Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland : $b or, The traditional history of Cromarty
John Stuart Mill · en
During even the early part of last century, there were a few of the
mechanics of Cromarty conversant in some little degree with books and
the pen. They had their libraries of from ten to twenty volumes of
sermons and controversial divinity, purchased at auctions or from the
booksellers of the south; and I have seen letters and diaries written
by them, which would have done no discredit to the mechanics of a more
literary age. Donald Sandison’s library consisted of nearly a hundred
volumes; and his son, whom I remember a very old man, and who had at
one time been the friend and companion of the unfortunate Ferguson
the poet, had made so good a use of his opportunities of improvement,
that in his latter days, when his sight began to fail him, he used to
bring with him to church a copy of Beza’s Latin New Testament, which
happened to be printed in a clearer type than his English one. The
people in general, however, were little acquainted with the better
literary models. So late as the year 1750, a copy of Milton’s Paradise
Lost, which had been brought to town by a sailor, was the occasion of
much curious criticism among them; some of them alleging that it was
heterodox, and ought to be burnt, others deeming it prophetic. One
man affirmed it to be a romance, another said it was merely a poem;
but a Mr. Thomas Hood, a shopkeeper of the place, set the matter at
rest by remarking, that it seemed to him to be a great book, full of
mystery like the Revelation of St. John, but certainly no book for
the reading of simple unlearned people like him or them. And yet, at
even this period, Cromarty had its makers of books and writers of
verses; men of a studious imitative turn--prototypes in some respects
of those provincial poets of our own times, who become famous for
nearly half an age in almost an entire county. A few brief notices of
the more remarkable of my town’s-men of this first class may prove
not unacceptable to the reader; for, of all imitators, the poetical
imitator is the most eccentric;--though his verses be imitations, in
character he is always an original.
[Sidenote: JOHNIE O’ THE SHORE.]