FOLIOCollections • Research • Events at the National Library of Scotland ISSUE 6 SPRING 2003

DAVID HUMEA True Parisian

GENERATING IDEASProduct of Print

ENTWINED DESTINIESThe Fortunes of War

SMEDDUM & SENSIBILITYOliphant’s Tale

F O L I O2

By one famous account, it waspossible in late-eighteenth-century Edinburgh to standbeside the Mercat Cross and ‘in

a few minutes, take fifty men of geniusand learning by the hand’. The capitalhad developed into an intellectual havenof extraordinary distinction by the 1780s,becoming home to two internationallearned societies established under royalcharters, numerous debating clubs,several specialist journals, and worldrenowned authorities in the fields ofmedicine, philosophy, history, and theemerging new social and natural sciences.Coming and going on any given day inthe town centre were such men asWilliam Cullen, David Hume, WilliamRobertson, Adam Smith and JamesHutton. But the pursuit of learning wentfar beyond Edinburgh’s professionalclasses, enlisting in its cause a sociallybroad-based laity, who supported thetown’s numerous book shops, as many asa dozen newspapers at various times, anda score of magazines and reviews. Thosefifty men of genius and learning mighthave conversed at the Mercat Cross withtradesmen and merchants who wereequally engaged in projects of self-improvement and as curious about thenatural world as any eighteenth-centuryphilosopher.

The democratisation of learning was adefining feature of Edinburgh’sEnlightenment. Under the leadership ofmoderate clergymen like PrincipalWilliam Robertson, the University hadestablished curricula that attractedstudents from England, the Continentand North America, and Scotland waswell served by its parish schools inoffering a sound basic education to thegeneral population. Freemasonry, in itsresolutely Scottish manifestation, alsocontributed significantly to thepromotion of learning for the sake ofmoral good as well as intellectual self-improvement. The Scottish mason –unlike his brethren in England or theContinent – avoided mystical andpolitical preoccupations, remaining trueto a common sense tradition thatencouraged him, according to TheFreemason’s Pocket-Companion (1765)(XX.7/3), ‘to be a lover of the arts andsciences, and to take all opportunities ofimproving himself therein’. Edinburgh’smasonic lodges typically invited lectures

on contemporary issues in moralphilosophy and natural science, and theselectures were occasionally published. Inthe late-eighteenth century, many ofEdinburgh’s intellectual élite were notonly practising freemasons but also lodgemasters and even Grand Masters ofScotland, including David Dalrymple,Henry Erskine, Lord Monboddo, JamesBoswell, and Dugald Stewart. Theculture of learning and improvementwithin the egalitarian community thatcharacterised eighteenth-centuryEdinburgh’s masonic lodges provided aready example of how public educationmight bring about social change,something very much acknowledged byone Scottish Grand Master, LordBuchan, in the principles he followed inthe establishment of his Society ofAntiquaries of Scotland.

If learned societies, universityclassrooms, clubs and lodges providedvenues for the oral transmission ofenlightened arts and sciences, the widerdissemination of new ideas in printbrought about an unprecedentedexpansion in the Edinburgh book trade.In the 1750s, there were only a fewviable printing and publishing businessesoperating in Edinburgh, the firm ofHamilton, Balfour and Neill mostprominent among them and already

establishing new standards through itsambitious list of learned titles and itsventures into magazine and newspaperpublication with the first EdinburghReview (1755–56) (Nha.O214/1) andthe Edinburgh Chronicle (1759–60)(RB.m.432). But the number of printer-publishers would increase to as many astwenty by the 1780s. During that periodof some thirty years, Edinburghbooksellers like John Balfour, CharlesElliot and William Creech had come todominate the trade through businessalliances with such ex-pat Scots inLondon as Andrew Millar, John Murrayand the Strahans, as well as partnershipson the Continent and in North America,making Edinburgh’s book businessgenuinely international. Such trade, ofcourse, was a two-way commerce inideas, bringing a wide range of foreignauthors into Edinburgh book shops.Advertisements in the town’s threeprincipal newspapers regularly announcedthe arrival of new titles from London,Paris and Amsterdam. Books carriedEdinburgh’s Enlightenment across theglobe and in turn brought controversialideas and scientific innovations back intothe town’s intellectual communities, fromTissot and D’Alembert, to John Bartramand Thomas Paine. But some of thepublications which did the most to exciteand sustain an appetite for new ideasamong Edinburgh’s common readerscame from the initiatives of local printers,focused primarily on a local market. Twoof the Scottish Enlightenment’s eventualbestsellers, Dr William Buchan’s DomesticMedicine (1769) (BCL.D2945) and theEncyclopaedia Britannica (1768–71) (EB.1) began life in such modestcircumstances, conceived to makespecialist knowledge accessible to thegeneral reader and delivered cheaply toan audience based mostly in Edinburgh.Many other works similarly designed tospread learning in affordable editionsoffer themselves as equally interestingexamples of publishing history, eventhough they never attained the popularityand eventual acclaim of Buchan’s medicalhandbook and the Britannica. Theseincluded scientific tracts, reviews andmagazines, and books of generalknowledge and the short-lived periodicalsthe Gentleman and Lady’s WeeklyMagazine (1774–75) (BCL.D1992), theWeekly Mirror (1780–81), the Weekly

Printing for the People Two Great Enlightenment Printers

The city of Edinburgh was at theheart of the Scottish

Enlightenment, a period ofintellectual ferment in the artsand sciences. Stephen Brown hasspent many years researching the

printers, publishers and booksellerswho promoted the work of the

leading thinkers of the time. Twoof these, William Smellie and

James Tytler, emerge asfascinating characters, both

passionately committed to thedissemination of ideas and thedemocratisation of learning.

STEPHEN BROWN

F O L I O 3

Review (1780), and the HistoricalRegister (1791–92) (APS.2.89.93), allspeculative ventures on the part ofEdinburgh printers, written by localauthors for local consumption.Edinburgh’s book trade in the eighteenthcentury was a dynamic partner to thetown’s intellectual achievements, and thestory of its printers is fundamental tounderstanding that cultural moment.

Perhaps the two most unusualEdinburgh printers in the late-eighteenthcentury were William Smellie (1740–95)and James Tytler (1745–1804). Theircareers overlap in curious ways, althoughno surviving account of their livesindicates that they ever met. Both werehired by Colin Macfarquhar to compile,edit and write original articles for theEncyclopedia Britannica, Smellie for thefirst edition and Tytler, the second. Bothwere well known in Edinburgh foreclectic learning and a detailedknowledge of contemporary medicine.Both were journalists; between them,Smellie and Tytler edited andcontributed to sixteen periodicals,founding or owning seven of thosepublications. Each discovered himself at acrucial moment in his career on thewrong political side in one ofEdinburgh’s many pamphlet wars,Smellie losing his chance at EdinburghUniversity’s Chair in Natural Historybecause of his satirical attack on theDundas dynasty and Tytler beingdeclared an outlaw for his failure toappear on charges of seditious libelarising from his own confrontation withthe Dundases. These men also representtwo professional extremes that define thehigh and low end of the eighteenth-century Edinburgh book trade. Smelliebecame Scotland’s most celebratedlearned printer, his services sought out byEdinburgh’s and London’s leadingpublishers; Tytler operated out of thetown’s suburbs employing a home-madepress and using his sons as apprentices ina business that offered Edinburgh’sliterate poor cheap works of history,geography and theology. From vastlydiffering professional perspectives,Smellie and Tytler engaged with equalpassion in the business of widelydisseminating the new learning throughusing the popular press to reach a sociallydiverse readership.

William Smellie was never a passivepartner when printing for any bookseller.He believed that the printer had aresponsibility for the content as well asthe format of a text, and he placed a highpremium on accessibility. While Smellie’seditorial advice was regularly sought outby many authors including Lord Kames,

The Freemason’s Pocket-Companion, 1765, invokedthe reader ‘to be a lover of the arts and sciences,and to take all opportunities of improving himselftherein’. Eighteenth-century Scottish masoniclodges often invited leading thinkers to talk oncontemporary issues in moral philosophy and thenatural sciences.

Partly as a promotional device, radical printerJames Tytler enclosed a free copy of ThomasPaine’s Letter to the Right Honourable Mr SecretaryDundas with the Historical Register for May 1792.The Library has a copy in its original bluewrappers, bound together with Paine’s pamphlet.

The Merry Muses of Caledonia by Robert Burns,Dublin, 1804. The Merry Muses was first printed in1799 after William Smellie’s death, by his sonAlexander.

