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than as a preacher. He was "essentially a literary artist." Conscientious and prolonged research gave a value to his historical works which largely atoned for the monotony of his somewhat too ornate and dignified style. He has the glory, and that, too, when Samuel Johnson was at his zenith, of having established a record in literary remuneration. For his history of Charles V. he received £4,500, the largest sum which had till then been paid for a single work.

When Colonel Mannering and Mr. Pleydell went to Greyfriars' Church to hear Dr. Robertson, they found, somewhat to their disappointment, that the great historian was not to be the preacher that morning. "Never mind," said the counsellor, "have a moment's patience, and we shall do very well," and Robertson's colleague, Dr. John Erskine, appeared. "This preacher seems a very ungainly person," said Mannering. "Never fear, he's the son of an excellent Scottish lawyer; he'll show blood, I'll warrant him." The learned counsellor predicted truly; and Mannering is fain to admit that he had seldom heard so much learning, metaphysical acuteness, and energy of argument brought into the service of Christianity.

Speaking of Robertson and Erskine's notorious difference in regard to Church government, Mannering asks the advocate what he thinks of these points of difference. "Why, I hope, Colonel, a plain man may go to heaven without thinking about them at all." And there spoke Scott himself.

Professor Adam Ferguson was another friend. He was a strict abstainer both from wine and animal food. He seldom dined out on this account, except with his relative Dr. Joseph Black, a kindred spirit; and his son used to say it was delightful to see the two philosophers rioting over a boiled turnip! The death of Dr. Jo

seph Black, the eminent chemist, was as quiet and peaceable as his life. "He died seated with a bowl of milk on his knee, of which his ceasing to live did not spill a drop; a departure which, it seemed, after the event happened, might have been foretold of this attenuated philosophical gentleman."

Dr. Robert Henry, the historian, died in a similarly quiet manner. Four days before his death he wrote to Sir Harry Moncrieff, "Come out here, directly; I have got something to do this week. I have got to die." While Sir Harry and he were sitting together, and he, in his easy chair, was dozing and talking by turns, a neighboring minister, who was a notorious and much-dreaded bore, came to call. "Keep him out!" cried the Doctor; "don't let the creature in here." It was too late, the creature entered; but when he came in the Doctor was to all appearance fast asleep. Moncrieff, at once taking in the situation, signed to the visitor to be silent. The visitor sat down, apparently to wait till Dr. Henry might awake. Every time he offered to speak, he was checked by solemn gestures from Moncrieff or Mrs. Henry. So he sat on, all in solemn silence, for about a quarter of an hour, during which Sir Henry occasionally detected the dying man peeping cautiously through the fringes of his eyelids to see how his visitor was coming on. At last, Sir Henry tired, and he and Mrs. Henry, pointing to the poor doctor, fairly waved the visitor out of the room; on which the doctor opened his eyes wide and had a tolerably hearty laugh, which was renewed when the sound of the horse's feet made them certain that their friend was actually off the premises. Dr. Henry died that night. In his "History of Great Britain" Dr. Henry was the forerunner of Macaulay and Green

Socially Scotland was just emerging from roughness and ignorance. Scott tells of "a dame of no small quality, the worshipful Lady Pumphraston, who buttered a pound of green tea, sent her as an exquisite delicacy, dressed it as a condiment to a rump of salt beef, and complained that no degree of boiling would render those foreign green tender." "There was, however, no real vulgarity about the people, and in the Scots tongue of that day the vowels were not pronounced much broader than in the Italian language, and there was none of the disagreeable drawl which is so offensive to modern ears. The ladies were like Scott's Mrs. Bethune; it seemed to be the Scotch spoken by the ancient Court of Scotland, to which no idea of vulgarity could be attached."

Even Miss Sophia ("Sophy") Johnson, notwithstanding her man's hat and indoor garment like a great-coat, buttoned closely from the chin to the ground, worsted stockings, strong shoes, with large brass clasps, was a lady, whose company was much prized by the fashionable and aristocratic, as it well might be, for she had rare intellectual powers, and her talk was racy, spiced with anecdote, and shrewd, often sarcastic, observation. She and some other of the ladies of that day were as stout in heart as they were strong in arm. When Miss "Sophy's" strength was giving way, the famous Dr. Gregory cautioned her to leave off animal food and be content with "spoon meat," unless she wished to die. "Dee, doctor; odd! I'm thinking they've forgotten an auld wife like me up yonder." And when the doctor called next day he found her spoon meat consisted of a haggis!

Then there was Miss Meenie Trotter, of the Mortonhall family, who, till within a few years of her death, could do her ten miles of a walk. I seem to have known the story of her dream

all my life. When, shortly before her death, she was asked how she was, she answered: "Very weel-quite weel. But eh! I had a dismal dream last night: a fearful dream!" "Ay! I'm sorry for that. What was it?" "An' what d'ye think? Of a' the places in the world, I dreamed I were in Heaven! And what d'ye think I saw there? Deil ha'et, but thoosands upon thoosands, and ten thoosands upon ten thoosands, o' stark naked weans! That wad be a dreadfu' thing, for ye ken I ne'er could bide bairns a' my days."

