The Modern Athens - Robert Mudie

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of things were a good deal more diversified and puzzling; and, perhaps the shortest way of getting rid of them would be to adopt the laundress’ phrase, and say they were “got up;” but this, though summary and in the main correct, would neither be just nor satisfactory,—because, in all modern stage displays, the actors would cut but a sorry figure were it not for the scenery.

      As, however, the scenery arises out of the drama itself, while the actors have an existence and character off the boards, it will be necessary to premise an outline of the plot. That was arranged into the following acts, with as many interludes public and private as could be crammed into the time and space. The King was to land—to be received by whoever should be accounted the greatest and most loyal man in Scotland, which some said was Lord President Hope, some Bailie Blackwood, some Sir Walter Scott, others Sir Alexander Gordon, of Culvennan, a few Principal Baird, and even Professor Leslie had his own vote and another—he was to shake hands with Bailie Macfie, of Leith, (with his glove on as it were,) then he was to pass along streets, through triumphal arches, over bridges, and in at gates, to the ancient palace of the Holyrood, where the old throne from Buckingham-House had been darned and done up for his reception, by way of reading him an introductory lecture upon Scotch economy. Such was to be the first act of the drama, and the preparations for it were peculiarly splendid. The line of progress, which was both long and broad, was to be thronged with people; the devices and mottoes were to be got up, to let the King know that an illumination was coming; the ladies were instructed to fidget and wriggle in the windows, by way of hint that there would be a dance; the presence of Sir William Curtis made it certain there would be turtle-soup; the curl of the Reverend Dr. Lamond’s nose threatened a sermon; the archery and men with white sticks pointed to a procession; the hungry looks of the Burgh magistrates and local men in authority, had obvious reference to a levee; the pouting lips of the ladies rendered a drawing-room indispensable; and the bevies of breechless Highlanders and bandy-legged Southerns in similar costume, were pretty sure tokens of a theatrical exhibition,—and, from the extreme officiousness of Glengarry, the Kouli Khan of all the Celts, it was pretty apparent that that exhibition could be nothing else than Rob Roy—that prince of chieftains and cow-stealers. Thus, while the first act was to be perfect in itself, it was shrewdly contrived that it should develop the sequence and economy of the others; but still, to make assurance double-sure, the gazette writer for Scotland, who had been a sinecurist since the creation, was kept drudging at delineations of doings and programmes of processions from morning till night, and sometimes from night till morning.

      When the whole matter had been planned,—when the officers of the household for Scotland had got their robes of state,—when the archers had learned to walk without treading down the heels of each other’s shoes,—when the tailor, the barber, and the dancing-master had done the needful upon the Provost and Bailies,—when the tails of the Highland chiefs had run quarantine,—when the edge of the parsons’ appetites had been a little blunted,—when the wonted tattoo had ceased,—when lamps had been hung upon the front of every house,—when the ladies had drilled themselves in train-bearing, by the help of sheets and table-cloths, and learned to do their salutations without any inordinate smacking,—and when the elements of dazzling and of din had been collected upon all the heights, in the likeness of bone-fires, and bombs, and bagpipes,—it wanted only the placing of the royal foot upon the pier at Leith, to bring all those mighty things into forward and fervent action.

      Amid all those mighty preparations, there was one thing which was very remarkable, and which throws perhaps more light both upon the morale of the spectacle and the feelings of the people, than any other that could be mentioned. The Scots, generally, are allowed to be a people of song and of sentiment. There is a feeling in their melodies, an alternate pathos and glee in their songs, and an enthusiasm and romance in their legends, which are perhaps not equalled, and certainly not surpassed by those of any nation in the world. This may with truth be said of the nation, taking the average of times and of places; and, when it is considered that the Modern Athens holds herself up to the world as a sort of concentrated tincture or spirit of all that is fine or feeling in the country,—as being the throne of learning—the chosen seat of sentiment and of song; furthermore, when upon this occasion there was gathered in and about the Athens, all the lights which are acknowledged as shining, and all the fires which are recognised as burning, in taste and talent throughout Scotland; it must be acknowledged, that something might have been expected to go upon record worthy of such a people at such a time. It had been known that the great Seneschal of all those royal musters,—the ears of the Lord Advocate, the mouth of the Lord President, the eyes of the Lord Provost—to hear, to speak, and to stare, at mighty things as it were;—it had been known that, at the mere loosening of a bookseller’s purse-strings, his verse had flowed rapid as the Forth, and his prose spread wide as its estuary; and surely it was not too much to hope that he would consecrate in song, or conserve in story, an event which was so congenial to his avowed sentiments, and which must have been (from the fond and forward part he played in it) so gratifying to his individual vanity. When, too, it was recollected that this famed and favoured servant of the muse had gone, invited or not invited, to London at the Coronation, lest the Laureat should break down under the compound pressure of solemnity and sack, and the glory slide into oblivion for the want of a fit recorder, it was surely to be hoped that he would have done justice to the royal show in his own country, and in his own city. But, ecce ridiculus mus! the pen which had been so swift, and the tongue which had been so glib at the bidding of a mere plebeian bookseller, were still and mute when a king was the god, and an assembled nation the worshippers. He who had made the world to ring again with the shouts of Highland freebooters, and the din of whose tournaments yet sounds in our ears, failed at the very point of need! “Ah, where was Roderick then! One blast upon his bugle horn” had been worth all the senseless vulgarity from Princes’-street, and all the piddling inanity of Tweedale-court. It was wished for, it was called for, it was imperious upon every principle—not of consistency merely, but of gratitude; but it came not; and all that stands recorded as having come from his otherwise fluent pen upon the occasion, is a paltry and vulgar drinking song, which it would disgrace the most wretched Athenian caddie to troll in the lowest pot-house of the Blackfriars wynd.

      If one whose piping is so gratefully received and so amply rewarded, and whose loyalty has been withal so abundant and so profitable, remained mute or degenerated into mere foolery upon the occasion, what could be expected from the provincial and unhired dabblers in verse, who write only to the casual inspiration of love or liquor, and melt in madrigals or madden in catches according as Cupid or Bacchus holds the principal sway! Nothing, I maintain, and therefore the Great Unknown is guilty not only of his own omission, but of that of all his countrymen. If he had done as he ought,—done in a way worthy of himself—putting the occasion entirely out of the question, there is not a doubt but the whole drove would have been at his heels. As the case stands, whatever may be the comparative merits of the Whig becks and Tory booings, the poetic eclat of the visit of George the Fourth must succumb to that of the descent of Jamie in sixteen hundred and eighteen.

      How is this to be accounted for?—I can see why the mouths of the minor poets must have remained shut; but, to find an apology for the master one, is no such easy matter; and perhaps the safe way for all parties would be to place his salvation in consternation by day, and cups by night. Still, it is remarkable that, though this was the only royal visit with which Scotland had, during the reigns of six monarchs, been honoured, there is no where existing a single decent page, either in verse or in prose, in commemoration of it; and, if the long preparation which was made for it, the bustle which it occasioned, and the crowds which it drew together, be considered, one would feel disposed thence to conclude, that the Athenians, instead of being that literary people which they are represented, are a set of ignorant barbarians. This however is, as themselves say, not the fact, and therefore there must be a cause for their supineness. That cause, however, being beyond the depth of my philosophy, must be left to their own.

      While the Athens was making all preparations to receive the king, and the king all speed to visit the Athens, the elements, those outlaws from even royal authority, created a little anxiety on both sides. The weather, which had been propitious at the outset, became (notwithstanding that the mayor of Scarbro’, in his zeal to present a loyal address at the end of a long stick, had been chucked into the sea, like another Jonah,

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