Andrew Duncan and Robert Burns, healso often found himself at odds withpublishing partners who resented aprinter who could be so proprietory.When Smellie did lock horns withpublishers, he was quick to take thedebate to the public through thenewspapers. It might strike us as odd thatan editorial disagreement over a learnedpublication would end up on the frontpage of the evening paper, but this wasnot unusual in the eighteenth centurywhen so many editors were alsojournalists and so many booksellers,publishers, and printers owned or sharedan interest in newspapers, reviews andmagazines. In fact, for book historians,the contemporary periodical pressremains a crucial – and sometimes theonly – source of information abouteighteenth-century Edinburgh’s booktrade, with its advertisements, reviews,excerpts and announcements. Smelliebegan his career as the editor of the ScotsMagazine (1759–65), next becomingjoint owner of the Edinburgh WeeklyJournal (GIVB.2/54(7)) with WilliamAuld, and later a co-owner, editor, andmajor contributor to the EdinburghMagazine and Review (1773–76)(RB.s.1535). He printed the two latterperiodicals and from 1773 was theprinter and occasionally the editor of theMedical and Philosophical Commentaries.But it was as editor of the first edition ofthe Encyclopaedia Britannica and editor,printer, and publisher of the first Edin-burgh edition of Dr William Buchan’sDomestic Medicine (1769) (BCL.D2945)that Smellie first and most forcefully putinto practice his beliefs about the properdissemination of learning.

Smellie seems to have been at odds

Encyclopaedia Britannica, London, 1773 (EB.3).William Smellie and James Tytler both contributedarticles for the Encyclopedia.

F O L I O4

with Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bellover the form the Britannica would take,from the moment he was hired to editand compile the encyclopaedia for a £200stipend.

Their increasingly rancorous dis-agreements found a public airing in the periodical press as early as 1766, with Smellie using his own paper, theEdinburgh Weekly Journal as well as theEdinburgh Evening Courant, first topropose an encyclopaedia in octavo thatwould require many more numbers tocomplete than the eventual quartoformat, and later in 1769 to confrontcritics who disagreed with his emphasison the natural sciences and disliked hisessaistic style. Those who criticised theeditor for the Britannica’s denselydetailed entry on Anatomy, Smelliedismissed in newspaper articles as peoplewho mistook the Britannica for ‘only abookseller’s jobb [sic], a servile imitationof other dictionaries’. Smellie saw in theBritannica an opportunity to generatealmost endless numbers that would makeavailable to a socially inclusive readershipthe best of contemporary learning in aninexpensive octavo format. Hisstubbornness in pursuing his own agendacaused constant delays in the publicationof the early numbers and more than alittle unevenness in coverage. Theseproblems and the public wrangling overformat and content no doubt contributedto the relative failure of the Britannica’sfirst edition, now a very rare book in itscomplete three volumes. Rarer still is the1773 London edition (ABS.8.200.09).Sold by John Donaldson, this LondonBritannica was nothing more than theunsold sheets of the earlier Edinburghedition, furnished with a new Preface andDonaldson’s imprint. That Preface is,

perhaps, the most fascinating thing aboutthe London edition; written by WilliamSmellie, it is more than twice the lengthof the original and argues closely forSmellie’s notion that scientific knowledgeis most useful when ‘exhibited entire’ andthat treatises and systems make learninginaccessible for the general reader. ThePreface also displays Smellie’s hallmarktendency toward satire and parody in itsdismissive critique of other contemporarydictionaries, especially the work ofEphraim Chambers.

Throughout his printing career,Smellie continued to take an active partin selecting and editing texts andpromoting new authors, often at his ownexpense. He spent several years collectingsubscriptions and rewriting WilliamBuchan’s Domestic Medicine. ComparingBuchan’s original proposal with Smellie’srevision of it which he printed in theEdinburgh Weekly Journal (3 June 1767),we see how extensively Smelliereconceived the work and how far hisstyle displaced Buchan’s. The book isbetter for Smellie’s rewriting but after thefirst edition in 1769, which bearsSmellie’s imprint, the text passed to otherprinters and publishers, along with theextraordinary profits it would accrue inits many subsequent editions.

Over the years, Smellie brought anumber of other important works to theattention of publishers by first editingand issuing them under his own imprint,including the first editions of Dalrymple’sRemarks on the History of Scotland(1773) (ABS.1.80.285(1)), theThesaurus Medicus (1778–79), andArnot’s Celebrated Criminal Trials(1785). He also took a great interest inthe first projects of many novice authors,substantially rewriting before printingMalcolm McCoig’s proposal for a FloraEdinburgensis (1788), John Taylor’s

Medical Treatise on the Virtues of StBernard’s Well (1790) (Nha.O180(8)),and Maria Riddell’s Voyages to theMadeira and Leeward Caribbean Isles(1792) (K.182.f ).

Smellie’s most interesting risk as aprinter came posthumously, under thedirection of his son, Alexander. Smelliewas a close friend of Robert Burns,having printed the Edinburgh edition ofhis poems for William Creech andintroduced Burns to the CrochallanFencibles, a drinking and debating club.At his death in 1795, Smellie possessedan extensive collection of bawdycorrespondence with Burns, whichSmellie’s biographer Robert Kerrsubsequently destroyed in 1811. It is a fair conjecture that among thatcorrespondence were letters containingthe obscene songs which Burns hadaddressed to Smellie for circulationamong the Crochallans. The Merry Musesof Caledonia was printed in 1799(Mf.1059) at the same time thatAlexander Smellie was sorting throughand printing all of his father’sunpublished manuscripts, and it is notinconceivable that Alexander might havethrown off Burns’s songs, either alone orin collusion with the bookseller PeterHill. Certainly, no printing firm inEdinburgh has a greater claim to theMerry Muses than William Smellie’scompany in the Anchor Close.

As a printer, James Tytler sharedSmellie’s commitment to the democrat-isation of learning but he never achievedSmellie’s status in the trade. Tytleroperated in the netherworld ofEdinburgh publishing, issuing his own titles from a homemade press atRestalrig. Tytler had been trained as asurgeon, served on a whaling ship,worked as an apothecary, and made thefirst ascent by balloon in Scotland. Hedrew on all these experiences as editorand contributor to the second edition ofthe Encyclopaedia Britannica (1776–84).But Tytler also wrote and printed a widerange of works of general knowledge incheap editions. His Essays on the MostImportant Articles of Natural andRevealed Religion (Ry.1.4.80), TheDoctrine of Assurance Considered, AGeneral History of All Nations, Ancientand Modern (RB.S.1386), and TheUniversal Voyager were all printed byTytler and his son George on a pressbuilt with parts Tytler had scavengedfrom around Edinburgh. Thesepublications were intended for the town’sliterate tradesmen and issued in smallruns in the 1770s and 1780s.

Considering the quality of Tytler’spress and his lack of formal training as a

Letter from James Tytler to John Anderson.(Adv.MSS.22.4.II, ff. 38–9)

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Note on sources

The rarest materials among the Library’ssources on Edinburgh printing andpublishing, are the first edition of DrWilliam Buchan’s Domestic Medicine (1769)(BCL.D2945), edited and printed bySmellie; the first Edinburgh edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica (EB.1), editedand compiled by Smellie and the Londonedition (1773) (EB.3) for which Smelliewrote a new and unusual Preface; the onlyextensive run of Smellie and Auld’sEdinburgh Weekly Journal (GIVB.2/54(7));the various works of James Tytler printedon his home-made press (these are listed inthe article and all available in the NorthReading Room); and very importantly arare copy of Tytler’s politically radicalHistorical Register (1791–92)(ABS.4.87.9(1–2)) in original bluewrappers and bound together with ThomasPaine’s pamphlet, Letter to the RightHonourable Mr Secretary Dundas(2.316(20)), which was given free with theperiodical. One other very rare andimportant National Library source is aDublin edition of Burns’s Merry Muses(RB.s.2046), based on the originalEdinburgh edition, which was very possiblyprinted by Smellie’s son Alexander from hisfather’s since destroyed manuscriptcorrespondence with Burns. The WilliamSmellie manuscripts are deposited in thearchives of the Society of Antiquaries ofScotland in the Royal Museum of Scotland.

printer, the work he threw off issurprisingly competent. The inking ispredictably uneven, the type oftenirregular and broken, but compositor’serrors are few. Tytler’s achievements as aprinter testify clearly to the burgeoningmarket for learning in late-eighteenth-century Edinburgh, among even thepoorer labouring classes.

But Tytler, like Smellie, did some of his best work as a journalist, single-handedly producing weekly and monthlyreviews, aimed at women and a lower-class readership. Tytler worked for aseries of printers but had his strongestties with William Auld, John Mennons,and William Darling. His earliest effort,the Gentleman and Lady’s WeeklyMagazine (1774–75) is notable for itslively theatre reviews, but his later work,especially the Weekly Mirror (1780–81),became increasingly political and

uncommon practice in the periodicaltrade. Tytler became the first Scottishprinter indicted under the new seditiouswritings act after he wrote and self-published the broadside, To the Peopleand their Friends (ABS.10.203.01(006))in December 1792, but it was theHistorical Register which first broughtTytler to the Lord Advocate’s attention.Smellie and Tytler shared a commonbackground as freemasons and radicalprotestants, Smellie coming from aCameronian family, and Tytler becominga Glasite as a young man. Their resoluteself-dependence and commitment tointellectual ideals is indicative of much of the late-eighteenth-century Edinburghbook trade, which seemed to express in secular ways the Covenanters’ para-doxical embodiment of loyal dissent. And that may be the most distinctivecharacteristic of many of EnlightenmentEdinburgh’s printers, a belief that onlythe intellectual independence of a self-determining free press could unite Scotsas a nation. In some ways, Edinburgh’sbook trade brought about that nationalunity, if only as a product of print.

controversial. By 1791, Tytler had linkedup with Cornelius Elliot to publish theHistorical Register, a 48-page monthlywhich assumed a radical posture. Tytlerdevised a number of schemes to promotethe Register, of which the mostremarkable was his offer to anyonepurchasing the eleventh number for May1792, of a free copy of Thomas Paine’sLetter to the Right Honourable MrSecretary Dundas (2.316(20)). TheLibrary has a copy of the issue in originalblue wrappers, bound together withPaine’s pamphlet. Printed on the bluecovers are two satires, one of HenryDundas, the other of the slave trade. It isa fine and rare example of the extrememeasures taken by some Edinburghprinters in their opposition to thegovernment.

