Edward Bannerman Ramsay

“ Probably each generation will have less change to record than the generation that preceded; still every one who is tolerably advanced in life must feel that, comparing its beginning and its close, he has witnessed two epochs, and that in advanced life he looks on a different world from one which he can remember. To elucidate this fact has been my present object, and in attempting this task I cannot but feel how trifling and unsatisfactory my remarks must seem to many who have a more enlarged and minute acquaintance with Scottish life and manners than I have. ”

“ Can it be that the finding a new plant put us in a state of ecstasy? How we treasured up specimens! How we gloried in our collections! But it has all passed away; no chord is touched." To some, who think of the Dean as the reverend, pious, grave, even melancholy man, these youthful reminiscences may appear unnatural, even unworthy. I must own that there breaks out now and then in his journal something which shows that he himself was not satisfied with many of these juvenile memoranda, as if they showed unfitting occupation and education of a young clergyman. ”

“ Chalmers:--"Chalmers's greatest delight was to contrive plans and schemes for raising degraded human nature in the scale of moral living. The favourite object of his contemplation was human nature attaining the highest perfection of which it is capable, and especially as that perfection was manifested in saintly individuals, in characters of great acquirements, adorned with the graces of Christian piety. His greatest sorrow was to contemplate masses of mankind hopelessly bound to vice and misery by chains of passion, ignorance, and prejudice. ”

“ There is no class of men which stands out more prominent in the reminiscences of the last hundred years than that of our SCOTTISH JUDGES. They form, in many instances, a type or representative of the leading peculiarities of Scottish life and manners. They are mixed up with all our affairs, social and political. There are to be found in the annals of the bench rich examples of pure Scottish humour, the strongest peculiarity of Scottish phraseology, acuteness of intellect, cutting wit, eccentricity of manners, and abundant powers of conviviality. ”

“ I am convinced that every one, whether clergyman or layman, who contributes to the innocent enjoyment of human life, has joined in a good work, inasmuch as he has diminished the inducement to vicious indulgence. God knows there is enough of sin and of sorrow in the world to make sad the heart of every Christian man. ”

“ But authors not inferior to Sterne, Fielding, or Smollett, are now popular, who, with Charles Dickens, can describe scenes of human life with as much force and humour, and yet in whose pages nothing will be found which need offend the taste of the most refined, or shock the feelings of the most pure. This is a change where there is also great improvement. It indicates not merely a better moral perception in authors themselves, but it is itself a homage to the improved spirit of the age. We will hope that, with an improved exterior, there is improvement in society within. ”

“ Mendelssohn did not disdain taking Scottish airs as themes for the exercise of his profound science and his exquisite taste. It must, I think, be admitted that singing of Scottish songs in the perfection of their style--at once pathetic, graceful, and characteristic--is not so often met with as to remove all apprehension that ere long they may become matters only of reminiscence. Many accomplished musicians often neglect entirely the cultivation of their native melodies, under the idea of their being inconsistent with the elegance and science of high-class music. They commit a mistake. ”

“ Nothing could better illustrate the quiet pawky style for which our countrymen have been distinguished, than the old story of the piper and the wolves. A Scottish piper was passing through a deep forest. In the evening he sat down to take his supper. He had hardly begun, when a number of hungry wolves, prowling about for food, collected round him. In self-defence, the poor man began to throw pieces of his victuals to them, which they greedily devoured. ”

“ There is a tendency in mankind to lose all that is peculiar, and in nations to part with all that distinguishes them from each other. We hear of wonderful changes in habits and customs where change seemed impossible. In India and Turkey even, peculiarities and prejudices are fading away under the influence of time. Amongst ourselves, no doubt, one circumstance tended greatly to call forth, and, as we may say, to develop, the peculiar Scotch humour of which we speak--and that was the familiarity of intercourse which took place between persons in different positions of life. ”

“ Scottish cookery retains its ground, and hotch-potch, minced collops, sheep's head singed, and occasionally haggis, are still marked peculiarities of the Scottish table. These social differences linger amongst us. But stronger points are worn away; eccentricities and oddities such as existed once will not do now. One does not see why eccentricity should be more developed in one age than in another, but we cannot avoid the conclusion that the day for real oddities is no more. Professors of colleges are those in whom one least expects oddity--grave and learned characters ”

“ It is trying for us who are far on in the pilgrimage to see one and another of our brothers and sisters pass away before us. I have seen ten go before me, and am the only one left; and yet it seems as if the old feeling of their leaving us is being exchanged for the brighter and happier consciousness that they are coming to meet us, or at least that the gathering band are BEFORE us, and looking our way, expecting the time when we too shall pass through the veil, leaning on the arm of the Beloved. ”

