The Collected Writings of Dougal Graham, "Skellat" Bellman of Glasgow, Vol. 1 of 2

The Collected Writings of Dougal Graham, "Skellat" Bellman of Glasgow, Vol. 1 of 2

The negligence of contemporaries by failing to appreciate the real worth of the great men of their time has often been a subject of remark. No special case need be cited to give point to the recurrence of the proposition here, for many such instances will readily suggest themselves to the mind. The reasons for this fact are many, and of divergent natures. Though it is beyond the scope of the present inquiry to discuss the general question, it may be observed, however, that some of the more potent causes which in the past have led to this unfortunate result are being rapidly removed through the spread of knowledge among the great mass of the people, and through the remarkable activity of the press in its various branches. Personal gossip regarding the hereditarily and individually great is now and then served up to the public, and it is always received with unmistakable relish. Autobiography, also, has become fashionable, and this, within recent years, has often shed light upon opinions and actions about which some doubts had formerly existed. These and other circumstances, in themselves perhaps not unmixed good, will tend to keep the biographers of the great men of this and the last generation from being placed in the awkward position in which almost all who attempt to record the lives of men who have achieved local or universal fame prior to the present century must at times find themselves placed. Insufficient data is the great obstacle in the way of the latter class. Traditions difficult to credit and as difficult to refute; suggestions more or less[10] probable; and many obscurities, all incline to make their work perplexing, and, to a certain extent, unsatisfactory. Yet the task must be undertaken, and the earlier the better, in order that such scraps of information as have come down from the past to the present may be preserved. Dougal Graham, the literary pedlar and bellman of Glasgow, like many a greater man, has suffered unmerited neglect, and the value of his work was not discovered, or appreciated, until it was almost too late to retrieve the loss involved by the remissness of his contemporaries and immediate successors. Motherwell, lamenting this fact, says very truly, That a man who, in his day and generation, was so famous, should have left no dear recollections behind him; some Boswell to record his life, actions, and conversation, need be subject of admiration to no one who has reflected on the contemptuous neglect with which Time often treats the most illustrious dead.[1] Graham was first noticed as having done something for the literature of his country by Mr. E. J. Spence, of London, who in 1811 published Sketches of the Manners, Customs, and Scenery of Scotland. Motherwell, in the short-lived Paisley Magazine, next set forth fully Grahams title to the regard of his compatriots, and rescued a few recollections concerning him which, in the course of a year or two more, would have been lost. MVean, in the appendix to his edition of MUres History of Glasgow, issued in 1830, added a few additional particulars. Then Dr. Strang, through the medium of his work on Glasgow and its Clubs, contributed his mite to the small collection of knowledge concerning our author. Graham has provided only one or two details about himself; an advertisement in a Glasgow newspaper fixes the date of one of the most important events of his life; and Dr. Strang has preserved some stanzas of an elegy on his death, written by some unknown poetaster. There, practically, our knowledge ceases. All beyond what is to be gained from these sources is tradition or inference, and not a little of what has[11] thus been put on record has been questioned. A metrical account of the author, according to an existing tradition, was prefixed to an early issue of Grahams History of the Rebellion of 174546, but owing to the disappearance of the first and second, and some of the subsequent editions, this account, if it ever existed, can now afford no assistance, nor can the tradition itself be traced to its source. Sir Walter Scott felt interested in Dougals work, but unfortunately he has contributed nothing to his biography, though it is believed to have been his intention to have done so. Such being the state of matters, it is only fair at this stage to assume that comparatively few of the events in the life of Dougal Graham have been ascertained beyond doubt, and that much that is related about him might be overturned even by some minute discovery. The probabilities, however, are against such a happy occurrence at so remote a period. His career, in so far as it is known, is not without a touch of romance, and it furnishes the key to a proper acquaintance with his works. Graham, according to all accounts, was born in the village of Raploch, near Stirling, in or about the year 1724. If, as has been supposed, his History of John Cheap the Chapman is autobiographical, this is his own story of that important eventI, John Cheap by chance, at some certain time, doubtless against my will, was born at the Hottom, near Habertehoy Mill. My father was a Scots Highlandman, and my mother a Yorkshire wench, but honest, which causes me to be of a mongrel kind. Should this account be accurate, the names of the places seem to be veiled; but the uncertainty as to its application to Graham himself makes it of comparatively little value. Unfortunately, Nature endowed him with a deformed body, and his physical defects developed with his growth. His parents, from their humble position in life, were unable to give him anything beyond the common education of the time, which was of a very scant description, but he seems to have learned more by his native wit than by the instructions of the schoolmaster. Taught no trade, his youth[12] would probably be spent at farm work, or at such odd employment as he could find, it may have been in the weavers shop, or in the saw-pit, much the same, in all likelihood, as his father had done before him, and as we may still find men doing in remote country hamlets. Leaving the old home under the shadow of Stirling Castle, Graham went in his early youth as a servant to a small farmer in the neighbourhood of the quaint little village of Campsie. A tradition regarding his residence there lingered about the place for nearly a century, for Spence saw traces of a turf cottage said to be the birth-place and early residence of Dougal Graham.[2] As there are no good grounds for questioning the statement that Grahams birth-place was Raploch, may it not be considered a feasible idea, in view of Spences remark, that our authors parents removed to Campsie, and that he went with them? How long Dougal remained with the farmer is unknown. Of an unsettled disposition, he, like his creation John Cheap, made himself a chapman when very young, in great hopes of being rich when he became old; and for some years he wandered over the country in the exercise of his craft. The political events of the time, however, effected another and more important change in his career, and rapidly developed in him the mental capabilities with which nature had, by way of compensation, endowed him. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 60365
Author: Graham, Dougal
Release Date: Sep 26, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Mac Gregor, George