The Historical Register was Tytler’sjournalistic triumph. It sold out monthly,was picked up in London, and thenewspapers regularly advertised reprintsof the most popular numbers, an

An illustration showing the blood vessels from theAnatomy section of the first London imprint of theEncyclopaedia Britannica, London, 1773.

this was to lead to his censure by theFaculty’s Curators on account of hisacquisition of what were deemed to besalacious French books. Hume famouslyresigned on this issue in 1757. Howeverhis name and reputation lived on, andover the years the National Library hasbecome the major centre for Humescholarship as a result of the amassing ofa remarkable collection of manuscripts ofthe philosopher: letters, literaryfragments, proofs, suppressed butannotated versions of printed works, thecorrespondence of his circle and, aboveall, the peerless Hume Papers, depositedby the Royal Society of Edinburgh,which have a family provenance. Thesepapers include a wonderful assemblage ofletters, not only of Hume himself, butalso of those addressed to him by someof the greatest personalities of le siècle deslumières, among them Adam Smith,Jean-Jacques Rousseau and BenjaminFranklin. The document in the Erskinealbum (apparently wholly unrelated to itsother contents, and probably pasted insimply as an intriguing relic of a greatman), would therefore be joining acollection of supreme importance anddistinction. We accepted the proffereddonation with gratitude and enthusiasm.

The discovery of a new Humedocument, unknown and previouslyunpublished, is not an everydayoccurrence. A full transcription appearsfor the first time below. It has to beadmitted that, were it not by Hume, and

F O L I O6

Hume in Paris

It was the proverbial hot summerafternoon. The atmosphere in theoffice was soporific. The batteredvolume on my desk was not the

most exciting document I had ever seen,but it would come to the Library as adonation if I thought it suitable for thenational collection. The owner hadpicked it up in a London street duringthe Blitz and now, all these years later,wanted it to find a home in Scotland.The inscription ‘R.E. Erskine’ and thedate ‘1829’ were the only indications oforiginal ownership. The book had all thecharacteristics of a lady’s autographalbum, containing numerous signaturescut from letters, but also more substantialdocuments, some of these of Scottishinterest, certainly, and some not entirelywithout significance. From time to timethere were hands I recognised, and aname or two I could put in context. Butthen there were all those terribly dull cutsignatures … I turned another page. Noteven the four o’clock tedium of anoppressively close and somnolent Juneafternoon could stifle my excitement atwhat I now saw; for here was a hand Iknew very well indeed! The paper beforeme, though unsigned, had been writtenby none other than David Hume.

One of the greatest of all Scotsman,and a towering figure of Europeanthought, Hume was, of course, a leaderof the Scottish Enlightenment. At thetime of the album’s arrival in the Library,I was serving on the David HumeCommemoration Committee of theSaltire Society, and we were raising fundsto pay for the statue we hadcommissioned from Alexander Stoddart.I had, in fact, recently composed thelapidary text for the statue’s plinth:‘Philosopher and Historian. Scot andEuropean. Man of the Enlightenment.’The record of that period of remarkableintellectual ferment is of major concernto the Manuscripts Division of theNational Library. I was also deeplyconscious that Hume had once beenKeeper of the Library of the Faculty ofAdvocates, that historic institution uponthe splendid collections of which theNational Library was established, andwhich underpins our present position as amajor research library of internationalreputation. Hume had described theKeepership as ‘a genteel office, though of

small revenue’, but it was neverthelessone that afforded him ‘the Command ofa large Library’ and thus was ofinvaluable advantage to him in his ownliterary labours. It was Hume whoinstigated a policy of buying works bycontemporary European writers, though

As the major world centre forHume scholarship, the National

Library of Scotland has anunparalleled collection of the

great Enlightenment philosopher’smanuscripts. Among documents

written by David Hume himself isone acquired relatively recentlydating from 1775. It contains

advice to his nephew Josey, who isabout to embark on his first visit

to Paris. Here, Iain GordonBrown recalls the excitement ofthe moment when he discoveredthe document in a scrapbook of

unrelated items.

Le bon David and Guid Auld Uncle Davie

IAIN GORDON BROWN

Ninewells House, David Hume’s family house inBerwickshire. From Histories of Noble BritishFamilies by Henry Drummond, 1846. (S.300.a)

F O L I O 7

did it not refer to a city dear to his heartand to a time of great significance in thelife of an extraordinary individual, thepaper would not merit great attention.Perhaps it might merely rank as aminor curiosity in the literature ofBritish travel in the age of theGrand Tour. It takes the form of amemorandum for his nephew,Joseph (Josey), son of his elderbrother John, on how the youngman should conduct himself inParis: where to lodge; how tohandle money; what clothes toorder; at what hour to call uponthe Comtesse de Boufflers; whatsalons to attend; how often to try togain admission to the best levées: all isthought of and set down concisely. In hisrole as kindly uncle, Hume clearly drawsupon his own intimate knowledge ofFrench manners and customs; and inwriting these brief travelling instructionsfor his kinsman, he must surely haverecalled with intense pleasure his ownastonishing sojourn in Paris some tenyears earlier, when unparalleled adulationhad been showered upon le bon David. Itis in these contexts that the documentmust be analysed and its significancefully exploited.

DIRECTIONS TO THE CORNET

I would have you drive to the Hotel deTours, Rue Paon, Fauxbourg St Germain,as a Creditable Place at which I have knownseveral of my Friends to lodge. Enquire thePrice of Apartments before you fix on any.The Landlord will provide you with a Valetde place; and you may probably dine everyday at the Table d’hote in good Companyenough.

Go presently to your Banker: If he beeither Sir John Lambert, or Selwin orNeckre please make my Compliments tohim. He will probably recommend a properTaylor to you: If not, your Landlord at thehotel will. Make a genteel uniformpresently; and divert yourself at theTheatre, and seeing sights, till it be ready.

Then wait on the Countess Dowager ofBoufflers, in the Forenoon but not veryearly, on whom you are chiefly to dependfor Recommendations to the Governor ofthe Province and the Governor of theTown of Metz.

If she be not in Town, leave my Letterwith your own Card, containing yourDirection; and say, that you will call a dayor two after: Do so, till you see her or hearfrom her.

On leaving her, drive to Monsr.Trudaine de Montigni, for he lives in thesame Quarter of the Town: Leave in thesame manner my Letter and your ownDirection, if he be not at home.

Make your Valet de place ask at M.

Trudaine’s House for the house of MadameDupré de St Maur: It is very near; but Ihave forgot the Name of the Street. Act inthe same manner.

Drive next to Baron d’Holbach’s. Act inthe same manner: make your Valet de placeremark all the Houses, that you may knowhow to return to them; and for greaterSecurity copy the backs of all these lettersin your Pocket Book. You must returnevery two or three days, till you see them orhear from them, if they be in Town.

If the Countess de Boufflers give yourRecommendations to the two Governors,you may chiefly insist with the otherPersons on having a Recommendation tosome other Officer at Metz, who may takeyou under his Protection, and settle youagreeably.

Hume was never very free with hisintroductions. Paris and its society, in thepresent and in happy memory, wereimportant to him. Josey was evidentlyworth bothering about, on his ownaccount and for the sake of kinship. One may contrast his case with that of an oafish Scottish colonel of whomHume wrote to Hugh Blair, ‘As to the ridiculous Idea of Foreigners [theFrenchified Hume means those at homein Scotland] that I might introduce himto the good Company of Paris, nothingcan be more impracticable: I know notone Family to which I could present sucha man, silent, grave, awkward, speakingill the Language, not distinguishd by anyExploit or Science or Art: Were theFrench Houses open to such People asthese they woud be very little agreeable… No people are more scrupulous of

receiving Persons unknown; and I shouldsoon lose all Credit with them, were I toprostitute my Recommendations of thisNature.’ Such a traveller should be

dispatched to a provincial town, ‘wherePeople are less shy of admitting newAcquaintance, and are less delicateJudges of Behaviour’ (MS.23151,no. 7).

