
they scarcely would know how to read.
One of the Compliments of the Season.
“I’ve been turning my thoughts inwardly a great deal lately,” said
an M. P., notorious for his stupidity, to Bernal Osborne, who in-
stantly reproved him by saying, “ My dear fellow, it will never do to
gaze on vacancy in that way.”
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
d'J
BLACKIE ON HIS BREED.
vT Friday night last week a
lecture on the nationality
and character of a peculiar
people was delivered at the
Glasgow Athena um by
Professor Blackie. The
peculiar people on which a
Blackie would be best
qualified to lecture may be
supposed to he negroes |
rather than Jews, or any
other branch of the human
family. Such a conjecture,
however, is worthy only of
a creature the most con-
temptible of mankind in
Professor Blackie’s sight
—a Cockney. The name of
Blackie, by the readers
of Pwich, is of course asso-
ciated with that nationality
which flourishes North of
the Tweed. The nationality
and character on which he
lectured were the Scotch,
or Scottish, to speak by the Caledonian card. The perusal of the sub-
joined extracts from the Professor’s discourse will suggest the question, j
since he delivered it after dinner, How much toddy nad auld Blackie j
had ? There is much spirit in its very commencement; Blackie thus !
opening with a flourish of bagpipes :—
“ Professor Blackie, who on rising was warmly received, said it gave him great
pleasure to toe allowed to speak on the subject of Scottish nationality in what he
held to toe the Capital of Scotland, so far at least as Scottish life and national feeling
were concerned. He did not speaic merely as a flaming, blazing, smoking Scotch
patriot, but as a thinker, and as a philosopher; and whatever the Cockneys might
say against Scotland, they did not and could not deny that one Scotchman had as
much thinking and speculation in his noddle as twenty or a hundred Englishmen.”
The following sample of eloquence is rather in the style of a
New York stump-orator than in that of one of Her Majesty’s
subjects —•
“ He always called himself a Scot, and not an Englishman, while abroad. On the
Continent the English had such a very had character, apart from their pride,
formality, insolence, and conceit—(he appealed to any gentleman who knew any-
thing whether that was true or uot)—apart from their gross ignorance and stupidity
—he knew that they had such a bad character, and were so much hated, that he
always found that he had got the right hand of his host when he Said : ‘ I am a Scot
—a countryman of Burns and Walter Scott.’ ”
Although Professor Blackie says that—
“ The practical tendency of his lecture was to show that they ought to encourage
young men at school, college, and elsewhere to grow up as Scotchmen, in pride and
joy as Scotchmen—glorying with an intelligent glory as Scotchmen—”
he reduces the Scot to a level below that at which he was estimated
by Hr. Johnson, or is classed by that special object of the Professor’s
indignation, Mr. Buckle. Lord Monboddo only ascribed tails to
aboriginal Scots, in common with the rest of mankind. See what
Professor Blackie says of that race to which he glories in be-
longing :—
“ He had found eight points in which, so far as he could discern, the peculiarit y
of the animal Scotium Scotus consisted. These weie—1st, the S«ot was essentiall y
a working animal; 2nd, an enterprising and adventurous animal; 3rd, a thinking
and philosophic animal; 4th, a practical and utilitarian animal; 5 th, a sure and a
cautious animal; 6th, he was an earnest, serious, devout, and religious animal ;
7th, a fervid impassioned animal, perfervidum ingeidum Scotorum ; and Sth, a
humorous, amusable, and amusing animal—he was a jolly, happy animal, and not
at all the grim kind of creature made of iron that Mr. Buckle seemed to
think.”
So, after all, the Scot is au animal • a religious animal, for one thing.
Well, certainly it may be said that Calvinism was the religion of a brute.
What kind of animal is the Scot ? A despicable Cockney might be
disposed to reply that, if Professor Blackie is a specimen of the
breed, the Scot is an animal ordained by nature to graze on the prickly
herbage of the Laud of Thistles.
OUR DEAR BROTHER JONATHAN.
So Professor Blackie by bis own account spealcs as a thinker and
| a philosopher, and as a flaming, blazing, smoking Scotch patriot too.