Scott and his friend Clark were admitted to the Faculty of Advocates on the 11th of July, 1792. When the ceremony of "putting on the gown" was completed, Scott said to Clark, putting on the air and tone of some Highland lassie waiting at the Cross to be "fee'd for the harvest." "We've stood here an hour by the Tron, hinny, an' deil a one has speird our price." The friends were about to leave the outer court, when a friend, a solicitor, came up and gave Scott his first guinea fee. As he and Clark went down the High Street, they passed a hosier's shop, and Scott remarked, "This is a sort of wedding day, Willie. I think I must go in and buy me a new nightcap." Thus he "wared" his guinea. But it is pleasing to know that his first big fee was spent on a silver letter stand for his mother, which (Lockhart tells) the old lady used to point to with great satisfaction as it stood on her chimney-piece five-and-twenty years afterwards. Almost the only story Cockburn ever heard of Lord Braxfield that had some fun in it without immodesty was when a butler gave up his place because his lordship's wife was always scolding him. "Lord!" he exclaimed, "ye've little to complain o'; ye may be thankfu' ye're no married to her." It was he who said to Masgarot, one of the Friends of the Peo

ple, who made a speech in his own defence, "Ye're a very clever chiel, man, but ye wad be nane that waur o' a-hanging." If some political prosecution seemed in danger of being marred by anticipated difficulties, he would say, "Let them bring me prisoners, and I'll find them law." Before Hume's "Commentaries" had made criminal law The Academy.

intelligible, the forms and precedent were a mystery understood by the initiated alone, and by nobody so much as by Mr. Joseph Norris, the ancient clerk. Braxfield used to squash anticipated doubts by saying, "Hoot! just gie me Josie Norrie and a gude jury, an' I'll doo for the fallow!"

THE MALADY OF ARMAMENTS.

The

We shall take leave to assume that when the Prime Minister, quoting Sir Edward Grey, tells the House of Commons that the four "Dreadnoughts" which are to be laid down next April are "without prejudice" to next year's programme, he means precisely what he says, no more and no less. naval programme of 1910-11 will, as he says, be considered "by reference to the circumstances of that time." There will be, in other words, a state of almost perfect freedom. We shall be considering not this year's programme, but next year's. The Government ought to be free to say that the four may not be wanted so soon. Failing this, they are certainly at liberty to urge either that they will be wanted, but that no more will be wanted, or that more will be wanted. The House will be free to consider, and to reject or approve. either of these propositions. This simple statement vitiates the attempts of the Opposition to treat the new four ships as a supplement to an average programme of four "Dreadnoughts" next year, or even to an unthinkable enlargement to the tune of eight. claim for the Liberal Party entire dissociation from each of these calculations. It is a tribute to the never-ending audacity of elected persons that Mr. Balfour, in face of his attitude to the Budget, should have advanced them at all. But when he calls for de

We

ficit on deficit, and rails at the "preposterously meagre" programme of eight "Dreadnoughts" finished in three years, and laid down in one, the Liberal Party will, we hope, make it clear that they have no part or lot in any such proposition. When the Naval estimates for 1910-11 are presented, they will be considered with reference to the state of Europe, the needs of national defence, the advance of the programmes of other Powers, and, above all, the aims and policy of this country. Private Liberals go into this controversy unpledged to a single new "Dreadnought." They may be disposed to look leniently on the novel form of insurance against panic under which the Government propose to place twenty such vessels on the home seas by the spring of 1912. But they have not taken one step further in the "grammar of assent" which their opponents kindly propose for them.

Meanwhile we must assert with some emphasis the disappearance of the case on which the scare of last March arose. In its place, we are offered an entirely new argument in defence of the programme to which the scare gave birth. Four months ago the Admiralty presented us with a thoroughly alarmist statement as to an all-round acceleration of German ship-building, and a development of naval power which had practically annulled our own superior capacity. It was further sug

gested that this advance had been secretly initiated in defiance of Germany's public engagements. Mr. McKenna then (March 16th) pleaded a general speeding up of all the four "Dreadnoughts" belonging to the German programme of 1909-10, an acceleration so great that they would all be completed by April, 1912. On the same date the Prime Minister stated that "in one or two cases, possibly in more, ships were actually laid down," and that these proceedings showed that our "substantial advantage" in construction had been destroyed by the "enormous" German development. Of these statements barely a fragment remains. Mr. Asquith has now admitted that he believed "our capacity (in ship-building) to be substantially greater than that of Germany." Mr. McKenna did, indeed, hint that one ship of Germany's 1909-10 programme had been laid down at the beginning of this year, but he completely destroyed the importance of this statement by the details of this so-called acceleration, with which he furnished Mr. Middlemore on June 29. He then said that the contract for one ship of the 1909-10 programme had been "given out" on the first of April last (i.e. some days after he first spoke)-not a word about laying down-and that the others had not yet been ordered. Where, then, are the "one or two ships" or "possibly more," which in March last the Prime Minister thought had not merely been ordered, but laid down? And if none of these German vessels are thus advanced, where lies the material for the hypothesis that the whole four can be finished by March, 1912, or for denying the official, reiterated statements of Admiral von Tirpitz and Prince Bülow that none of them can be completed before the end of 1912, and that no design of acceleration exists?