Hume’s love of France datedfrom the mid-1730s when, after abrief spell in Paris, he spent morethan three years in provincial townsin Champagne and Anjou,

peacefully working on his Treatise ofHuman Nature. By 1741 he had

been able to epitomise the attraction ofthe country and its people: ‘… incommon life, they have, in a greatmeasure, perfected that art, the mostuseful and agreeable of any, l’Art deVivre, the art of society andconversation.’ More active acquaintancewith the great world was to follow. Insucceeding years, despite the vicissitudesof war and politics, Hume entertainedthe idea, however nebulous, of retiring toFrance ‘to trifle out my old age, near awarm sun in a good climate, a pleasantcountry, and amidst a sociable people’.Later, unsolicited correspondence withthe Comtesse de Boufflers, mistress ofthe Prince de Conti, an intense epistolaryintercourse soon to evolve into what canonly be described as a postal flirtation,caused him to doubt his fitness (‘rustedamid books and study’) for closerencounters with metropolitan Frenchsociety. But, unexpectedly appointedSecretary to the British Ambassador toParis, Hume was to serve there, latterly aschargé d’affaires, from 1763 to 1766. Inhis short autobiography My Own Life, healleged that he was diffident of acceptinglest ‘the Civilities and gay Company ofParis woud prove disagreeable to aPerson of my Age and Humour’, butconfessed that ‘those who have not seenthe strange Effect of Modes will neverimagine the Reception I met with …from Men and Women of all Ranks andStations. The more I recoiled from theirexcessive Civilities, the more I was loadedwith them.’ The prophesy of JohnStewart, his wine-merchant friend, thatHume would receive a welcomecommensurate with his literary reputationwas more than fulfilled. Stewart’s letter of1759 (MS.23157, no.49) specificallymentioned as Hume’s admirers personswhom the philosopher was later torecommend to Josey: Alléon Dupré de StMaur, ‘a woman of fortune, fashion andgreat good sense’, and Jean-Charles-Philibert Trudaine de Montigny, whohad translated Hume’s Natural History

Engraving of David Hume by S.C. Miger from adrawing by C.N. Cochin, made in 1764 when Humewas living in his beloved Paris.

the similarly bon chic bon genre (as theymight now be called) neighbourhoods ofthe Rive Droite. Subsequently theComtesse de Boufflers had wanted himto live very near her in the Temple.When Josey was recommended tolodgings it was to a less exclusive part ofthe city nearer to the Quartier Latin,though the rue Paon, adjacent to thestill-existing Cour de Rohan, hasdisappeared under Haussmann’sBoulevard Saint-Germain.

No man of letters was ever morespectacularly received than David Hume.At Versailles the infant royal childrenmumbled their greetings andcompliments. Madame de Pompadourflattered him at Fontainebleau. Scottishacquaintances exchanged gossip on the‘incense offered up’ in worship to theirfriend, the ‘Idol of Gaul’. Reported‘civilities’, ‘attention’, ‘approbation’,‘caresses’, ‘effusions’ and ‘panegyrics’litter Hume’s letters. To WilliamRobertson he wrote: ‘I can only say, thatI eat nothing but Ambrosia, drinknothing but Nectar, breathe nothing butIncense, and tread on nothing but

Flowers. Every Man I meet, and stillmore every Lady, woud think they werewanting in the most indispensible Duty,if they did not make me a long &elaborate Harangue in my Praise’(MS.3942,f.54). Paris became ‘the bestPlace in the World’, the Scottishphilosopher a true Parisian. He was thedarling of the fair, the man in vogue inwhat he insisted to Adam Smith was themost agreeable town in Europe, ‘theCenter of Arts, of Politeness, ofGallantry, and of good Company’. Hebegan to confess to a ‘Taste for Idleness& Follies at my Years’, and at Paris thosefollies were so much more agreeable thanelsewhere. London, by contrast, wasinhabited by barbarians, and thereScotsmen were hated. Edinburgh stillheld its attractions, but he was inclinedto remain ever afterwards in France.Adam Smith scoffed at his light-headedness. Sir Gilbert Elliot smirked atthe vanity that was owing to theattentions of ‘the French Ladys as muchas the French Philosophers’.

But it was indeed to Edinburgh thatHume retired, and it was in his housethere that, in 1773, his reprobate nephewJosey came to live, like a prodigal, tocollect (as his uncle put it) some witbefore he visited foreign countries, andto do penance for past misdemeanourswhich had sorely tried an uncle almost‘run out of Breath with railing’. From atleast 1763 David Hume, childless and(for a man of letters, then or now) rich,had assumed responsibility for theeducation of his nephew. AdamFerguson, writing from Edinburgh toHume in Paris, described Josey as ‘a veryamiable boy with quick parts’(MS.23155,no.24). Hume favoured an Englisheducation for the boy as he grew older,with all the perceived advantages thatmight offer, chief among them being thesuppression of his Scotticisms – a near-obsession among men of ‘politeness’ ineighteenth-century Scotland – and theacquisition of an English accent whichmight ‘open him the Road of Ambition’.Josey, of whom his uncle was clearlyfond, appears a somewhat paradoxicalcharacter, by turns able and deficient.‘The Presence of Strangers’, Hume toldthe boy’s father in 1767, ‘seems to makehim recollect himself, and he isexceedingly taking among them. HisAddress in particular is remarkably good,and he seems to have a Turn for theWorld and for Company.’

However, hopes that Josey might‘make at least a very Gentleman likeScholar’ were disappointed, and he provedincreasingly ‘dissipated and idle’. TheArmy therefore beckoned, and Hume

F O L I O8

of Religion, and who balanced a career in finance and French national civilengineering administration with a love of letters. If Madame Dupré was the first of Hume’s cultured female Frenchadmirers, none of these bluestockingswas to be more important to him thanMarie-Charlotte-Hippolyte de Campet de Saujeon, Comtesse de Boufflers-Rouverel, truly the mistress of hisintellect, if nothing else. With Paul-HenriThiry, Baron d’Holbach, likewiserecommended to Josey, she was a leaderof intellectual Paris society; and at theirsalons philosophers were kings. WhatHume wrote of d’Holbach’s house maybe applied to all these leaders of taste andsociety to whom he would later directyoung Josey: it was ‘a common receptaclefor all men of letters and ingenuity’.Hume had lived in the Faubourg Saint-Germain on the Rive Gauche, a districtsynonymous with aristocratic highfashion, and he was equally at home in

Above and facing page (first published in full here):David Hume’s memorandum for his nephew JosephHume, advising him of places to visit and contactsin Paris. (Acc.11353)

Note on sources

The memorandum for Joseph Hume is tobe found in Acc.11353. The Hume Papersdeposited by the Royal Society ofEdinburgh are MSS.23154–64. The lettersin these manuscripts form the core of TheLetters of David Hume, edited by J.Y.T.Greig, two volumes (Oxford 1932)(X.194.c). This is to be supplemented byNew Letters of David Hume, edited by R.Klibansky and Ernest C. Mossner (Oxford1954). Many quotations in this article aretaken from these sources. ‘David Hume:some unpublished letters’, edited byGeoffrey Hunter, Texas Studies inLiterature and Language, II (1960), pp.127–50 (X.170.b) prints letters relating toJoseph, some of which are quoted here.The manuscripts of these letters haverecently come to the Library (Acc.11927).For all its imperfections the standardbiography remains E.C. Mossner, The Lifeof David Hume, second edition (Oxford1980) (H3.98.2516). In its day, Mossner’sThe Forgotten Hume. Le bon David (NewYork 1943, reprinted Bristol 1990) waspioneering (H3.90.4223). Howard C. Rice,Thomas Jefferson’s Paris (Princeton 1976)(H8.77.47) is an agreeable interpretation ofone great man’s time in a great city.

F O L I O 9

purchased for him a commission in asmart cavalry regiment. Service in Englandmight tend at least to the improvement ofhis speech and pronunciation. Hume(who had himself once worn ‘the uniformof an officer’ when Secretary to GeneralJames St Clair during an expeditionagainst the coast of France andsubsequently on a military embassy toVienna and Turin), continued to exercisehis ‘function of an uncle in giving advice’.He now expatiated knowledgeably uponmilitary manners and regimental customs,but half-promised and half-threatened thatmost of his powers that way he wouldreserve for ‘a better occasion’. But ‘quickparts’ other than those praised by the twoEdinburgh philosophers were to leadJosey into trouble; for Hume soon had toexercise his avuncular advice, temperedalways by tactful understanding andsympathy, in supporting the young manthrough an attack of venereal disease andits unpleasant cure.