Shall we say that he confutes his countryman Macbeth, who asserts that
; no man can be temperate and furious in a moment ? Well, the tem-
! perance is doubtful. The patriot must have been drinking as well as
smoking. The Professor was nae fou, certainly, nae that fou, but surely
| had just a drappie in his ee when he propounded the above comparative
estimate of Scottish and English brains. In the ensuing passage, con-
ceived in the same potent spirit, there is a certain haziness, moreover,
that reminds one of the mist, not of the sky, but of the vision, through
I which the lecturer, under circumstances of moonshine, would perhaps
j have been able to ken the horn of the moon, or rather perhaps the horns
of the moons :—
“ He did not see any advantage at all, either for practical use, or as a principle
l on which the world was to be constituted, of having all men alike—of converting
j Irishmen and Scotchmen into Englishmen—that the Cockney brain, capable of only
j one paltry idea, should find nothing to dispute its absolute despotism, or trouble
! its small circle of conception out and beyond itself.”
The obscurity of the concluding sentence relative to the Cockney
brain might be thought due to a drappie which had just a wee obfuscated
the ee, at any rate ot the mind.
Professor Blackie perhaps was inadequately reported by the paper
i from which we quote him. Surely he lectured in his mother tongue,
and did not hark or yelp like one of the “ Englified puppies ” denounced
i hereinunder:—
u He did not know what the young gentlemen in Glasgow thought of themselves,
I tut he knew there were many in Edinburgh, who, like the editor of the Cov/rant,
were ‘ Englified ’ puppies—they had no Scottish ideas, and knew nothing of the
j Scottish language ; even the servant girls were now forgetting to speak Scotch.'’
According to Blackie, Scotland lias a language of her own, second
to no other of the Germanic tongues:—
“ The Scotch dialect was one that had its own characteristics, its own distinctly
marked peculiarities, its own capacities, and its own beauties, as much as the
Doric language in which Pindar wrote, as distinguished from tke dialect in which
Herodotus wrote.”
The language in which Shaksfeare wrote was riot that wherein he
ought to haye written at least the particular tragedy above alluded to.
Macbeth, of course, should have been composed in broad Scotch.
Could Professor Blackie recast that work in the national mould F
It may, however, be respectfully questioned whether broad Scotch,
hue as it may be, is very much finer than broad Hampshire. The
clowns of North and South Britain may, in. respect of speech, be con-
sidered to stand at opposite extremes of latitude.
This delightful ebullition of fervent brotherly love has most fittingly
appeared in a Philadelphia paper :—
“ It may be, in view of all these grave considerations and the sad necessities of
the case, that, in order to avoid a war which could only end in our discomfiture, the
Administration may be compelled to concede the demands of England, and perhaps
release Messrs. Mason and Slidell. God forbid !—but in a crisis like this we must
adapt ourselves to stern circumstances, and yield every feeling of pride to maintain
our existence. If this contingency should ever arise—and I am only speculating
upon a disagreeable possibility—-then let us swear, not only to ourselves but our
children who come after us, to repay this greedy, insolent, and cowardly Power
with the retribution of a just and fearful vengeance. If England in our time of
distress makes herself our foe, and offers to be our assassin, we will treat her as a
foe when we can do so untrammeled and unmonaced by another enemy.”
“ Greedy, insolent, and cowardly,” these are nice fraternal terms;
and what a truly loving spirit is evinced by swearing “ fearful ven-
geance ” upon the “ assassin,” and handing to posterity the keeping
of the oath!
No whit less affectionate in feeling is what follows
“ If we do concede the demands of England, however, it will only be because \vu
desire to crush this rebellion, as a duty we owe to mankind. It will be because
wc prefer to master the great evil, and do not wish to he alienated from our duty by
an international and comparatively unimportant quarrel; it will be because we
prefer national salvation to the gratification of any feeling of national pride. It
will be a great act of self-denial. But when we come from this rebellion it will be
with a magnificent army, educated and organised, and with the sense of this wrong
weighing upon them. It will he with a navy competent to meet any navy upon
the globe. It will be for us then to remember how England was our enemy in the
day of our misfortune, and to make that remembrance a dark and fearful page of
her history, and an eternal memory in our own."
That these are the opinions ot most people in America nobody ou
this side the Atlantic will believe. But that there are roughs and
rowdies in the States, who as they have nothing they can lose by war
are always full of bluster and warlike in their talk, this may any one in
England very easily conceive. Of course it is to please them that such
stuff as we have quoted is stuck in Yankee newspapers; and our sole
surprise is that the journals which admit it find it pays them so to do.
The rowdies as a rule are not overflushed with wealth, and can ill
afford to spend their coppprs upon literature, which, the chances are,
they scarcely would know how to read.
One of the Compliments of the Season.
“I’ve been turning my thoughts inwardly a great deal lately,” said
an M. P., notorious for his stupidity, to Bernal Osborne, who in-
stantly reproved him by saying, “ My dear fellow, it will never do to
gaze on vacancy in that way.”