“ What will be the spontaneous impression produced by looking back on bygone intercourses in life? Will past thought of me furnish the memory of those who survive me with recollections that will be fond and pleasing?" In one word, let each one ask himself (I speak to countrymen and countrywomen) , "Will my name be associated with gentle and happy 'REMINISCENCES OF SCOTTISH LIFE AND CHARACTER'?" ”

“ My dear Dean Ramsay---I wish I could convey to you adequately the regret with which I find myself cut off from any possibility of joining in the tribute to be paid to-morrow to the memory of the first among the sons of Scotland. He was the idol of my boyhood, and though I well know that my admiration is worth little, it has never varied.
In his case the feeling is towards the man as much as towards his works. ”

“ The Christian, when he looks around him on society, must observe many things which, as a patriot, he wishes might be permanent, and he marks many things which, as a patriot, he wishes were obliterated. What he desires should be enduring in his countrymen is, that abiding attributes of Scottish character should be associated amongst all men with truth and virtue--with honour and kindly feelings--with temperance and self-denial--with divine faith and love--with generosity and benevolence. ”

“ Is the world a better world than that which we can remember? On some important points changes have been noticed in the upper classes of Scottish society, which unquestionably are improvements. For example, the greater attention paid to observance of Sunday, and to attendance upon public worship,--the partial disappearance of profane swearing and of excess in drinking. But then the painful questions arise, Are such beneficial changes general through the whole body of our countrymen? may not the vices and follies of one grade of society have found a refuge in those that are of a lower class? ”

“ To a man of sober inclinations it must have been an intolerable nuisance to join a dinner party at many houses, where he knew he should have to witness the most disgusting excesses in others, and to fight hard to preserve himself from a compliance with the example of those around him.
The scenes of excess which occurred in the houses where deep drinking was practised must have been most revolting to sober persons who were unaccustomed to such conviviality; as in the case of a drinking Angus laird, entertaining as his guest a London merchant of formal manners and temperate habits. ”

“ Dickens:--"There are persons who do not sympathise with my great desire to preserve and to disseminate these specimens of Scottish humour; indeed, I have reasons to suspect that some have been disposed to consider the time and attention which I have given to the subject as ill-bestowed, or at any rate, as somewhat unsuitable to one of my advanced age and sacred profession. If any persons do really think so, all I can say is, I do not agree with them. National peculiarities must ever form an interesting and improving study, inasmuch as it is a study of human nature ”

“ All over the world, wherever Scotch men and Scotch language have made their way--and that embraces wide regions--the stories of the Reminiscences, and Dean Ramsay's name as its author, are known and loved as much as the most popular author of this generation. In accounting for the marvellous success of the little book, it should not be forgotten that the anecdotes are not only true to nature, but actually true, and that the author loved enthusiastically Scotland, and everything Scotch. ”

“ When I speak of changes in such Scottish humour which have taken place, I refer to a particular sort of humour, and I speak of the sort of feeling that belongs to Scottish pleasantry,--which is sly, and cheery, and pawky. It is undoubtedly a humour that depends a good deal upon the vehicle in which the story is conveyed. If, as we have said, our quaint dialect is passing away, and our national eccentric points of character, we must expect to find much of the peculiar humour allied with them to have passed away also. ”

“ Scotland has ever made her boast of the simplest form of worship, and a worship free from ceremonial, more even than the Church of England, which is received as, in doctrine and ritual, the Church of the Reformation. In some respects, therefore, may you truly say the only standing recognised observance in the ceremonial part of Presbyterian worship is the Sabbath day--an observance which has been pushed in times past even beyond the extreme of a spirit of Judaism, as if the sabbatical ceremonial were made a substitute for all other ceremony. ”

“ By this announcement I would understand that besides and beyond a profession of the great articles of the Christian faith, I would, as a further criterion of a Christian church, inquire if there were many of its members who have been distinguished for their Christian piety, Christian learning, and Christian benevolence. Is all external communion to be interdicted with a church which has produced such men as we might name amongst the children of our Established and other Churches in Scotland? ”

“ It makes all men equal, because it makes them all idiotic. It allures them into a vicious indulgence, and then mocks their folly, by depriving them of any sense they may ever have possessed.
It has, I fear, been injurious to the cause of temperance, that emotions of true friendship, and the outpouring of human affections, should so frequently be connected with the obligation that the parties should get drunk together. Drunkenness is thus made to hold too close an association in men's minds with some of the best and finest feelings of their nature. ”