The good Uncle David continued topay Josey’s expenses and mess bills, andbought him further promotion in theDragoon Guards. In 1775 it was decided

that the young officer should make aprolonged visit to France ‘for hisimprovement in the language and in hisprofession’. He was to spend somemonths in the garrison town of Metz.Again, Hume was paymaster. JacquesNecker, a Swiss banker and reassuringlyProtestant, was suggested as a man tolook after Josey’s cash. Hume wasendearingly vain in this respect, forNecker, as Louis XVI’s directeur géneraldes finances in the years before theRevolution, would very soon have acharge rather greater than CornetHume’s holiday spending money. Healso determined to smooth the way forJosey by writing in advance to theComtesse de Boufflers. That he shoulddo so to this influential, intelligent andcultivated woman, whose friendship andopinion he so greatly valued, indicatesboth his confidence in his nephew’snative abilities and his sense of familyties. ‘He has,’ wrote Hume to theComtesse, ‘as you will see, an agreeablefigure; and if he could speak thelanguage, his behaviour and conversationis very good; so that I doubt not but he

will be acceptable to the good companyof the place … He will be so little time atParis, and speaks the language soimperfectly, that I dare not recommendhim to your more particular notice,though I am persuaded you would likehim very much, upon furtheracquaintance. He is a piece of a scholartoo, and passes for a prodigy of learningin his regiment.’

Hume’s hopes for the encountercannot have been entirely wasted, for heappears subsequently to have becomeconcerned by Josey’s protracted sojournin Paris. The young man returned to hisuncle in Edinburgh to find thephilosopher on his deathbed. Accordingto Joseph Black, writing to Adam Smith,the peace of Hume’s last days weredisturbed by shock at Josey’s appearance(further dangerous liaisons, perhaps, withVenus – as the eighteenth century wouldhave put it – and consequent dependenceupon Mercury?), and David became‘fatigued with the Stir and Noise whichhis living in the House occasioned’. Fivedays before he died Hume took finalleave of the Comtesse de Boufflers in aletter in which he thought only of herfuture. ‘I see death approach gradually,’he wrote, ‘without any anxiety or regret.I salute you, with great affection andregard, for the last time.’

F O L I O10

Two modest journals of jottings,opening with a scored outentry for 1849 and resumedover ten years later, constitute

the autobiography of Margaret Oliphant.The non-linearity of the text, in whichsequences of retrospection are frequentlyinterrupted as current diary entries breakthrough, invests it with a contemporaryquality that is notably at variance withthe conventions of the popular three-decker Victorian novel, one of herspecialities. The Autobiography and Lettersof Mrs M.O.W. Oliphant, arranged andedited by her niece Janet (‘Denny’)Oliphant and her cousin Annie Coghill,was published by William Blackwood andSons in 1899 (HP2.89.4066). The text,which had been abridged and reorderedby her niece, was finally published in itsoriginal powerful form by OxfordUniversity Press in 1990, edited byElisabeth Jay.

The notebooks chart the life of aspirited, resourceful woman whoexperienced a series of bereavements thatfell like ‘hammer blows’. MargaretOliphant was born on 4 April 1828 inWallyford, Midlothian. Her family movedto Edinburgh and then to Glasgow andLiverpool, where she wrote her first novelaged only sixteen. Among herautobiographical notes are cameos of heryouth in an introverted, lower middle-class household. There were few visitorsand few excursions, in line with herfather’s dourly antisocial attitude. Hermother, who summed up her husband’sside of the family as ‘vitriol and vinegar’,was vivacious, quick in temper andundemonstratively affectionate. AsOliphant records: ‘She was of the oldtype of Scottish mothers ... not caressing,but I know I was a kind of idol to her ...’Looking back on their very closerelationship she says that she finds itvirtually impossible to achieve thedistance necessary to provide an objectivepicture:How little one realises the character orindividuality of those who are most nearand dear. It is with difficulty even now thatI can analyse or make a character of her.She herself is there, not any type or varietyof humankind. She was taller than I am,not so stout as I have grown. She had asweet fresh complexion, and a cheek so softthat I can feel the sensation of putting mineagainst it still, and beautiful liquid brown

eyes, full of light and fun and sorrow andanger, flashing and melting, terrible to lookat sometimes when one was in disgrace.

Oliphant declares that her mother, whowas ‘all in all’ in her early formation, hadinspired in her a ‘gift of narrative’(matched, in her opinion, only by JaneWelsh Carlyle). Her mother’s creativelegacy also imbued in her a deepfamiliarity with the oral rhythms of herbirth country and she passed on to herdaughter her knowledge of the Scottishballad tradition. As Willa Muir argues in Living With Ballads (1965)

(NG.1175.g.5), the figure of the motherweaving domestic magic is a dominantballad motif possibly deriving ‘from anolder tradition, a climate of belief left inthe air by the matriarchal Picts’. Womendo not only figure as characters but alsoas performers: Lady Wardlaw, Jean Elliot,Lady Anne Lindsay, Lady Nairne andAlison Cockburn were at the heart ofwhat Oliphant calls ‘this little concert ofsongs’. These ‘ladies of the best bloodand breeding’, as she described them inThe Literary History of England (1882),were not the only ones: in her Life ofEdward Irving (1862) (TT.1/3), sheemphasised how servant women, at theother end of the social scale, kept theoral tradition alive with their currency ofsupernatural tales. As the great balladcollector Francis James Child observed,women from all walks of life – ‘thespinsters and the knitters in the sun, andthe free maids that weave their threadwith bones’ – were ‘keepers’ of the balladtradition.

Oliphant’s autobiographical writingsreveal the extent to which her interiorreality differs from a surface presentationof indomitable competence. In a spideryhand that is sometimes difficult todecipher, she confides her anguish as,one after another, her six children die –three in infancy, her daughter Maggie atthe age of ten, and her two remainingsons, ‘Tiddy’ and ‘Cecco’, in their earlythirties. Sincerely religious, she recountsher struggle to reconcile her experiencewith the idea of a benign saviour,speculating that posterity will not realisethe extent to which she has ‘rebelled andgroaned under the rod’. MargaretOliphant, who experienced so many darknights of the soul, generally showedremarkable courage in the face ofadversity; she frequently summed up herphilosophy of life in Lady Grisell Baillie’swords, ‘werena my heart licht I wad dee’.However, the final words of the secondvolume of her journals are set down intwo stark lines:

And now here I am all alone.I cannot write any more.

In fact Oliphant did write more, indeedshe wrote right up until the day of herdeath some years later. But her auto-biography contains the ‘ballad’ of her lifestory, her ‘human story in all its chap-ters’. The death of her last surviving child

Molten Sapphires, Moments that Speak

ANNE SCRIVEN

Born in Wallyford, Midlothian in1828, Margaret Oliphant becameone of the most prolific novelists ofthe nineteenth century. Throughforce of circumstance, she found

herself obliged to fend single-handed for her family. Writing

was her sole source of income, andshe had hardly a moment to call

her own. Here, Anne Scrivendiscusses how Oliphant’s

autobiography reveals the innerworkings of the writer’s mind.

Margaret Oliphant’s Journals

Above: Margaret Oliphant (aged twenty-five) andher mother. (MS.23211/50)

F O L I O 11

brings the ‘death’ of the ‘performer’:

What does it matter? Nothing at all now –never anything to speak of. At my mostambitious of times I would rather mychildren had remembered me as theirmother than in any other way, and myfriends as their friend. I never cared foranything else. And now that there are nochildren to whom to leave any memory,and the friends drop day by day, what is thereputation of a circulating library to me?Nothing, and less than nothing ...

David Buchan has argued for the ballad’sability to ‘manifest itself in many texts’.In the same way I would argue thatOliphant’s original autobiographicalwritings constitute an extension of theoral form, with the rhythms andtraditions of her Scottish childhood verymuch in evidence (as they arethroughout her work). Set down by ahighly practised authorial hand, they maybe interpreted as a consciousperformance in the ballad tradition;despite her grief, the speaker ensures heraudience is kept abreast of the detail andflow of events until the tale concludes.

In her published writing, Oliphant’sScottishness is very evident in her storiesof the supernatural: in these she emergesas a true seannachie, producing storiesrooted in the Scottish folklore traditionbut reflective of the mores of Victoriansociety. In her novels set in Scotland suchas Margaret Maitland (1849), KatieStewart (1852) (T.219.i), Effie Ogilvie(1886) (Vts.91.e.4) and the superbKirsteen (1890), her construction of adistinctive Scottish heroine figure, awoman of smeddum, explores therelationship between Scottish women and their nation. In non-fiction articles

such as ‘Scottish National Character’(1860), and ‘Scotland her Accusers’(1861) – held on microfilm in theLibrary – her construction of a Scottishidentity is clearly seen. Indeed, theliterary cadences of Scotland are so overtin her writing that on their first meeting,Jane Welsh Carlyle immediately identifiedher connection to East Lothian. AsOliphant records:

... she had recognised many things in mybooks which could only come from thatdistrict. I had to answer as I have done onvarious occasions, that my mother had livedfor years in East Lothian, and that I couldnever tell whether it was I myself whoremembered things or she.

The more I have immersed myself inMargaret Oliphant’s work, the more I amconvinced that a full interpretation of itrequires the Scottish dimension. Myresearch has involved many visits toNational Library – little of her prodigiousoutput is available elsewhere. Presciently,Oliphant predicted that her lifetime’swork would ‘disappear like the stubbleand the hay’.