our

We come, therefore, to a situation in which we have committed ourselves to the production of twenty or (with the "Lord Nelsons") twenty-two "Dreadnoughts" by the spring of 1912, against an almost certain German eleven, or a barely possible thirteen. Considering enormous preponderance in new "pre-Dreadnought" vessels, and in armored cruisers, we cannot describe this as other than an extravagant provision, which relegates the talk of eight "Dreadnoughts" next year to the region of phantasy. If a British strength of three to one against Germany is not enough, nothing will ever content us. But the German Navy practically fell out of account in Monday's argument, vitiated as it was by the old extreme reliance on a single fashion in huge battleships, which may pass out of date as quickly as their predecessor, the useless and almost forgotten Italian "Dandolo." Instead we were bidden to look to what Italy and Austria were doing, and other nations "with which we had no quarrel," or even the closest ties of affection. We do not know by what perversion of every rule of common sense we are bidden to regard both the Austrian and the Italian shipbuilding programmes as concerning ourselves, when every politician in Europe knows that they neutralize each other -four "Dreadnoughts" against four "Dreadnoughts"-and that Italy in particular would no more use one of her warships against England than against her own ruined children of Messina. It cannot be that either of these Powers is preparing to rival our Navy, or to use the two forces in a combination which would shatter the Triple Alliance. All we see is that on this principle any random sum in simple addition can be used to confuse friends and foes, to disguise our real position in the European world, and to defeat every calculation of the physical, moral, and intellectual forces that used

to group themselves under the word statesmanship. No matter how smiling the world's prospect, how completely relieved of all peril to these shores, of all hinted or possible combinations and designs of aggression, we find that our statesmen, while they write the sacred word peace on their phylacteries, still keep us and our neighbors expectant of a momentary outbreak of European war.

Mr.

While we proceed on these lines we are bound to give both Europe and our own countrymen a false impression of the state of the naval world. McKenna, for example, told the House of Commons that within the last three years Germany had laid down eleven ships of the Dreadnought type, and we only eight. But this ignores the point that our "Dreadnought" building began in 1904, which gave us three years' start of Germany, and has enabled us to put seven "Dreadnoughts" on the seas before she is able to float one. To-day our building and repairing votes, as they stand in this year's estimates, represent together nearly twenty-two millions, a sum larger than the whole German naval estimates, while by March, 1912, we shall, in eight years, have spent about forty millions on completed battleships of one type alone. If, therefore, the German Press declares the refusal of their statesmen-and a refusal it isto curtail their armaments on such a basis, our own politicians cannot be surprised if their tender of a naval agreement is set aside. The world does not heed our declared fears of invasion; is, in fact, utterly sceptical of their sincerity. It thinks, not that we are endangered, but that we endanger others. It holds us largely to blame for the fact that the European Chancellors, our own included, plough along through a thickening forest of

The Nation.

obstacles, not the least of which is the revolt of the wealthy and directing classes against the burdens which their own fears create. We said some time ago, when writing on this subject during the life-time of the late Prime Minister, that our continual raising of the general world-standard of naval strength, the example of our unrivalled wealth and power used to maintain an Armada of unparalleled costliness, must end in laying a grievous burden on the poorer nationalities in Europe. The important Spanish correspondent, whose letter we have printed states in terms that this result has already been reached in Spain. Popular Spanish opinion attributes the building of a new Spanish fleet to the direct and indirect pressure produced by the Anglo-Spanish entente. We hope, at least, that no word or action of Liberal statesmanship has called upon Spain for any such sacrifices. But we cannot plead not guilty to the scarcely less grave charge of moral responsibility. England used to send out a certain range of influences over the world; they were widely prevalent. they gave her a fixed character and force, which now and then changed the destinies of States. We are afraid she now acts in a different sphere. Europe is plagued, and is beginning to be convulsed, with the malady of armaments. Not a Government is safe from this infectious disease; not a policy but is twisted and maimed by it. And not one sign of relief does any European statesman hold out, least of all our Liberal leaders; though, as far as this island is concerned, it is impossible to state in coherent terms a cause of war with any Power in the world, least of all with Germany, or a combination either of wills or of material forces designed to shake our Empire.

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