In 1853, she began a career as aBlackwood’s contributor and for the nextforty-five years she wrote predominantlyfor her beloved ‘Maga’, as well as for anumber of other literary journals inBritain and America. She wroteapproximately 300 articles, some fiftyshort stories, twenty-five works of non-fiction and over ninety novels – indeedshe wrote so much that she actually worea groove in the forefinger of her righthand. Continually driven by the need tomake a living, she was never granted theease of mind that an editorship wouldhave given; and, it has to be said, fine

tuning was sometimes sacrificed in orderto meet deadlines.

My own first encounter with herwriting was a short story, ‘The LibraryWindow’, originally published inBlackwood’s Magazine, January 1896. Setin the fictitious ‘St Rule’s’ (a thinly veiledSt Andrews), this story tackles issues offemale orality and the Scottish literarytradition, and anticipates argumentsmade by twentieth-century schools offeminist criticism. It is interesting,however, that Oliphant’s statements onthe position of the nineteenth-centuryliterary woman are often overlooked oreven misread by leading voices offeminist thought. Virginia Woolf, forexample, is stingingly dismissive ofOliphant’s work, saying in Three Guineas(1938) (T.283.g) that it ‘smeared yourmind and dejected your imagination’.She moves on then almost in the samebreath to concede that Oliphant’sAutobiography was ‘a most genuine andmoving piece of work.’ Woolf’s initialcondemnation is all too ironicconsidering that Oliphant’s writing oftenforeshadowed her own.

No reader of Oliphant’s originalautobiography could fail to be struck bythe arrestingly impressionistic quality oflanguage elicited by certain moments ofparticular happiness or sadness. On oneof her many trips abroad she describesthe approach to Marseilles:

... the sunrise upon the new unaccustomedlandscape struck me so – ‘the awful rose ofdawn’ coming over the wide sweep of thecountry, the mulberry trees all stripped oftheir leaves, standing out against thegrowing light. This seems rather a minglingof pictures; but it is the impression that

Margaret Oliphant onthe steps of her house inWindsor, 1870. Left toright: sons Cecco andCyril and nephew FrankWilson. (MS.23211/51)

Right: Sepia portrait ofMargaret Oliphant.(MS.23211/53)

Note on sourcesThe text of Margaret Oliphant’s autobio-graphical notebooks (MSS.23218/19) wasfirst published in its original form as TheAutobiography of Margaret Oliphant: TheComplete Text, edited and introduced byElisabeth Jay (London: Oxford UniversityPress 1990) (H3.90.3282). Elisabeth Jay’sbiography, Mrs Oliphant: ‘A Fiction toHerself’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)(H3.95.2483) is also available in theLibrary. For details of Oliphant’scorrespondence, see the Catalogue ofManuscripts Vol. XV (MS.21501–23000),which is also available on microfilm: TheCorrespondence and Literary Manuscripts ofMargaret Oliphant (1828–1897) from theNational Library of Scotland (Mf.1065).Some of Oliphant’s stories of the uncannyare to be found in Selected Short Stories of theSupernatural edited by Margaret King Gray(Scottish Academic Press for the Associationfor Scottish Literary Studies, 1985)(N3.86.427). Original editions of many ofthe periodicals Margaret Oliphant waspublished in are available in the Library, asare the first published editions of her novels.Her Annals of a Publishing House: WilliamBlackwood and his Sons their Magazine andFriends (ABS.3.90.73) two volumes,Edinburgh, 1897 and 1898, is her enduringtribute to the firm of publishers whosupported her throughout her career as aprofessional writer.

F O L I O12

remains on my mind and the great silenceand the sleeping faces of my companionsgrey in the rising of the daylight.

Joy in the commonplace, anotherWoolfian tone, appears when she recalls a‘halcyon’ time of harmony andcompanionship with her husband Frank,delight in her children and energy forwork:

When I look back on my life, among thehappy moments ... is one which is socuriously common and homely, withnothing in it, that it is strange even torecord such a recollection ... It was themoment after dinner when I used to runup-stairs to see that all was well in thenursery, and then to turn into my room onmy way down again to wash my hands, as Ihad a way of doing before I took up myevening work, which was generallyneedlework, something to make for thechildren. My bedroom had three windowsin it ... I can see it now, the glimmer of theoutside lights, the room dark, the faintreflection in the glasses, and my heart fullof joy and peace – for what? – for nothing– that there was no harm anywhere, thechildren well above stairs and their fatherbelow. I had few of the pleasures of society,no gaiety at all. I was eight-and-twenty,going down-stairs light as a feather, to thelittle frock I was making. My husband alsogone back for an hour or two after dinnerto his work, and well – and the bairns well.I can feel now the sensation of that sweetcalm and ease and peace.

I have always said it that in theseunconsidered moments that happiness is ...

In January 1859, the family left for Italyand France. Unknown to his wife, Frankhad been diagnosed as having terminaltuberculosis. Possibly through aprotective impulse, he did not share thenews. But as they travelled, she became

increasingly worried about his health.They stopped for the night in a palatialhotel at Alassio, near Nice:

We were taken into a huge room with ashining marble floor ... The mere sight ofthe place was enough to freeze the tiredtraveller ... I feel still the chill that wentinto my heart at the sight of this room, sounfit for [Frank]; but we soon got a blazingfire. I remember kneeling by it, lighting itwith the great pine cones, which blazed upso quickly, and all the reflections, as if inwater, in the dark polished marble of thefloor.

This reflected light imagery is perhaps allthe more interesting, given that FrankOliphant was a stained glass artist. Hedied in Rome on 20 October 1859.

It came as a tragic shock when, on areturn visit to Rome five years later, herdaughter Maggie fell ill and suddenlydied of gastric fever. The trauma causedeverything to be wiped out of MargaretOliphant’s mind, ‘except some strangebroken scenes’. Especially remarkablehere is another intense poetic imagedescribing the ‘metallic water’ of a lake in north Italy, looking like ‘moltensapphires’, anticipating Woolf’s semiotic language in The Waves(1931) (Vts.148.e.19).

The Modernist concentration on the fragmentation of the self continuallymakes appearance in Oliphant’s consciousstruggle with her ‘self’ as mother and aswriter. In her autobiography shemeasures herself against more successfulcontemporaneous and childless writers,wondering whether she would have‘done better’ had she ‘been kept’, likeGeorge Eliot, ‘in a mental greenhouse’,but concludes that in comparison toCharlotte Brontë, she has had ‘a fullerconception of life.’

As both mother and writer, Oliphantwas invariably denied ‘a room of one’sown’ as she notes in an entry of 1888:

... the writing ran through everything. Butthen it was also subordinate to everything,to be pushed aside for any little necessity. Ihad no table even to myself, much less aroom to work in, but sat at the corner ofmy table with my writing book, witheverything going on as if I had beenmaking a shirt instead of writing a book.

She adds, ‘I don’t think I have ever hadtwo hours undisturbed (except at night,when everyone is in bed) during mywhole literary life.’

Between the first and secondextended entries in her autobiographythere is a gap of twenty-one years.Resuming her efforts to set down furtherautobiography, she reads through theearlier section and is deeply moved. Sheremarks, ‘Life, though it is very short, is very long, and contains much. And one does not, to one's consciousness,change as one’s outward appearance and capabilities do.’ Then, reflectingequivocally on her achievements, she alltoo modestly states: ‘I should rather liketo forget it all, to wipe out all the books,to silence those compliments about myindustry, &c., which I always turn offwith a laugh.’

The last words written in Margaret Oliphant’sjournals of autobiography. (MS.23219/88)

F O L I O 13

In 1895, seven years after his acces-sion to the Imperial Throne ofGermany, Kaiser Wilhelm II enter-tained, amongst others, a young

British Cavalry Officer, Captain DouglasHaig. The lavish dinner took place inBerlin. During this period visits bydiplomatic and military personnel of rivalstates were commonplace; this gave themthe opportunity to compare drills,improve tactics and sometimes led to newalliances. On one such mission, Haigwent to Germany to carry out researchfor his paper Notes on the GermanCavalry, which was published in Londonin 1896. He had spent the day of 31May 1895 watching German armyexercises and had been invited to abanquet being held that evening byKaiser Wilhelm II. Evidently thrilled tobe in such close proximity to the Kaiser,he drew a diagram of the seatingarrangements both in his personal diaryfor that day and in a letter to his closestsister, Henrietta:

It was von Plessen, the General inCommand of the Emperor’s MilitaryHousehold, who got me the invitation – Itold you before of him: he is a very nicefellow, and must have taken a lot of trouble

about this business, as you will see from theway I was treated. I went in uniform ofcourse and on reaching the Palace had a bigstaircase to go up and then through severalgalleries. In the latter there were courtofficials with the names and places of theguests. I saw 3 or 4 of them but none knewabout me but passed me further along.Then a nice old boy came and asked me byname if he might show me my place attable. I found myself not amongst ‘theforeign Officers’ but at the end of the table

opposite the Emperor … On my right wasa Colonel Crosigk who commands theFusilier Guards here and a great friend ofthe Emperor. After we had been a certaintime at dinner, the Emperor drank hishealth, then signalled to him that he wishedto drink my health – so I stood up andemptied my glass to the Kaiser in the usualstyle – ‘Na’e heeltaps!’ He did the same. –These were the only healths H.M. drankexcept of these quite close to him in thefamily so to speak – After dinner we wentinto the picture gallery and the Emperorcame and asked me about my regt , … andwhat I was anxious to do and the length ofleave which I had – Altogether he was mostfriendly.

In 1895, Haig had yet to experienceactive service. He had served in Indiawith his Regiment, the 7th Hussars, from1886 to 1892 and by 1891 had becomeBritish Major at the cavalry camp inAligarth. By the time of his return toEurope he was recognised as an authorityon cavalry. In 1893 he attended FrenchArmy exercises, his observations beingpublished the following year in hisReport on the French Cavalry Manoeuvresin Tourane. Given the friendly relationsbetween Britain and Germany, not tomention the close ties by blood andmarriage between the German andBritish royal families, it seemed perfectlyunremarkable to repeat the exercise withthe German Cavalry in Berlin in 1895.He wrote to Sir Evelyn Wood fromKissingen in Germany on 9 July 1895,‘My time in Berlin was devoted entirelyto cavalry work … I have received somuch assistance and kindness fromGerman Officers of all ranks …’(Acc.3155/6g).

Haig’s career prospered in the yearsthat followed. He rose quickly throughthe ranks, becoming a Captain on leavingStaff College in 1898. In that year he saw active service as a British Armyreconnaissance officer, working for theEgyptian Army in the campaign toreconquer the Sudan.

The following incident serves toillustrate the colonial tensions betweenBritain and Germany. On 11 February

Friends and Foes

COLM MCLAUGHLIN

Face to Face with the Kaiser

The First World Wartransformed the lives of millions.

At the National Library ofScotland are housed many

important Great War collectionsand much remains to be

discovered from them. This articlefocuses on the papers of Earl

Haig, Commander in Chief ofthe British Army on the WesternFront 1915–19, and on those ofViscount R.B. Haldane, British

Secretary of State for War1906–12 and Lord Chancellor

1912–15. At different times, bothmen enjoyed the hospitality of

Kaiser Wilhelm II, their futureenemy. Colm McLaughlin, whosespecial responsibility as a curator

at the Library is twentieth-century military history, considers

their contrasting fortunes inpeace and war.

This picture, from a sumptuous photograph albumpresented by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Viscount R.B.Haldane, British War Minister on 1 November1906, shows them in Berlin during the annualdisplay manoeuvres of the German army. (MS 20053/4)

Sketch from a letter dated 31 May 1895 from Haigto his sister Henrietta, expressing his delight atbeing seated in a place of honour opposite KaiserWilhelm II. (Acc.3155/6b)

F O L I O14

quickly installed as part of the forty-strong ‘Duma’, a think-tank whosepurpose was to carry through the Armyreforms identified as necessary inHaldane’s White Paper of July 1906.Entries in Haig’s diary (Acc.3155/2f–g)emphasise the closeness of hiscollaboration with Haldane.

In his memoir Before the War (1920),Haldane recalled:

In the event of war … but still morebecause of the un-organised condition ofthe three lines, the Regulars, the Militia andthe Volunteers, rapid mobilisation wasimpossible, and we could not hope to get aforce ready to assist the French against thescientific and swift moving arrangements ofthe German Army. The situation filled meas an inexperienced Secretary of State withmuch concern, and made me resolve to doeverything I could to prevent any frictionwith Germany which could causeimmediate danger … (R.32.h)

Haldane contrived to perform a difficultbalancing act between 1906 and 1912,on the one hand appeasing Germanywhilst on the other modernising thestructure of the British Army. Heinstigated the creation of the TerritorialArmy and the Officer Corps. Throughouthis life, Haldane was a lover of German

literature and philosophy. As he reflectedin Before the War:

Speaking for my own countrymen, I thinkthat neither did we know enough about theGermans nor did the Germans knowenough about us. They were ignorant ofthe innate capacity for fighting, in industrialand military conflicts alike, which ourhistory shows we have always hithertobrought to light in great emergencies. We,on the other hand, knew little of theirtradition, their literature, or theirphilosophy. Our statesmen did not readtheir newspapers, and rarely visited theircountry.

Diplomatic connections deterioratedbetween Great Britain and Germany andboth sides engaged in a massive buildupof arms. A series of treaties and alliancesemphasised the political fault lines.Britain had entered into an informalalliance with France in 1904, the EntenteCordiale. In 1905, in the face of Frenchprotests, the Kaiser provoked the FirstMoroccan Crisis by entering Tangiers;Russia drew closer to Britain and Franceand the three joined in the TripleEntente in 1907.

Haldane devoted all his diplomaticexpertise to easing the growinginternational tensions. In August 1906,

‘Turned Turtle’. The War Minister. ‘A little more of this and Haldane’s occupation’sgone!’ Punch cartoon, 21 February 1912, by Bernard Partridge. (X .231.d.)

A German propaganda poster showing losses and gains for the year 1917.From War Posters Issued by Belligerent and Neutral Nations 1914–1919 byM. Hardie and A.K. Sabin, A. & C. Black, London, 1920. (R.29.a)

1898, whilst travelling by steamer downthe Nile to join his regiment, Haig wroteto Henrietta:

There are about 7 or 8 Germans out of the32 passengers on board. At dinner one ofthem sent to have the cabin door shut.Some non-Germans insisted on itsremaining open. The Germans at firstretaliated, putting up their coat collars, andthe lady sent for jackets which she flungvigorously around her expansive shoulders!Many of us laughed and the Germans nodoubt … felt as if they had withdrawn fromthe concert of the Great Powers. So in duecourse they will receive a telegram from‘Wilhelm’ to congratulate them insupporting his Kolonial Politik and ‘mailedhand’ theory on the banks of the Nile!(Acc.3155/6b)

East Africa was just one area of rivalrybetween the British and Germans, andwhen the Boer War broke out in 1898the Kaiser sided with the Boers.

After a second tour of duty in India,Haig was called home to assist the newLiberal Secretary of War, Lord Haldane,with Army reforms. In a diary entry for 9June 1906, he gives us his firstimpression of Haldane, ‘a fat big manbut with a kind genial face. One seemedto like the man at once.’ Haig was

F O L I O 15

Note on sources

The Library is the main repository of thepapers of Earl Haig (1861–1928),Commander in Chief of the British Armyon the Western Front 1915–19. Thecollection (Acc.3155) includes Haig’spersonal diaries, starting in his student days,and correspondence from every stage of hislife. The diaries cover all the major eventsof his military career, amongst them theSudan Campaign of 1898 and the BoerWar, 1899–1902. During the First WorldWar, Haig made a diary entry almost everyday and the Library possesses both theoriginals and a typescript version interleavedwith photos and memorabilia, which heproduced at a later date. Of considerableinterest to historians of the First World Warare the many field maps and plans showingthe positions of combatants throughout themajor campaigns. Along with personalphotographs there are approximately 4,000official war photographs taken from 1916onwards. The part played by Haig duringthe Great War remains a subject ofcontroversy. If the truth is to be foundanywhere, it is in these papers.

he had attended Cavalry manoeuvres inBerlin:

… under the care of the GermanGovernment [we] were received at theAnhalter Bahnhof in great state … the nextday the Emperor arrived from Potsdam andpresented new colours to his troops. I hadmy first conversation with him in the openair when he presented me to the Empressand his family … (MS.6109, f.329)

In the short term, relations between thetwo countries improved. On ChristmasEve 1906 Haldane’s office received fromthe Kaiser an album of photographs, aunique item now held at the NationalLibrary of Scotland. Beautifully bound in highly polished gilded leather, itcontained photographs of the cavalrymanoeuvres. The accompanying notesuggested that the most cordial ofrelations prevailed.

In 1912, after several years ofheightened tension between the‘Alliance’ and the ‘Entente’, Haldanewas asked by the Cabinet to undertake afurther mission to the Kaiser. On 8February Haldane travelled to Berlin.His visit was shrouded in mystery,leading to rumours and accusations inthe English press as to his motives.While he was in Berlin, WinstonSpencer Churchill made a speech inGlasgow condemning the GermanNaval Race. Later that year, Haldanehimself informed the German ForeignMinister, Lichnowsky, that Britainwould defend Serbia against Austria.Many historians regard this as themoment the die was cast. The Kaisercalled a War Council at Potsdam atwhich he backed Admiral Turpitz andthe War Party; the Naval Race withBritain would now be pursuedwholeheartedly. As Haldane commentedin Before the War:

The great defect of the German Imperialsystem was that unless the Emperor wasstrong enough to impose his will on hisadvisers, he was largely at their mercy …Thus the Kaiser was constantly being pulledat from different sides, and whicheverminister had the most powerfulcombination at his back generally got thebest of the argument.

Haldane was lampooned in Punch andcame under increasing fire from theBritish press. With the outbreak of war in1914, he was vilified in thousands ofletters sent to the Daily Express. Hestated:

What I had done in Berlin [in 1912] andthe objects of my efforts throughout weregrossly distorted by certain newspapers.Every kind of legend was set abroadregarding me. I had a German wife, I wasthe illegitimate brother of the Kaiser …(MS.6109, f.397)

At the outbreak of hostilities in August1914, Haig wrote to Haldane:

What an anxious time you must be having,but what a satisfaction it must be to you tosee that this country is able to draw on hervast resources at the moment of crisis as aresult of the thought and labour you spenton the problem when you were Secretary ofState. (Acc.3155/98, f.38)

In 1915 the barrage of press criticism ledto Haldane’s dismissal from his post asLord Chancellor in Asquith’s WarCabinet. In contrast, Haig, a rising star,had been appointed Commander in Chiefof the British Army on the WesternFront. Haldane wrote to him on 2 April1917, ‘I do not forget how you cameover from India and threw yourself intothe great task wholeheartedly and withsurpassing energy’.

For his part, Haig never forgotHaldane’s Army reform work, praising

him in the victory dispatches of 1918:‘To Viscount Haldane of Cloan, thegreatest War Secretary England ever had,to whom we owe it that we won thewar.’

After the war, Haig founded theBritish Legion and the Earl Haig fundfor wounded ex-servicemen. He died in1928. Haldane regained cabinet office inRamsay MacDonald’s Labour Cabinet in1924 as Lord Chancellor for the bestpart of a year. He died in 1928, eightmonths after Haig.

Kaiser Wilhelm had been forced toabdicate and leave Germany for exile atDoorn in Holland, where he remaineduntil his death in 1941. He lived quietly,sometimes preaching at the localLutheran Church. He still threwwonderful parties, something that hadnot changed from the heady days inBerlin and Potsdam (Acc.4171).

The Manuscripts Division of theLibrary holds a transcript of an interviewhe gave in 1929 to Sir Robert BruceLockhart, British diplomat, intelligenceofficer and journalist (Acc.4171). ToLockhart’s question, ‘What does yourMajesty think about the future relationsbetween England and Germany?’Wilhelm replies, ‘I hope that these twogreat peoples will get to a stage in whichthey will really understand each other andco-operate in true friendship to theprogress of all.’

Plane crash near Boesinghe, Belgium (Acc.3155/ phot.C2411). ‘A slight mishap to one of our machines’ iswritten on the back of the photograph, one of thousands of official war photographs in the Haig Archive. Aselection may be viewed at www.nls.uk/experiencesofwar and at www.rls.org.uk (Resources for Learning inScotland).

F O L I O16

Notes on thecontibutorsIAIN GORDON BROWN, Principal Curator ofManuscripts in the National Library ofScotland, is a Fellow both of the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh and the Society ofAntiquaries of London. He has publishedextensively on many aspects of eighteenth-century culture. An authority on the historyof European travel of the period, he isworking on a study of Scotland and theGrand Tour. He is the Library’s specialist inthe fields of seventeenth- to nineteenth-century literary manuscripts and materialrelating to art, architecture andantiquarianism as well as pre-1900 militaryhistory.

STEPHEN BROWN is a professor of English atTrent University, Canada, where he is 3MTeaching Fellow and Master of ChamplainCollege. He collated, edited, and annotatedWilliam Smellie's manuscripts for theSociety of Antiquaries of Scotland, hascompleted a biography of William Smellieand is beginning work on a study of JamesTytler. A Fellow of the Centre for theHistory of the Book at EdinburghUniversity, he is co-editor of volume two(1707–1800) of The History of the Book inScotland.

COLM MCLAUGHLIN, a curator in theManuscripts Division at the NationalLibrary of Scotland, is closely involved inserving the ever-growing interest intwentieth-century military history. TheLibrary is an important centre for FirstWorld War research, and as cataloguer ofthe Haig Papers, Colm McLauchlin oftenassists military historians and biographers tonavigate the vast archive of manuscripts,documents, photographs and printedbooks. He plays a central role in makingthese collections accessible to a wider publicvia the Library’s Experiences of Warwebsite: www.nls.uk/experiencesofwar.

ANNE SCRIVEN, a former secondary schoolteacher and editor of a human rightsjournal, has a long-standing interest inwomen's writing. Returning to full-timestudy after bringing up her son, she gaineda Diploma in English Studies withdistinction. She is now a final-year researchstudent at the University of Strathclyde.Her Ph.D argues for the hithertouncritiqued ‘Scottishness’ of the Victorianwriter Margaret Oliphant. She would liketo thank Emily Lyle and KatherineCampbell for an enjoyable blether aboutthe oral ballad tradition.

NLS diary dates In the next Folio(Autumn 2003)AILEEN CHRISTIANSON, a senior lecturer inEnglish Literature at the University ofEdinburgh, has been working since 1967on the Duke-Edinburgh edition of TheCollected Letters of Thomas and Jane WelshCarlyle. In ‘Living with Jane WelshCarlyle’, she will discuss editing the hugeongoing edition with its dual focus on bothCarlyles – over sixty per cent of theirmanuscript archives are in the Library. Shewill also touch on her own critical journeythough Welsh Carlyle’s writing and thechallenge of assessing her as writer throughher 2,000 or so surviving letters.

OLIVE GEDDES of the Library’s ManuscriptsDivision discusses Elsie Jollyman’s journalof a caravan tour in the West Highlands of1909. Interest in such activities had beensteadily growing since at least the 1880s,when wealthy health-enthusiasts, attractedby the freedom and fresh air, took uptravelling for pleasure in horse-drawncaravans. Olive Geddes, author of A SwingThrough Time: Golf in Scotland, 1457–1743and The Laird’s Kitchen: Three HundredYears of Food in Scotland, is curator of theLibrary’s summer 2003 exhibition, WishYou Were Here! Travellers’ Tales ofScotland.

ANDREW LOWNIE, John Buchan’s mostrecent biographer and editor of collectionsof his short stories and poetry, discusseshow the Library’s holdings significantlyenhance our understanding of this complexfigure. Buchan’s life is expressivelydocumented through its extensivecollection of the author’s correspondenceand that of various members of his family(including his sister Anna, the novelist ‘O.Douglas’). Andrew Lownie also highlightsinsights gleaned from the BlackwoodPapers and touches on the researchpotential of the papers of Janet AdamSmith, a previous biographer of Buchan.

JAMES MCCARTHY describes the severalsources and curious coincidences heencountered in writing the biography of thenineteenth-century Edinburgh cartographerand explorer, Keith Johnston, aftertranscribing his last unpublished expeditiondiary. The National Library of Scotland’sphotographic archives provided importantillustrative material for this work, but it wasthe chance finding of papers held privatelywhich revealed not only Johnston’s familybackground, but also an intimate picture of Edinburgh in the mid-Victorian era andthe development of geographical science atthis time.

MAY 2003‘An Elusive Spark’ The National Library of Scotland celebratesDame Muriel Spark’s 85th year with thelaunch of a travelling display which will beon view in the Entrance Hall of the GeorgeIV Bridge Building until 27 May, afterwhich it will tour nationwide.

JUNE–OCTOBER 2003Wish you were here! Travellers’ Tales fromScotland 1540-1960, the Library’s summerexhibition, runs from Sunday 1 June toSaturday 31 October 2003. Opening hours:Monday-Friday 10.00-17.00 (EdinburghFestival Monday-Friday 10.00-20.00);Saturday 10.00-17.00; Sunday 14.00-17.00.Wish you were here!(www.nls.uk/wishyouwerehere) exploresthe changing nature of Scotland and theScots over four centuries as seen throughthe eyes of people visiting and travelling inScotland. Diaries, paintings, drawings,maps, brochures and photo-graphs vividlyevoke social history as it was lived. Film –both amateur and professional – provides avisual commentary on holidays in Scotlandduring the last century. Other exhibitsinclude posters, books, postcards, and a1930s motorcycle and sidecar.As Others See UsHow do others view Scotland today?Concurrently with the summer exhibition, a series of evening interviews will featurepeople from other countries working inScotland in various fields - the arts,business, conservation, politics, science andsport. They will discuss how they viewScotland and the Scots. (These events arefree but ticketed.)

JUNE 2003Art Fund on ShowTo mark the centenary of The Art Fund,items acquired by the Library with its helpwill be displayed in the Entrance Hall ofthe George IV Bridge Building; there willalso be an evening talk about the work ofthe fund. (This event is free but ticketed).

For full information about all events andexhibitions, or to book tickets, pleasephone 0131-622 4807 or e-mailevents@nls.uk.

Evening events are all at 19.00.

National Library of ScotlandGeorge IV BridgeEDINBURGHEH1 1EWTel 0131-226 4531Fax 0131-622 4803www.nls.uk

If you have any comments regarding Folio, orwould like to be added to the mailing list toreceive it, please contact Jackie Cromarty,Deputy Head of Public Programmes, bytelephone on 0131-622 4810 or via e-mail atj.cromarty@nls.uk

Folio is edited by Jennie Renton

ISSN 1475-1151Cover: The young Haig as an officer with the 7thHussars. (Acc. 3155/234)